Vint Cerf, the Google chief evangelist widely credited as one of the Internet's pioneers, is entering the micropayment-for-news fray by suggesting (well, hinting) that journalism ought to try a fee-for-something approach.
The Internet News site interprets his quote as suggesting that an iTunes-style approach ought to be the route. It's not clear, though, exactly what he's advocating, because there is no direct quote. He notes that media, and particularly newspapers, need new models of distribution and new forms of revenue.
"Exploring alternative forms of distribution is absolutely essential," he told a conference on innovation in journalism. "If there's no way to reward intellectual property, it will be difficult to come by."
Howls are already in the blogosphere over David Carr's column today in the New York Times on news needing an iTunes model --- a way to get people accustomed to getting content free to suddenly pay for it. Journalism comes in all shapes and sizes today. At the beginning of the decade, few could imagine the podcast, and yet all sorts of conventional media (like us) produce them (here are some from our staff at The Vancouver Sun, including one from our gardening writer, Steve Whysall). |