In his weekly Guardian column, Jeff Jarvis describes the website that he sees as the future of media, Digg.com. Launched by "scruffy geek," Kevin Rose, Digg is a site whose users become news editors by scouring the Web for articles, posting what they find interesting and then voting on what other articles they "dig," or in other words, articles they enjoyed and think other users should read. Articles which receive the most votes make it to the front page.

Two main points from Jarvis' article:

• He thinks it is important that Digg "has learned how to make news a social activity" - users can get a quick look at what others are reading at Digg.com/spy and also receive feeds that show what their friends are reading
• "Digg is owned by its public and that's why it works. Shouldn't all news organisations wish the public owned the news?"

Such a site bodes badly for one prediction of the future of newspapers. Last July, Columbia professor Eli Noam wrote that newspapers will become aggregators of news, linking to stories from other publications around the web. At the same time, he noted that the problem of newspapers becoming aggregators is that anyone can aggregate, not only exemplified by Digg, but by the way the blogosphere works; interested people linking to stories that interest them for people with like interests to read.

Digg also embodies the dilema traditional media face on the Internet. Users link to stories from the MSM just like aggregators like GoogleNews, driving traffic to those mainstream publications' websites. But some publishers have joined forces against these aggregators claiming that they are breaking copyright rules.

Jarvis and supporters would like to see the MSM give up "ownership" of its content so that it flows freely around the Internet. Publishers would like to maintain "ownership" of their content so that they can turn a profit and continue to produce stories.

Of course, if publishers keep control of content on the Internet, there is the serious risk that they will lose their readership. On the other hand, if content ends up being "ownership free," readers risk losing the publications off of which they feed.

We can only hope that the brewing legal storm between traditional and new media will reach a satisfactory conclusion for both news producers and consumers.

Source: The Guardian