I read two pieces today that stimulated a 14-minute podcast.

The two pieces

1. Jeff Jarvis: Philanthropy and news.

2. Marc Andreessen on the future of the news business.

Basic ideas

1. 20th century news was about information flowing through small numbers of reporters to large numbers of readers.

2. This was necessitated by the technology, which was one-to-many.

3. 21st century technology doesn't have this limit.

4. Advertising is evolving, it's becoming more like a todo list to follow up on the things you're interested in.

5. Eventually you will be able to write your own queries, and have companies make offers to you. This is the model Doc Searls has been talking about for years.

6. Perfectly targeted ads are just information.

7. News organizations will evolve too.

8. Their mission is to make information flow effective.

9. To facilitate, as before, but with far more writers. Open, like Wikipedia is open.

10. The quality of a news org will be in its writing, research, integrity. Their challenge is to scale that to meet the demand, and the capabilities of the new technology.

11. Old thinking -- news writing is exclusive.

12. New way -- news is written by many (but nowhere near everyone).

13. The power of a news organization is limited by the capacity of the wires. An organization like the NYT has more than a small interest in making the infrastructure of Manhattan world class. Right now it's far from it.

Comments

1. It's kind of amazing that Bloomberg of all people didn't get this. He was a three-term mayor, while NYC fell far behind the rest of the world.