Future thrills

• Print editions of papers are closing down all over the world. There is a feeling of crisis. Seattle Post-Intelligencer  is closing the print edition after 146 years, going over to the net exclusively.

The paper era is over, and the new media houses are ascending. Many new digital editions are surfacing, and some are quite good already. The thinking behind newspapers are also changing fundamentally: customers are online, more sharing, using the network, serving special interests, catering to communities, new business models, etc. 

But new monetizing models are elusive: How do we generate income? New streams of revenue must be found.

This is not a crisis, but a process of fundamental change. The challenges are great, but so are the rewards for the new moguls of the new media age. Its about networking and collaborating with your customers.

• The CD is vanishing, and so is your physical music store. CD sales dropped by 19% in the US and the number of music buyers is also dropping significantly. Digital music downloads increased by 29%, but many people have stopped paying for recorded music. More people are listening to free music provided by the likes of Pandora, iMeem MySpace Music. But all of the sites that are providing free music are having a very hard time figuring out how to monetize their offerings.

Developments are on their way.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 11:56 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.