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If you have been paying attention you will realize this is not a new idea - the media has become commoditized. The internet has made information widely available thus lowering the quality of the majority of traditional media.

Newspapers like The Des Moines Register, whose staple content is the AP/Reuters wire, are publishing content that once available only to major publishers is now available to everyone via thousands of websites and RSS feeds. Magazines like Business Week publish the same content in a paid subscription model via their magazine as well as a free model via their website.

I started thinking about this idea several weeks ago when I got my latest copy of Business 2.0 in the mail. I thought, as I pulled it out of my mailbox, “Why do I still subscribe to this?”. I can get this content for free on any one of the thirteen computers I have in every room of my house.

So we all know and have realized this issue over the last several years, but what are publishers to do about it? Many have adopted new media strategies but that is not enough. It’s the content that differentiates a publication, not the method of production. You can run the same content through the newspaper, blog, podcast etc but it is still the same thing I can read/see/hear in another media channel.

Enter the hyper-local user generated model. For example, while the Des Moines Register republishes the same content as USA Today and other Gannett news publications, websites like Iowa Blogs focus on user generated content often of the hyper-local variety. This is the new paradigm of which cannot be ignored by major publishers. They need to learn it is their content that creates value, not their advertising inventory. And if the content being published can be acquired by its target audience anytime, anywhere, anyhow then your model has been commoditized, thus lessening the value of your publication.

Some publishers get it…

Oh, and why do I still subscribe to Business 2.0? Excellent content and great design, of course…

Sorry to pick on The Des Moines Register - they are just the local newspaper. Although I still think they should hire me for a weekly tech column… instead of, ahem, republishing everyone else’s content…

Disclosure - Simplifive runs the Iowa Blogs website and I am the editor.

Tags: Media, Commiditization, Des Moines Register, Iowa Blogs, Hyper-Local, User Generated Content

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U of L circulated a memo on the issue from Jeramy Michiaels, the NCAA’s manager of broadcasting, before Friday’s first super-regional game. It said blogs are considered a “live representation of the game” and that any blog containing action photos or game reports would be prohibited.

“In essence, no blog entries are permitted between the first pitch and the final out of each game,” the memo said.

This is a very interesting story out of Louisville, KY and could very well serve as some precedent. Thoughts?

I agree with the Courier-Journal that indeed this is absurd. I could not put it better than they:

“It’s a real question that we’re being deprived of our right to report within the First Amendment from a public facility,” said Jon L. Fleischaker, the newspaper’s attorney.

“Once a player hits a home run, that’s a fact. It’s on TV. Everybody sees it. (The NCAA) can’t copyright that fact. The blog wasn’t a simulcast or a recreation of the game. It was an analysis.”

I’m sure we’ll hear commentary for the next several days regarding this subject.

from courier-journal’s rich bozich - via techdirt

Tags: Courier-Journal, Blogging, Ejection, NCAA

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Tags: Advertising, Video, The Break Up, Marketing

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I wonder when the Des Moines Register will adopt this attitude…

What attitude? Blaming the internet for failure, again. Guess what - you’ve had ample opportunity to adapt and you haven’t listened. All you had to do was divert eyeballs through a different medium.

Walter Hussman Jr writes in a WSJ column that free is a “disastrous business plan.” He discusses that young, computer-saavy consumers like myself won’t buy a paper because I can find ‘all the news that’s fit to print’ online. (that blurb is on the front of every NYT - don’t tell me that I don’t read newspapers)

Yeah, you are right. Your problem is that you should have figured out this was going to be the case ten years ago. How much more obvious could it have been?

A question, Walter, is how can you explain a rise in newspaper circulation?

There’s been a resurgance of the talks of newspapers closing shop due to the loss of advertising (Google’s fault) and classifieds (Craigslist’s fault) revenue. Bill Gates is correct (in my opinion) in saying newspapers will be online in five years. The question I have is how many newspapers will start working towards that now - rather than when it is too late? If it isn’t already…

Tags: Newspapers, Web, Media

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The latest industry going the way of web three dot oh is that of classifieds. We saw them go 2.0 with excellent sites like simplyhired and edgeio. Now people are starting to wrap applications and aggregators around this data.

This news comes with a couple announcements. Facebook is thinking about launching local classifieds, MySpace is thinking about a job board (do we really need another job board), and we may be thinking about doing something in that area (i love subtle hints).

Jeff Jarvis has a good line in his post, “Bye-Bye classifieds“:

Stage 1: They move from newspapers to new services, like Craigslist and Monster, online. Stage 2: They move into communities like Facebook and Myspace. Phase 3, yet to come: They are distributed, no longer in a centralized marketplace, and technology brings them together.

If Stage 1 is Web 1.0 and Stage 2 is Web 2.0, than Phase 3 will be the web-three-dot-oh-ification of the classifieds market.

What’s Web 3.0? or Web Three Dot Oh?

Tags: web 3.0, web three dot oh, web, classifieds

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