The Internet makes trust and insight scarce commodities, and makes newsroom veterans more valuable

Recently I have been looking at the newspaper as a service and as a business (for reasons that will become apparent later). Something is becoming clear. While the Internet makes information plentiful, and this in turn may be a challenge to some aspects of the newspaper business, deep insight and trust remain as scarce as they have ever been. Indeed, the value of deep insight and trustworthy information may have increased in the digital era.

This post, by the way, also appears in the Huffington Post today.

“Commodity news” made up of superficial coverage and parsed press releases is plentiful online. But deep insight remains sufficiently rare that some publications can charge for it. Thus, The Financial Times and The Economist remain essential reading despite the availability of zero cost alternatives. This deep and explanatory journalism can only be built by an expensive newsroom staffed by veteran reporters who have built expertise and relationships with sources over many years. The newspaper that is viable in the digital age must maintain a level of expertise in its newsroom that can not be accessed elsewhere. [read more]

Interview on the history + future of the Net

Jerry Brito, a tech thinker and writer for Time Magazine interviewed me about my recent book, A history of the Internet and the digital future as part of his ‘Surprisingly Free’ podcast series with techies. Jerry has an interesting background: he’s an academic, but he has also lead some interesting projects – see below – and has a interesting take on tech regulation.

• OpenRegs.com, an alternative interface to the federal government’s regulatory docketing system
• Very Local Data, demographic information for every jurisdiction in the country
• Stimulus Watch, crowdsourced accountability for federal stimulus spending

Our conversation jumped from Baran, RAND, ARPA/DARPA, the internet protocols, and then took a turn toward the political. The interview is online here http://surprisinglyfree.com/2011/11/08/johnny-ryan/ and the MP3 is downloadable here Surprisingly Free podcast interview with Johnny Ryan by Jerry Brito

The 3 sided product problem

This post is also on Huffington Post. The first item ever sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer. Startled that someone had bid for the broken item eBay’s founder, Pierre Omidyar, contacted the bidder to ask whether he understood that the laser pointer for which he had bid $14.83 was in fact broken? The bidder responded: ‘Yes, I’m a collector of broken laser pointers’. It was late September 1995. Omidyar realized that he was onto something big. By the end of the next year the value of all goods sold on eBay had reached $7.2 million.

This, however, is a trap for entrepreneurs. The market appears to have a niche for anything – but this is illusory. There is a three sided problem that can derail a product. I spoke last night at a startup event and introduced a few thoughts on what these are. Microphone problems prevented me from making my point as well as I would have liked, so here, in text, are the three sides to the product conundrum.