A very long time ago, during the early spring of 1996, I wrote a note on the online-news mailing list bewailing the fact that the newspaper industry simply wasn't responding to the clear and growing threat of the Internet. The note was republished in June, 1996 in CMC Magazine. [read it here]. Watching eBay's announcements in the last few days, I couldn't help thinking about that note and regretting that the newspapers not only ignored my message but also the similar warnings from many others.
Today, eBay announced that they were buying Rent.com for $415 million. Just a short while ago, eBay announced that they were offering a "want-it-now" offer-to-buy service to compliment the "offer-to-sell" services they have traditionally provided. (See: http://pages.ebay.com/wantitnow/. ) They have also announced the purchase of leading classified listing sites in the Netherlands, Korea and India. All of these actions pose deadly threats to the newspaper industry. While the newspapers may pride themselves on their content, the reality is that they are in the ad sales business -- at least they have been traditionally. We may rely on newspapers for high-quality reporting and editorial writing, but newspapers rely on advertising for funding.
Are we looking at a future in which the newspapers lose so much of their revenue generating capability that more and more of them close of reduce their editions? (See: Internet Kills LA Times National Edition) Will newspapers become obsolete -- replaced by a Google-Zon or WikiNews? Will Microsoft's Robert Scoble or the folk at EnGadget replace The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg?
Up until just a few years ago, at an NAA convention, you would hear the newspapers declare that they were the "Primary source of news and information for our communities." Today, such a claim is only rarely made... The successive waves of radio, television, corporate consolidation, high paper costs and now the Internet appear to have critically eroded one of the most vital elements of our democracy, yet, there still is little evidence that the industry is willing to face up to reality and fight back to maintain their franchise.
Fortunately, there are a few signs -- just a few -- that at least some folk in the newspaper industry are willing to be creative and fight back. The New York Times, for instance, has consistently proved their ability to focus on the problem of building revenues on the Internet and has implemented numerous innovative and high-quality services, including News Tracker and RSS feeds, in order to do so. As PubSub's LinkRanks attest, the New York Times is the one of the most frequently linked to sites from blog space -- a position that is, undoubtedly, being monetized. Recently, the French newspaper Le Monde started offering blog hosting in partnership with Typepad.
But, whatever few signs there may be that some in the newspaper business are seriously fighting to resist the relentless attack of Internet services, the hard truth is that the newspaper industry is losing this battle. Let's all hope that they wake up soon and find a way to once again learn to provide sustainable, engaging, leadership information services. If they don't, then the predicted rise of EPIC will be all too real.
bob wyman
