The Future of News, Tablets, and Business Models: http://bit.ly/dzHeMq (by @baekdal ).There is much talk these days about tablets and ereaders. Not only do we have the constant rumor that Apple is making one, but it seems like every newspaper on the planet see them as the "prophet" that will save them from their doom.
Lately, a very impressive tablet reader was showcased to the world - the Time Inc. tablet, featuring how "Sports Illustrated" would work.
It certainly looks impressive. I will even go as far as to call it stunning. No wonder why people call it the future of news... except it isn't. Far from it.
This isn't the future of news. This will not save the newspapers. It will only prolong their demise. This will help the newspaper fight change, to stifle peoples desires, and ultimately make them even more irrelevant.
A long time ago, when the world was changing how we moved around, Henry Ford said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
He knew that the answer to a faster horse was to build a car. It was to change how we do things. It was to solve the real problem. It was not to use all the new technology to make faster horses.
The tablet of "Sports Illustrated" isn't a car. It is merely a faster horse. Sure it is faster and better than the printed newspaper, but they are not solving the real problem. They are stuck in a world of "how it used to be," and are simply adding technology to it.
There is no change here, there is no real innovation. It's a newspaper on a tablet, and that's not what we want.
Let's face it, the newspaper industry is dying because they are no longer needed. They are the middleman between us and the news itself. What we really want is "news," not "newspapers".
The newspapers were created to solve "how to bring news from around the world to you." And in the past there was really no practical way to do that. The old newspaper model, as illustrated below, is to send a reporter out to find news. This is then handed over to the newspaper editors who turn it into a newspaper and deliver it to you.
Another very big part of the newspaper industry is to sell their news to other newspapers. Again, because distance was a problem, and every newspaper had to create a complete package.
This reporting model is highly visible when you go to Google News, where you can see how many newspapers that reported the same story.
We don't really need 4,497 nearly identical articles (actually most of them are 100% the same, because they are reprinted articles from Reuters or AP). This is the result of an old model where redistribution are the only way to reach your readers.
As Google news clearly illustrates, we no longer have that problem. Today all the newspapers are simply creating noise and clutter. Mass quantities of duplicated content that are hideously expensive to make.
The internet is much simpler. It is simply connecting the people who produce news, with the people who want news.
And, this has a dramatic effect on the newspaper business models.
The business models of the past are replace by three other models that are centered around connecting news with people. These are:
You can either focus on each market in itself, or be really remarkable by mixing and combining them into a grander experience.
This is the future of news.
Where does all this leave the tablet computer? Well, for one thing it won't save the old newspaper models.
We don't want to start a separate application to read the news from each specific news source. Despite, how fancy they make the application.
Tablet applications, like the one from Sports Illustrated, might delay the change for a short while, simply because they are distracting us with a shiny package. But it's a losing battle.
What we do want is a tablet with a personal news aggregator. An app that can elevate news from multiple sources. Something that gives you a more personal, in depth, and meaningful experience.
Think the "Sports Illustrated" app that isn't limited to "Sports illustrated." One that is tailored to each individual. One that combines news from all kinds of sources - including tweets from the players with commentators from "experts". One that gives you the pictures of the field, pictures taken by the fans, and pictures from the players "backstage". One that uses the power of the crowd, and the sharing of the crowd, to prioritize the content.
More important, one that doesn't result in a destination, but is merely a tool that you can tab into either directly or via other services.
BTW: This was what I tried to do with the 2009 Le Mans Tracker.
This is the future of newspapers on the tablet.
Every year, Oriella PR is doing a study among journalists on how they see the future of media, and what they focus on.
As much as I like the views of Jeff Jarvis, I do not like his views on monetization. He basically says that content has to operated at a loss.
There was a great comment in my article "How to really stop piracy" from Paulius, who commented on another commenters suggestions that movies should only cost $1.
Admit all the changes faced by news organizations, like the lack of monopoly, real-time reporting, creating original content, and the disappearance of print, there seems to be one element that most news people still do not understand. There is no distribution market on the internet - it's a link economy.
Yesterday, I updated to iOS 4 on my iPhone (like everyone else), and downloaded iBooks. The iOS 4 is nice, pretty fast, and a welcome upgrade. But iBook was a disaster.
I have been playing around with my iPad for a few days, and I noticed the Reuters App. It is a very well-made news app, which gives you a quick look at the latest headlines. And it extends to be a kind of mini Bloomberg market and stock watch.
The iPad has arrived, and the media industry is saved. Of course, when I say it has arrived, what I really mean is that it is now available in the US. And when I say that the media industry is saved, I really mean they think they are saved.
The social web is starting to sound more and more like the dot.com days. We are in the middle of a transition. The ways we do things are radically different. What works and doesn't work seems new. And many people are getting very excited about numbers, but not the right ones.
Several blogs and media outlets reports that the NY Times will start to charge money for reading their newspaper online.
For the next 30 days I am going to be relying completely on non-traditional news sources. I am going to stop reading traditional newspapers, watch any news on TV, or listen to the radio.
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