tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516326066185312823.post6877146338925277578..comments2023-06-28T08:58:32.444-06:00Comments on Plastic Manzikert: Elephant Diaries: Funny PagesKelsey Athertonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07530487540461606153noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516326066185312823.post-62591615690333591552009-03-16T13:21:00.000-06:002009-03-16T13:21:00.000-06:00I've been a while getting back to respond to you, ...I've been a while getting back to respond to you, mainly because I was trying to come up with a new business model for online journalism. Ha, kidding. Sort of.<BR/><BR/>I thought it would be nice to post the link here about some things that newspapers are trying, which I originally sent you on Twitter: http://blog.duoconsulting.com/2009/03/10/why-pay-when-you-can-get-it-for-free/. By the way, I so want to work for Duo someday.<BR/><BR/>It seems that <I>The Guardian</I> has hit on a working model of the inkling I was having after I posted here; maybe newspapers can offer another product besides the news. And so now my thought is, “Okay, but what goes with the news better than online dating?” Are dating sites and in-depth coverage truly the next PB&J? Feel free to tell me if that seems snotty.<BR/><BR/>I heard a piece on NPR recently about new nonprofit and shoestring wire services. While I am loathe to link to that link hog, NPR, <A HREF="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100310863" REL="nofollow">I’ll do it anyway</A>. Actually, while looking for that link, I turned up a few other good pieces and blog that I’m definitely going to start reading by <A HREF="http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45" REL="nofollow">Jim Romenesko</A>. I suppose that an endowment is one way to add another news service to the mix, but it should only be one of many tools in the toolkit. <BR/><BR/>One more thing. I read an article some time last year about Chinese web design that mentioned a Chinese business practice called Quanxi. Sorry, I’ve looked for the link and can’t find it. In a nutshell, it is extensive networking with potential customers and business partners before doing business. The example that was given was an auction site in China that had no plans to charge for its service until late 2009. This reminds me of companies using blogs to contribute to online communities, which in turn brings them “inbound leads.” But if a news site is all blog and no purchase, what then? What is the income generating complement to news content? I hope it’s not advertising, or paid content, because people are resisting those, don’t you think?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516326066185312823.post-87924643974960981942009-02-04T20:53:00.000-07:002009-02-04T20:53:00.000-07:00Kristi - in my experience, journalists are great b...Kristi - in my experience, journalists are great bloggers (Jon fleck, mentioned in this post, is one of my favorite of both). So people can do it, and be really good at it. The problem for the industry is turning the online content into revenue.<BR/><BR/>Webcomics made the jump and were successful because they found ways to make income online - ads are part of that, certainly, and being successful at attracting traffic certainly means making more ad revenue. Added to that, however, are the merchandising opportunities afforded by creating proprietor-owned intellectual property to put on t-shirts, posters, mugs, stickers, and to sell in book form. Comics moved to the internet and changed their business model from syndicated features large newspapers paid to print, and ended up as hybrid comic-producing t-shirt-making enterprises. It's a pretty radical shift, but it relies on providing two products people want - comics and shirts. The personalized preferences tied into this allow comics (xkcd especially, others like Questionable Content and Scary Go Round) to sell merchandise tied to in-jokes (which feeds the comic) and which work as community identifiers. I'm much more likely to talk to someone with a shirt from a webcomic I like than a stranger, and that sense of community helps this industry.<BR/><BR/>All that said, the prospect for brilliant journalistic writing online as self-supported is shaky. People like Nate Silver (of fivethirtyeight.com fame) can do a lot on high traffic, topical writing, and playing with numbers in an incredibly valuable and unique way. But he does his political stuff on the side of his paying job (online stats stuff of a similar variety for baseball), and he's both a newcomer and an exception. I don't know how most journalists are going to adapt to the transition, but a trial by fire seems likely to make at least some survive.<BR/><BR/>Comics went online because of barriers to working in print, and comics online have developed independently and successfully based largely on limited other options. And the online world doesn't actually support all that many comic writers. Comics were one of the easier transitions.<BR/><BR/>I think print can do it - I just don't think comics have right now a lot to offer them, except the reality that a print medium can flourish online. And I'm more optimistic than this sounds.Kelsey Athertonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07530487540461606153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516326066185312823.post-54885056952412775082009-02-02T22:17:00.000-07:002009-02-02T22:17:00.000-07:00Hello, there. I follow you on Twitter, and I was l...Hello, there. I follow you on Twitter, and I was looking for the Gaza post you mentioned a while back and found this. I know you're talking about comics, mainly, but your question, "what will happen to journalists," got my imagination going. It's been a while since I took a moment to consider what will happen to quality journalism, and I'm less worried than I was. I've been actively seeking new blogs to read on a daily basis, and now that I stop to think about it again--journalist would be great bloggers, I'm thinking. They're used to providing regular content, fact-checking, and seeking multiple sources. I wonder what the hold up is in moving to the blaag format? Are media masterminds really still stymied by creating a new business model, or is this already shifting? What do you think?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com