The UK's Guardian Looks to go "digital-first".

Image by Getty Images via @daylife"The worsening state of the printed news and advertising market has prompted The Guardian to downsize in print and become “digital-first” earlier than previously expected..."

In an interview with paidContent:UK, Guardian Media Group CEO Andrew Miller says:

"We now have a financial imperative we didn’t have before,” said Miller, who was upped from finance chief a year ago. “The financial pressure all newspapers are facing through the shift is such that our losses are increasing and I can’t see a way of those not decreasing without first making ourselves digital-first"

They are getting it right and none of the other old 'broadsheet' newspapers are, as they are trying to imitate the success of niche financial market digital news providers, such as: the Financial Times, The Economist and the Wall Street Journal.

Those financial digital news providers of course do cover non-financial news, and in depth.

However, they have a huge subscription advantage over the old daily broadsheets: financial market professional subscribers. The cost of that subscription for those guy is quite frankly peanuts relative to their disposable income. So easy money.

Not so in the real world's newspapers.

see Interview: Guardian Aims To Double Digital Revenue In Five Years, CEO Says

Spawning - The Sons of WikiLeaks

Besides the now recognized OpenLeaks setup by former Wikileaks members Herbert Snorrason, a 25-year-old Icelandic historian and Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a German former hacker, the orginal site is spawning madly.

Get a crack at

• BrusselsLeaks - launched by a group of former European Union officials and journalists (note the "s")
• IndoLeaks - for Indonesia (not India)
• BalkanLeaks - for, well the Balkans (remember them?)
• TuniLeaks - no, not a Green campaign against over fishing. Tunisia this time (do they need to leak?).

And best of all

PirateLeaks - No. Wrong, nothing to do with the identity of the next customer the music business intends to sue for billions for downloading $20 worth of music.

This is the leak site of the the Czech Republic.

Must be something to do with Prague night clubs, or something like that.

From globalpost

Imitators create new WikiLeaks sites

via ScribeFire

News Online and The Paywall Debate - To Build or Not to Build?

Stephen Bartholomeusz, writing in the Australian Business Spectator, in an article entitled 

False iPad hope? (free sign up required to view).

This blogger finds it ironic that a writer in what is a essentially a free online publication, doing very well with it's model, needs to wonder which online model will work for traditional journalism. The following models will not work:

• The general readership, major newspaper behind a paywall a la the UK's Times online
• Specialised Magazines whereby the app costs more than the print edition a la Wired Magazine (and you can get it free on the web - how dumb is that?)
• Any combination of the above as in the proposed new Murdoch online Daily which is "...an interesting and brave experiment with a purpose-designed tablet product, with News committing an estimated $US100 million to the venture." (from the Bartholomeusz article above)

The models that do work are:

1. And one only: The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and The Economist online editions. No prizes as to why these online publications make money and actually work - the financial market participants reading them have money to burn. Very simple.

Everyone else is doomed to failure.

So get on the advert supported band wagon and stop winging about it...!

 

Rolling Stone Magazine: The Greatest Rock and Roll Christmas Songs

"Most rock fans assume that all Christmas music is terrible. They're mostly right, but every once in a while a Christmas miracle happens — and a great holiday song gets produced. Some of the best examples come from 1963's Phil Spector's Christmas Album"

The Greatest Rock and Roll Christmas Songs

Some of them have embedded You Tube videos.