New Media Reflections

I know this sounds like an oxymoron, but if it works out, the new newspaper, The Printed Blog, may have found a way to save and revitalize the print newspaper. They basically produce content that is user-generated, format it as a blog, then print it and distribute it as a newspaper. Their financial sustenance will come from ads posted on the page. The model is that there will be local ads in local papers that target smaller communities. In a larger city such as Chicago, they anticipate there could be as many as 50 versions printed for the distinct areas of the city. This seems like a viable and very interesting model. I would like to have very localized news available, and written by someone who understands the issues of my local community. There is cost savings in not hiring reporters and photographers. I don’t really like to see these people phased out, but hey, they can blog too. It somewhat changes the perception of who is a journalist. The concept of the citizen journalist is often criticized as lowering the standards of journalism. But I think the best writers will prevail, and the fundamentals of good journalism will still apply. This model combines the best of what is available on the web and the best of what print newspapers do well.

See the New York Times article on this.

Tags: Uncategorized by markcotrupe
3 Comments »

Thank you Apple, for leading the way to a more rational future in the music download arena. I know it’s been hard to figure out how people can legally attain the music downloads they seek and yet reimburse the artists so they can have some financial motivation to continue producing music for public consumption. Once it  became possible to download music from the Internet, consumers lost incentive to go out and buy a CD. Certainly a contributing factor was that the consumer could pick and choose which songs they wanted. Everyone knows that the CDs, as the albums before them, contained “B” side tunes that no one really wanted. Downloading became the ideal way to obtain music. And companies like Apple found a compromise where the artists can be compensated and the public could download anything they liked. For 99 cents, who would hesitate downloading a song?

There was one issue with this model though. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a method of encoding that limited the use of the downloaded music. If I downloaded a song, I could only use it in certain ways, couldn’t share it with others; it was password protected as my download. The counter argument would be that I paid to download that tune, I should be able to use it freely (except for commercial gain of course). So that is what Apple has decided to provide now. They are eliminating the DRM encryption and allowing us to use music freely. I think there has been a concern that shared music is free music that doesn’t compensate the artist. But it can also benefit from viral marketing and be the best advertisement. If I got a song I liked that a friend shared with me, I would be likely to head over to iTunes and buy more by that artist.

I hope this is the beginning of the music industry, the purveyors, and the public being able to live in peaceful harmony regarding music downloads.

Tags: Uncategorized by markcotrupe
No Comments »