The online journalism diploma module at JOMEC
Content in the age of infinite choice
There's a really interesting interview with Mike Masnick of Techdirt in today's TechnologyGuardian.
He is asked a question which starts a train of thought about new business models for the music, film and newspaper industries. Now, I can appreciate that thrusting young journalists do not want to think about business models, but the fact is that economics determines whether you get a job and what you write about, so it has an immediate relevance to your future prospects.
In essence, Masnick says that people need an extra reason to buy - we can get music anywhere but we can't get the "experience" of music easily; we can rip and rip off films but we can't duplicate the experience of going to the cinema; we can find news in an instant, for free, but we also need "to recognise that a lot of what a newspaper is, traditionally, is about putting together a community of people with like interests."
That's what a magazine does, by any definition, and Masnick's views feed straight in to what Nick Brett said last week about newspapers dressing in magazine's clothes. Of course this has been true for a long time (since people figured out what to do with radio, at least) but it is worth remembering and repeating.
And this leads in turn to the question of what print media forms should do to adapt to the new business models. It seems to me that many magazines have allowed their natural advantage of an already well-defined community to drift away, whereas newspaper groups are doing quite a lot to try and re-focus their efforts.
The future, this future, is yours to invent. What are you going to do with it?
He is asked a question which starts a train of thought about new business models for the music, film and newspaper industries. Now, I can appreciate that thrusting young journalists do not want to think about business models, but the fact is that economics determines whether you get a job and what you write about, so it has an immediate relevance to your future prospects.
In essence, Masnick says that people need an extra reason to buy - we can get music anywhere but we can't get the "experience" of music easily; we can rip and rip off films but we can't duplicate the experience of going to the cinema; we can find news in an instant, for free, but we also need "to recognise that a lot of what a newspaper is, traditionally, is about putting together a community of people with like interests."
That's what a magazine does, by any definition, and Masnick's views feed straight in to what Nick Brett said last week about newspapers dressing in magazine's clothes. Of course this has been true for a long time (since people figured out what to do with radio, at least) but it is worth remembering and repeating.
And this leads in turn to the question of what print media forms should do to adapt to the new business models. It seems to me that many magazines have allowed their natural advantage of an already well-defined community to drift away, whereas newspaper groups are doing quite a lot to try and re-focus their efforts.
The future, this future, is yours to invent. What are you going to do with it?
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