Latest Plan To Save Newspapers: Let Everyone Else Break News First
from the you-can't-be-serious dept
In what at first sounds like it must be a "modest proposal" sort of satire, but actually appears to be serious, W.B. McNamara writes in to point out a suggestion in the San Francisco Chronicle written by journalist/lawyer Peter Scheer, that all newspapers and wire services agree to embargo all content from the "free" internet for a period of 24-hours. He suggests they agree to do this while somehow avoiding anti-trust violations -- which is pretty much impossible. He claims this will highlight the value of paper newspapers:"A temporary embargo, by depriving the Internet of free, trustworthy news in real-time, would, I believe, quickly establish the true value of that information. Imagine the major Web portals -- Yahoo, Google, AOL and MSN -- with nothing to offer in the category of news except out of date articles from "mainstream" media and blogosphere musings on yesterday's news. Digital fish wrap. And the portals know from unhappy experience (most recently in the case of Yahoo) just how difficult it is to create original and timely news content themselves."I would guess that Mr. Scheer doesn't play chess very often, because he doesn't seem to have considered what happens in response to this opening move. Assuming that somehow, miraculously, all newspapers and wire services agree to do this without violating antitrust law (which is basically impossible), it opens up a huge opportunity and a hole for someone to step in and serve that need. He ignores that there are plenty of other sources of news outside of newspapers, from TV to radio to online only sources already. Newspapers don't have a monopoly on the news, and taking them out of the game doesn't help them -- it just promotes everyone else. He thinks that the portals can't create original content and timely news (which he's wrong about, first of all), but they would have a much easier time if the entire competition voluntarily stayed home each day. All this would do is clear the playing field for others to fill the need and make newspapers even less relevant in a matter of days (if that long). At what point do people realize that the strategy on the internet isn't about putting up artificial barriers and making things more expensive and more difficult for users, but in adding value and making life easier and better?
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newspapers? thats internet news printed, isn't it?
Thats what they called newspapers (aka fish wrapper).
Do people still read newspapers?
Every few days someone 'litters' a plastic baggie of paper on my lawn. I can use the paper to start fires in the fire place, line the bird cage, lay on the floor when I paint.
I don't ask for the paper, it just shows up and I am definitely not paying for it. Almost like they are begging me to read it.
Well off to web-sites to read the news, ta-ta.
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oh yeah, I'm first.
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On those rare occasions that I see a dead-tree newspaper (pretty much only on airline flights) I always find it amusing that what I read on paper is the same stuff I read on the interwebs three days ago.
This genius has come up with a way to shave an entire day off of that lag time. Brilliant!
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craigs list
Nah that is outdated now too, go hop on craigs list
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Antitrust law?
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Re: Antitrust law?
Charging for the first 24 hours *is* price fixing.
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I tend to use msnbc.com or cnn.com but shy away from the local kcstar.com as the latter forces me to register and login frequently if I do register. The other sites let me read the news without registering or jumping through and hoops, plus I can find relevant articles easily without having to fiddle through a 'print edition' menu system that does not scale well to the web literate.
Give me the local news online and make it easy to find and read. If you make me register, make it a bonus for being a PRINT SUBSCRIBER and then give me EXTRA content online that only subscribers can get that is not available anywhere else. You could also gain a few brownie points with a simple 90 day cookie to keep me logged in too!
It doesn't take a brain surgeon to make money online, just give your users what they want and don't expect the users to take what you want to give them.
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I Just Want Same Day News...
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Someone please tell me...
www.thatpoliticalblog.com
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As a business man, that's what I would do if I was a internet company in this situation.
Seems too obvious?
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Craig's List?
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Newspapers are still very useful!!
Plus I find that shredding newsprint keeps the cat busy so he doesn't chew cables and scratch the couch.
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Re: Craig's List? by Bob
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Re: Re: Craig's List? by Bob
Furthermore, I checked out the suggest a site feature. I'm not sure what sort of technical hurdles craigslist has to go through to add a city to their list, but people have requested Altoona:
http://forums.craigslist.org/?SQ=altoona%2C+pa&act=RSR&searchAID=&forumID=1
Yahoo at least already covers Altoona, PA.
I live an hour from Altoona, PA myself, so it was easy to pick this example out of the hat, using google to verify facts. However, Altoona is not alone in this regard. Look on those forums I linked and go up a level. The number of requests in the last 24 hours for cities was asounding. Actually, I noticed at least one altoona, pa in the last 24 hours.
craigslist only covers a small number of area, and is not responsive enough to its target audience. craigslist does a good job for the areas it covers, because people are asking, begging, and demanding that they add their location. I understand that there would be no point adding some places -- like Camp Hill, PA which is right next to Harrisburg, PA. But for the bulk of the population of the USoA, local newspaper classifieds are still the way to go. PA's unemployment maintains a site called PACareerLink which has free statewide job postings, so that is a good alternative, if you're looking for jobs. Other categories however send you back to the paper.
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Visiting newpaper sites
How in the heck can they think this is bad for them. It's not like I read the whole story on Google News, Slashdot, or TechDirt.
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We've seen this before.
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easily avoided
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Looking for work in a newspaper is the absolute worst way to find a job. A company has to be pretty desperate to advertise there for anything but entry level jobs.
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