... it’s weird to me, as a long-time internet-only news reader, to pay money for a bunch of content I don’t care about. More than half of each issue is sports news, entertainment gossip, ads, and little newspaper games (crosswords, Sudoku, horoscopes), and I need to buy all of that to get the news, editorials, and app reviews that I care about.
via www.marco.org ("Marco" is quickly becoming a one-name blogger a la Kottke, Megnut, Dooce, Gruber, etc.)
Marco's point is oft-repeated but so important that it cannot be repeated enough. Successful media products — Tivo, iTunes, BitTorrent, Instapaper, Twitter, Facebook and so on — enable people to see only what they want and cut away the rest.
If you are asking your audience to consume something they don't want to, you better stop or they won't be your audience anymore. And if you're asking them to pay for it, that's an uphill battle to say the least. The Daily appears to be run by the extremist Gutenbourgeois, as described by Paul Ford in his masterpiece The Web Is a Customer Service Medium.
yes- that's right. people life buffets- if it's a 10 course meal, it better be Per Se,
b/c if it's arby's it just makes you sick.
Posted by: Jake | February 10, 2011 at 11:16 PM