What news sites will dominate in the coming years?
Posted by Marion Geiger on April 29, 2009 at 10:24 AM
Vanity Fair published an article by Matt Pressman titled "Media Darwinism: Which Sites Will Survive?". The article attempts to rate the different types of news sites that will succeed in the future under the categories of "Good," "Fair," and "Mixed."
Rated as "Good" are news sites like Politico, Talking Points Memo, PerezHilton and Gawker. The reasoning was mostly based on their business models. For example, Politico runs on a small staff that somehow works 24 hours doing much of their reporting over the phone. Robert Allbritton, founder of the new site, believes Politico will make a profit by the end of 2009, saying to The New Republic that they're "way ahead of budget...It wouldn't surprise me if the profit this year would count in the millions of dollars."
Rated as "Good" are news sites like Politico, Talking Points Memo, PerezHilton and Gawker. The reasoning was mostly based on their business models. For example, Politico runs on a small staff that somehow works 24 hours doing much of their reporting over the phone. Robert Allbritton, founder of the new site, believes Politico will make a profit by the end of 2009, saying to The New Republic that they're "way ahead of budget...It wouldn't surprise me if the profit this year would count in the millions of dollars."
Ironically, none of the news sites that faired well in VF's rankings appeared in Nielsen Online's top 30 visited news sites, yet some of their lower ranked websites did. The Nielsen study
may seem confusing too because the list includes media companies and
news aggregators, so it is hard determine what original news outlets
are doing best.
The only news sites rated poor by VF are the traditional newspaper websites like NYTimes.com, WashingtonPost.com, WSJ.com. The article says that online ad revenue is not enough to fund such big news gathering organizations, however, the Nielsen study shows that the NYTimes.com is in the top 5 most visited news sites and WashingtonPost.com is in the top 15.
Another website that did not rank "Good," but made it to "Fair," is the Huffington Post, which is also in the top 20 news sites visited in the last months and is valued at millions of dollars. Although many of the ratings by VF don't match up with current online readership statistics, the article is looking at the future and whether these news sites have a sustainable business model. Only time will tell which news businesses have what it takes to succeed in the coming years.
Source: Vanity Fair
The only news sites rated poor by VF are the traditional newspaper websites like NYTimes.com, WashingtonPost.com, WSJ.com. The article says that online ad revenue is not enough to fund such big news gathering organizations, however, the Nielsen study shows that the NYTimes.com is in the top 5 most visited news sites and WashingtonPost.com is in the top 15.
Another website that did not rank "Good," but made it to "Fair," is the Huffington Post, which is also in the top 20 news sites visited in the last months and is valued at millions of dollars. Although many of the ratings by VF don't match up with current online readership statistics, the article is looking at the future and whether these news sites have a sustainable business model. Only time will tell which news businesses have what it takes to succeed in the coming years.
Source: Vanity Fair
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