New media must be personal and (duh) digital

Brief reflection on three stories from 2010 we shouldn't forget, in order to better media in 2011

Everybody’s always talking about social media. Friends and family sharing stuff on social networks like Facebook and information networks like Twitter. Amateurs uploading photos, videos and sounds to Flickrs, YouTubes and SoundClouds. Videos going viral, memes going viral, ideas going viral. But while old media slowly dies under the weight of all these new technologies and innovations, there is not often a lot of talk about the rise of new media in tandem with social media.

We’re already a week into 2010, but I thought it would be productive to reflect on a few media developments from last year, to remember where we are headed in the coming year.

Newsweek sells for $1

The most well-known $1 story in Silicon Valley may be that Apple CEO Steve Jobs only takes that amount as his yearly salary, but 2010 gave us a newer, more interesting, maybe more depressing story: Newsweek sold for just one dollar. Created in 1933, the New York City-published weekly news magazine was always, like Time Magazine and the New York Times, one of those classic symbols of traditional news media. It’s a source that was respected for real, trustworthy journalism and, once upon a time, did not have to worry too much about financials. Now, a sign of the times, the last time I saw a physical version of Newsweek was at the doctor’s office. The magazine lost $30 million in 2010 alone, a huge hole that Newsweek owner The Washington Post refused to patch up. Instead, it sold the failing media company for a dollar.

Just a few days ago, Newsweek announced that Ray Chelstowski, a former publisher of Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly, would be responsible for the magazine and the Daily Beast. It’s a signal that the company’s management is stabilizing, but doesn’t say anything about the chance for revived profits. “I don’t think that any kind of media proposition is easy today,” said Chelstowski. Unless you’re doing something new and exciting...

Personalized news

Curating a single source for all your news needs has never been easier. By signing up to Twitter, an information network first and social network second, and following a few trusted and unique news sources, like @nytimes for international news, @SFist for local San Francisco news and @vatortv for tech news, you’ve already constructed a personalized news network in a matter of minutes. iCurrent--not associated with Apple--is another way to get personalized news. When you sign up, you choose the topics most interesting to you, and as you continue to use the service, rating articles based on how interesting they are to you, iCurrent gets closer and closer to only showing you the stories you want to see.

This is just one possibility for the future of news, but it is mandatory that older media companies get in on the movement. The Washington Post knows it, as they have already acquired iCurrent, and so does the New York Times, as they have partnered with Betaworks on a similar project called News.me. In 2011, if media companies aren’t targeting their news, then no one will read it.

eBooks

Did you know that traditional book outlets like Barnes & Noble and Borders account for nearly half of book sales in the U.S.? And yet, one of the two appears to have a much brighter future in store: the one that develops its very own e-reader. Barnes & Noble reported a 9.7 percent sales increase this holiday season versus the year before, a success largely attributable to the Nook, the Android-based e-reader competing with Amazon’s Kindle. The positive growth couldn’t possibly be a fluke, considering that Amazon also experienced record sales for its e-reader over the holiday season.

Books are not dead. Bookstores are dead. But customers are speaking loudly with their wallets by favoring the two retailers that offer inexpensive and high-quality e-readers. In 2011, the competition between Nook and Kindle will become even more fierce as the ebook reader settles into a comfortable niche not in conflict with touchscreen tablets like the iPad. As for Borders? Make a more determined push into digital, or die.

While I bet that 2011 will bring more absurd announcements like Newsweek’s fateful $1 sale and maybe disappointing business developments like a bankrupt Borders, it’s all just more evidence that the world is changing. For better or for worse, media is still stuck in the middle of this storm brought on by the Internet, and it probably will be for a good while.