What does the future of news consumption look like? Pretty much exactly opposite from the current paywall and paid circulation models in play now, says Nikolay Malyarov in Fipp.
Malyarov cites Ross Dawson and his “provocative” predictions about newspapers and the news media. He said a successful news strategy now comes down to aggregation, personalization and community.
From a news consumer point of view, he’s probably right when he says “The goal is not only for news brands to offer value to participants, but to give participants the ability to create value as well. To truly create community, it is about creating connections between individuals.”
Unfortunately for news publishers, this goal doesn’t fit nicely (or even at all) with the current business model trend of tightening access to the news. Plus, according to Malyarov, “today’s promiscuous news consumers trust search engines more than traditional media brands.”
Now comes Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles, set to push this dissonance even further. These services offer the golden trio: they are all about aggregation, personalization and community by their very nature.
News brands, meanwhile, missed an early opportunity to get out ahead of that trend.
“…instead of capitalising on new opportunities to connect with readers, and readers with each other, many publishers have muzzled their audiences, blaming trolls and declaring ‘brand protection’ as excuses for denying readers a voice in the news,” Malyarov notes.
What does Dawson suggest?
Tear down the walls. Question everything. And don’t let non-news interests steal your thunder.
“Listen up publishers…It’s time to tear down your content walls, question all the rules of your past and work together as an industry to create a social network for aggregated news before the new bullies on the block build it first and steal your audience, ad dollars and ability to connect with people through news,” says Malyarov.
Is it already too late, or can the news media industry save itself by offering the news and connections consumers crave without the intrusive data collecting and monetizing of Apple and FB? As we’ve said before, this is getting interesting.
June 25, 2015, 9:36 am
Tear down the walls, really?
Who will then pick up the tab to pay those who report the news? News is not a cheap commodity to produce. . . and it is instantly perishable. But it is vital to a society that wants to keep people in government and business honest and working for the common good.
No one knows what will happen as news sources gradually move from industry workhorses like the New York Times and Washington Post, and even smaller market newspapers, who all have guidelines as to what defines journalism, into the hands of ANYONE on the Internet who has an opinion or a video recording device.
We’re quickly moving into a self-centered fantasyland, where your last Google search determines what Google will serve up on your next Google search. It’s soon going to be a world where news outlets and corporations with their biased objectives are indistinguishable.
It’s going to take a while to transition. . . it’s likely the Baby Boomer won’t let go of the traditional news sources (where advertisers AND subscribers pay for the content), so newspapers, local and national, could be around for quite a bit longer.
With a printed newspaper, no one knows what I read and what I don’t. In fact, if I read a printed item at a library, the only people who know I’ve read it are the people who are physically around me.
When I read the NYT online, there are cookies tracking what I’m reading so that someone can then try to sell me something related to that. It’s like we’re leaving styrofoam breadcrumbs everywhere that allow marketers to track us and attempt to shift their products into our lives. Do we really want Facebook to know everything we read? That’s quickly going to be true for millions with their news service.
Facebook can say to a kayak manufacturer: How would you like to market your products to just those people who have read articles about kayaking or canoeing in the last 6 months, who are between the ages of 18 and 35, who have at least 10 friends, who have been active on Facebook in the last week, and who like violent movies and books. That’s already possible.
One could say that we are lemmings, ripe for exploitation, in our smartphone and tablet digital worlds.
June 25, 2015, 12:07 pm
Awesome comments Matt. Digital is the Wild West of Media.