Ryan Sholin has a great post on e-newspapers here he touches on an issue I didn’t consider in my previous post, that of the Newspapers trying to monoplise content:
Let’s start with the closed model, in which different news orgs each have their stable of papers and sources, set up in an iTunes-like environment, where readers can subscribe to their news feeds from within your range of sources. If you’re McClatchy, you’ve got feeds from all your papers available for readers to subscribe to.
It is an excellent post and raises good questions. Ultimately though, his solution:
In both versions, micropayments could come into play. Want to read that whole Tom Friedman column? That’ll be 59 cents, please.
will ultimately favour the edge providers and aggregators. Certainly given the choice of an e-newspaper right now my feed would be from Popurls with its podcasts, video, flikr images and news feeds from across the web rather than a single source. If the model were to take off then I believe some form of revenue sharing would have to be patched between content providers and the aggregator. Of course Ryan could be right and every news organisation could have its own reader. That at least is where this development points.
Popurls, eh? Interesting – my question is how news orgs will try to subvert the aggregators. Keeping in mind, of course, that I want my aggregator. The goofy MS/NYT reader thingie is a step in the wrong direction – proprietary. Some of this depends on just how inexpensive the materials for our e-papers will be. If the stuff is practically disposable, then you could buy a Times-branded reader one day and a Post-branded reader the next. Not sure I like the sound of that, but it’s a possibility.
I think that is a legitimate fear. Ultimately unless the aggregators share a slice of revenue they generate I think most media outlets will push for their own solution.
But from a consumer perspective I think most people would rather pick and choose their news sources on a single device. Comment from NYT, travel from the Chronicle, even access to a podcast they love or whatever.
It will be interesting to see what happens.