Chat session: Other business models
Posted 8/13/2009 9:13:00 AM

This session is the recording of a live chat. Panelists share ideas about business models and respond to questions and comments from attendees. This discussion focuses on avenues revenue beyond the paywall issue.

Journalism 2.0 author/blogger, Mark Briggs, is former assistant managing editor for interactive news at The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash. Mark left the newsroom to start Serra Media, which has developed Newsgarden, a tool to let users find the news and deals in their neighborhoods and to help journalists, community members and businesses organize news and advertising by location. He will discuss the hyperlocal opportunities that most news companies are missing.

Charlotte-Anne Lucas, is a Web veteran who has been managing editor of TheStreet.com and content director of MySanAntonio.com, both of which became profitable during her tenure. She is project manager for NOWCast SA, a nonprofit citizen journalism startup.  Charlotte-Anne has clear and insightful views on how to succeed in the digital world. Her blog post Choosing the digital printing press provides a thoughtful look at the tools we need to serve a digital audience and Newspapers don’t own journalism helps us understand how digital journalism is growing and thriving even as newspapers struggle.

Digital journalism pioneer Steve Outing, is Stop the Presses! columnist for Editor & Publisher Online. He was a senior editor for the Poynter Institute and started his own web-media company that closed in 2007. Steve’s column, Getting Money from Readers Who Won’t Pay for Online News, was an important contribution to the paid-content discussion. He suggested that a news organization could keep a large audience by offering its basic content free, but develop a membership model providing high-value to people who choose to pay for the extra benefits, such as exclusive discounts from advertisers. Steve had some interesting observations on the future of news business models from last week’s conference at the Aspen Institute.

Dan Conover, has filled newsroom roles ranging from city editor to Web editor to cartoonist. Last year, just three years after being named South Carolina’s Journalist of the Year, Dan took a buyout last year from the Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C. He now freelances and writes for the Xark blog. Dan’s post 2020 vision: What’s next for news? was one of the most thoughtful things I’ve read about where journalism and our business may be heading.

Steve Buttry, innovation coach at Gazette Communications, co-chair of the ASNE Innovation Committee and author of A Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection. Steve will join these four in Thursday’s live chat. He will address his belief that we need a new revenue approach, based on facilitating transactions, rather than just showing ads to lots of people.