What are journalists worried about these days? Questions from the news:rewired conference in London on Friday suggest the impact of competition for ad revenue and the uncertainty of launching new products are key concerns, among many, as the industry continues to search for viable alternatives to print circulation and ad revenue.
Online ad competitor
At the end of his presentation on how to use Facebook (which we covered here) Facebook Journalism Program head Vadim Lavrusik was asked whether Facebook would share any of the revenue it makes from increased engagement on its website created by journalists and news organisations.
The question itself was in many ways pointless because:
— Facebook won't share those revenues.
— The social network argues, that working with Facebook is mutually beneficial because as well as improving the Facebook user experience, it will also drive more traffic to news publisher sites.
— Trying to compete with Facebook is itself pointless. Consumers spend less than four percent of their time online on news websites, roughly a quarter of what they spent on Facebook.
That doesn't mean Facebook isn't a problem for publishers. It has far, far more ad inventory to sell to advertisers, and it also has far more information on its audience, so it can sell highly targeted ads.
That combination of scale and data is why it made $1.3 billion in ad revenue alone in Q4 2012 – at a time when analysts are still criticising Mark Zuckerberg's company for underperforming on advertising, particularly on mobile devices.
Frankly, there isn't much that can be done about this. Facebook is always going to have greater scale. But it's understandable that journalists balk at being forced to work with a company which is a direct competitor.
Startup culture – startup fear
In the session on startups – the young entrepreneurs were asked by a slightly older member of the audience how anyone could hope to start a business without using unpaid labour or going unpaid themselves in the early stages.
The response was a very reasonable argument that limited startup capital was available and the entrepreneurs had lain the foundations with minimal resources.
The dichotomy between what these young people were prepared to do early on and what most established journalists and media workers are prepared for is a problem.
There are lots of talented people in news organisations and other publishers who have very good ideas about building new businesses and products. But while those with little experience are prepared to take a chance, that's not often an option for people with families and mortgages.
That means many creative, experienced people are only likely to get the chance to try out their ideas within the confines of a company that can support them – with all the constraints on creativity and experimentation that normally entails.