Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence.

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A Personalized News World

• Newspaper comes to you.• TV comes to you.• Internet asked you to go to its sources.

– That was worth it! They were good sources.– But it was still took away the passive

consumption.• Now the best of all of it is coming back to

you. But you can interact.

The Bundled Model

• Traditional news sources compiled all news you supposedly needed.

– Competition was to be best at presenting a package.

• From Israel to stock quotes.• From sports to local news.• Get it all here!!! Not there!

– A tremendous service.

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The Bundled Model

• So we were asking a newspaper to:– Perform what is an artistic, academic,

intellectual exercise: journalism, photography and design

– Perform a commercial activity: advertising– Perform an industrial process

• Print, organize and produce a daily “book”• Distribute it – trucks

– Oh and be a digital technology company too!

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Something Happened

• The internet.

• You’re no longer dependent on what the bundlers brought you.

• You could go look for the best sources on the news and information you wanted.

Unbundling of Content

• Content was unbundled.– Better sources for news on stocks, Israel

and sports.

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Problems

• You had to go to it.– Removed the leisure from news consumption.

• Too Much!!

• Killed subsidy that funded news operations

– Ad inventory became near infinite, price

plummeted.

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Users Fought Back

• Demanded ability to filter the fire hose.– Rise of aggregators.– People you could ‘trust’ to filter.

• Drudge• Huffington Post• Your uncle

• Companies responded to need to filter. – RSS the return of passive but it was confusing.

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It Started Coming Back to You

• RSS allowed you to set up your perfect news page.

• Theory: Others might be able to distribute news better than news source.

• But it’s geeky=difficult

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What Twitter Teaches Us

• It’s not that Twitter is the answer.– The answer is what Twitter shows us.– We can now consume again, rather than

seek.– Filter perfectly to our tastes– But people now punish publishers.

• Not by changing channel or stopping subscription.• Simply ‘unfollowing.’• You get unfollowed, you’re out!

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Twitter

• NYTimes:– At its best, the social medium is a perpetual,

personalized news service about topics of your choosing — whether health care reform, tech news or the latest episode of “Gossip Girl” — filtered and served to you by people who care a lot about what you care a lot about.

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Perfect News Sources:Bundled by You!

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Challenge for Producers

• We have to be something they want to bundle.

• We have to decide who we want to include us.

• We cannot duplicate. – They’ll punish duplicators. – Either be better or different.

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voiceofsandiego.org

• Mission:– To consistently deliver ground-breaking

investigative journalism for the San Diego region. To increase civic participation by giving residents the knowledge and in-depth analysis necessary to become advocates for good government and social progress.

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Investigative Success

• Known around country for journalistic success.

• Won’t cover anything unless– A. No one else is doing it. – B. Or we can do it better.

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‘Revenue Promiscuity’

• Generate loyalty and passion of users– Users to donors to participant members

• Loyalty and Passion of Philanthropists– Realize without information, whatever else they support is compromised.

• Build Corporate Memberships– Offer more than advertising. – Workshops, event presence.

• Content Services– For profit distributors– Photostore

• Contain Costs!– Don’t innovate, incorporate

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Membership

• Users to donors.• Donors to participant members.• Participant members to long-term

supporters, advocates, mavens. • 1,080 members right now.

– Goal is 10,000 by 2013

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Philanthropy

• Don’t support journalism.– Support information. – If you care about education, government,

environment, housing, anything, you support information.

• Aren’t unaccustomed to supporting public service enterprises.– Public broadcasters. – Museums.– Arts organizations.

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Corporate Memberships

• ‘Corporate’ could mean unions, nonprofits, steak houses...

• Must convince them to support...• ...then offer service.• Not content but ...

– Workshops.– Event sponsorships. – Web presence.

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Content Services

• NBC partnership. – San Diego Explained– San Diego Fact Check

• Corporate sponsor on website. • Segment for tv.• Revenue from both.• Mission from all.• Dynamic, interesting resource. • Perfect.

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Contain Costs

• That’s the ultimate secret. – $1M, $2M comparatively not a lot. – Choose content/engagement innovation or

choose technological innovation.– Can’t be both. – If content and engagement, must incorporate

technology not innovate. – Imagine had we had an extra $1 million...