Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Hyperlocal hybrid

Interesting developments in journalism these days. On the one hand media moguls are trying to consolidate and monetize traditional media streams via subscriptions:

A trio of media executives that includes Court TV and Brill's Content founder Steven Brill, former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, and Leo Hindery, Jr., managing partner of private equity fund InterMedia Partners, on Tuesday announced the launch of a Journalism Online, a new venture that aims to help monetize online news publishing. The venture plans to create a distributable system that will allow publishers to charge annual or monthly subscriptions to view their content, as well as a portal where consumers could pay a single fee to access content from multiple participating publications.

Media Executives Brill, Crovitz Debut "Journalism Online" Venture | Digital Media Wire


Good luck with the subscription model. On the other hand, the hyperlocal trend shows more promise:
A number of Web start-up companies are creating so-called hyperlocal news sites that let people zoom in on what is happening closest to them, often without involving traditional journalists. The sites, like EveryBlock, Outside.in, Placeblogger and Patch, collect links to articles and blogs and often supplement them with data from local governments and other sources. They might let a visitor know about an arrest a block away, the sale of a home down the street and reviews of nearby restaurants.

‘Hyperlocal’ Web Sites Deliver News Without Newspapers - NYTimes.com

My money is on traditional media teaming up with hypermedia.

1 comment:

Kevin Hodgson said...

As a former journalist, I keep wondering where the future of media will be found. I suspect there will be many directions taken and only a few will pan out. Too bad so many media companies got fat and lazy during the 80s and didn't see the train wreck coming. It's hard to feel sorry for them, even though I am saddened by the demise of so many newspapers (and more to come, no doubt)
Kevin