The end of tangible media is clearly in sight
On his Micro Persuasions blog, marketing guru Steve Rubel predicts that by 2014, almost all forms of tangible media--including newspapers, magazines, books, DVDs, boxed software and video games--will either be in sharp decline or completely extinct. For proof, Rubel asks, “When was the last time you bought a CD? Exactly.” With green-aware millennials set to become the dominant demographic in the US by 2010, Rubel says that the US is fast becoming a society that consumes media entirely in digital format--and the global media market is only one or two steps behind.
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media file is a repository of links to articles and research reports for business and non-profit executives, media professionals, marketers, and others interested in the impact of open media and social networks on global business culture. You can search the media file database from this blog or directly on Delicious.
more media file links for March 9, 2009:
Old media isn’t completely deaf: The Guardian offers full-text RSS feeds
Mashable reports on The Guardian UK’s decision to make the full text of its articles available to users via RSS. While conventionally thought to be a bad business move that leaves advertising dollars on the table, with this gambit The Guardian is banking on the fact that the growing global audience of RSS users vastly prefers to get full vs. partial feeds in their browsers. “The Guardian instantly gains an advantage on every other newspaper in the world,” Mashable states.
Newspapers pursue a content sharing consortium
Editor & Publisher reports on discussions among Northeast-based metro and regional newspapers to share content with each other, sidestepping their contractual arrangements with the Associated Press. Beyond their frustration with the financial strictures imposed by the AP, publishers expressed that they were motivated by a desire to access higher quality content from non-competitive sources.
Blueprint for the Next Newsroom
On MediaShift Idea Lab, 2007 Knight News Challenge winner Chris O’Brien reports on the Next Newsroom project’s proposal to design and build the ideal newsroom of the future. The proposal calls for a fully integrated multimedia news environment built on the principles of community, innovation, collaboration, transparency, and embracing all platforms. The report includes a link to the proposal, which is available via a public wiki.
Nonprofit news web sites rise as successors to traditional newspapers
The New York Times reports on a new breed of online journalism sites that is striving to fill the void left by the decline of traditional print newspapers. Offering a brand of serious, original reporting by professional journalists, their news coverage and investigative reporting stand out in an online news landscape dominated by opinion, gossip, and citizen journalism posted by unpaid amateurs. And to make ends meet, financially they mimic public broadcasting, not newspapers. They are organized as nonprofit corporations supported by foundations, donors, and audience contributions.
Murdoch to “cynics”: Newspapers will survive
On the Editor & Publisher site, media magnate Rupert Murdoch slams doomsayers who are predicting that the Internet will kill off newspapers. These “misguided cynics” fail to grasp that the online world is potentially a huge new market of information-hungry consumers, The Wall Street Journal owner says. Among these misguided cynics: journalists “who are too busy writing their own obituary to be excited by the opportunity.” To capitalize on online opportunities, Murdoch said the WSJ was planning to offer three tiers of content online: free news; a subscriber-level service; and a third premium service of reader-customizable “high-end financial news and analysis.”
Africans and their mobiles, part 1: Numbers and usage patterns
In the first of a two-part series, ReadWriteWeb summarizes the key statistics that make Africa an intriguing forerunner of an emerging global, mobile, digital marketplace. Left behind in the broadband build-out that developing countries experienced in the last decade, Africa has jumped ahead to a high-speed mobile digital environment bereft of walled gardens, proprietary service packages, and contractual restrictions. One result: Africa is home to the largest mobile payment network in the world.
Africans and their mobiles, part 2: Using mobile phones for social good
In this second of a two-part series on mobile technology usage on the African continent, ReadWriteWeb reports on how financial scarcity has spawned a wave of digitally based social innovation. Because most mobile phone users on the continent choose fixed-cost, prepaid, month-to-month plans versus variable-cost, postpaid, long-term contracts, users pay close attention to minutes used. In response, mobile providers offer “Please Call Me” (PCM) service that permits mobile phone users to send free text messages to friends, inviting them to call back. In South Africa, 30 million PCM messages are sent every day, in a country with a total population of 47 million. Jumping on this trend, social service agencies are embracing PCM for health care, political mobilization, and other cause-related purposes.
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