Newspapers are dead, long live viral
I was speaking to someone about how moribund the newspaper industry is and he asked me if there was any chance they’d come back. I told him about the rapist in our neighborhood – how the information, the accounts of the attack, the tracking of location, the apprehension was all delivered through emails and text messages – all viral. I never once looked at the newspaper and I was more informed about a crime in my neighborhood than the Times Picayune could have provided.
If newspapers were smart – they’d create a world, national, statewide, citywide and community centric viral email system and SMS messaging and from there they could really be said to be on top of the local news. Immediacy, targeted rules out over the day old news.