alison gow's List: Crystal ball gazing.

"former Facebook president Sean Parker: 'The new era of the network service: why companies like Facebook, Twitter, eBay and Apple (but not Google) will determine the future of the world."

market research suggests that going back to an evening news product may be one way for newspaper publishers to build new audiences and revenues. But the evening product of the 21st Century would be delivered on mobile and tablet platforms, not in print.

..."according to classic theory, modern, Taylorist/Fordist firms exist to solve the problem of transaction costs: It is more efficient and easier to finance to create one big organisational body with a common goal and established processes than individuals having to coordinate and finance every single transaction. Such firms create hierarchies to prioritize resources: Because transaction costs and business process switching costs are high, someone trusted and smart should make all those costly decisions.
But the Internet has in many cases all but eradicated transaction costs, switching costs, and big upfront investments. Today’s knowledge work is deeply non-routine, non-linear, and lumpy – not an even, steady assembly line stream"...

..."At every turn, the question must be where can I add the greatest value? Is that necessarily in writing articles? One way to answer that question would be to audit the articles we are served today, especially in local papers. How many repeat news we already know? How many are rewritten from wire services and press releases for the sake of producing a byline? How much space is taken up with background paragraphs – which inevitably tell some readers too little and the rest too much? Couldn't that need be better served with links to a constantly updated archive of recent history and in-depth explainers?"...

Curation, not aggregation, is the future...

I like the phrase 'work with a sense of urgency...
"When it comes to staff in the transition to digital, Parrish said, “First, work with a sense of urgency. The digital world is changing so quickly. Change has accelerated 100-fold since I’ve been doing this. We have to be able to try and, if necessary, move on quickly. Be comfortable with not knowing what’s next.
“Such people are not that common in legacy companies like ours. To accomplish the transformation, we need people who embrace the future and are willing to take risks.” "

"General news becomes mass available as soon as it hits the Web, so it doesn’t hold any monetary value to readers. Don’t waste time, energy, and money by chasing these stories. Instead, link to another news organization that has already done the legwork. By focusing on the stories you excel at you’ll be able to best serve your audience and ensure that other news sites are linking back to your content. "

Rubel's 3 emerging trends for media:
Building business models that incorporate curation,
Increased data mining and analytics about real-time engagement with media content (Steve used the particular example of chartbeat during the discussion), and
The increased importance of facebook’s open graph. Those media that understand and utilise the open graph to increase views, shares and engagement will improve their edgerank greatly. In short, those media that engage with facebook in this manner will be more valuable than those that don’t.

after the success of the New York Times' decision to start charging for digital content in 2011― the paper reported 454,000 digital subscribers as of this March – other news organizations are following suit. Gannett, which owns more than 80 daily newspapers, will roll out similar plans for all of its papers except USA Today.

"For too long some mainstream newspapers and magazines have treated their websites as dumping grounds for the text and thumbnail images associated with their articles. That or, worse, they kept the "web edition" sparse, merely uploading blogs and short pieces as a sort of useless teaser for the print version. New design concepts on the block may, at last, be provoking a rethink.

Personally I don't believe in paywalls or a future of digital publishing which ignores long form writing. I think we're way past the legitimacy of either option, to be honest. That's partly because there are already publications proving, by virtue of their profitability, that special feature design is what online journalism has to do next. The trick, of course, is doing it in the right way - and at the right cost."