[LINK] Media chiefs reject internet business model

[Chirgwin, Richard]

Jan says:
> The PBS [similar to ABC] view of public service access to information 
> is obviously not in the mindset of the commercial publishers.

Well - commercial publishers don't exist without income; and the information
is the basis of that income; so why would they (we, since I'm an editor) say
"here, take it for nothing"? This is dear to my heart for the simple reason
that I eat from writing ... now, I'm not going to try and inflate my
self-importance, but why should (for eg) journalists donate their work to
society for nothing when (for eg) consultants don't?

I agree the the public has "bought" the notion of access-for-free, but I
strongly suspect that the implications of that model are pushed to the back
of the mind. You get what you pay for, and if you want to pay nothing ...

It's a nice idea, for example, to say that the Internet can fall-back to
user created content as James suggests - kuro5hin, wikipedia, Newsforge, /.
and whatever. But look at the three "news" sites on that list: every single
one is heavily dependent on mainstream media for their source material. If
kuro5hin or /. don't have a source from which to quote, what's left? (In the
case of /. what's left is extremely depressing: a place where ex-Usenet
flamers come to abuse anybody of nonconformist opinion or double-figure IQ).


So even the user-created content is feeding off the 'commercial publishers'
who are, it seems, doing something wrong by wanting to get an income
(remember, a small commercial publisher isn't trying to line Rupert's
pockets. My personal ideal would be just to have enough to have kept four
close friends in employment).

Was going to make some comments on Wikipedia, but Linkers are probably sick
of the sound of my voice!

Richard

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jan Whitaker [mailto:jwhit@PrimeNet.Com]
> Sent: Saturday, 9 March 2002 09:30
> To: Roger Clarke
> Cc: link@www.anu.edu.au
> Subject: Re: [LINK] Media chiefs reject internet business model
> 
> 
> At 11:37 AM 8/03/02 +1100, Roger Clarke wrote:
> >Commercial hard-copy publications are a long way from dead.  
> They need to 
> >perceive their sites as necessary costs of doing business, 
> as a means of 
> >cross-leveraging various revenue-generating services, and as an 
> >opportunity to project their creativeness but in ways that 
> are inexpensive 
> >rather than big-bang, big-buck risks.
> 
> I like Roger's heading of 'complementary activities'.  I was 
> thinking about 
> what bothered me in that article and it was the short 
> sightedness.  The PBS 
> [similar to ABC] view of public service access to information 
> is obviously 
> not in the mindset of the commercial publishers.  Seems to me 
> that getting 
> eyeballs any way possible must be pursued.  Wasn't there a 
> meme floating 
> through a while back that if you don't have a web presence 
> today, you don't 
> exist?
> 
> Seems to me the particulars of the business model may be 
> where the flaw 
> lies, not in the internet or the consumer.  We [society] have 
> bought the 
> shift, at least in western developed countries, so what did 
> they expect?
> 
> Jan
> 
> 
> JLWhitaker Associates
> Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
> jwhit@primenet.com  --  http://www.primenet.com/~jwhit/whitentr.htm
> 
>