Modernize Newspapers

The News Comes to Us Now

If a newspaper makes a website and nobody sees it, does it exist?

 

It's hard to think up a piece of the journalism puzzle that isn't changing these days. Advertising revenue is shifting online, as are newspaper readers. Television viewers are no longer constrained by time - just as 24 hour news networks changed the 5:00 news, the internet has changed the 24 hour news networks.

 

The place where people go to get their news continues to evolve. What we used to read in a daily paper became what we saw on twice-daily TV news programs. Then we could turn on the TV at any time to get the news - the 24 networks basically repeat the same things every half hour or so. But why do that when the web is around - just fire up your browser and check out the news on the website with no waiting required.

 

Just when you thought the immediacy of news was tapped out, social media like Twitter and Facebook hit the scene. Consumers of news no longer need to go to a destination (TV, radio, newspaper, website) to keep current. The news comes to us now through our Twitter feed or facebook page with no effort requried.

 

Read that last sentence again - the news comes to us now.  The same could be said for advertising as well.

 

The problem that many news organizations are having is that they are not aggressive enough. Stop trying to get the people to come to you. You need to go to the people. Social media and web technologies allow you to do this. We are entering a hyper-competitive era in the news business, and it's not about to end any time soon. If you don't know the answer to the following questions, you need to find out fast:

• How many Facebook users are in your metropolitan area?
• How many people use Twitter in your city's downtown zip code?
• How many people receive Twitter messages from Barack Obama?
• How much does it cost for Barack Obama to send those messages?
• How much should an ad in a Twitter or Facebook stream cost?
• What is a Twitter account worth?

These questions are just a starting place. Look them over. Find the answers. You'll find they paint a picture of the future.

Facebook v. Twitter -- it's war

I don't think it's hyperbole when the folks at Techcrunch say that Facebook and Twitter are now at war.  I do think that the stage has been set for quite some time - each company has made sufficient progress that they have now collided.  There is no going back.

What can we take away from the latest news?

Twitter has experienced meteoric growth for two reasons IMO:

1. Simplicity -- everything about Twitter is easy, as you'd expect from an interface with 140 characters,
2. Brilliantly executed developer strategy -- the developer API is similarly simple; integration is easy.

Facebook is decidedly *not* simple, but I'm sure they are very, very jealous of all the third-party Twitter applications that have been created over the last few months.

As a third-party startup, I have to tell you that I think the value proposition for Facebook is very, very strong.  Who wouldn't want access to data on 200m+ users.  But I also suspect that the Open Stream API will not be truly open... i.e. developers won't have access to all data they want/need to build third party apps.  The big question is "will Facebook be able to offer enough data to be successful with this approach while keeping the truly valuable data for their own ad targeting purposes?"  If they get this right, they'll remain the dominant social OS powered by ridiculous revenue opportunities.

From my vantagepoint, it can still go either way.  Twitter's advantages in simplicity from both the User and Developer perspectives don't change in light of the recent Facebook announcement.  Similarly, Facebook's advantages in Installed Base & breadth of data collected won't change if Twitter adds 50m users.

Other random reactions:

• I'm glad the game for developers has moved to social platforms.  But all this news does is guarantees that developers will need to be capable in *both* Facebook and Twitter.
• Along those lines, I think Facebook and Twitter strategy just sortof became the same thing for many corporations eager to connect with consumers.  You can't do one without at least considering the other.
• I think this is ultimately a proxy war for Google v. Microsoft for what it's worth.  Maybe not today, but soon.
• Internet marketing is dying in lieu of social marketing.  I'll elaborate on this in a later blog post.
• Friendfeed and Yahoo! sure feel similar to me -- valuable properties/companies who do great things but are nonetheless stuck in "RC Cola land".  Friendfeed will need to change the game somehow, some way to get into the debate.

More pleasure reading:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=17068

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/despite_new_openness_facebook_remains_fundamentall_1.php

http://www.briansolis.com/2009/04/social-os-battle-between-facebook-and.html

Comparing Local Newspaper Circulation to Social Media Coverage

Daily Circulation of the Austin American-Statesman -- 173,527
Weekend Circulation of the Austin American-Statesman -- 215,984
# of Facebook Users in the Austin Metro Area -- 318,000+

Wow.