Searching for Revenue in Free Journalism

The state of journalism. It is bigger than the Internet, the fall of classified advertising, funding for investigative journalism, search aggregators and the link economy. To briefly take a broad 30,000 foot view, if not the foundation, journalism is a pillar of a democratic society. It is the check on the check and balance governmental system designed by and for the people to ensure justice as well as truth.

Journalism continues its predicted and precarious state of crisis. There is no one entity to directly blame, but the problem seems clear. Free. The very first thing taught in every economics class is that nothing is free. Everything has a cost. Clearly objects, food and even land has a value, a monetary cost. Cost can be subjective, but one of the few truths of this world is that all things have a cost established through a price derived by demand. The cost to produce a thing must also be factored into price and perhaps this is specifically where journalism stumbled. Providing content for free that holds high demand and cost of production to the nascent communication medium known as the Internet in the ’90s is the jagged root befalling journalism.

Priced to Sell. It is an educated, well researched address by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker about the longevity of the online business model of free that has been propped up by Internet. The article in part reviews the book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” by James Moroney read Chris Anderson as well as the premise of free as a business strategy at large. It is clear Gladwell questions the blogosphere’s war cry that “Information wants to be free,” but does not go all the way in completely debunking the theory by closing with:

“The only iron law here is the one too obvious to write a book about, which is that the digital age has so transformed the ways in which things are made and sold that there are no iron laws.”

I will take this final step. Information absolutely, positively does not want to be free. Moreover, ideas and information are the most valuable product of man. Unfortunately, the Internet and the link economy has driven down the cost of access to ideas expressed through words and video so far that ideas and information have become free in the minds of most consumers. Sure, in most cases there is a cost to access the Internet, but the idea creators do not receive compensation. Understand that there is a difference in this discussion between ideas and communication. The varied platforms known loosely as social networks that advance societies ability to communicate is a great positive built on the back of the Internet. It has allowed the dispersion of knowledge such as natural disasters and human rights violations to a global audience at a speed never seen before. Free communication is good. Free ideas is not.

The Associated Press announced yet another plan to try and ensure compensation for its content – its ideas that have very real value both to society and in cost to produce. As expected, the blogoshere berated the AP and denounced the organization as decaying old media institution that we would be better off without. Shortsighted in my opinion. More and more media companies are beginning to awake to the strategy that the one thriving newspaper in America has stuck buy throughout the Internet age. The Wall Street Journal is not free and I expect by the close of 2010 most other news organizations online will not be free either. Ideas and information has value. This year free has eliminated news papers such as the Rocky Mountain News. From its ashes rises the RockyMountainIndependent that will include memberships as source of revenue. True, for now, most of its content will be free, however it is developing separate content for paying members that I expect will expand to a larger portion of the site. Ideas and Information are not free. They have value and should be paid accordingly to ensure a sustainable future for journalism.

Despite Econalypse – Internet Still Innovating

Approaching the midpoint of 2009, the worldwide econalypse is in full effect. The close of April ushered in an 8.9 percent jobless rate in the U.S., which is believed to be at a 25 year high and now articles highlighting the worst hit cities are beginning to appear. This post is not about what is failing, but instead the new ideas, innovations and interesting developments rising out of the econalypse. It is not exhaustive, but it hopefully will unearth exciting and different ideas that could lead to a thriving 2010.

 The genesis of this topic came from Po Bronson’s What Should I Do with My Life, Now? article and the Editor’s Letter in the February 2009 Fast Company. The final motivational push came from the 2009 Fast Cities special section that focuses on cities with an eye to a better more efficient and socially beneficial future.

Infamously, “The Video” from October ‘08 is now considered the marker for the end of Web 2.0. A staple of the era was the RSS Reader, however this past week Slate discussed how the advancements in browsers have surpassed the once celebrated efficiency of RSS Readers that perhaps have now arrived at their extinction. The ability to load multiple sites in their native design through tabbed browsing is subtly groundbreaking. Browsers are rendering sites faster and it eliminates the ”other inbox” that could grow unwieldy in only a few hours depending on the number of subscribed feeds. The browser is quickly graduating from a tool to access the Internet to the program that runs every computing activity. Pundits have suggested it is the new Operating System, while this shows a misunderstanding of the functions of an OS it does highlight the direction we are heading.

Online Search is an emphasis of Connected and like a slow rising tide, the landscape, expectations and definition of Search is gradually and most assuredly changing. For several years Google has dominated search through its superior keyword search algorithm. Semantic search is the holy grail of search, and similarly to the cup of life, we have yet to uncover and unleash its power. In the place of semantic search we have seen an explosion in social search. Mahalo had been the leader with its human-powered search engine that displayed results based on user input, but Web 2.0 social search was a clear second to Google. What if people could ask questions and search for information in real time with a global network? This is precisely where microblogging technologies like Twitter excel, however Aardvark may prove to be the technology that takes social search beyond the limitations of keyword search. Unable to improve upon what former colleague Fernando Rizo has already written on the topic, check out this analysis on what Aardvark and similar technologies will do to the world of search.

WebTV and online distribution of video has been a primary recent focus of Connected. Through excellent journalism and activism, Time Warner Cable abandoned its test of broadband data caps. Continued reporting that unearthed the economic fallacy that ISPs have attempted to use to rationalize data caps and metered billing will hopefully maintain net neutrality. This is a necessity for WebTV as big name players such as Amazon and Hulu continue to make legal, high quality content available to consumers. Original Webseries also continue to find a place in the growing WebTV space. A few recent top examples include:

• The Guild – Season 2
• Purchase Brothers – Escape From City-17 or Part 1 (Rated R)
• Crackle – Angel of Death (Rated R)

Finally, the process of creating video is now a full fledged passion and recently I learned about tilt-shifting photography and video. This is an amazing example of Creative innovation:

The Death and Resurrection of Journalism?

The importance of true journalism is arguably on par with society’s need for government, medicine and commerce. It monitors all areas of life to ensure justice, seek out truth and serves as the gatekeeper and agenda setter for public discourse on the most important events and stories impacting the world. For me, the definition of journalism begins and ends with print media and more specifically the newspaper. The oncoming demise of the print newspaper has been predicted, discussed and analyzed, but in 2009 it will arrive. Could journalism die with its most accountable and investigative medium?

The Atlantic is one of the U.S.s oldest publications and one of the best examples of the journalism elite . Earlier this month it sent shock waves through the industry, outlining the death of the New York Times by May. This news comes alongside reports of the Los Angeles Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Chicago Tribune  and Star Tribune all facing the possibility of going exclusively online or closing down completely. I lamented this trend in August and suggested the answer and revival of local dailies could be in redirecting its focus on truly being the local voice of the city in which it resides. The Atlantic proposed a similar approach, while the New York magazine wrote of hope through new media types with skill in journalism, developing and design.

Could it be enough though? Earlier this month, tech blog Gizmodo broke that Apple’s Steve Jobs would not be delivering the Macworld keynote address due to health reasons, while traditional media refuted the story, regurgitating Apple PRs explanation that is was more due to “politics than his pancreas.” Traditional media was wrong and with this misstep it fell another notch in its argument of better sources than new media journalist. I do not use the word journalist lightly. 2009 will be a historic year with the ushering in of the first African American U.S. President, the worst economic climate in more than 50 years, the demise of local print media and the resurrection of true journalism through passionate, aggressive new media bloggers.

One last thought on this topic is how citizen journalism and specifically Twitter will mix into this new journalistic environment. I agree with MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka that citizen journalism is important, but will not be the foundation for future news reporting, instead a supplement. A great example of its power is demonstrated in the reporting of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 crash this week. Here is the first photo of the story, posted through Twitter:

Not so Cuil

Great marketing can only take a product so far. This is as true with the half price coupon as it is with an incredible opening day launch due to strong PR. Take Cuil as exhibit A. I was genuinely excited when I read this article. A Google killer with a new search design, a larger search index, unique relevance algorithm and privacy by not storing IP information. It had glowing posts from all the top tier bloggers right out of the gate, even though it became clear none had actually tested it yet.

Then it happened, bloggers started using it and all that great PR went for not. In fact, I think it is arguable that due to Cuil’s PR blitz earlier in the week, it received an even greater backlash when it became clear it was simply an average alternative search engine and was not ready to go up against the incumbent big four (Google, Ask, Yahoo and Microsoft).

Cuil’s launch provides several lessons and maybe a future PR case study. First, if you are a search engine and you do not appear in you own first page of results, perhaps you should delay the launch a bit. Another is do not over promise and under deliver. In hindsight, it is laughable to believe a startup could go head to head with Google on day one. Google has too much money, experience and scale. A company could grow to eclipse Google over time, but not until after extensive real world adoption and testing. Smart startups do not let their PR run wild. Lastly, we need more restraint and journalistic responsibility in our blogoshere media. No longer should pure speed dictate new media, but instead accuracy because that is true journalism. Except for the fake news anomalies seen in the Onion and the SportsPickle, people read news to learn truth about their world. New media is now the media as professional journalist are blending with former ameatuer blogoshpere titans. We do not have room for fanboys, we need journalists.