Yahoo Hiring Writers, While NY Times is Laying Off
Two recent news items caught my attention.
NYT to lay off 4 pct of work force
and
Yahoo Adds Business Columnists
No better illustration of the dramatic power and money shift from traditional newspapers and media to internet players. Search engines are commoditizing newspapers (note: I say “commoditizing newspapers”, they are not commoditizing writers or good writing skills!), so good writers will now increasingly migrate to internet media players. This is a synergistic relationship. The internet players already have the traffic and the global aggregation capabilities. Most importantly, they have the revenue sources from advertising, and they don’t have the print and distribution costs of traditional newspapers, so they can afford to keep more of the stuff “free”.
Where newspapers go, TV will only follow. Yahoo is already a player in Hollywood, and is starting to put out original made-for-internet video content. The advertising model here is less clear. Perhaps cable-TV like subscription model, with all you can eat from a menu of choices is where it is going. Fascinating to watch this evolution.