It’s Actually About Figuring Out How to Sell the Sizzle and Not the Steak, Dean
by Kara Swisher
Posted on April 7, 2009 at 12:01 AM PT
BoomTown read a ton of the various columns reacting to the Associated Press’s announcement of a new initiative to–as near as I can tell–stop the Internet from being the Internet.
I tease, as it is clearly a lot more complicated than that. But AP board Chairman and MediaNews group CEO Dean Singleton seemed very exercised about his mission to “protect news content from misappropriation.”
It’s going to surely be an interesting debate, throwing even more light on both the way the Web has impacted media companies, but also just how valuable those companies are (or are not–for an interesting take on that, see this excellent piece by ZDNet blogger Larry Dignan).
The winner for the most curious quote yesterday, though, was from an interview Singleton gave to paidContent.org’s Staci Kramer about new models to come.
Said Singleton: “Print is still the meat. Online’s the salt and pepper.”
I would actually say online is increasingly the sizzle.
But what Singleton left out, especially given the financial trouble his company is currently in, was far more important–it’s the consumer doing the grilling.
Thus, it goes without saying that the meat could be in danger of being a tad well done if media companies are not careful in how they handle this new attack on how those consumers prefer to get their news.
In the meantime, here is a very pertinent–the Internet is good at that stuff–and very funny video of an “eat your steak” commercial:
Comments
Could someone please name a time when Genii has gone back into the bottle?
Perhaps if GOOG established a new trade union for content creators we could solve the essential problem… forget the WGA, AEA, or NWU. And, all of the Coders, Community Managers, and SEO Analysts need protection too.
C’mon folks – it’s time Sergey organized The People and simply paid them directly.
Posted by Edward O'Meara at April 7th, 2009 at 6:52 amVia Twitter @dogwalkblog And is the WSJ the butcher? Talk about milking a metaphor!
Posted by Gerard McLean at April 7th, 2009 at 9:20 amI really enjoy your column, even when I disagree as I do this time. It seems a little disturbing to me that even many journalists have thought it is OK for aggregators like Google and Yahoo to use AP content for free just because it is on the Internet. AP and others have been lazy forcing the issue, but now is as good a time as any. We can converse via Twitter. I’m @swaynette
Posted by Waynette Tubbs at April 7th, 2009 at 11:09 ambasically Google makes money off of everyone’s web content and doesn’t pay them a dime…that’s the real issue
Posted by Sam Harrison at April 7th, 2009 at 12:09 pmas far as singleton, he’s repeating what the naa has said for 20 years…from my seat at the monday morning quaterback chair, basically newspapers lost the lock on daily info
Posted by Sam Harrison at April 7th, 2009 at 12:28 pm