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Ditch all websites

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by clutchcargo, Feb 5, 2010.

  1. clutchcargo

    clutchcargo Active Member

    Just throwing this out there----what if all primarily print publications and broadcast media simply took down their websites completely? ALL newspapers, ESPN, SI, Fox, AP, everyone whose basis for existence preceeded the Internet in another form of content distribution. I think the overall loss of genuinely professional content would be staggering.

    Google would lose a whole bunch of its news sources to steal and cobble. Ditto for dozens of other virtual-existence entities. Free-loading bloggers would REALLY be on their own researching and generating content.

    Print, especially, would then go back to focusing on delivering content that people simply can't get anywhere else. If the 20/30-something stoned slacker generation still won't buy our print products, then we'll do like what TSN does daily and send them an electronic version of our products via email and a monthly fee. If they still don't bite, then, hey, they don't care about getitng information, period, and let them play their online socialing-site crap all day and speed up the braincell-killing process all they want.

    Just go cold turkey and see how the market works itself out over the next year.
     
  2. ETN814

    ETN814 Member

    If there was a fee for the PDF version, all that would happen is that someone would buy it and distribute it like they do with music.
     
  3. goalmouth

    goalmouth Well-Known Member

    This is a bit what Cuban suggested, sites barring Google search bots. It's not difficult. Unfortunately, classifieds, movies and much other advertising that pays for newspaper production has found a permanent home online, so you'd have to fix that. Or, as one of my first editors said as I argued over a word on deadline, "Stop. It's all just filler between the ads."
     
  4. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    There wouldn't be a rush of new print subscriptions. There will be at least one major outlet that will put out news for free on the Web. With one, there's an urge to join in to get some of that ad money.
     
  5. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    The people in charge are generally deathly afraid of appearing to be old, so the last impression they would want to give is that they are heading back to the cave to paint on a wall. It is safer for them to declare: In Twitter We Trust! They would sooner give up their Hair Club For Men than pull the plug on anything "new media."
     
  6. NoOneYouKnow

    NoOneYouKnow Member

    While you're at it, why don't we just turn out the lights and forget about the invention of electricity? This has to be the dumbest idea I have ever heard of.

    Newspapers need to buck up or get out the kitchen completely. Stop trying to blame tech-savy companies for newspapers' problems.
     
  7. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    That would certainly help global warming.

    We could also stop selling gas. Then everyone would have to buy electric car.
     
  8. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    Organizations that have profitable web sites should keep them. But a lot of papers don't make anything on their sites vs. what they put into them.
     
  9. SF_Express

    SF_Express Active Member

    Unless every single web content entity in a single niche (like sports) did it -- and they won't -- this idea is DOA. Sorry, CC.

    Actually, let me take it a step further. Say all the "whose basis for existence preceded the Internet" sites did this.

    Thank you, says CBSSports.com (despite its CBS affiliation, started on the web, with no print or TV ancestry). Thank you, says 100s of niche websites with no print or TV basis.

    Thank you, says Yahoo! Sports.

    Etc.
     
  10. Herbert Anchovy

    Herbert Anchovy Active Member

    ProFootballTalk screeches to a halt if that happened. It would be all podcasts.

    If the host cell isn't providing the yummy goodness then the parasite is going to have to feed somewhere else.

    Or dies.
     
  11. Pete Incaviglia

    Pete Incaviglia Active Member

    Bingo.

    Which is why pay walls are a must.
     
  12. Piotr Rasputin

    Piotr Rasputin New Member

    Yes . . . . This will save traditional media!

    [​IMG]

    THAT was the equation!! SURVIVAL!!!!!
     
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