8020 est Morte! Vive le 8020!

The funeral dirge for newspapers continued as the 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News published its final edition last Friday. The casualty list is sure to grow. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz summed up the dire signals in his State of the News story today: "Newspapers are killing sections and closing bureaus, particularly in Washington. The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press have cut back home delivery to three days a week. The Washington Times has dropped its Saturday print edition. The Christian Science Monitor is switching to Web-only publication in April. Gannett Co., publisher of USA Today, is forcing staffers to take a week-long furlough. Hearst plans to close the Seattle Post-Intelligencer unless it gets a buyer."

So it seemed somewhat incongruous to learn that 8020 Publishing—purveyor of the lush, user-generated photo magazine, JPG Magazine—had found an investor that would allow it to keep trucking. Former CEO Mitchell Fox, wrote in an email that a joint venture between camera retailer Adorama and private investors had formed "for the purpose of executing on the unique vision that led to the creation of JPG Magazine, jpgmag.com and everywheremag.com." Was it a fire sale? Possibly. Fox has said 8020 had lots of suitors, but they evidently weren't serious enough to keep 8020 from shuttering earlier this year.

But who cares? The fact remains that JPG—the magazine and the vibrant community around it—provides a robust model for how communities and publishers can collaborate to create compelling content. In these most grim of times, newspapers could do worse than to follow its lead.

Comments

[Alex Salkever]

This sort of buying the content rather than the ad has been creeping in forever. Many regional mags now are basically special advertising sectors wrapped around a sliver thing content well. The whole concept of conversational marketing is built on the idea that publishing content can be a collaborative venture between a sponsor and a publisher without conflicts (at least undisclosed). Personally, I think those who think information should always be free reap what they have sown. With no clear business models emerging for content online, the only real outcome I see is decimation of completely unsponsored content -- or a switch back to subscription models where people agree that content is worth something and worth paying for. David Cohan at Spot.Us is doing some interesting things in this area that are quite different than the 8020 model, for example.

[alan]

There is so much angst in the air and hand wringing about the decline of newspapers. I suspect that the line of sight offers little transparency and the heart in mouth experience makes it almost impossible to predict an outcome.

I suspect that when all is said and done, once the dust has settled, there is still going to be a substantial group of readers who would still want to have paper in hand, either to enable the awakening of the senses as the day unfolds or to dig deeper on evenings and weekends. What could possibly replace that ritual?

The rapid shrinking of the news paper business’s time has come but at some point it will stabilize.

Shirky; “Meanwhile, back in the real world, the media business is being turned upside down by our new freedoms and our new roles. We’re not just readers anymore, or listeners or viewers. We’re not customers and we’re certainly not consumers. We’re users.” “We’re media outlets now too.” Shirky hardly represents the average user!

The younger generation might be Shirky’s users but those who have spent the last decades getting ink on their fingers every day will continue do so if paper is still available.

Regards, Alan

Here is more news of possible fatalities.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-next-9-newspapers-to-die-2009-3

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