Tuesday, February 24, 2009

What will I write about when there aren't newspapers anymore?

This will be a bit of navel gazing, but it's becoming increasingly clear that some time in the near future the newspaper as we know it will cease to exist. While I don't doubt there will be some distribution of time sensitive information via a printed and distributed network, it will have to be a significant change from the status quo. It could be unrequested distribution like the Express chain of papers, weekly tabloids similar to the alternative press, or a premium offering targeted only at the information elite at an increased price. Regardless, newspapers as we know them today are clearly suffering from extreme atrophy and one day will undergo a metamorphosis.

So the question I've been asking myself is: what is to become of me and this blog?

This domain is clearly tied to the discussion of an "ink on paper" news business. Will we still call them newspapers when they are only on the Internet and/or Kindle? If they go away, those of us chronicling their decline and offering advice will go away as well.

These questions have caused me a bit of blogger's block.

I have hope that a new model will emerge that makes some sense. There's a future in news, but not necessarily paper.

Unfortunately newsbiz and localnewsbiz are already taken as domain names, though neither are active. A further unfortunate truth is that i monetize more poorly than newspapers, so I will be buying neither.

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