There are a few standard arguments that get bandied about in discussions of strategy for online profitability. Newspapers no longer control the format when "a kid with a cell phone can distribute the day's most compelling video," Carl Stepp says. Nevermind that newspapers never controlled the format or content when it came to video (that was for televsion news); Stepp is mistaken to argue that newspaper profitability is related to diversifying function by offering more than just news.
The lack of geography of the World Wide Web suggests that newspapers, especially those that operate on a local level, wouldn't be able to profit in the same way that "aggregators, social networkers, indexers, video hosts," etc., profit. The profitability of those sites hinges on the fact that a relatively small number of people are able to operate a service that draws comparatively astronomical numbers of visitors. Even in 2006, video hosting site was yielding tens of millions of unique visitors per month. That's just not feasible for a newspaper with a circulation of even a million people.
Another point Stepp neglects to make about all of the outlets that have "outflanked" newspapers is that they all rely on traditional media for content. Aggregators would have nothing to aggregate (I don't buy the argument that independent bloggers would fill this gap—at the end of the day, breaking a story by being in the right place at the right time, even if it is huge, does not translate into a blogger becoming a sustainable news outlet). Newspapers should spend less time worrying about how to make money from a secondary product and more money from their primary product.
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