The Newspaper Inflection Point

The basis of the TenXFactor is that a new product will replace the older product when there is ten times the value. When you look at Newspapers in the abstract, there is no justification for the industry collapse right now. If you were to conduct a SWOT analysis, several key strengths are as valid today as they would have been 20 years ago. For the moment though, lets key off one particular point.

CONTENT IS STILL KING.

As I had discussed in a post last year, He who owns the data Wins. What is critical with any media company whose primary asset is content is to leverage the deep silos of content. But this is NOT happening. What is happening is that the industry is turning all reporters into bloggers and/or targeting vertical market segments to increase the advertising reach. Lets stop there. There is no intrinsic value. You are reducing your assets to the lowest common denominator. Very few blog posts have a long shelf life. Stickiness (which drives market reach) is driven by the community, not by the merits of journalism and as the universe as demonstrated, anyone can run a blog.

Now. Suppose you have the capability to search through the archive of content wanting all political quotations by a local senator relating to taxes. Good. not great, but Good. But suppose the database can look at content and provide in-line historical context to a current piece. (Getting Better). Suppose the database can pro-offer side-bar recommended searches related to an on-demand analysis of the text of the story. Keep notching up the technology ladder with fuzzy logic, semantic indexing and artificial intelligence. Available now for as little as the existing cpm rates while supplies last. It is the Newspaper Inflection Point. Its TenXFactor.

One slight problem. Its as only as good as the content. If you are ripping your newsroom apart to be a gaggle of Web 2.0 bloggers, go find your bottle of Liquid White Out. You will need it and by the way, where is your Microfiche?