I know it seems I am always linking to Forbes these days. Maybe it is my advanced age. But I am digging the Forbes content lately. And David Evans does an outstanding job of isolating the specific challenges the lumbering newspaper industry faces with a revenue mindset that has already been eclipsed online by much bigger players. Here's a tease:
"So, if anyone is going to save the newspaper industry, it isn't any of the moguls who think they can breathe life into a dying technology. It is more likely to be someone like Steve Jobs who can devise a really appealing way to make newspapers available digitally."
As already documented here, I have reserved a special sneer for the notion that the daily newspaper industry can save itself. It cannot. At least not without attracting innovative players (instead of chasing and/or buying out anyone with a different idea). In a spectacularly newspaper-like demonstration of sheer guile, Editor & Publisher announced finalists yesterday of its 2007 EPpy Awards for newspaper Web sites that are, by and large, completely unprofitable.
I don't think the announcement was met at individual newspapers with champagne i.e. the Pulitzer Prize announcements: Yeah! We, uh, won ... something... We don't suck as much as other newspapers with Web sites!
Check out Evans' fine essay here:
The Newspaper Form Factor
More later,
Mark
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