HBS Working Knowledge Read All About It! Newspapers Lose Web War

"This paradox can be summarized: absent a sense of threat, response to disruptive opportunities is inadequate; but with threat, the fully funded response is too rigid.

We also found that a de-coupling mechanism could allow firms to capture the benefits of being motivated by the threat to their core business, without being bound by its rigidity-producing effects. By separating those who were running the business from the core organization, newspaper sites became much more innovative and received much higher market penetration. In our large sample study, sites that separate their online organizations from the newspaper were more than twice as innovative than sites that remained integrated into the newspaper. More importantly, these sites gained 60 percent higher market penetration! Thus, all else equal (similar market sites, launch date, and number of employees) separated sites were much more likely to innovate and gain traction in the market."

redux [10.19.01]
The Christian Science Monitor Is the Internet now our most serious communications medium?

"As the days and the weeks pass after the attacks of Sept. 11, an interesting development is taking place: American media is being beaten, and beaten solidly, by foreign competitors in the hunt for the stories of the new war against terrorism. This is particularly true of electronic media, whose shortcomings -- especially in terms of international coverage -- are on view for all to see. While American media seems fixated on the anthrax threat, the rest of the world is receiving better information about the larger, more complex issues."

"The limitations of other media -- time, space and depth, in particular, in various quantities -- mean that the Internet is becoming the one medium where Americans who are interested in getting the 'real facts' of the story can go to find them. Even most American media also recognize this -- witness the regular exhortations to audiences and readers to 'go to the Web to get more on this story.'"

ABCNews.Com Internet Grows as News Source

"A new ABCNEWS poll finds that nearly half of Americans now get news over the Internet, up by 11 points - perhaps 22 million individuals - since mid-1999. And just over a third of Internet news consumers say they've been going online for news more often since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."

redux [02.02.00]
First Monday Interactive Features of Online Papers

"According to McAdams, who helped create the Washington Post's online service, "A journalist with little online experience tends to think in terms of stories, news value, public service and things that are good to read, but a person with a lot of online experience thinks more about connection, organization, movement within and among sets of information and communication among different people". Journalists today must choose. As gatekeepers they can transfer lots of information, or they can make users a smarter, more active and questioning audience for news events and issues. Making users smarter means involving them in a collaborative experience; i.e. interaction ”

DotComScoop Interview with Rusty Foster of Kuro5hin.org

"First, we're already seeing the most wired reporters discovering the power of the blog, and rapidly becoming addicted to the kind of instant feedback and massively expanded informational networks they can provide. Watching a reporter start to blog is like watching a sugar addict stumble into Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Most of them immediately "get it" as soon as they open themselves up to the people they had always previously been talking at. I think this will continue, because I think reporters are just like that. The good ones will never pass up an opportunity to increase their reach."

redux [12.20.01]
Online Journalism Review Independents Day

"Everybody knows about the 800-pound gorillas of online news — nytimes.com, CNN.com, MSNBC — but there's another group that's contributing mightily to the craft of Web journalism: the solo, lone-wolf operation.

These outfits, each created and operated largely by one person, show that you don't need a large staff and venture-capital seed money to do news on the Net."

First Monday Online Journalism: Modelling the First Generation of News Media on the World Wide Web

"The Internet and specifically its graphic interface the World Wide Web is reaching a level of saturation and widespread adoption throughout the world. Specifically for journalism practiced online - in the discipline of computer-assisted reporting (CAR) and a specific kind of journalism: online journalism - we can now identify and theorize about the impacts the global system of networked computers has had on journalism. This paper signals four particular journalisms online as these have emerged in the 'first generation' of newsmedia on the World Wide Web (1993-2001), discusses the key characteristics - cf. hypertextuality, interactivity, multimediality - which determine the 'added value' of these journalisms, and provides three specific strategies journalists may use to further enhance the potential of journalism online: annotative reporting, open source journalism and hyperadaptive news sites."