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I’ve been avidly following the debate about the future of print media, and it’s certainly not difficult to find fresh opinions on what’s going to happen next. It’s a topic that has captured many people's imaginations and everyone has questions to ask: can publishers adapt; will consumers define the new model; how is the internet driving change?
Whilst I sympathise with publishers who are currently facing plummeting circulation figures, failing advertising revenue streams and uncontrollable plagiarism of their “exclusives” across the web, I can also see why consumers see no reason to pay for a printed version of something that they can read online for free. Can a compromise be reached?
An interesting development that combines the new world of social media and the ageing world of newspapers caught my eye last week. It’s called The Twitter Times.
We all have our allegiances to certain newspapers, magazines and websites; we excitedly await their arrival on our doorstep or logging on to read the latest debate on topics that are important to us.
The Twitter Times takes the concept of reflecting your personal interests one step further. It is essentially a bespoke online newspaper which collates news and blog posts from items shared by your Twitter connections. It also aims to expand your horizons by including articles from the followers of your followers which it supposes might also be of interest to you.
Since I use my Twitter account on a largely professional basis, my connections fall into rather distinct categories: social media; online marketing; PR; technology; celebrity.
Thankfully, this is clearly reflected in my personalised edition of The Twitter Times:
I’m not suggesting that The Twitter Times offers us the answer to the conundrum of paid vs. free content (it’s currently a free application, after all), but it certainly offers some food for thought to more traditional publishers about delivering content that people really want.
We all know that we’re more likely to follow a recommendation from a friend than one from a stranger, so it makes sense that we would rather read articles endorsed by our contacts than by an editor we’ll probably never meet.
Content that is fresh, relevant and accurate is vital for the success of the media, and the stickiness of any website. If you’re after a bit of advice about content management and producing information that will meet the needs of your particular audience (and the search engines), get in touch. We’d love to help.
(2) comments
Comments
The Evening Standard is the latest newspaper to go free in the evenings in London, I can't see how any online newspaper will be able to charge for access unless they are offering something that can not be obtained elsewhere.
The FT do this very well and have recently announced revenue increases (http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/946736/FT-Group-earnings-10/).
I personally thought the The Twitter Times website was rather poor, took too long to gather data and design is a little dated - but the concept could work.
Moving slightly away from paid content, interesting that Rupert Murdoch plans to block Google from his newspaper websites (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/09/murdoch-google) - happy days for the rest of the newspapers!
I don't think people have many problems with the way they receive their news - there's a lot of choice, and the Twitter Times is just one way of pulling information together. Whether you want RSS, online video, traditional news sites, aggregators like Google News, facsimile PDFs of papers like the Guardian and so on, the options are out there.
I think, though, that people tend to have greater loyalty to content than to format. They also like choice. What the Twitter Times does is to give you recommendations, not control over your news. You need both, and there's no harm looking at stuff chosen by an experienced editor too.
So, an interesting toy in my opinion (and one that took an age to work first time I tried it!), but the real question is how we are going to balance flexibility of format with readers' willingness to pay.
Something tells me that the battleground for that is being drawn up by <a href="http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/wire/5783" target="_blank">this man</a>.