Tuesday, June 5, 2007

what's gonna happen?

who/what will end up subsidising journalism?

re: Technology isn’t destroying journalism. “It’s simply destroying the business that subsidized journalism.”

Jay, I'm wondering what you think will happen. It doesn't seem to look promising at the moment... but do you think alternative successful ways to "produce" journalism will be found? *in time*? If not, what will happen? Will the government end up having to subsidize the gathering and dissemination of basic info we *really* need to get?

Delia
(http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2007/06/04/currmudgeon_nh.html#comment47842)


Mark,


My concern is that nobody seems to have come up with a "journalistic car" that works... yet, nonetheless, the "horse and buggy journalism" appears to be in the process of dismantling...
So you get the expected reactions: those who strongly believe *something* will come around and solve the problem vs. those who aren't that optimistic...


I like being optimistic but I think we NEED to have some sort of fall back scenario.


Delia



I'm wondering if advertising delivered what was believed to deliver in the print form: I mean, it seems that all advertisers had to go by was how many people read the paper...there were no clicks or anything of the kind to really *know* how many people were even cursorily interested in the ads.


Could it be that the advertisers were paying a lot of money for those ads because they just *believed* they were getting them customers but that wasn't in fact the case?


Could it be that this false belief was easily dispelled online were it was just a lot easier to see that eyeballs do NOT equal dollars? that you can have a lot of traffic and in the same time not many readers even glancing at your ads?


Delia



that doesn't convince me (in itself)-- people have been wrong about a lot of things for much longer than 100 years... but let's say it *did* work: did they figure out *how* it worked? (*what* made it work?)...that may give good clues as to how to make advertising work online D.



Jay,


If it's "stolen" it's only because they *allow* it... (it would be easy to NOT allow links to their stuff if they didn't want it); so I don't know what's going here... doesn't see to add up... If you see your stuff gets stolen, you don't continue to leave the door open...


Delia


P.S. did anybody at least try to see if they could give *permission* to link (since they are not legally or otherwise required to allow it) in EXCHANGE for a percentage of the money Google etc. makes as a *direct result* of using those links? that would seem fair to me... D.



re: "news sites will make more money by having their content pop up on Google News than they otherwise would"


you'd hope there would be some money to be made from that (the traffic driven back to the paper from Google news and such), but it appears that the profits are no that easy to realize...


... so, since that doesn't take care of the problem (from the journalism content producers' side) and since they are no required to allow links... you'd think that as long as they would stand their ground, they should be able to work out something with Google etc.


after all, if the content production dries up, Google wouldn't have *what* to make money off...


Delia



Jay, I take it there haven't been attempts to really negotiate with Google etc. in this respect (or you are not aware of any)-- would you be against something like that? do you think it *might* work and if so in what circumstances? D.



Lame Man,


It *does* make sense: Google would make no money whatsoever if it ONLY did what newspapers can't stop it from doing (just give a short "sampling" of the news they find relevant -- headlines or short passages -- with NO link to where to go find the stuff... *nobody* would be interested in tracking those things down on their own, well, close to nobody...)


Now, if Google did this... just to be *nice* -- provided this to the community and made *no money* at it -- it would be one thing, but this is NOT what's going on... Google makes money! (Jay says not much but who's to judge? their profit margin may still be quite high...)


So then what's the problem with sharing those profits with those who produce the journalism Google uses to *make $*? The fact that the journalism producers don't *have to* allow links give them a bargaining position (well... it *secures* the bargaining position they should rightly have since they are the *content producers* without which none of this could be happening in the first place... )


Delia


P.S. sorry, Jay (looks like we disagree on this one) D.



Jay, would it make a difference to you if the Paul Bass kind of enterprise (a journalistic non-profit, and not commercial journalism) was getting a share of Google's direct profits from using their work? D.



Tim,


I don't know who were you addressing in that post but it was good info! looks like it doesn't even come down to being or not being allowed to link, looks like just the *aggregation of quotes* is in violation of the law... imagine that!


Good thing I didn't start Delia's Random News... (not that I was really considering it). So much for Dan Gillmor's idea that you have the (fair use)right to quote for whatever reason whatsoever --looks like Google would have to integrate those quotes in some sort of a critique or something... (to be within their rights)-- it would be interesting to see! (I wonder if they've considered it...)


Delia


P.S. it's hard to believe that a lot of people are just reading those quotes and not following the links (*very* counterintuitive... and pretty much wrecks my theory:)-- that's the part that sucks!) *lol*


P.P.S. good night, all! D.



Jay, apparently Google was at fault (legally) and it looks like they agreed to "pay up"; they appear to want to keep it "localized" (by not disclosing what kind of financial agreement they made) but I doubt they will succeed -- after seeing that it *can* be done, pretty much anybody who can legally go after them, probably will...re: Tim's links D.



*lol* not quite :) looks like they are just not going to be able to keep ALL they money to themselves... D.

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