Today’s Future of Media panel at NYU did not disappoint. The discussion ranged from the future of twitter, to the future of newspapers and included a good debate between the Wall Street Journal’s Alan Murray and Gawker Media CEO Nick Denton over subscription versus advertising business models.
The Panelists:
- Nick Denton, Founder, Gawker Media
- Jack Dorsey, Co-Founder and Chairman, Twitter
- Bonnie Fuller, Founder, Bonnie Fuller Media
- Alan Murray, Deputy Managing Editor and Executive Editor Online, The Wall Street Journal
- Craig Newmark, Founder and Customer Service Rep, Craigslist
-Jack Dorsey On Twitter’s evolution and business model:
“The definition for twitter today and for twitter tomorrow is really in the hands of the users…I believe that the concept is simple enough that it will subsist, that it will build value….a lot of what you see in twitter today…it was from the users, for example the @ function…the hash tags…the search engine was something that was outside the company…so we’re treating the business model in the same way.”
We’re going to be patient, we want something to emerge from the usage, we don’t want to put something on top of that.”
On trends in consumption of media:
Craig Newmark: My friends tend to be pretty good at curating the news for me, for me I figure I got some social networking going for people smarter than me doing good stuff.
Nick Denton: Now we have Digg, Facebook, Twitter…there’s less of a premium on that type of aggregation, and I never would have thought I would be saying this but there’s a value on original information and one of the things we’ve seen is the value of producing something original has gone up.
On hiring bloggers / journalists:
Nick Denton: We look for blogging experience above all, it would be very tempting right now there are a lot of people who have been shaken loose from…newspapers and magazines…the sad truth is that a lot of people don’t adjust well to working online.
Alan Murray: Reporters at the Wall Street Journal have a tendency to spend three months reporting…it’s great public service journalism but…running a blog is just a completely different set of skills.
On using Twitter as a media member:
Alan Murray: There’s one big don’t and that one big don’t is don’t be stupid…we’ve got 50 people on twitter, I do tweets a dozen times a day and I don’t think people are that profoundly interested in my personal life…the basic message is don’t be stupid, if you cover the supreme court you probably shouldn’t tweet about going to an abortion rally…inevitably there are people who do stupid things.
Craig Newmark: I do use twitter in my day job which is customer service…twitter is pretty good for customer service and pretty good for gaging the temperature of what’s going on. We’re doing things differently based on we do what the community wants…I’ve been doing customer service for 14 years and I remain committed.
On subscription versus advertising biz models:
Nick Denton: Most newspapers apart from the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times have nothing that people want to pay for.
Bonnie Fuller: I disagree, [asked by Denton will you charge?] There may be parts of it yes.
Alan Murray: You will not have a flourishing news organization based on advertising alone.
Nick Denton: Well anyone can do that. Advertising is perfectly capable of providing revenue…I absolutely accept that local politics, advertising won’t support that.
Craig Newmark: I will go to the sites which I trust will give me reliable information, speaking as an amateur, I do look at brand advertising, if this trend becomes real and doesn’t fizzle out it becomes real and we’ll think of it as an overnight change but it begins now.
Bonnie Fuller: If you think about the traditional media there’s a lot of brands within the brands, for example Tom Friedman…there are voices within organizations that people will pay to have more contact with…more personal relationship with, because people crave to be close to the people they follow.
Nick Denton: I’m sure people always will pay to be close to Thomas Friedman, I’m not sure why, but who pays to collect that money? Is it the newspaper or is it Thomas Friedman himself?
On the concept of status
Jack Dorsey: We knew the concept was big, but no we didn’t [know this would happen] but it’s about the community which determines where it goes.
The complete panel can be viewed above.
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