This article examines the recent attempt by the traditional
print media (newspapers) to regain some relevance in the digital age by trying
to negotiate concessions with Facebook and Google. The article explains the
efforts by the newspaper trade group to establish itself as a bonafide
representative of all major news outlets in its fight for more advertising
dollars as credit for the content currently provided for almost nothing to
Facebook and Google users today.
Recently, the leading industry trade group representing
newspaper publishers – the News Media Alliance – surfaced an interesting plan
to source advertising revenue and ward-off the slow-but-steady march to
obscurity and bankruptcy. The plan, in its base form, involves attempting to use
the union-like representation for newspapers publishers to negotiate without
running afoul of anti-trust laws around collusion, through special legislation
that then gives this the News Media Alliance some leverage to shakedown
Facebook and Google by negotiating a cut of ad revenue generated from news articles
generated by these publishers that is consumed, redistributed or aggregated via
the site or search engine. Setting aside the fact that this effort reeks of bold-faced
desperation, there are some more fundamental elements that will determine how
this evolves for the future of news, advertising and online information
dissemination. The three points I want to draw out of this article as as
follows:
First, is the ironic fact that the representative of an
industry that prides itself on independence from government, is asking the same
government to grant its union representation safe harbor immunity from
prosecution for its attempt to collude to extort money from an innovator due to
the lack of evolution and innovation by its members (social media laggards).
Secondly, there is the whole issue of revenue attribution.
Who gets to claim what in the chain of information flow on the internet. There
are a number of unanswered questions here about the value of the product
relative to the advertising dollars assigned to news consumption. For example,
can we use click-through rates where the ultimate product the is the amount of
time spent on an newspaper article site via FB or searched using key words on
google to arrive at a value for the “product”? Is this the best measure of
value? The devil is in the details here, as there is no easy method or metric
that can be adopted to arrive at a number that is readily fair and balances to
both sides (pun intended).
Lastly, there is the question around relevance.
Should FB and Google really have to share their advertising revenue with these
publishers simply because they (the News media Alliance) refuses to evolve? As
more people create social media-focused business models that serve news in a
direct-to consumer fashion online like Buzzfeed, it becomes incumbent on the
publishers to adapt to new technology by modifying their primary method of
delivery that gets them to their audience using current technology in the most
advantageous manner without having to resort to begging for a slice of someone
else’s pie.
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