Adapt to New Technology or Die

An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that in a recent speech to fellow stationers and newspaper makers, Rupert Murdoch has stated that the 'newspaper industry needs to embrace the technological revolution of the Internet, MP3 players, laptops and mobile phones or face extinction.'"

Comments

And Then

[ackthpt]

The greatest challenge for the traditional media now is to engage with more demanding, questioning and better educated consumers, adapting their products for new technology, the Australian-born media mogul said.

"There is only one way. That is by using our skills to create and distribute dynamic, exciting content," he said.

And then the self made man was struck by lightning.

Seriously, with all the crap this guy has ushered into media, he can say "questioning and better educated consumers" with a straight face?

Ok, all that aside, I think he's about 6 years late with that rhetoric. Most media are already edging, some hesitantly, others a bit faster, toward embracing new technologies. The core problem is how to make a buck at it. Traditional channels have done very well for him. I can't see them entirely going away.

Re:And Then

[ackthpt]

If I'm not mistaken, the guy who said this is CEO (or president or something) of News Corp (owns Fox and whatnot), so I think his word should be quite influential to the other broadcasting companies like Time Warner, Turner Broadcasting, Disney, etc.

Yeah, but remember, this guy made his fortune before the internet came along.

Remember Edison talking trash against Tesla? Calling Alternating Current the Devil's something-or-other? Edison was already a success, but felt certain Direct Current was the way to the future. Bugger all the great inventor know about resistance.

I'm not saying he's an idiot, I just think he's waxing enthusiastic on a technology he really doesn't understand, even after 6 or more years. Some companies do well in it and others founder.

I like the internet for instant news, but would I pay for it? No. There's too many free outlets.

Do I click on ads? Once in a while, but most of them are rubbish or things I have no interest in anyway. Perhaps better linking stories to advertising would serve them better. If I'm reading about death in a car bombing I don't think I'm going to be in a mood to look at the new Fords.

I'm kinda afraid of this.

[AnonymousPrick]

FTFA: But -- and this is a very big but -- newspapers will have to adapt as their readers demand news and sport on a variety of platforms: websites, iPods, mobile phones or laptops.

What I see happening is that information is being broken down more and more into sound bites and geared more towards the intended audience. For example, you'll hear a completely different take on a story say from Fox as you would from Salon.com. That's assuming they even cover the same stories all the time.

There's only a few folks who will actually want to read the whole story - whatever it might be. And there's even fewer media outlets that will come out and actually state their leanings. The only one that comes to mind is "The Economist" (they state quite often that they are "a conservative newspaper.").