Newsosaur

Hopes this succeeds...my impression of the news business is that journalists have vastly underestimated the importance of delivery system. Newspapers had success in the pre-Internet days, not just because of good journalism, but of good delivery systems. There's a reason why afternoon newspapers died as television became popular (back in 1948, there were 1,453 afternoon papers versus 328 newspapers: http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2008/02/rip-pm-newspapers.html)...it'… not that people are just attracted to stellar journalism, but the newspaper is expected to provide a useful, reliable service (such as classifieds). Too many journalists thought that people paid to subscribe because they, deep inside, cared about the First Amendment and freedom of the press. Yes, some subscribers do. I pay for the New York Times and the New Yorker because I want to support them, but there's not enough people like me around. And truth be told, the New Yorker's digital service is a pain in the ass. For awhile, their user-management system was horrible (find your print magazine, enter your name in exactly as it appears on the label) and the web-viewer is trash, and to read it on iPad meant downloading hundreds of megabytes per issue. I only use the digital service because it comes free with the print subscription and would never subscribe to digital alone. Reducing friction has been a huge factor to online subscription services in general and the news industry has been far behind on it...hopefully…

Thanks. I've been running a local news site in Chicago for two years now. I eat/sleep/breathe local indie news. Those are my friends and colleagues. No one's making any money. Windy Citizen is just ramen profitable, and I'm seen as an example of a "success" when I go to conferences and the like. Yes, hyperlocal sites could be the next step, but right now, with a few exceptions (http://thebatavian.com, baristanet.com) no one's making any money. To run a hyperlocal site, you have to produce great content AND be an exceptional salesman. That's friggin' hard. You have to do both of these because you'll never raise capital. It will be a lifestyle business. There's no YC for community news sites. Here's the latest report on how this new generation of local news sites is just not getting it done on the business front (again, with a few exceptions): http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2010/10/community-news-sites-are-not-bus…

They have a phrase for this in the newspaper industry, "replacing print dollars with digital dimes". If you're interested in a lot more facts & figures plus a graph this post has them: http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2012/03/newspaper-sales-slid-to-1984-lev…

> A financially stable newspaper gets around 75-80% of its gross revenue from advertisements. In the glory days, a solid 30-40% of revenue was from classified ads, which were _way_ overpriced, but the only game in town. You may find this of interest: http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2010/09/newspaper-ad-sales-head-to-25-ye…

The simple creation of a thing doesn't entitle the creator to payment. The music/movie/IP industry has an opportunity/problem. While they could limit supply, they could sustain a monopoly business model with high prices. Now that there's a new, unlimited supply, the business model has to change. It's not that people won't pay for good content, it's that they won't pay for the same product anymore. A quick thought experiment: People paid for CDs because they wanted access to music in their own homes. They paid for _access_. A new business model could continue to charge for the same product. Access could include live streamed concerts, studio recordings, first-access downloads of new tracks, notifications of new bands similar to what you like, small, local, live performances, etc… Scroll to the bottom here for a quick idea of what they _can_ charge for: http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-sell-news-on-web-checklis… TL;DR It's not the consumer's fault that the industry can't make money on their product.