Newspapers won’t die, but some should

The OJR posted an article that is by far the stupidest argument I’ve ever seen on why journalism is bound to fail. The gist of the argument is that people never paid for news, thus people will not pay for news. I believe only the former is correct, agreeing with Rupert Murdoch that people will be inclined to pay for quality information. I also believe that news and journalism are ENTIRELY different things and journalists should have some kind of bar or authorization process like attorneys and doctors, but that is another story. The reasoning that precedent predicts the future is a weak one because paradigms shift. For instance, a few years ago, the western world was skeptical about virtual goods. “Why would anyone want to pay to get something that’s not even real?” I remember one guy asking at the Virtual Worlds Conference a couple years ago. But lo and behold, it’s happening now. But to get back to my point…

So you ask, why aren’t people paying now for news? My answer is: duh, because they don’t have to. If it’s free on the Internet, you would have to be pretty darn stupid to pay for it. (Other reasons other than stupidity could be that you are full of yourself, have eye disorders and are unable to look at a monitor, or have some kind of paper fetish…). There is far too much information and much of it is the same. Newspapers initially died (and this was before the Internet came along and fanned the flames) when you couldn’t tell a NYT article from a Washington Post article. Think of the basic supply, demand, and cost graphs used in marketing. Excess of supply always results in low costs. Newspapers failed not because the industry solely relied on advertising revenues, but because they were ignorant of the exponential rising curve of supply.

We should be asking ourselves: do we really need to pay people to cover things a zillion other people are writing about? Maybe we should let the wires cover the hard news and focus on features. Maybe newspapers and broadcasting companies should merge. Fact of the matter is, there are too many reporters and god knows who is reliable. Amid all this cr** content, maybe it’s okay to let some newspapers die. Maybe it’s okay to let all newspapers die. It’s like when the walkman or phonograph died. That didn’t stop us from listening to music. If anything, we’re listening to more music than ever. Newspaper consumption does not equal news consumption.

Secondly, (and I’ve also talked about this before) is that it’s all about the convenience of financial transactions. Which is why people spend money on iPhone apps, or buy the NYT on the Kindle. People are willing to pay for content as long as it’s super-easy. So this changes the questions we should be asking. How do we make online payment easier? Adding everything to your mobile phone bill could be one example, like they do in Korea.

Thirdly, make it attractive. Visually. People are willing to pay for pretty stuff. Why would I subscribe to Wired when I can read all of its articles online? Because it’s aesthetically pleasing (and I don’t have a computer in my bathroom– at least, not yet). News is a product and I can’t believe how some ‘vendors’ (I dare not even categorize them as newspapers) think they can get away with selling an ugly product.

So, what happens with local news? Well, I’ve proposed before that hyperlocal news can work if it really engages its local readers. Really crappy “local” magazines are still running because people buy them for $5 on a quarterly or biannual basis for a copy, even if they have no special content. Why wouldn’t they pay $10 or $20 a year for a good quality local newspaper (sans the paper)? My hyperlocal news model involves two editors, a bunch of freelancers, and “community reporters.” Note that I say hyper local news– not newspaper! As much as I love paper– the grains, the weight, the colors– trees are a valuable resource and we should be cherishing them more for semi-permanent, beautiful things like scrapbooks and cards instead of throwing them out everyday and letting our dogs pee on them (one of the greater reasons my parents continued to subscribe to a physical paper was because the paper could be “recycled” for our house puppy).

To make a long rant short, my points are: 1) newspapers may die, but news will not. 2) People will be willing to pay if there is quality content with limited availability.3) Make it visually attractive (The pretty girl will always get more dates than the ugly one) and finally, the newspaper industry and the news industry are NOT the same, as journalism and news reporting is NOT the same.

No longer Tweeting about (just) me

When Twitter first started, the question was “What are you doing? (reply in 140 characters or less)”

Many took the question literally. So there were a lot of people writing short posts that were like short snippets of their diary. “Going to the movies” or “Meeting with bff” are examples of common Tweets that are literal answers to the question.

But like all tools, people began to see that Twitter could be more than a chronicle of one’s daily events. It was more than an outlet of raves and rants. Twitter users started to find innovative ways of communicating, even creating their own “utilities” such as hashtags and retweets. For many, Twitter became an important source of information, like a newsfeed where one could subscribe to a number of news providers. This prompted many legacy news organizations as well as bloggers, corporate PR and anyone who wanted their information out there to join Twitter.

Twitter also proved to be handy in crowdsourcing information, a live citizen news feed for the Mumbai terrorist attacks (although it also played a part in actually helping the terrorists) and also a place to publicly share emotions and opinions, like for the death of Michael Jackson.

Now, Twitter’s question reads: “What’s happening?” It is not specific to the user’s experience, and although one could certainly keep talking about personal things, this seems to signal a shift in micro-blogging culture– a shift from “me” to “us.” How will this affect status updates? Will we see a trend in less self-related Tweets? How much does the official question affect what people write? What new ways will we see users repurpose Twitter for yet another communicative purpose? The question posed in Facebook’s status update is “What’s on your mind?” reflecting Twitter’s initial question about the individual. If the microblogging trend is going towards collective information, then perhaps Facebook will soon change its question too.

Hwang Woo-suk is Guilty!

After three years and 43 hearings, the Korean court finally decided to put an end to the whole Hwang scandal. Hwang was sentenced to 2 years in prison but the sentence is suspended for 3 years. Basically what this means is that Hwang is supposed to go to jail for two years but that it’s being put off for three years; if Hwang does not violate the law during that time, the jail sentence is cleared and the guilty verdict no longer applies. In most cases with high-profile in Korea, a person who receives this kind of sentence will end up not going to jail.

*Bioethics law violation => GUILTY
*Fraud => NOT GUILTY (The Times Online says “guilty of fraud” which is incorrect)
*Embezzling funds => GUILTY

Despite the disgrace, Hwang isn’t in such a bad position (he seems pretty happy in all the press photos). He’s head of Sooam Biotech, a privately funded research center where he continues to do cloning work on animals instead of humans (good call: although he faked the human cloning research, he was proven to have cloned the world’s first dog). Since then, he’s been cloning dogs for commercial purposes and cloning mini pigs for human organ transplants.

A few months ago, he signed an MOU with Gyeonggi province to conduct joint research to clone gnotobiotic mini pigs that have diabetes so that they can test drugs on the pigs. (Apparently pigs are better subjects than rats.) He also has a bunch of devout followers (comprised of various religious groups, politicians…) who not only support him emotionally, but are willing to shell out their money for his research.

Facebook is slow in developing microtransactions content

Facebook announced that it is now selling music; a move that I believe took extremely long, given that music was a huge driving force for Myspace and Cyworld. I sometimes don’t understand why Facebook is slow in adopting business models that have already been proven in other markets. For instance, it kind of lost the virtual room model to Zynga (although I suppose if Facebook were to adopt its own virtual room thing it would squash Zynga) a business model fueled by micro transactions. I also don’t know why it hasn’t adopted the micro transactions model for customizable fonts and customizable skins. Since self-representation is such an important factor of social network sites, it only seems to make sense that such elements be hugely popular. Fonts and skins are extremely easy and cheap to produce; these elements may not be adopted by older users but younger users (and perhaps middle-aged women) will definitely be interested.

In a sense, Facebook has it easy because it can adopt business models that have been successful with Cyworld, which is a few years older and only popular in Korea and a couple other asian countries. If that is so, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Facebook adding more microtransaction content (like fonts, skins), and introducing services that make it a one-stop browser, which would include adding self-accounting services, subscribing to news, and becoming kind of like iGoogle.

It would also be super cool if Facebook could work with Amazon to put the universal wish list into Facebook so that you can send your friends gifts without having to know their addresses. FB is actually perfect for weddings if there was a wedding app that lets you invite your friends, put up your registry, share photos, etc. (There probably already is one) Would be nice if that could be in place before I get married, hehehe.