The Future of News services

There has been a lot of articles exploring the future of news media. One article in the UK Online Guardian newspaper suggested that without proper investment in infrastructure how can we get good journalists. Therefore, paid for content / exclusive content is good.
It went on to suggest that it was good for democracy?

With Google’s recent encounters with news outlets and Microsoft attempting to ‘cut’ exclusive content deals with traditional media giants what is the future of media.

Is mixing advertising with content a good way to fund journalism?
What is certainly interesting is the repulsion of the public against text (sms) based advertising. Survey’s reveal this to be irrirating. Personally, it is frustrating to watch a 15 second advertisement before watching a video on Youtube or even the scrolling adverts underneath, albeit that you can compromise on how much you can see as there is a shortening/summary button.

Will the tablets usher in a new way of advertising or fueling news content?

The Video showing a mock-up of what a Sports Illustrated magazine could look like is fascinating. It shows a whole new world of possibilities. For example: Sponsored articles, product placement and also affiliation with brands. Surely, that should be enought to fuel any journalist’s salary or media moguls financial outlook. Maybe the idea for charging for content has been considered due to the success of the i-phone. Clearly with 90,000 applications for the latter device, demand is strong for developers to use this technology as an outreach for their content services et al.

Other opportunities include:

• Mobile services
• Gaming
• Interactive Video
• Interactive Music
• Subscription services for specialist content rather than exclusive content.
• Mash-up of content to derive selling opportunities and hardware sales!
• Aggregation around multiple sources is another possibility

With regard to the latter, just look at BizBuzzz, it focuses  on bringing you the best Blogs, News and Entertainment news all from one channel.
On a related note, there has been a lot of debate this year about the future of video streaming. Again, this offers new possibilities for established media outlets. If networks can establish both niche and relevant everyday content in an accessible and high quality format, then we have the start of new convergence strategies – news like you have never experienced news before.

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