Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s observations about the Web and traditional newspapers is indicative of just how out of touch newspaper executives apparently are. Murdoch posits that as his generation once started each day with coffee and the morning newspaper, tomorrow’s news consumers will ingest their caffeine while starting their day “online with our Web site.”
Noble as this sentiment is (at least he recognizes the enormous shift to the Web as the first choice for news), it is misguided. The very appeal of the Web — that which has led to its remarkable adaptation globally — is its vast array of instantaneous news and information. To presume that news consumers will be content to open each day with a single news-driven Web portal is presumptuous at best.
The real future for newspapers (and magazines, newsletters, all other kinds of printed editorial content) is RSS. The portal that news consumers will embrace is one they create themselves — populating it with customized feeds from Web sites of interest. Prefer your international news with a European perspective? Subscribe to a BBC RSS feed. Not content to let The New York Times drive Big Media’s editorial agenda? Create your own, using RSS feeds from sources you prefer and trust.
This notion of a monolithic Web resource is laughable. What Murdoch and other newspaper executives need to understand is that the genie of personal choice and customization is out of the bottle. Consumers are no longer content to let an unseen hand (or mind) tell them what the news is. Instead, they will seek it out — defined by their own parameters — leaving behind any traditional media outlet not embracing RSS.
Big Media has a choice: embrace RSS, figuring out how to use it as an enhancement of their existing business models, or sit by idlely as customers circumvent them. It’s not too late and no, traditional media are not going to disappear. But, the clock is ticking — an atomic one with absolute accurateness that is easily found via the Web!
