DISQUS

StevenHodson · 11 months ago

I was wondering if you would weigh in on Seth's post and I will say when I was writing up my thoughts on it yesterday on The Inquisitr (http://www.inquisitr.com/9386/the-greater-failu...) you and the the direction The Globe and Mail is headed was in the back of my mind.

Personally I am looking forward to what your new role at G&M will bring and find it interesting that a Canadian publication is taking a leading role in seriously looking towards the future.

mathewi · 11 months ago

Thanks, Steven -- at least we are looking. Now we just have to figure out how to get there :-)

Webomatica · 11 months ago

I'm sure you recall a memo Bill Gates sent out to microsoft employees back in 1995 that foretold the coming threat of the Internet and how the company had to get prepared for the inevitable or be swept away. That was 13 years ago. When one looks at it that way, that newspapers couldn't figure out a new business model even with a decade of time, the current situation is completely sad and inexcusable. I think it's a lack of vision and leadership at the top - there is no Bill Gates or Steve Jobs type leading the newspaper industry.

mathewi · 11 months ago

I think you are right, Jason. There has certainly been a lack of clear leadership, or calls to action like the Gates memo -- and where there have been memos similar to that, there has been a distinct lack of follow-through. How we get past that, I don't really know. Change is hard :-)

Eric Berlin · 11 months ago

I've been focused for a while now on the fact that online versions of newspapers do relatively little to promote their valuable content, particularly columnists, opinion writers, and of course bloggers. So basically you have high quality content written by paid journalists/editorial staff that is relatively unpromoted.

Mathew, I don't think I'm blowing too much smoke to say that you're in the forefront of your profession in terms of meshing (to borrow a term) journalism with true online publishing norms/verve; in short, getting "out there" online and competing for attention and relative market share. Very quick example: at least until recently The Economists' bloggers don't bother to reply to comments. I mean, come on!

Will the rest of the industry catch up? In the meantime, what I see here is a market need waiting to be exploited.

mathewi · 11 months ago

I couldn't agree more, Eric -- papers (mine included) could be doing a
lot more to promote their content online, which involves more than
just posting it and linking to it from a sub-page somewhere. The best
way to make people aware of your content is to become engaged with
readers in some way.