News in the Time of Twitter

I was talking to a friend this afternoon, discussing the future of print newspapers (really!). I suggested that print news will be significantly pared down, much in the same way that radio was, from a daily (or two) for each town of moderate size to perhaps only one for each major city and none for smaller markets, save for independent, “boutique” papers. He had an interesting take on it: He noted that many of the technologies that were first tried during the first internet bubble didn’t “take,” only to catch hold in this one. Likewise, he posited that some that haven’t quite caught on this round – namely, podcasting – might take off the next time around. His theory, and an intriguing one at that, is that the major news “brands” – NYT, WaPo, etc. – will make most of their money by aggregating those individual news sources into, for lack of a better analogy, channels. In other words, individuals would upload breaking content from their locations to their podcasts (much in the same way that people Twitter), and the best of the best would be collected and promoted under the NYT channel, leveraging the brand recognition. Then, much like Digg, the most viewed stories would be followed and reported on in-depth by staff reporters.

It’s a way of giving the people what they want, and they news they’re interested in, and focusing limited resources in that direction.

I found his speculation on the subject fascinating. It all seems awfully likely, what with MSN/MSNBC’s Hulu taking off like a rocket…

We’ll see, I suppose.

Cheers!