Suppose the NYT had embraced the idea of users writing stories on nytimes.com, i.e. if they had hosted blogs for people quoted in the Times, an idea I promoted to them in 2002.

Then, I argue -- they would have become Facebook, but better.

Then in 2006, I did a very quick mockup of a river of news with NYT stories, using their RSS feeds, on a Blackberry. It was great! It really worked. So what if it just took me two days to write.

Had the NYT marketed that to its users, there would have been a NYT version of Twitter, which still would have happened, but mobile news would have grown up around the NYT too. Not with them as peripheral to it, subject to the business models of the tech industry, where they are today.

I mention all this not (only) to toot my horn but to say that you have to get out in front of the leading edge to have a place in the future. It's always been thus. Not something noticed by the news industry but true nonetheless. There are things they could be doing now to prepare for today's future, but of course their perspective is fighting battles of today, not creating new media, which is how you remain exciting and relevant.

My two cents of course, YMMV, I am not a lawyer. :balloon: