The Future of Content in the Age of Information Overload
The decline of newspaper popularity has been attributed to the rise of the internet and the proliferation of web-based content. With an extremely low barrier of entry and variable cost, the web allows anyone with a computer to become an independent publisher: As a result, the amount and variety of content online far exceeds print publications in most fields.
So how can newspapers survive and do well as a business in the future? Perhaps by cutting back and going more niche to provide content that features deeper analysis and investigative reporting. In an article entitled ‘The Elite Newspaper of the Future’, Philip Meyer suggests that the money and audience comes from specialized, not general media.
This particular quote explains in greater detail:
I still believe that a newspaper’s most important product, the product least vulnerable to substitution, is community influence. It gains this influence by being the trusted source for locally produced news, analysis and investigative reporting about public affairs. This influence makes it more attractive to advertisers.
By news, I don’t mean stenographic coverage of public meetings, channeling press releases or listing unanalyzed collections of facts. The old hunter-gatherer model of journalism is no longer sufficient. Now that information is so plentiful, we don’t need new information so much as help in processing what’s already available.
Just as the development of modern agriculture led to a demand for varieties of processed food, the information age has created a demand for processed information. We need someone to put it into context, give it theoretical framing and suggest ways to act on it.
Scaling back on the all-you-can-eat content buffet in favor of more exclusive material does not just appeal to a hardcore audience. People get their information from one another, not just through the direct consumption of media. Catering to the leadership audience, the well-educated news junkies and opinion leaders, will help spread your content in the long run.
Will this topical specialization make newspapers profitable? Maybe. If newspapers can’t compete with blogs and online news sites in terms of speed and variety, perhaps they can trump them in terms of depth or trust. After all, feature-length content with solid, investigative reporting is not something you’ll often find on most blogs or personal sites on the web.
Daily newspapers will always be around, although they will be read less as more people come to have persistent access to the internet. A newspaper gives you the opinion of the journalist, but a blog throws in the comments of other readers. The web also gives you instant social interactivity, which is appealing for people who want to connect over what they’ve read.
To be able to share an opinion on what you’ve just read is enormously satisfying. Good content can be one-way but I think its increasingly important to socialize information and make it a facilitator for communal interaction. Print publications of the future would do well to consider developing some form of an online component to complement their offline product.
On the other hand, the problem of information overload is very real. Just think about it. More and more online/print publications are created everyday: to track and read many of them is very time consuming. People will be forced to pick and choose what to read. Some blogs will get dropped from a feed reader, others will remain. It’s easy to predict who survives.
Blogs that just repeat information already published elsewhere are providing value that can be substituted. To put it another way, these sites are completely dispensable. They lose out when a choice has to be made due to time/attention scarcity. These sites are usually the ones that just regurgitate content released on mainstream media or other larger blogs. Their identity is virtually unrecognizable. A great logo and design won’t save them.
Sites that serve as a comprehensive and reliable filter of information on a topic will be read, but they’ll always have to compete with other fast-paced news publishers. To aggregate information is incredibly easy. To process, analyze and situate it within a big picture context while offering an intriguing/unique perspective is considerably more difficult.
Those who can do so will be trusted: they are a valuable knowledge asset for any reader.
Detailed, unique content immediately stands out on its own, even without extensive marketing efforts. People don’t just want to be informed, they want to better grasp a topic in all its nuances. The joy of consumption lies not only in the skimming of a news story but the processing of new perspectives to enrich a personal worldview or professional need.
Publications that provide such content will always have an audience. In the end, it’s just a natural consequence that results from the consumer’s problem of information overload.
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So true! Newspapers have a lot of adaptation they need to make in order to thrive. Then again, most of us do. The competition is only getting smarter and tougher, and anyone working online has to figure out how to build an audience despite that.
Hi,
I’m a brazilian guy and love your blog/website. This article is so great and important. I’m studying english about 9 months and i can understand all that you had write, but, unfortunally i’ve so many problems to write… So, i’m here only to say congragulations for your blog, i read it everyweek…
sorry about my english, i’m learning…
Best Regards,
Monthiel
Not sure they are totally trustworthy, but I would agree with depth. Regardless, we are on the verge of canceling our newspaper subscription.
Great article. Content is definitely going to be changing the way we view and organize the internet. It becomes increasingly important to portray website authority and create a presence of being an expert in an industry. Here is an article that talks more about what you write about above you may like.
Create Website Authority
Thanks again for another good post!
Oftentimes, I am extremely impressed at the quality of print journalism. When I look at something in National Geographic or New Yorker, the depth and quality often trumps the very best I read on Digg or StumbleUpon. I agree that becoming more in-depth, more specialize or “high-quality” is the only real way that print publications can survive.
For online news.. yeah… most of it is thin, unformatted, authoress echoes and junk.
Making your content beautiful and offering a unique perspective takes a LOT of time and creativity, more than most people are up for … but it’s the only way to go, really.
Great advice to think about for my own blogs and websites!
I’ve always thought it was rediculous that our local newspapers simply had a “local” section. I always assumed that it should be the other way around. Even before blogs, enough world news was available online that it just seemed senseless, and I hear about anything major via Twitter a full day before the local news station mentions it.
I don’t even read the newspaper any more, but an exclusively local paper? Yeah, I’d subscribe if it was useful.
I think you’re right about the future of journalism. The detailed, unique content available on the Internet will just keep getting better and more professional. The current downturn should accelerate the progress rather than derail the train. I don’t see much hope for newspapers in that outlook, however.
The future of the product (online journalism) is bright. The future of the business model is however quite murky. I think we need some kind of e-commerce business model available to journalism. Advertising on the Internet doesn’t work for anybody but keyword search and classifieds. This downturn will finally stick a fork in the dreamers who think advertising will work if we can just figure it out …
I love your articles, Maki.
In my opinion, the more online blog or newspaper publish, the more visitor who will spend more time online to read blog. Yes, there will be a competition. However, I think is much better than publish a local newspaper.
The writing is on the wall for print news. Newspapers who want to remain relevant will need to adapt in order to produce content that readers can’t get elsewhere. Some newspapers have done a good job at bridging the gap between print and online journalism, such as the Wall Street Journal, but I don’t see this as being a viable option for a mid market daily paper. I agree with you, we are probably going to see newspaper produce more niche content, where the analysis is more in depth and focused.
Thanks for the post,
Matt
I still like USA Today though!
For me, the reason I read other people’s blogs is to find out their opinion on a matter. If I wanted just the facts, I’d look elsewhere online.
TheAndySan
http://www.theandysan.com
Specialized media is exactly where it is all going. I think niche social networks are the newspaper equivalent of the future. Today’s social networking platforms are robust media centers with nearly every kind of electronic media part of the structure or easily plugged in. They offer people the information in the format that they like best.
Social networks may be an advertising bust on the Facebook scale, but specific audiences, like the ones that populate niche socials have much more value. The question is, will their true value be recognized by would be acquirers or will they shy away because 1st generation social media advertising isn’t working with the old model?
The people that build niche social networks now will experience some of the same benefits as bloggers did in 2004. They may have a fat check waiting for them in a few years. A community isn’t dependent on one person, the way a blog is, so that can unlock some additional value when consolidation happens.
I agree to an extent; the newspaper industry needs in-depth journalism, not in-depth analysis.
Sometime, after being inundated with social media and browsing a billion websites a minute, it is relaxing to pull out the newspaper or a magazine and just slow down a bit. Print does something that the internet can’t do, and that is to let you relax.
We cannot think about cutting down on information consumption. This would be foolish. Rather we need more intelligent tools and practices that allow us rapid and accurate access only to information that is relevant to us.
In many ways our work with Context Organizer is focused on giving the reader the essential summary instantly and saving the time by screening out the secondary details. The reader always prefers to be exposed to the key information first before seeing all the supporting information. Such presentation favours clarity and simplicity.
I may add that the most effective information filtering is done through context. It is context that defines our information needs and ultimately decides on the usability and value of information.
I read both blogs and newspapers but since blogs are more interactive, the newspaper often is tossed aside or out of laziness, I just read the headlines from its online version.
I totally agree with you about newspapers providing more depth. Some blogs can be pretty shallow or just a pathetic imitation of a hundred others. The modern man suffers from information overload and during these times, I think that it’s important for readers to develop the skill of filtering what they read and of spotting relevant content.
Again, great insight Maki, I always enjoy reading your posts.
That’s why community based website has became very important on filtering the news! Everyone will vote for the News worthy or Good content to help filter out the noise.
Site like Digg and Reddit will become more important, eventually News site, bookmarking site and blog community will start to co-operate, may be another type of News site that incorporate bookmarking and blogs into one platform!
The internet is full of unique and excellent content and the specialized social networks are becoming huge media centers that will probably overtake paper newspapers as we know them.
What an ironic piece of brilliant content. You speak of good quality content, yet you use good quality content to speak of it. I wish I could meet you personally and enjoy a coffee with you
Great post and excellent insights. Perhaps another aspect to this would be for newspapers to connect the print media with their online websites. News reporting would no longer be limited to print media, but instead links that point readers to more in-depth analysis of a certain topic, user comments, related website resources, or even specific niche social networks will be incorporated to encourage readers to go online for more information.
Indeed, the merging of online and print media with the purpose of providing greater value add would help increase the perceived value of any particular newspaper. Perhaps this could be one way how newspapers can keep themselves relevant – by leveraging on that depth or trust that you mention, and utilizing the web as a low cost method to drive more depth in any current topic being discussed.
In the end, newspaper sites could also become consolidated source of a topic repository, feeding readers with every possible opinions, thoughts, comments and analysis of a variety of news and controversy.
Cheers,
Samantha
http://www.what-sells-online.com
It’s important to acknowledge the problem of information overload, cause it certainly won’t be going away any time soon.
I completely agree with you — I can get my basic news from so many resources, and they often start to look the same. But I am very particular about the editorials and features I read, because as you’ve pointed out, it takes much more skill and insight to put news into context or offer an informed opinion.
I also much prefer blogs that take a deeper, more personal perspective on topics — there are only so many lists and empty points of advice I can skim through before I forget how to fully read a text : )
Interesting piece. And you can certainly see Meyer’s suggestion towards less frequent newspapers reflected in current trends– more and more people canceling their daily subscriptions and taking only the Sunday paper.
But he leaves out something I find crucial: the simple, actual experience of reading a newspaper. Spreading it out on your bed while your kids read the comics. Swapping sections with your spouse over breakfast. There’s a strong sense of ritual that goes with newspapers that can’t be replaced by a laptop. For many people, the experience of reading one is what keeps them buying. If marketers can tap into that emotional connection with current readers, and foster it in younger folks, newspapers will stay relevant.
But that’s a mighty big “if.”
http://www.anonymousadguy.com
Great article. I don’t think newspaper will ever fully go away, but the way they present the articles may have to change to keep their readers. I don’t niche newspapers in necessarily the way to go, because that’s what magazines are for. But great research and quality content will always help gain a readership, because trust leads to loyalty.
Craig
http://www.budgetpulse.com
Very interesting post. I actually wonder if the same logic does not apply to blogs. Are’nt specialized blogs doing better than general blogs? I guess that represents a trend in consumer needs and expectations : who wants to get precise and relevant information from a generalist? If that’s the case, then newspapers have to adapt. Not sure they can…
Detailed, unique content immediately stands out on its own, even without extensive marketing efforts.??This is the key point.
Hey, have you seen that movie zeitgeist yet? What do you think of it?
I mostly agree with you about this topic, but as a librarian I saw this same discussion about information overload 10 years ago and a lot of newspapers (most?) are still operating in the same way. Niche content communities will thrive for those who want to see those out. But newspapers might still have a role, though primarily just as an advertising channel for people who don’t really want very in-depth content. There’s a lot that falls in that crowd. Personally, I’ve mostly given up on newspapers.
I think it was Tufte who made the argument that there’s no such thing as information overload, the problem is simply with the way information is presented. Niche content and aggregating sources are clearly the future.
i agree newspaper are still the best media… but i rather worry the quality of media person now deployed to publish a good content…. Most are either not proficient nor capable of writing articles which adds value.
regards
thinkjayant
As a reader mentioned above, I love print media because of my emotional attachment to it. I love being able to swap magazines or sections of newspaper with my husband. I love the touch and feel of print media on my hands. And it helps me relax. Whereas when I am on the internet reading blogs or the online version of the newspaper, I am scanning headlines. There are too much information on the internet, and I have to say that a lot of it is poor quality or regurgitating the same thing.
It never fails to have a great article from you. I am wondering too (other comment made) about the information overload on blogs. So much clutter…so little time.
I love newspaper and I personally see it around for decades to come – I still have 30 yrs to go
…and I like to have it in hand. I have a favorite because it is not information overload and then on the other hand the internet news is too much for me. Thanks for the insight.
Great Article, I loved it…
When I was working for a newspaper more than 10 years ago, the publisher told me, “first they said radio would destroy the newspaper industry, it didn’t. Afterwards, when tv came out, they said that spelled the end of newspapers, no such thing happened. Now, with the internet, they again claim the demise of newspapers, and this time, I am sure it will.”
@Jeff
“I think it was Tufte who made the argument that there’s no such thing as information overload, the problem is simply with the way information is presented. Niche content and aggregating sources are clearly the future.”
That’s a very interesting perspective on this topic. Looking at it through that lens, the problem seems to be that there is too much surface content. Because it’s so much easier to swallow, we end up drinking it in from all directions and not really absorbing much. I hope your prediction is right!
…..looks a bit like newspapers will never die…even if they lose money…….people want that paper in their hands……our local paper fired 30% of its staff…despite the fact that they make 14% net profit….almost no other businesses make that percentage
It’s all up for grabs. Information is not the point.
Newspapers are owned by individuals with political aims and their copy is often bent toward a particular aim. Blogs, websites etc are no better. Everyone has vested interests, spins, angles on what information to provide and how to present that information. People are developing greater discretionary skills and websites and newspapers will need to provide for those discretions.
People read what they want from information it’s what they have to say about it that is interesting.
Get a view.
An excellent article. This is a very big topic at the moment, as journalists and editors of forty years experience are quivering in their offices at the advance of the internet. The surge in the amount of content available is overwhelming, but I believe that this is merely a phase.
The internet is our generation’s gold rush. As soon as a new, promising market arises people will flock to exploit it. This is exactly what is happened with the internet – web 2.0 (for want of a better expression), has made blogging, photo sharing, social networking and bookmarking possible. What I expect to happen over the forthcoming years is for the good content to rise to the top. Just as if you were a poor gold digger, lazy and without innovation, then you would never make any money.
Returning to the decline in newspaper popularity, you can see that the same principles apply. Newspapers are going to have to readjust, to innovate and interact, but they are not dead – just as God wasn’t dead when Nietzsche suggested he was a century ago. Some newspapers have boosted their readership and popularity already. there is The Las Vegas Sun (which everyone here in London loves to talk about), The Guardian and The Times, which has proven popular online.
i think that this is part of a phase, a challenging period of realignment, which nonetheless offers everyone opportunity.
Thanks for the article Maki, I enjoy your work.
this is my first time here though,
i read the article but have no idea to give,
but it really is great post.. hope next next article
give me some thought to comment about it..
because i dont want to leave comment just
“great post” actually have no idea about it..
first timer..
interactivity is the selling point of blogs,how many times do you get to respond to a new item?traditional type media will have to morph to catch up!
Great Post, love to read
I know that some of the local newspapers in Orlando have spoken of going completely digital. For some people, it’s hard to justify spending $.75 when you can get the content for free online. However, not enough can be said about the familiarity of newspapers, and hunting for your favorite sections or columns.
In regards to Stephanie’s comment, what sort of adaptations do you think newspapers would need to make in order to compete with publications on the web? Do you think the content quality could be affected?
Great post, Maki!
Aren’t newspapers and technology destined to merge?
Won’t we all be reading tangible ‘e paper’ newspapers that we can download whatever content we wan’t (niche or otherwise) to long before the newspaper industry collapses?
I prefer to read specialized media, I don’t have time or energy to waste on topics that do not relate to my life. Niche content is my best friend.:)
Thanks for another thought-provoking post!
There’s probably no better example of information overload than the major financial news networks now. I can only follow 3-5 major sources of reading a day. Like you’ve said over time the old standards I once followed I no longer read as they’ve been replaced by the competition.
Content is definitely KING, and great content on the web rules the universe!
As you said, everyday a new blog or website is launched, and there is information everywhere. Creating unique content not only it will give you credibility, also it will give you the trust of the people who read your blog. At the end, if you start copying or being like a robot repeating the things which everybody says, people will start deleting your RSS from their readers.
Nowadays, you need to provide original things in order to get success.
What can I say: YOU ARE are the valuable knowledge asset, Maki. Great blog, thanks a lot!
Very interesting post. I can’t believe newspapers will go away altogether, but they will certainly have to change. When it comes to pure “news” daily newspapers can never be as fast as the Internet or even TV, for that matter. Good content and in-depth investigative reports may help.
Hi,
I believe that with the fast development of flexible screen technology, the newspapers and mags will have a word to say.
Of course that this future is a bit far, but not that much. The first problem will be massing production to make it cost effective and I think that to make it profitable, one may see too much advertising.
Kind regards,
José
Well,I hope not. Actually, reading paper feels good.Sunday afternoon, a cup of coffe,wow,I really don’t hope that the information age will take this from us.
I like your post!Thanks
Clay Shirky spoke at Interop just about a month ago and he gave a great talk about the endless discussion about “Information overload.” He says there have been endless articles written about that subject and the articles never change because we all have more information than we can consume. In fact, he harkens this problem back to the days of the Guttenberg press when there were more books being cheaply printed than an individual could consume.
When we feel overloaded, we need to change our thinking and no longer discuss how there’s too much information, but rather discuss “what filter just broke down.” It was a fascinating talk and I wrote a very long summary of it for the Interop blog, plus I did a one-on-one video interview with him afterwards to discuss how he’s managing his filters today.
I found his discussion incredibly enlightening:
http://blog.interop.com/blog/2008/09/18/interop_-ny-information-overload-is-an-old-issue-shirky-says-you-need-to-rethink-and-redefine-your-filters/
Great point for newspaper though you could argue that magazines play this role today. The Web also had great analytical content. However, the difficulty today is to find this content in the long tail of the Web. Search on a given topic on Google and you’ll find the top sites only. Surf from link to link and you might discover good content on the topic you are researching but you usually lose this content (difficult to bookmark everything that is interesting). What would be really really useful is a platform that improves dramatically the way to organize this quality content present in the long tail of the Web.
“Detailed, unique content immediately stands out on its own, even without extensive marketing efforts.”
Total true…. i also personally believe in it as it gave me good results.
I don’t think that newspapers should become niche specific, although it might be the way to go in regards to making money (for the publisher). On the other hand, why not just use the internet in the future… if you are made to buy separate, niche specific newspapers? That’s like making a bunch of different magazines out of “The Register” which makes no sense since we already have magazines.
There is truth to all of this, but I don’t think it will completely eradicate physical publications. I mean who doesn’t like the smell of newsprint or a cologne add for instance? and my library would get kind of lonely, plus there is a real market for collecting rare books and magazines, and an even better market for text books and so forth.
The thing with newspapers is they get legitimized because they have investment. They pay their writers a lot of money and it costs a lot of money to print, distribute. This gives them and their content a starting point of legitimacy.
I can hear the collective bloggers out there screaming NOOOOOO and calling me all kinds of names, but this is true. The cost and barriers to entry of blogging is sickly low. There is a lot of trash out there because of it. Go to a cocktail party and see how many people have a blog – just about everyone.
As we have learned with the first wave of the internet bubble and now this financial collapse, business rules do not change. Perceptions of value do not change. They may be altered in the interim by fear and greed, but reversion to the mean is a law, not a theory.
I think papers will always be a leader in the information world. Their models will change, like your post indicates, but the barrier to entry to legitimate content/news is and will always be high.
Hi Maki. My first time to post a comment here though I’ve been a follower of your blog for a long time already. Your views are very insightful. Thanks.
Hello Sir,
I start learning about blogging. May I know how to add *Continue Reading* to shorten the post in blog? Thanks for your help and useful articles.
Bo Bo
The online newspapers become niche specific in the last years. For example this blog is one of mine blogs and this is about fire-extinguishers.
Thanks for this great post,, thats right we are in the age of the information overload,,
and don’t forgot the content rewriting softwares and scripts,, which make the man just a reader and make writers job very difficult in the web,, any way sorry for the long comment and thanks for this useful blog.
Larbi from Arab publishers Blog.
Hi, I’ve just found your blog and wanted to say thankyou for an excellent peice of work. I’ll be back every week so keep the articles coming. With so much information avaialble its great to find an informative blog, with a real opinion.
Thanks
Another great post. Love it!
News papers can survive in countries like India. In Andhra Pdesh, one of the state in India spending lacks of rupees for advertisement. No other company not only media any industry spending that much of amount for advertisement.
Newspapers should be focusing on their online presence. People aren’t going to pay for information that’s freely available.
As a very recent entrant into the world of blogging, I found this post helpful. My purpose for blogging is to use my 25 years of experience in the energy/power industry to help people better understand what they see/hear in mainstream media as it relates to the whole energy debate. Blogging shouldn’t be data (more news), it should be analysis and perspective. Great blog btw.
//Morten
Thankfully whilst i completely appreciate that we live in a world overloaded with content, nevertheless the search engines are are content driven. I guess you just keep perfecting and adding relevant quality content, which in turn attract the search engines, which in turn generates traffic.
What an insightful blog post—and a hugely important issue. I think that print news, like online information sources, are going to survive only if they offer analysis, people to put it all in context for us. Our new marketing subscription biz promise to filter the information, to process, analyze, help our readers make sense of all that is out there.
In the end, it will be the papers, the online providers that are savvy enough to not just spit out the facts, the information (because we all have enough of that, right?) but put a personal spin on it, give opinions, help us figure out what it all means.
I like to make the comparisons between the old style of TV journalism and the new. Used to be Walter Cronkite, gravely looking into the camera, delivering the numbers: Wall Street stocks, deaths in Viet Nam, bills passed in Washington. Now we crave advice, opinion. Look at the wildly successful Hardball with Chris Matthews, O’Reilly Factor, even news served up with healthy dose of sarcasm and humor like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show.
I think is going to natural process and only the relevant ones will be left standing.
Thanks for making me think!
Newspapers, for the most part, still enjoy the legitimacy they earned when they were one of the only, and perhaps the only, source of news/information for an area. Today, they appear to be nothing more than local police blotters sprinkled with feeds from AP, Reuters and/or McClatchy upon whose names some local reporter might put their by-line because they “contributed” to the article by adding some “local connection.”
Our local radio and television news reports tend to be regurgitation based on the consumption of our “newspaper of record” (The Arizona Republic). One radio station literally reads the newspaper as part of its reporting to their listeners (morning drive-time talk-news show).
However, when the non-local stories appear 2-4 days after I’ve read about them on the Internet, something is wrong. When a local editor says that readers like the newspaper, because the paper decides what’s important to them (!!), something is wrong. When “news” reporting has a slant so noticeable that you’d swear you were reading the editorial page, something is wrong.
At least blogs tend to be open about any bias they might have. That’s one of the reasons I like them.
For the developed and developing countries, online news is more popular than printed newspapers but for the less developed country like Cambodia, printed media is more popular than the online media it is because that the less Cambodian people can access internet, by the way the people in remote rural areas cannot access not only the printed news but also the internet as well.
Nice article. Thanks.
Eugene
Very well done. I’ve been writing about this subject on my site as it relates to sports bloggers. Not to offend anyone, but I’m convinced sports blogging is the most competitive among any niche.
Where many sites focusing on, for example, photography or interior decorating can post a few times a week, sports bloggers will post five or six times a day. And they have to in order to compete with the larger sports blogs, ESPN, Fox, Sports Illustrated and other established mediums.
I fear that the blogosphere may be doing a disservice to itself with so many voices speaking at once. The vastness of the Internet provides so many options to potential readers the ability to get your content in the forefront is becoming increasingly more difficult.
What most in the mainstream media have failed to recognize is the Internet, not bloggers, are the reason subscription numbers have dwindled. Considering most professional journalists have a very low opinion of bloggers, what they fail to understand is that the Internet has changed how we get our news.
Those days of being force-fed the same tired columnists are over. The Internet offers immediate access to information, differing points of view and an opportunity to build a community. Newspapers and magazines simply can’t do that.
Granted, we may be in a state of information overload, but I’d rather have that than revert back to how I use to get my news in the 70’s.
Again, this post was nicely done.
You touched a sensible point – Choice
When people have no choice, life is almost unbearable. As the number of available choices increases, as it has in our online consumer culture, the autonomy, control, and liberation this variety brings are powerful and positive. But as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice is no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize
Lucio
I think the internet will sort itself out and the people with the real talents for blogging and creating information that people want to read will be the winners in the end.
I feel that reading an article in a newspapper is not as interesting as it used to be. The headline usually gets you in, but after that, there is no real information there. In a blog there are more opinions and comments that always enhance and compliment the post, making it sometimes almost addictive information.
When they talk about “information overload”, I personally love it and want more!!!
Fantastic idea. Can anyone please tell me if Google will penalize such sites since their main purpose is to pretty much funnel traffic and not provide any kind of service?
We are definitely overlaoded on everything but I like the fact that you can get a bit more information from less “right or left wing” political analysts that exist on the news sites today.
Information overload…I definately know the meaning and understand the concept!
there’s a right and a wrong way to manage info overload, and to be honest I prefer to give my readers my own “unique” perspective on the hottest niche topics I’m talking about in my blogs.
info aggregation is not for me…
Who reads newspapers these days anyways? Obviously newspapers are going to die and I’m glad of it, they are a waste of paper.
I think online publishing will never replace newspaper even though it’s very convenient to use and pact with great content.Newpapers publisher need a way to add more value added content. Do you want to exchange link with my blog at http://www.henrybusinessblog.blogspot.com? This is a blog on making money online. Please let me know
Regards,
Henry
While I love blogs, I also like the form and function of newspapers. I have a spell checker, and use it, but still manage to drop words and have misspellings from time to time. Not to mention the occasional rambling sentence that doesn’t make as much sense as I would like.
Editors make newspapers better, sometimes. But print falls down on the job when you want more info and there is not link to Wikipedia to be found.
Psychologists have long talked about GATING as a process whereby the brain shuts out 95% of the information received.It makes you wonder just what many product development managers are thinking when they believe that being “good” is enough these days to get on the radar of the average customer. Back to the drawing board. I’ve blogged your post here over @ http://www.mobileyouth.org/post/law-3-build-dialogue-using-the-right-channels-mobileyouthorgs-7-laws-of-youth-marketing/
Yeah, eventhough the online blogs or media has it cuts of market share from the old style media which is the hardcopy media, but there is stil a sense of feeling that those info from the hardcopy one is still a lot more reliable source and more trustworthy than the online. That’s really a challenge.
ehm, i guess newspaper still a famous way to know about latest information. Maybe internet is good, but newspaper already create a good reputation. Even myself prefer to buy newspaper everyday.
Hi Miki Nice Post but why you are not writing much now adays… very few posts in this month ?
“People are developing greater discretionary skills.” This is precisely why the Internet should NOT be regulated.
Suzie Homemaker and her teenage son should be free to blog all they want, and as crazily as they want. People will (have to) learn to recognize the rational from the irrational, the fundamental from the derivative, the agenda driven blogs from the more factual web sites, the efficient from the rambling. That is, people will see benefit in critical thinking and be more inclined to learn of logical fallacies, proper use of language and the ideas (concepts) words stand for.
As the fallout of this still-new medium settles, some sites will stand tall… they may, rightly, charge for access to eventually become the e-magazines of the future. These tall sites will serve the enormous range of niches available, from quantum physics to advanced manicure approaches. Search engines will adjust to these distinctions of scale. Already the overly general Google Search results are becoming a nuisance, and developers are finding ways to compete with Google by making there searches more contextually accurate.
Suzie and her son will still have their connections, but could hardly fail to see that if they are at all serious they will have to become more intellectually valuable. Even their own friends will come to demand it. They will improve, but so will the best content producers, world wide!
Internet freedom is a win win situation!
The world is going digital. A day will come when we will be in a paperless society.
Let us just keep watching. We might be lucky to see it happen in our age.
I think most of us are suffering from information overload, there are so many new products and software offering to make our lives easier but understanding what really works is difficult. We spend so much time looking at these products and really don’t benefit.
Newspaper contain more trustworthy information..most of the interenet content is created by individuals, there will not be 100% integrity in content .So the value of newspapers with good reputation always stays.
Who reads newspapers these days. Obviously newspapers are going to die and I’m glad of it, they are a waste of paper.
I basically agree with this article, but there is something to be said about just holding a newspaper in your hands, a cup of coffee at your side, and sitting in a comfortable chair reading your morning newspaper.
I own a lot of news.com type domains and have been thinking of setting up a blog but I cannot seem to find a Wordpress theme template that can compete with some of the features of a complete news organization website. Any ideas ?
Mike
I’m sure newspapers will always have an audience because of their tactile nature, it’s one of the reasons eBooks will never replace the traditional paperback but I personally prefer to gets my news via a computer screen. That being said, I think that the Internet could learn a few things from the newspaper, especially when it comes to writing quality.
give the people what they want. Papers have to undergo a major shift in the way run a business. Less and less people are willing to pay for news.
I think part of the trouble is that people don’t care as much when they have a superabundance of something. If you have more food than you can eat, any item of food becomes irrelevant to you. Now there is more content than we could possibly absorb, people’s enthusiasm for any one newspaper is diminished.
Once the next generation of readers (of which Kindle is the first) has evolved beyond a certain point, I’m convinced that newspapers and magazines made of paper are simply going to be become entirely redundant. I think media channels should concentrate on things like RSS, keeping up to date with streaming their information to the new devices, and maximizing ad revenue.
Content is difficult to create if you have a full time jobs and kids. I created a political website but it seems like there is so much other political content that it’s next to impossible to get that much traffic. And as for newspapers, yes the internet is causing the newspapers industry to shrink, but newspapers aren’t going anywhere no time soon.