Newspapers are under siege. This Henry Blodget post reports on the continuing financial deterioration of the New York Times, which looks to be in real trouble.
Meanwhile, the blogosphere continues to thrive. For example, this Stephanie Stradley post about the chronically under-performing Houston Texans defense is far more insightful than anything that I’ve read in years from the cheerleaders, er, I mean, reporters who cover the Texans for the Houston Chronicle, which continues to layoff employees by the droves.
And to think that one of those Chronicle cheerleaders — whose most recent piece is this fawning salute to the manager who was mainly responsible for blowing the 2003 NL Central pennant for the Stros — had the audacity to defame Stradley recently.
Any wonder why newspapers and the blogosphere are going in different directions?
ummm . . . yes, there are better bloggers than traditional reporters, but one could find a few counter examples I would suppose as well . . .
The core disadvantages of print media vs. Internet-based media are 1) can’t easily personalize the content/ads and 2) higher cost structure.
Given ink and paper cost more than moving photons and electrons around, not much can be done about 2). For longer time horizon print media such as magazines, personalization is definitely possible, and may allow for ongoing competitiveness.
But for newspapers extinction seems inevitable . . .