Future of Internet News? 315
Matthew asks: "Now that the Internet has become an integral part of many people's lives, it has also become the place where many of us get our daily news reports (think Slashdot, New York Times, etc). The decentralization of the Internet offers many advantages over traditional media such as newspapers and television, as the user has more control over what to view and when to view it. But how does the future of this utopia look? With the uprise of ad blockers, are we going to be able to get our news for free? Will the Internet become a place for the "selected few" with money to spend? How do DRM and Trusted Computing play into the role? What does Darwin say will happen to newspapers, radio, television?"
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Utopia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Utopia? Not as such.
Details - what news forgot (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM turns the Internet into TV (Score:4, Insightful)
Truth? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you know in cyberpunk movies how the technology always seems old and cobbled-together? Well, thats what people will start doing when things are commodotized enough and when they lose all the freedom they used to have with the old stuff. The "new shiny internet" (tm) will be a DRM laden piece of crap, and anybody who is interested will just hop on a darknet.
Too soon (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, I do read a real paper every morning with breakfast, and I don't see the current model of dual-distribution fading (that of the print edition + the internet edition. Some choice quotes from the post are simply not going to hold up:
With the uprise of ad blockers, are we going to be able to get our news for free?
I'd like to see some statistics, but I don't think that this is a widespread phenomenon. Indeed, I know a lot of tech savvy people and some don't use ad-blocker for philosophical reasons, and some are just too lazy (some do use it, and I think it's great). And the majority of people continue to use IE, and even smirk at the notion of switching browsers!
The decentralization of the Internet offers many advantages over traditional media such as newspapers and television, as the user has more control over what to view and when to view it. But how does the future of this utopia look?
Come now.. Utopia? Seems a little perjorative. Yes, there are advantages - but the good, fact-referenced (well, hopefully) stories are only there because of the ads and the print editions! The internet is in most cases a mere adjunct of the print edition. It does offer advantages.. but some disadvantages too. I love my computer, and I still prefer reading a print edition . . . can't even put a rational reason down. I spend most of my day looking at computers anyways.
Will the Internet become a place for the "selected few" with money to spend?
No. I don't think so. The current distrbution model is working just fine. Ad-revenues are good, and there are simply so many online sources of news (NYT, CBC, BBC, Washington Post, etc. etc.) that if one paper goes to a pay model, then boom - they just loose their market share. They could all get together, but that would be monopoly and illegal.
So, for those reasons, I feel the future of internet news is bright and doesn't hold any of the radical changes forseen by 'Matthew'.
Darwin (Score:5, Insightful)
Effects of ad blockers minimal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see the necessary links between these steps. This seems to be a bit of a 'slippery slope' argument that may not stand up to further examination. I don't mean to rule it out, but can you elaborate on your argument? I don't see it, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.
Free Market Informtion (Score:3, Insightful)
The obvious advantage of this is that there will always be multiple perspectives on any given subject, from the mainstream to the personal to the radical or absurd. Ideally, this would mean that each person who reads the news online has the ability to weigh various viewpoints, and formulate their own opinion based on these. This can also lead to situations like bloggers bringing down Dan Rather for reports on documents that were falsified. So, in an ideal world, all perspectives would be considered and eventually, the truth would emerge.
However, the problem arises when all these sources are based on something that is supposedly "common knowledge" but is in fact not true. The best example I can think of offhand is the infamous "I invented the Internet" quote from Al Gore. Even though the transcript of what he actually said is readily available [sethf.com], and those who had a clue figured out what it was that was actually said, the general public accepted that Al Gore said, "I invented the Internet." Even today, most people would agree that Al Gore said that. His opponents and even his supporters said it bolstered his arrogant image, and in an election that was decided by less than a thousand votes, one could argue that it cost him the election. So, even though the truth was accessible, it did not match with what is still today commonly accepted.
So, the fact is that one can find any perspective on anything through the Internet. The problem is: What happens when all those perspectives are based on some unifying falsehood?
I don't block ads for this reason (Score:5, Insightful)
I love the principle of advertising covering website costs. Why? Because I don't feel like giving out cash to read the news.
If ads, don't cover enough of the bill, were going to end up with micropayments. Using something like Amazon.com as an intermediary... and you pay perhaps $0.25-0.50 to read an article. IMHO I'd rather not get to that point.
I don't think banners are such a big deal. I prefer the subtle google ones.
IMHO the best model uses the following:
- Banner Ads
- Subscription service for no ads
- Micropayments
Just the other day I started resurrecting MacVillage.net. I did that as well. There banner adsads (I'm considering a subscription service if people want it). And there's the ability to give a micropayment ($1).
On the bottom of the page is a simple request. If you can spare a dollar, and want to keep the minimalist ad appearance, consider giving a dollar.
In the past life of the website, it prevented popup ads and such. Hopefully this time it will as well.
Here's an example [macvillage.net]
The ads IMHO aren't obtrusive or in the way. There will be one Google text ad in the content area (I'm experimenting with that). But intentionally text so it doesn't stick out to much.
I like having very few ads. And hopefully enough people like it too... and will help keep it that way.
I think everyone benefits.
The Future of information... (Score:3, Insightful)
Which leads to the next question, who do you trust with vouching for yourself online. And realize the answer to the question will be the person who will know you, and not some false or pseudonym. Who do you trust saying you are you, and that you do indeed know what you are talking about regarding the subject you are speaking of.
I personally don't want any of the following as vouching for me exclusively: The Government, My Bank (or anyone I pay money to to vouch for me). Now do I trust my friends, do I trust my church to vouch for me, and which of those do you trust? Also, what happens when I go from being a citizen of one state to another? Or from one country to another? What happens when I'm trusted by a known non-trusted/enemy organization?
Granted there are a ton of solutions out there, but nothing which is accepted yet. And each of these solutions have problems.
About adblock (Score:5, Insightful)
I block your ads when they get in my way.
Remember the [blink] tag? Why would a flashing graphic be any less annoying?
If your ads flash, blink, move around, make noise, or freeze my browser for 3 minutes while it loads an in-banner video I do not want to see, I will block your ads.
Do not bitch, moan, or say "but it's the advertisers that want to annoy you so". Just don't have ads that attempt to FORCE me to watch them. I will go to your site, I will block the ads, I will not feel bad about it. I used to block them my putting hand over the screen, now I have a ready-made plug-in that lets me rest my arm. The more intolerable your ads become, the more drastic our countermeasures become. This didn't have to be an arms race, but since you forced our hand, now we have adblock.
Sincerly,
Someone fed up.
Re:Newspapers - a dying breed (Score:3, Insightful)
Because most newspapers come with editorials, opinion pieces and investigative journalism that is not found online (and is more likely to be real)...
Plus you get a good source of paper to put on the floor or wrap things in.
Brilliant!
News + Local bloggers = glut (Score:2, Insightful)
Yahoo news crawls some 7000+ news sites, Google News [google.com] crawls 4500+ English news sites, and Topix.net crawls 10,000+ news sites. Once you add in the thousands of local blogs, you will need a system like Topix.net [topix.net] to filter the relentless stream of news articles and posts that are generated every day. You will need something that can sort through the news, determine the trends, and ignore the old repeated stories for you and present them to you in RSS for consumption with your favorite RSS news reader.
-AS
Re:Utopia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Adblock won't work forever... (Score:3, Insightful)
http://cnn.com/saibjkb26234/istc6d23.gif
If the name of the ad is randomly generated, you would have a hard time blocking just the adds without also resorting to blocking all images at this website. It would be almost impossible to block text based ads.
But USERS decide what they want, not PROVIDERS (Score:5, Insightful)
Users get to determine what they read and in what format they read it in. They can even determine how much of which slant they want on the story.
Without the internet, you would have to search long and far to find opposing viewpoints. You'd have to take what you read at face value or go pay a visit to the library and hope they have recent, relevant material. Either that, or you'd have to subscribe to every magazine and newspaper on earth.
Internet News Makes You Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
The other problem with Internet news - it may just be a problem with people in general, but exacerbated by the 'net - is that it creates tunnel vision, only tuning into the news you want to hear, that backs up your own prejudices. I cringe whenever I see people posting links from places like World Net Daily or Indy Media as if the content within is gospel truth, not heavily spun to the left or right semi-fiction.
I know of course that traditional print media also has political bias, but the spin is usually appended onto the pure reportage so both can be separated.
Re:Effects of ad blockers minimal (Score:3, Insightful)
that said.. i don't think popup / ad blockers will do anything drastic to anything. the adverts just change their form and creep into the stories themselfs.
Re:Newspapers - a dying breed (Score:2, Insightful)
Good for you.
However, I don't have a blackberry (whatever that is), and my cell phone is designed for, er, making phone calls. It doesnt do the internet, and if it did I wouldnt much want to read it on a 5*20 character display, or whatever it is.
Bearing in mind I'm a young, single male, in a first world nation (UK) with all the tech available if I want it, with a fairly well-paid job, and a long-standing penchant for geek toys and techy things.... in terms of the world at large, I think I am in the top 0.1% of the population who is likely to have such tech.
But I still don't have these things.
So, um, don't count on paper vanishing instantly. Try to remember - you are not a representative sample of the entire world.
The problem is verification (Score:5, Insightful)
"...but when the original source is gone..." (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no such thing as "public record" on the internet. :(
Re:Headlines (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, so buy a subscription! People do need to realize that it does cost money to report news. From paying the reporter to outfitting them with camera equipment etc..., to paying news distribution costs (even Internet distribution has significant costs), it all is not free and if you find a news source that provides you with information you value, support them. Thus my admonition to support NPR. I send money to NPR, the WSJ and the NYTimes and Slashdot because I value their information. As to the others, their models make one view advertisements to pay for the delivery costs, and that is OK by me as long as they are not overly obtrusive and block the actual news.
I'm not talking about "truth" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Details - what news forgot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Effects of ad blockers minimal (Score:2, Insightful)
You have to apply an individual effort to avoid each newspaper ad, leave the room during a television ad, and so on. Just as making a tape for a friend or transcribing a book requires a great deal of effort for each iteration. But just as how p2p tech' has changed how we share information, ad-blockers could potentially become universal and comprehensively eliminate advertising revenue through no effort (even once) of the target audience.
~Lake
Asimov's Response (Score:1, Insightful)
Well, he turned out to be right.
I think this is also the way of the various news sources - each does and will have its place. The Internet will not supercede the regular news except for thos who would use the net for news anyway.
Mark Edwards
Re:Advantage of Internet News (Score:4, Insightful)
No longer can charlatans and quacks fool or manipulate you as easily.
Assuming that people want unbiased and accurate information. Often what people want isn't facts to help them make up their minds; they've already made up their minds and they want to hear the facts that justify their thinking. Look at how much money is made by Fox News or _Fahrenheit 9/11_. What's selling these days is propaganda, not unbiased news.
Journalistic Integrity and other oxymorons... (Score:4, Insightful)
I apply the same approach to television news. Where I am, we get one channel broadcasting news at 5pm, another two at 6pm, and a fourth at 7pm. That means that (if you can stand listening to that much crap for that long) you can get at least three different versions of events from TV alone every day.
At first I found it interesting that each providor put such a totally different spin on the 'facts', then it amused me - don't these people realise that people can watch other versions of events, and see right through their sensationalist crap?
Now it just sickens me. It sickens me that they have zero conscience and zero integrity, and zero interest in reporting what actually happened and that they spin such totally misrepresented crap knowing full well that plenty of people don't know any better than to just swallow their stories hook, line and sinker.
Journalistic integrity is a long-dead myth. Those bastards don't care about reporting facts, they care about finding ways to feed advertising to people, and if they have to sensationalise a story to the point of outright lying to get people to listen/read/watch their advertising, then they won't hesitate for a second to do it.
It's not about the news anymore folks, it's about the advertising.
Re:Bloggers (Score:3, Insightful)
The main article wonders about ad blockers. Well, as most of us probably know, the whole ad problem is solved on the BBC.
This brings me to another point (and note that I'm not trolling): at least some Americans should get over their fear of government-affiliated institutions. "Throwing away" money can actually be quite good for many things: BBC doesn't have to worry about pleasing the advertisers, since there are none. Taxpayer funding luckily doesn't mean government control either, at least not in this case.
Oh and I'm from the Nordic countries myself, but I get most of my news from the bbc.
Re:About adblock (Score:3, Insightful)
I block all the obnoxious ads - anything that moves, sings, tries to stall out my browser, pops over onto the page obscuring text - whatever. I do not block *any* server that just dishes out text ads. And oddly enough, I sometimes actually read the ads, and (rarely) do more than read them. In fact, it was a text ad that led me to NewEgg, and ultimately resulted in NewEgg getting around a thousand dollars of my hard-earned cash.
I have never followed a non-text ad to a company website, nor have I purchased anything advertised in these ads.
Max
Where is my intelligent news agent? (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe an rss reader which recognizes the headlines I click on or offers radio buttons for rating: (*) interresting ( ) neutral ( ) not interresting.
It could then drop headlines I am certainly not interrested in or present the good ones more prominent.
I'd also like this agent to index all the web pages I surf and give me a search interface for my browsing history. How often did you find something interresting you forgot to bookmark and you cant remember on which browsers history (home, laptop, work, girlfriends computer) you should search?
It could try to cluster my interrests and skim some selected news sites. If an article fits into the stuff I like it could be presented like: You might want to read this...
And this same agent could periodically check selected web pages for changes and for example check for showing up or vanishing terms or phrases. Example: "Alert me when term 'version 3.4 beta' is not on the page any more OR when term '3.5' shows up on the page."
You ask why I am not programming such a buddy. Because I suck.
-silence