If readers are the editors of the future, who will pay for journalism?
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
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You misquote or misintepret me. I said nothing about giving up control of the content in that column, that that is another good discussion. I did say that Digg sends tremendous traffic to sites to which it links and if those sites are half alive they will be grateful for that traffic and will figure out what to do with it. The effort to cut off such traffic -- whether from a Digg or a Google News -- is misguided and, I'd say, suicidal.
The solution envisioned in 1994 when we started what became Clickshare Service Corp. was a system that allows newspapers (and other content creators) to be able to refer their users to information anywhere, and get paid for doing so.
I think the way this has to work is consumers paying a basic subscription to their most trusted information valet (hopefully their local or topic-specific newspaper, but it could be their bank); that valet then acquires content at wholesale in background from third parties and resells it (digitally) at retail either as part of a subscription bundle or a-la-carte. "Acquires" doesn't mean caching it or even acquiring rights to it; it merely means acquiring the ability to represent and sell it.
The assumption we made in 1994 was that some content would have value -- albeit it pennies per click -- and that value would become substantial revenue when aggregated. The free market must apportion the value between the wholesale content creator and the retail information valet/aggregator. The technology service needs to manage that value negotiation auto-magically.
I am not as sure as I was in 1994 that lots of content will have value. I fear much of content as we know it is going to go away, or be ad-supported. But there already is, and definitely will be, some content people will pay for -- if it is made incredibly easy for them to do so and it is very reasonably priced.
In such an environment -- retail/wholesale sharing of users and content -- the issue of who "owns" content becomes somewhat moot. The point is to make it really easy for a consumer to buy content from anywhere through their favorite portal or home base. Homebases/valets/portals can compete on their bundling and pricing terms -- sort of the way credit-card issuers compete -- but remain part of a unbiquetous content-sharing network regardless.
A consumer might have multiple home-bases -- because of variations in the way each prices/packages content. Imagine if your Google or Yahoo or New York Times or MoveOn, or American Association of Retired Persons account could give you one-click access to all premium content on the web -- at a bundled-plus-premium, or pure a la carte, pricing (you choice of payment plans)?