The web doesn’t know what constitutes good writing. The market doesn’t know what constitutes sustainable mores of institutional behavior. There is a resonance between the two phenomena, but not a causal link. What do you think of this from the perspective of civic journalism?

Truth is, I wouldn’t give a penny’s worth of piss for Jarvis’ opinions.

Please click on the link that was in my previous comment. You may be surprised.

Are all journalists this lazy or clueless? Clicking on a link is not that technologically challenged, is it?

Here’s another one: http://www.forewordmagazine.com/blogs/matters/2009/01/06/WHAT8217SNEXTFORBOOKPUBLISHING.aspx

Digital or dead tree, book publishing is growing and no one is crying woe is me. And in many parts of the world, paper book publishing is thriving even though internet access is just as widespread (China has more netizens then the population of the US or close to it) . Again, they’ve products that people WANT to buy, either on paper or 01s, as opposed to what “journalists” have to offer. Keep snarking. That’s all you have left. And it’s worthless.

How much value does that “particular”, “unique”, or “his” have and to whom?

Unique does not imply valuable. In fact, the relevant criteria isn’t unique, but usefully unique.

Some opinions are usefully unique (or at least rare) and valuable; they can command a high price. The problem that the NYT faces is that its opinions are not usefully unique. So, even if they were valuable, they can’t command a high price.

The terms “supply” and “demand” are relevant as is “substitution”.

I’m wondering when all books will be free on Kindle – as long as you accept the ads.

Can’t wait to read WWGD. Where’s my free ARC, Jeff?

A fast growing model like AllRecipes has implemented means they can, if they so choose, come into the content niche that Cooks Illustrated provides. AllRecipes could afford to sell ad free versions of the site for a lot cheaper than $35/year.

That leaves Cooks on the defensive, which is not a position any business should be in on the Web right now.

News will survive as a complimentary business that enhances the consumer experience. The company that disseminates the news will need additional revenue streams to support gathering it. Selling the news by itself is probably not practical for the long haul as a business model.

It’s just plain irresponsible to reject a paid content model out-of-hand, and keep pushing journalists hellbent down the path of free.

Most journalists will not earn enough from “free” to boost themselves into the ranks of the successfully self-employed, or even better into the ranks of successful entrepreneurs. Therefore, teaching them to focus solely on “free” merely serves to reinforce the plantation system that has kept many journalists as low-paid serfs in newsrooms across America and the world.

Of course now the newspaper model is collapsing, so instead many of these journalists will find themselves on new online plantations.

The responsible thing to do is to teach journalists that there are multiple models, including paid for content that’s worth paying for. Journalists need to learn to think like entrepreneurs and come up with ways of creating content that makes money from multiple sources (nor are free and paid mutually exclusive).

But unfortunately we do not hear this from Jeff Jarvis, and this is what makes me so disappointed in him. Jeff has set himself up as an educator, of young students (at CUNY) and of old-school executives. Yet his adamant rejection of paid content means he’s presenting an incomplete picture. He’s not objective, as the best educators tend to be. He’s adamantly biased.

When we hear about the proposals from Jeff’s CUNY class on new business models for news, we hear names of projects but not the business models behind them. I wonder why. Is it because there’s no model, other than free? It’s great to come up with ideas, but how do they get paid for?

Kind regards,
Evan Rudowski

Like many, many others, I hope journalism dies, the quicker the better.

If you are just producing information that is available free elsewhere then of course it is silly to try to charge for it. But the march of the free simply meant a focus on cheap largely fungible content that brought down the barriers to entry and tempted some of our best entrepreneurs down blind alleys lined with low costs. Too much money has been invested producing copycat cheapskate businesses that can be free, rather than answering the very sensible age-old question: “What can I do that people might value enough to pay for? And if people won’t pay for what I am doing, then why am I doing it?”" It’s going to be ugly for a while but it will be better in the end.

Death to the free: Why the recession is (ultimately) good for online publishing
http://garciainteractive.com/blog/view/29/