Creative Destruction of Journalism 2000-2020
Newspapers and Magazines
Economics of information goods in physical medium
- bundled
- broadcast (one to many)
- authoritative and reliable
Content on the Web
Economics of information goods in digital medium
- unbundling
- production cost decreases
- reproduction cost becomes zero
- distribution cost decreases
Bloggers
Economics of information goods in digital medium over the interactive Web
- a few consumers become producers
- peer review and fact checking (aka open sourcing news and politics)
- discussions replace broadcast (few to few, with many still only consuming)
- production cost decreases further
- distribution cost decreases further
Twitter and emerging services
Economics of information goods in digital medium over the social media Internet
- many consumers become producers
- producers’ brand, reputation, authenticity, transparency, and disclosure accumulates over time
- distribution cost becomes revenue source for “popular” producers
- 2% self-promoting producers; 98% producers who share with small groups of friends
- multiple, simultaneous real-time conversations (one to few to many to few… in parallel over small networks)
- mobile apps enable real time sharing creating a sense of immediacy
As for monetization, I think mobile apps (preferably social, idealistic, and transparent about their mission) with local ads has the highest potential of making money. Separate, small content producing operations run by individuals will continue to be profitable (adsense and sponsorships) because they command a lot of attention and trust.