The Future Of News Is Scarcity | paidContent

this is one of the best articles i’ve seen on this in a long time.

The successful news company of the future will have to take all this on board and deliver it with a radically lower cost base than this industry is used to. In the digital world, the news industry, like many others, will be radically smaller. This contraction is partly a consequence of much reduced distribution costs, but is also a reflection of the fact that the monopoly rents Fleet Street enjoyed in the last century are a thing of the past. Witness how Craigslist has reduced the multi-billion dollar classifieds industry to nearer $100 million.Companies that follow the blueprint above are emerging already, most notably TechCrunch for technology news, Talking Points Memo, FiveThirtyEight and The Huffington Post for politics, PerezHilton for celebrity, and Pitchfork for music. These niche sites all write compelling content, spend time building up their sources, check their facts, encourage writers to find the real facts behind stories and are trusted by their readers. And, they all generate solid advertising revenues and benefit from relatively low cost bases.Note that none of them charge for news. They do, however, have the option of leveraging their standing in the community to generate other revenues. TechCrunch runs the TC50 conference, Pitchfork organizes the Pitchfork Music Conference and Perez Hilton charges for personal appearances. This is, I think, the real business model for news companies in the future – build a community around news and stories and maybe make a little in advertising, but the real money will come from leveraging the position in the community to offer services no one else can.

via The Future Of News Is Scarcity | paidContent.