The Next Big Thing
Local newspaper media monopolies are ripe for the picking.
My next project -- give me a couple years -- is going to be to eviscerate the local media business with a web-only product:
- Local bloggers and gadflies provide content (look, they'll be more entertaining and relevant than a journalist and people will know their biased)
- Zipcode focused advertising from Match, Monster, eBay, Google, etc. will provide the revenue stream without a salesforce
- All internet delivery will eliminate physical costs and provide an immediacy that once-a-day printing can't compete with
The technology is not quite there to make this happen:
1. Easy-to-read, large-format, portable LCD screens do not yet exist.
2. The geo-targetting by zipcode for distributed advertising does not exist.
3. The dissemination of blog software, while increasing apace, is not yet sufficient to get the critical mass of community personages involved.
I'm thinking this will take 5 years for the technology to mature.
As far as "journalism" as a profession, well, look, all skills get commoditized over time. You have only to watch a breaking news report or a reality TV series to see that the modern person has thoroughly internalized TV posture, etiquette and behavior. What used to be a source of great consternation, twittering and flustering -- "I'm on TV!" -- is now fielded with a non-chalance bordering blase.
Similarly with journalism skills -- they are being commoditized over time. And while the etheral notion of objectivity is perhaps beyond the grasp of the common blogger, the inclusion of who-what-when-where-why in an informative piece seems to be achievable. Why not cut out this nonsense attempt at providing a "fair piece" when no such thing does or can exist, and instead announce biases at the start, and allow the Reader to take the case as she sees fit?
MediaSavvy: Why can't a newspaper be more like a blog? Part V: Community and karma
