"Technology by itself does not impel change". This insightful and perceptive statement is excerpted from the 1995 article, "Computers, Networks and Work", authored by Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler and published in Scientific American, Special Issue number 6, Volume 1, 1995. It seems like ages ago already. How different the world has become since then and yet how very true and applicable, and present, and oddly different that phrase is today. This fragment is taken from a paragraph reporting on individual adoption, network usage, and organizational management reaction to, electronic mail. Specifically, they are referring to a report from Newsday Columnist Paul Shrieber at the time that the paper had taken away employees' (including reporters) ability to send email. "Management choices and policies are equally influential", the authors close the paragraph with cool distance from the content of the statement.
Today, in May of 2009, those policies are revisited with every message sent and received. Employees in all kinds of operations all over the globe are encouraged to help frame policy toward information exchange by reporting on any new applications of information distribution they have learned about or thought of, and to make recommendations. It is a very fluid process, that can hardly be called a process, that we are all still learning, figuring out how to take part in and, of course, monetize.
The upshot is that it ("Technology by itself does not impel change".) is just as true today as it ever was and "Management choices and policies are equally influential" is only less so. Executive seal is still very much needed and imposed because information flow can often contain content that is easily construed as the official word disclosed and sanctioned by executive officers, when often they have no idea the subject is even under discussion before a million other people in and outside of the organization, and even the context of the conversation, have absorbed and maybe even commented on. Idea Exchange is a monster these days, and traditional news sources often must divest themselves from taking credit to this or that scrap of news or whatever because it doesn't reflect official position. News flows freely and the editor can't sleep because the news is out and reacted to before she is even out of bed.
Clearly, the news service model that we are familiar with is in its death throes. Does this mean the news services are dead too? Not likely, but they will surely look different in the mirror a year from now. I am not an expert on the newspaper business, so I can't tell what is going to happen to everyone who has made a living in the industry. Many functions will not be required at all, within months of this writing.
I do have some ideas about how the future news is going to work. None of them are original. I've learned that there are no new ideas, really, these days. I get the feeling, almost, that the words I write here, now, are running through someone else's head, arranged slightly differently, half way around the world. With that said, please nobody accuse me of stealing this or that idea. Just comment on it and attribute it or some version of it to whomever you think deserves credit. We all are in the same boat. The concept of idea ownership is weirdly garbled in the mashed-up world. The idea of information ownership is equally skewed.
First, why is the news important? Well, it tells what has happened (or what is reported to have happened) and what is coming up (or an idea if what can be expected: the weather, gas prices, traffic, tonight's sports, houses for sale, businesses opening, businesses closing, dinner specials at the local eateries, fund raisers, you-get-the-idea). Also, and perhaps more importantly, it gives us something to talk about; something to share our POV on; our "this is how I see it" position. We get it. We know the score. The newspaper is valuable because it provides us a shared conversational context, a shared (and limited) collection of content on which we can deliver and receive commentary (the limited is important as the shared because it maintains the definition of scope about those things that we somewhat comfortable converse about). There is nothing to talk about if there isn't more than one point-of-view, and there isn't more than one point-of-view without a shared conversational context: our news. No news means no conversation means no community means no purpose. We live to share our point-of-view; To digest other points-of-view, to revise our point-of-view to share our point-of-view on this matter or that matter. But I digress.
I was going to say it is all about Twitter. Here, let me say it: it is all about Twitter, the future news is. And the future existence of any news service depends on using Twitter or some Twitter-like service correctly and effectively.
Here, look, I've created a news service using Twitter. I did it this morning. Nothing to it. I hunted for headlines. Threw them on my page: http://www.online-independent.com and every time I added a new headline, which is only a link to the (original?) content discovered on some other source, I update my Twitter profile with the headline and anyone interested in more is taken to my page to see this headline and possibly article synopsis alongside all the other headlines I selected for today. I have collated the news to my liking into a public forum and anyone who is interested can get to that news through me. I am just one of a million points of light. Anyone who likes the way I collate news can make me one of their preferred news sources by placing my widget on their Google page (or wherever), and by setting their hand-held to receive updates whenever I add or update a headline about a pre-set collection of subject categories they have defined in their own mind. In other words, they don't get the headlines or news blurbs they don't want from me, only what they are interested in. User-defined news. They also share their news sources with their friends so they can have a shared contextual conversation platform, and I have a news service.
Of course, no one knows about it yet, because I just made it and nobody has ever heard of me and therefore would never think of me as a source of news. Which is good. Because I am not a news source. I am a news service (of sorts). But Ben over there, likes some of the things I am pointing to and decides to follow me on Twitter, and I become one of his channels. He tells some friends who follow him on twitter that they would do well, in way of the news, to follow me, and bang!, I have news service.
There is much, much more involved, of course. There is the actual reading of the newspaper that is on the wane (but I have a hunch will make a comeback - more on that next time. There are pricing questions. There are logistical questions around buying and selling content. There a technology and original news-source licensing issues. There are SLAs that need to be written (very carefully, with unprecedented flexibility, one would think considering all that is going on in the world of information). There are legal issues. roles and responsibilites have to be redefined. Are reporters independent agents? Who do they bill, how and when (for what)? And so on.
We know Oprah loves Twitter. And everyone loves that Oprah loves it, especially Twitter. I want to know how the traditional news distribution networks like it, and how they are going to use it in this paradigm.
We've made the transition from the old communications methods quite smoothly (almost imperceptibly from a higher view) - how we as a species have adopted new technologies to reconnect, internetwork and work. We can also feel like we are being pulled apart by the introduction of so many information-related technologies across so many different applications. We are not accustomed to this. We are losing context. We are losing our shared conversations. It is only temporary though, as we need that to live and thrive. Conversation sharing is what we do. Message exchange is as fundamental to our existence as the air and sleep.
So to what the authors of that 1995 article have so matter-of-factly put: "Technology itself does not impel change", I add, the news (including advertising) does: our ability to get from, and give to, with color and comment, the people that matter to us, the news that matters to us. It is what impels the change and drives the innovation, and the management choices and policies are only trying to keep step with the public demand for a more evolved system of communication.
What's next? - "The future of the newspaper (the one you hold in your hand)."
What's after that? - Email as a news reporting tool.
And after that? - Who knows.
