A quick historical tourof online news

Trends in Communication & Information TechnologyJOUR 4871-003

CompuServe: 1969 beginnings

1980: Columbus Dispatch was first newspaper to go

online with CompuServe

Early 1990s: the BBS newspaper

Mid 1990s: America Online hosted newspapers

Mid 1990s: Newspapers on Prodigy

Mid 1990s: ‘World Wide Web’ won out

Media skeptical through 1990s

The iPad was envisioned in Boulder!

Roger Fidler ran the Information Design Lab in

Boulder, mid-1990s

Facebook: only for college students (for a while)

MySpace launched 2003: Could you have guessed whichwould hit it big, which would tank?

Most media people dissed Twitter at first...

From "trivial" to "vital element of the 24-hour news ecosystem."

... Ditto for blogging (and some still do)

Online comments: Anonymity long the norm

News publishers’ problems adapting...• Not good at identifying trends; not in their DNA• Didn’t innovate enough!• Preferred follow the leader (herd mentality)• Low R&D investment compared to other industries• Difficult to innovate when you have to put out a daily news

product• Missed early investment opportunities (Google, Netscape, eBay,

AOL -- oops!)• Didn’t create new online/digital services -- replicated news product

online• Bob Kaiser (Washington Post) in 1992: suggested computer game

with serious (news) purpose ... Still not much done with news games

• Missed obvious threats: Craigslist, eBay, Monster.com• Digital evangelists on staff not given much power by top

management

Do you think these would have succeeded?

Millions of these were given away in 2000 ...The company raised $185M from investors!

I wonder why this 2001 product never made it out of

prototype stage?!

e.g., perfume ad online; consumer

smells it

e.g., Sitting at your PC while reading print magazine; scan print code, extra content or ad shows up on PC

New today: Fad? Or will it succeed?

(Brad Feld investment)

Ongoing problem: Little time spent on news sites

Average user: 423 minutes/month(Dec. 2011)

Top 25 newspaper websites: Average user:

12 minutes/month