Futurists & Keynote Speakers Gerd Leonhard & Ross Dawson: The Future of Newspapers

Futurists and speakers Ross Dawson and Gerd Leonhard talk about about the future of newspapers. Recorded in Sydney July 1st, 2011. More details on Ross's blog at http://gerd.fm/oim0e4 Here are a few notes from our conversation:

* When I released my Newspaper Extinction Timeline, chronicling when newspapers would become irrelevant in each country around the world, it received a heated response.
* Are we interested in news, or in paper?
* We are now able to get rid of the printing and physical distribution, which can be up to 80% of the costs of creating newspapers and magazines, with significant environmental benefitsl
* The newspaper industry may not die but it certainly won't grow, but the news business can and probably will grow.
* The future of "news-on-paper" is not nearly as interesting as the future of news -- this is a far richer subject in terms of distribution, the role of journalists, the filtering of news and so on.
* A key issue is how similar or individual to others is the news we get.
* The far broader participation in content creation and resulting flood of content means we need professional editing and filtering.
* Print has been largely paid for by third-parties -- advertisers -- and that ecosystem has not fully developed in the online world.
* The long tail makes the overall market larger by accessing new markets that were not feasible before.
* Scaling costs commensurate with revenues in smaller markets brings out the potential for publishers to create multi-niche strategies.
* People need to see value before paying -- for example in curation in specific sectors such as finance.
* Aggregators such as Flipboard could become a sector as big as cable TV.
* Murdoch's iPad venture The Daily brings out the issue of whether people truly want a single editorial/ curation perspective, or rather multiple perspectives.
* Aggregation is a dirty word in the media industry, yet it is where much of the value resides to the consumer.
* The future is in ecosystems rather than 'egosystems' that are focused on an individual news system. There will still be egosystems, but far fewer than before.
* The transition to a new and undefined ecosystem is painful and challenging, but people want news and often are prepared to pay for it in various forms.

Update: Gerd's new Kindle book "The Future of Content" is now available for $3.90 gerd.fm/focbook

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