I don’t think anyone doubts Varian’s view that only very specialized content will draw consumers in enough to where they’ll pay. The experimentation is taking place, albeit it seems only sparse. Most news organizations appear to have implemented some form of user-generated content by now, but sadly that’s just not enough.
Did they really think opening up comments on stories would make that much of a difference? Fact is, most comment streams look terribly stale when compared to the real-time conversations happening in niche communities and social networks like Twitter.
In my view, the best thing that newspapers can do now is experiment, experiment, experiment. There are huge cost savings associated with online news. Roughly 50% of the cost of producing a physical newspaper is in printing and distribution, with only about 15% of total costs being editorial. Newspapers could save a lot of money if the primary access to news was via the internet. Hal Varian, Chief Economist
On a brighter note, some news organizations have realized that information sometimes needs to be packaged in other ways in order to be valuable. The example I always use is Mint.com. The way they’ve used the aggregated data of their user base is not only creative but it drives interest. More interest is exactly what newspapers need.
As far as experimentation, I think that will come in the form of real-time curation and collaboration with citizen journalists and other hyper-local sources. The move to more open styles of reporting and media coverage will tap into an ecosystem of information sources that will provide other forms of advertising and e-commerce.
"The study found that 65 percent of the largest 100 international companies have active accounts on Twitter, 54 percent have a Facebook fan page, 50 percent have a YouTube channel, and one-third (33 percent) have corporate blogs. Only 20 percent of the major international companies are utilizing all four platforms to engage with stakeholders."
I kept trying to connect all the the dots around Google Buzz over the last few days and ran across this quote from Chris Messina.
“In fact, I’d argue that Buzz is as much about Google creating a new channel for conversation in a familiar place as it is about how we’re going about building its public developer surfaces. Although today’s Buzz API only offers a real-time read-only activity stream, the goal is to move quickly towards implementing a host of other technologies — most of which should be familiar to readers of this blog.”
That obviously speaks well to the "open web" movement and how Google is positioning its APIs. Whether or not dropping social elements in GMail is your idea of better collaboration, it’s hard to deny that familiarity with something as utilitarian as email breeds adoption.
But to think email is the only anchor the Buzz ship will hitch itself too is naive. Even if Buzz can make a permanent home in your inbox, that might be enough for it to make inroads against Microsoft and IBM in the messaging wars. In fact, just last week Gartner made some predictions about the forthcoming collision of email and social networks.
“By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.”
“Greater availability of social networking services both inside and outside the firewall, coupled with changing demographics and work styles will lead 20 percent of users to make a social network the hub of their business communications. Social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities such as status updates and expertise location. “The rigid distinction between e-mail and social networks will erode.”
With Aardvark in the Google arsenal, it immediately gets deeper into social search, mobile and more importantly sets the stage for biting off bigger pieces of the enterprise. Think about how Aardvark could easily be repurposed as a self-service support tool incorporated into the fabric of Google Apps — with Buzz as the interface to support systems or social CRM services. All of sudden, it’s not just email that’s housing all that collaboration, it’s just another interface.
With Aardvark in the Google arsenal, it immediately gets deeper into social search, mobile and more importantly sets the stage for biting off bigger pieces of the enterprise. Think about how Aardvark could easily be repurposed as a self-service support tool incorporated into the fabric of Google Apps — with Buzz as the interface to support systems or social CRM services. All of sudden, it’s not just email that’s housing all that collaboration, it’s just another interface.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=4e8b806e-580a-4114-822f-72f79923ee33)
