Here's the paradox. We won't pay when we can get something for free; but we're willing to pay a lot for unique experiences involving real people and a sense of community.
Simon Jenkins muses on the future of the newspaper business in The Guardian. (And, yes, I feel a bit guilty that this reached me through my RSS reader, not through my letterbox.)
The one thing that the internet does not yet do well is to provide that warm feeling people have when in the presence of people with a common interest. We are a social animal.
A live event will always score over a virtual one until the internet gets its social graces.
Until that happens Simon Jenkins thesis works. There is no reason why it should not and it is a model that publishers have used for generations.
The real problem is the word mass. I remember when the FT had a circulation of a few hundred thousand and was very happy to be niche.
The Times was once a paper for the politician and the Mirror was for 'The Working Class'.
The authority of these titles was huge.
Their editors had power.
But it was not 'mass' that made them powerful, filled their conferences and gave them exclusive access to news for their readers. It was niche that gave them the power and the revenue.
A million USA readers is, no doubt, interesting for a UK online newspaper. It is mass but not money.
Posted by: David Phillips | Friday, August 14, 2009 at 09:24 AM