I use a great news aggregator for the Mac, Net NewsWire Lite, and I'm really thinking of upgrading to the full version for $29.95. But that's not the only way to get news: radio and newspapers will be around for a long time to come.
Doc Searls has some ideas, at his blog, about how public radio should face its challenges. I especially liked two of his points:
Second, quit copying commercial broadcasters. This means, a) relying more on listener relationships and contributions than on "underwriting" that amounts to advertising, and b) simplifiying complex websites that ape the worst of what commercial broacasters (and, for that matter, newspapers) do — which is put up craploads of internal links that trap the user in a maze and exposes them to advertising along the way. Look into River of News approaches to what the station is doing. Think about how people listening to radio in cars also have mobile phones and iPods. Add that up.
Third, face the fact that everything you broadcast will, and should, be available on an a la carte basis to everybody in the world, eventually. Then support making that happen. Then make it possible for listeners downloading individual podcasts of those items to pay for them on a voluntary basis. Concentrate on making this stuff valuable, not scarce.
If I can listen to Friday Night Blues, for example, on my laptop in a hotel room when I'm not in El Paso, then that's a cool thing. If I'm in the same room on a Saturday morning and can't find the local NPR station, or the reception is lousy or whatever, then once again it's back to the KTEP-FM site for their streaming audio. Why shouldn't I be able to download that program and listen to it later? They could encourage payment for such services by offering it free for a limited time only, or they could be pure evil capitalist running dogs and offer the service for the lowest possible fee at which they could still make a profit.
Which, itself, brings me to another point: public radio people could learn that words like "property" and "capitalism" and "profit" aren't codewords for "screw the masses, the business of Amerikkka is Big Business," "we hate the niggers," and "a woman's place is in the kitchen." Really, they're not. They have dictionary definitions and everything.
Searls also has a few words for newspapers as well. He says a few things that need to be pounded into the heads of editors and publishers from sea to shining sea, such as getting rid of paywalls and registration crap. But he also mentions something that I've thought about:
Second, start featuring archived stuff on the paper's website. Link back to as many of your archives as you can. Get writers in the habit of sourcing and linking to archival editorial. This will give search engine spiders paths to wander back in those archives as well. Result: more readers, more authority, more respect, higher PageRank and higher-level results in searches. In fact, it would be a good idea to have one page on the paper's website that has links (or links to links, in an outline) back to every archived item.
and this one, also having to do with links:
Third, link outside the paper. Encourage reporters and editors to write linky text. This will encourage reciprocity on the part of readers and writers who appreciate the social gesture that a link also performs. Over time this will bring back enormous benefits through increased visits, higher respect, more authority and the rest of it.
as well as this one:
Fourth, start following, and linking to, local bloggers and even competing papers (such as the local arts weeklies). You're not the only game in town anymore, and haven't been for some time. Instead you're the biggest fish in your pond's ecosystem. Learn to get along and support each other, and everybody will benefit.
And I really agree with him here:
Eighth, uncomplicate your webistes. I can't find a single newspaper that doesn't have a slow-loading, hard-to-navigate, crapped-up home page. These things are aversive, confusing and often useless beyond endurance. Simplify the damn things. Quit trying to "drive traffic" into a maze where every link leads to another route through of the same mess. You have readers trying to learn something, not cars looking for places to park. And please, get rid of those lame registration systems. Quit trying to wring dollars out of every click. I guarantee you'll sell more advertising to more advertisers reaching more readers if you take down the barricades and (again) link outward more. And you'll save all kinds of time and hassle.
Are you reading this, El Paso Times?
Posted by Craig Ceely at October 6, 2006 01:56 PM