Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Newspapers versus the Net

Back at the end of May this year, Michael Courtman, who writes a blog called NZ Conservative: unfashionable, politically incorrect commentary on New Zealand and international issues, began a blog in this way:

In newspaper commentaries on the decline/ stagnation of newspapers, and the rise of Internet, you don't tend to hear much about the Internet's greatest strength - its capacity to act as an outlet for frank opinion, or it's greatest weakness - its lack of appeal to advertisers.

For example, in a Press opinion column from last week "There's no business like news business," (Saturday, May 24), Martin Van Beynen says the Internet is competing strongly with print media for advertising, but later in the piece claims newspapers are struggling to get any revenue from their online versions.

He goes on to talk about the way the blog is a place for all sorts of 'journalism' but isn't much use to advertisers - not so far at least, anyway.

It's worth reading in full.

Mike also writes another blog (spasmodically) called, Lightening the Load. It focuses on labour-saving technology.

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