One gentleman wants to know whether Professor Noam thinks there can be anything in between the “all you can eat for a fee” and the “completely free” models of content generation; for instance, can he imagine something like an “a la carte” system coming into play?

Noam says absolutely – that organizations need to think quite intensely about how, and at what level, people want to use their content. One example he gives is that news organizations may want to consider things like offering low priced limited content models, for instance, to students -- just to get them hooked, so they’ll agree to pay more later…

Another enquirer goes to the core of the issue – will newspapers even exist at all in 10 years time?

Noam begins his answer by making an interesting point – that the word newspaper in English actually has the word “paper” in it, which makes things a bit confusing. Other languages don’t. Thus, if we are talking about news organizations and content delivery in general, then yes of course, the concept will continue to be valid -- even in ten years time. By then, however, he predicts that a lot of today’s newspapers may be gone, made extinct by the new dynamics of free content etc. -- those that survive, on the other hand, will only become even more relevant…

More news from the 59th World Newspaper Congress

And our video blog with Robb Montgomery and Visual Editors