The (Journalists') Limbo Rock

Technology supplies the overwhelming majority of its target consumers with tangibly better standards of living. Problems from everyday life are mitigated, there is more time for focused employment, efficiency rises and people become more productive.  Technology makes us better – it advances our civilizations.

Or does it?

Turn on the news, pick up a newspaper, go to the movies, grab a magazine, or head to your favorite news Website, and you will feel a tangible angst about the future of news.  Newspapers are going bankrupt, television newsrooms are downsizing and journalism schools are now forced to teach convergence and one-man-band journalism out in the field.  Government subsidies for media outlets and revenue from government postings in papers have been lost to the accessibility and ease of the Internet.  Most notably, the loss of advertising revenue and the disintegration of the classifieds business have left papers scrounging for every last penny. Technology – the Internet – has completely dismantled one of our major industries.

Technology has pitched a rare curveball at the world recently, and it is taking some time for us to figure it out.  The media industry has been in severe turmoil with the introduction of the Internet.  While some say that the Internet has improved accessibility to information, expanded multimedia options and connected people in previously unimaginable ways, I contend it has been a hindrance to culture. 

As our tools for communication have advanced alongside technology, the availability of information has risen.  The new tool of any given era – be it paper, type-set printing, printing presses, radios, televisions or even the Internet – forces the industries dependent on information delivery systems to innovate.  Historically, this has led to the creation of a ubiquitous interface (the written decree, the newspaper/magazine, the live network news) that raises the professional standard for content generating sources, enabling professionals to fully utilize the new tools at their disposal.  At every face-off between a new age of information accessibility and the never-say-die institutions of the past, this new form of delivery has risen out of the social necessity for the highest level of reporting.  The Internet has posed such a transformation to the information delivery systems by making information effortlessly accessible. 

Where global ingenuity falters to date, is in its ability to provide the new industry standard needed to regain profitability and maintain its role as a check and balance of power.  There is currently no effective organization of the abyss of information accessible on the net.  From music to news, a “Pandora’s Box” of content sharing and interpersonal communication has leapt into the world, leaving the information landscape chaotic and inefficient.  To put newspapers online alongside underdeveloped and unregulated bloggers is not the innovation of the newspaper industry, it is merely a poor translation of printed material to a digital interface.  The media industries must provide consumers with a new user interface that harnesses the unique advantages presented by the web: real-time data analysis, customizable multimedia, tactile manipulation and social interaction.  Facing an infrastructural collapse due to changes in information delivery, the news and media industry must find an innovative application of modern technologies in order to generate profit from their trained professionals and serve their societal functions. 

“In Limbo:” Finding Industry Standards

At face value, it is perfectly fair to blame the recent failure of the news media industry on the introduction of the Internet.  However, by broadening the scope of analysis, past technological revolutions have shown that the news and media industry goes into a stage of confusion, let’s call this stage “in limbo.” For a period of time ranging anywhere from 20 years to 50+ years, old organizational structures built in the news industry search for ways to completely utilize the new.  Currently, we are “in limbo.” Our culture is yet to find the best way to utilize the Internet, and by examining the limbo stages of the past, the future of media and journalism can be found.

In 15^th century Europe, a major shift in information gathering changed the way civilization gathered stories and knowledge forever.  Johannes Gutenberg introduced his first printing press in 1441, sending shockwaves throughout the affluent European community.  The Gutenberg press slashed the cost of printing books by eliminating complex carving and pressing.  This vastly increased the availability of books and newspapers, with millions of volumes available in a variety of countries by 1500. In the preface of her book on the printing press and its effects, Elizabeth L. Einstein sheds light on the importance of the invention:

As an agent of change, printing altered methods of data collection, storage and retrieval systems and communication networks used by learned communities throughout Europe.

The printing press was to 1400s Europeans what the Internet is for 21^st century Americans – and now with the global spread of technology, 21^st century world citizens as well.  However, the transition to the printing press was not entirely smooth.  Stephan Fussels in his examination of Gutenberg’s impact on publishing offered this observation:

In fact, it took about 30 years until the new medium had developed a book of its own character, with respect to that, for example, it opened to a title page, its pages were numbered, and it contained the new texts of the Humanists and new editions of the classical authors. Through the invention of Gutenberg it had become possible to circulate knowledge in books of large editions that were even of a similar beauty as the manuscripts of the finest scriptoria. 

Put simply, for three decades after the invention of the printing press the world could not figure out exactly what to do with the machine.  The new medium needed time to recognize the significant features that were made possible by Gutenberg’s invention.  The functionality of the content needed to change with the introduction of new features to reading. 

While there has not been another invention of the Gutenberg press’ magnitude since the advent of the Internet, similar examples can be drawn from other innovations in media technology.   Radio technology began taking form in the mid-late 1800s, with the first accepted patent of radio transmission equipment coming just before the turn of the century.  Approximately two decades later, the first AM radio station started broadcasting, but it was not for another 10 years that regular radio programming arrived.  Television broadcasting took a similar path as radio technology, with the first cathode-ray images being broadcasted around the turn of the century.  Despite the early experimentation and proof-of-concept technology, it would be another half-century before major news outlets broadcast modern-style programming.  Both of these informational innovations experienced a multi-decade-long “limbo” stage where the true functionality of the medium was not yet realized.  

Presently, only one media-based industry has seen a completely Internet-induced revolution through to a new industry standard.  The music industry was confronted with a basic infrastructural collapse with the introduction of digital media. In 1989, German engineers filed a patent for MP3 technology, allowing users to download songs over the Internet.  By giving users the ability to distribute their media over already existing peer-to-peer networks (P2P), music began to rapidly lose profits from album sales as more and more individuals began to get their music online.  The most popular of these P2P content-sharing networks is arguably Napster, which was created by Shawn Fanning in 1999.  As the popularity of Napster and P2P sharing rose, record sales continued to fall.  As owners of musical copyrights began to sue Napster and peripheral device makers waivered on a standard storage system, Apple Computer Inc. announced its iTunes Store in 2003.  Coupled with its highly popular hard drive-based iPod, Apple was able to create a ubiquitous and vertically integrated user interface (iPod, iTunes and the iTunes Store), coupling it with a payment model that allowed users to only pay for what they wanted.  The Internet had opened up the possibility of on-demand, downloadable content alongside micro-customization as individual users chose exactly what content they desired.   By 2006, just 17 years after the introduction of downloadable music, Apple had announced their control of 88% of the downloaded music market share.   They had found the new industry standard that record labels needed to stay profitable and escape technological “limbo.” 

Future Solutions:

If the answer to “limbo stage” woes has been proven to be a ubiquitous user interface that fundamentally enhances the previous user experience, then what would such an interface look like? What I propose is a completely new, built from scratch, user interface for news delivery based off a micro-payment, multimedia content hub that vertically integrates the news media industry.  This would be an individual's complete aggregation of any and all content where the content would interact in an optimized dialogue in order to make a more meaningful news gathering experience.  News media ultimately needs a new media conglomerate to do what the Apple music line has done for the music industry.

First, “news” as it has come to be understood must be re-defined as encompassing both traditional news (what you would read in the newspaper or see on TV) as well as social news.  What peoples' friends are interacting with - whether it is pictures, articles, events, wall posts, status updates or products - is news to each other’s friends.  The goal is to make social news and stereotypical, hard news enrich the learning experience gained from the other.

Here's how it works.  Users begin with a set-up process in which they do a one-time login to all of their different networks.  After logging into their facebook, twitter, myspace, myTimes, stumbleupon, address book, etc., the software remembers all of their log in information, billing info, friends, posts, and preferences, placing them under a singular account.  This initial setup builds a foundation of content for the software to learn from, leading them to their new-age news digest.

This home screen of news will be assembled based off a balance between users' self-highlighted interests and top news feeds from leading partners in the journalistic community (The AP, NYT, LAT, NYPost, Wash. Post, CNN, etc...).   From their home screen, users can choose to highlight an entire news organization, cover featured topics or select individual content, focus on a topic (see engadget’s "hubs"), look only at a certain medium, or hone in on managing their social networks.  Any way the user dictates the organization of the media to be, the software is capable of interacting with the user through its customizable features.  Bottom line: make the space the user’s personal newsroom – a micro-niche news bureau that provides them what they want when they want it. 

To better envision this scenario, picture that content will be embodied in “tiles.” As one clicks on a "tile" from a screen full of different options, a new screen would appear from behind the selected “tile.” The new workspace would center on the initially selected “tile” with a subsequent new set of supporting “tiles” all around. These supporting “tiles” would compile the print versions of a story, the raw copy, the breaking news TV broadcast, the feature length CNN package with a more in-depth look at a certain story, your friend's posts related to the topic, any highly-rated blog posts about the topic, even the CSPAN coverage of a senate hearing regarding the story in order to create a complete picture of a story. 

By combining major news outlets' material with the material of your friends and trusted opinions, the “tile” system provides a much richer experience.  Thus, the "tile" system introduces a new level of communal interaction with news.  There would be no separation between the way in which you share your news with your friends and the way you get your news. "Tiles" are the tactile foundation of this interface and help the user judge the importance of a piece of content.  They can change size and shape and are completely interactive with each other.  Other such ideas have begun to pop up around the media community.   The first of these to appear in the news industry is represented in applications like the “Times Skimmer” and “Times Reader 2.0.”  Amongst peripheral hardware devices, such “tile-like” designs can be seen in devices like the Palm Pre/Pixi/PrePlus through Palm’s new WebOS, which uses “cards” to separate running apps on a Smartphone.  Lastly, through the popular Ted series, concept technology has shown incredible possibilities in “tile-style” interaction with “siftables,” which are small computers that are capable of interacting independently of a mainframe computer or software using built-in sensors.  When combined, these examples show the possibility of such a “tile” based interface being successful in a news delivery system.  

Ultimately, the software winds up acting as a real-time, personalized search optimization tool.  By knowing what your likes and dislikes are, your viewing history, your friends viewing history and the trends of the online community, the software would be able to provide the most complete look at content relevant to its user.  Additionally, it allows for news bureaus to learn in real-time what news is being deemed important by its readership while still allowing for the continuation of citizen journalism and blogs.  The aim is to maintain people's newfound infatuation with the average citizen covering the news while re-introducing professionalism and profit into the mainstream through a regulated and ubiquitous payment system.

When Apple introduced iTunes, it allowed for people to buy only the songs they wanted, taking a industry struggling to find a way to make people pay for their content into a whole new phase of promotions and success.  This newly proposed system of content delivery aims to accomplish the same concept: pay for what you want to read that costs money to produce, get for free what authors decide does not. 

As one begins to access professionally generated content they would have to pay pennies for each click on an exclusive "tile."  Distributors would select prices for their tiles based off their own variables.  As a user moves through they are simply prompted to pay the $.04-.07 (as an example) price for the article, video or song they want to hear.  Certain sections may remain free - say, major genres or headlines - but truly rich content would cost a price. By the time a user has completed reading (say an average reader skims various topic areas for headlines and actually reads an average of 6-12 stories) they have paid anywhere from $.25-1.00 for their newspaper. Subscriptions and unlimited access passes for more consistent readers could be made available, but the point of the micro-payment system is customization.  You pay for what you read/consume – nothing more, nothing less. 

"Tiles" could also be devoted to advertising, combining the wealth of information that a user's history and interests with associated new content.  This addition of untapped information would allow for increased advertising efficiency and return. Other news agencies could also advertise their own content next to "tiles" of related content, promoting hyper-local outlets or location-based news services that are related to content being read.  Each of these opportunities would all be charged to the advertiser at reasonable, but profitable rates while the user continues to pay what they believe to be a fair price.

This system allows for a single outlet to combine user's personal information with the colossus of news and information being offered currently.  If executed correctly, this system could organize the maelstrom of news devices available in the same way that a search engine collaborates all of the web’s information.  This idea would embody a personalized, real-time search engine optimization of data, enabling an interactive experience that transcends current information delivery systems (newspaper, web-sites, blogs, etc.).  The countless developments and unsuccessful attempts to bring customization to the major news websites all have proven to fail because they don't allow for people to truly interact with their news community.  Therefore, by combining the "tile" system's potential for interactivity with user’s interests, their instincts and the myriad data available to enhance their news, this new system would finally maximize the fundamental abilities of the Internet.  

Conclusion:

The media industry has plenty of exterior functions, many of which are essential to the success of our culture, but the company’s who inhabit this industry are all businesses.  They must at least generate revenue to support their operations and if lucky, will generate profit.  For several long stretches of history, media had the freedom to only focus on their product and not worry about their distribution methods, creating a community of individuals who were great generators of product: TV shows, news stories, magazine articles, pictures, etc.  However, today’s challenges are different from the routines of yesterday’s golden ages.  Media has been left with no choice other than to find creative ways to get users to pay for their participation.  As long as the information remains freely accessible, with paid versions failing to truthfully change the consumption experience, viewers will refuse to pay for the service.  However, if the industry innovates how the content is distributed by enhancing all aspects of a viewer’s interaction with their information, revenue generation will no longer be an issue. 

Works Cited:
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Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge [Eng.: Cambridge UP, 1979. Print.

Stephan Fussel.  (2001). Gutenberg and today's media change. Publishing Research Quarterly, 16(4), 3-10.  Retrieved October 16, 2010, from Humanities Module. (Document ID: 71045936).

"ITunes Store Tops Two Billion Songs." Apple. Web. 16 Oct. 2010. .

Lisa Jardine.  (1999, October). The future began in 1455. The Spectator, 283(8932), 42.  Retrieved October 16, 2010, from Research Library Core. (Document ID: 45968869).Mather, Kate. "Annenberg Changes the Names of Two Journalism Degrees | Daily Trojan." Daily Trojan | University of Southern California. 22 June 2010. Web. 17 Oct. 2010. .

McIntyre, Douglas A. "The Ten Major Newspapers That Will Fold Or Go Digital Next - 24/7 Wall St." 24/7 Wall St. - Insightful Analysis and Commentary for U.S. and Global Equity Investors. 9 Mar. 2009. Web. 16 Oct. 2010. .