Jarvis says newsmedia must transition from content economy to link economy

Newsmedia companies must put the old “content economy” behind them and embrace the “link economy” – a transition that, while painful, will improve odds of surviving and thriving in the rapidly transforming information landscape, said Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do and the proprietor of BuzzMachine.com.

Jarvis warned that the collapse of the newspaper industry in the United States is a “canary in the coalmine” for other newspapers around the world. “The dynamics are universal,” he said.

To stave off further disaster, he said that newspapers need to focus less on the idea of the print product and more on connecting people. “We have to redefine utterly what a newspaper is,” he said. “Redefine it around this structure of relationships.”

He made a distinction between the previous era where newspapers were part of a “content economy” and the new era, which he dubbed a “link economy.”

“Content gains value as it gains links,” Jarvis asserted. “You have to make your stuff open. If you're not searchable, you won't be found. If you're not linkable, you don't exist.”

He also made a distinction between the old economy where news companies put out a “product” and today's world where newsgathering and dissemination is a “process.”

In response, newspapers have to foster better – and more open – relationships with the public they serve, principally through linking and networks. These relationships demand that news organisations crowdsource, correct, collaborate, and revise. “News is the discussion beforehand,” Jarvis said. “But it continues afterwards with corrections and comment. This existed before, but it happened behind closed doors. Now it happens in public.”

In the past, news brands thought of themselves as magnets with the public coming to them. Today, he said, news is no longer about readers buying a product; 0it is about reaching out to people with information and finding out what their thoughts are in response.

As to the question of whether newspapers should charge for online content – either in incremental amounts, or with paywalls – Jarvis was skeptical, asserting that it is now more valuable to build audience through links and interactivity than it is to choke off that activity and reap a small gain. “We are accustomed to charging what the market will bear, but [in the network model] you want to charge as little as you can to grow as quickly as possible,” he said. “I think that the odds of success in charging now are slim to none.”

Posted: 14 May 2009 12:22

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