At this momentous period in the Daily Telegraph's history its online news editor, Shane Richmond, has been mulling over the problems facing the paper as it grapples with its digital future. "It's tempting to think that once the newspaper is fully integrated, all we have to do is watch the online ad revenues climb and we'll be fine," he writes. "But we know that isn't the case. The future could get a lot scarier."
He points out that moving into a multi-media world increases "the range of threats" from competing media. He then paints a picture of news transmission in the age of e-papers and asks: "So how is all this paid for?" He finds all "four viable options: subscription, micro-payments, advertising or a combination of the three" flawed in one way or another.
Richmond writes: "Anyone who tells you that their newspaper has met the challenges of the internet age is seriously mistaken. These challenges aren't insurmountable, but meeting them will require ingenuity and creative thinking. As an industry, we're already learning to think differently. We've moved a long way over the last decade but in the next decade we need to move further and faster." He promises more on the topic later today, but read this full posting first. It certainly sounds scary.
