6 February 2009

The Future Of Newspapers: Are micropayments the way out?

First came print advertising because people read newspapers.
Then came TV advertising, that took away some of those ads
Then came the era of advertising-supported content, as readers became more of "consumers" being targeted by advertisers who signed large cheques.
Then came the part about newspapers adjusting to the demands of advertisers, and addressing readers as "target segments"
That phase is still on now, but the Web is changing --or has changed things--all over again.
Classified ads have migrated to the Web.
Newspaper Websites are not really getting that much ads.
Digital ads are growing,but are they the way out?
How do we price content? Journalism is a costly business, involves travel and credibility -- and unbiased coverage that is under constant pressure from politicians or advertisers in some form or the other.
In the age of the Internet, the business has become more complicated. New York Times has its property on mortgage, and Chicago Tribune filed for bankruptcy.
So what is the future of the newspaper?
This article in Time magazine discusses it, and apparently bets on micropayments. Oh well, let us see how it all goes.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

No reason why media won't go the ATM way. The currency has changed from material to attention and 'disintermediation of the news broker' is where the future points.

If you can credibly and instantly get news to the readership by whatever means, and you don't need the traditional 'office' or 'printing press' any more, then getting rid of the baggage as a first step would help.

Marketing as we've known it - of which advertising can be seen as a vehicle - is dead! I'm not surprised that advertising revenues are gone.

On the credibility side, one feels relieved that the press can no longer be a mouthpiece for the politician. And thankfully is out of the clutches of the 'advertiser'. Now it has a chance to be more credible and independent. That's what the public always believed they were in the first place!

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Communication Program said...

Really! Change has become the necessity of life and as you described it's affecting the news world. To cope-up such change from news paper to web, many companies has to pay for it and we can just wait pray and wait for what's next.
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Sana.

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