AOL Picking Up Journalists Shed By Conventional Media 94
Hugh Pickens writes "David Weir writes on Bnet that the thousands of journalists being let go from newspapers, magazines, and television networks have increasingly been showing up on AOL's payroll — over 1,500 in the last eighteen months — a number AOL expects to double or even triple over the coming year. 'Over time, talent is a fixed cost,' says Marty Moe, Senior Vice-President of AOL Media. 'You can syndicate it, distribute it as you scale. Furthermore, we are already the largest branded content company in the US, with an audience of 75 million domestic uniques. At our size, we can leverage the cost of our publishing and content management systems along with the talent and make the whole thing do-able on an advertising model.' Weir writes that AOL's turnaround started three years ago via the acquisition of Weblogs, Inc., and its set of branded verticals, including Engadget in technology, Autoblog covering the auto industry, and Joystiq covering gaming."
"Branded verticals"? (Score:4, Interesting)
You could've just said "niche blogs". What makes them "branded" verticals, anyway? It's not like "Autoblog" is one of the news industry's most sought-after trademark endorsements.
"Talent is a fixed cost"...says it all (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:"Branded verticals"? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Big Media-of-Media Shift (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this is pretty big news.
It seems just like when Virgin Atlanic airlines took advantage of complacent and poorly managed (at the top) Pan Am Airlines and cherry picted talent. Look who is around now. I think we may finally be seeing the shift in media from print to web for newspapers. It is a big ship and it takes time. Industries reinvent themselves, sometimes as other companies.
Re:I am going to kill myself (Score:4, Interesting)
Geek fail. AOL bought Netscape which became Mozilla which of course gave (emphasis on gave) us Firefox, so AOL can be consider worthy of Geek redemption, maybe ;). It certainly looks like the old world media types are really struggling leaving an opening for new world media types to gain market share.
Interesting side point, the old world media types will be more likely to let the journalists that don't toe the corporate line and a more likely to report the news rather than just make advertising look like the news. Net result over time the old world media types will get caught out fabricating the news more and more often by reporters who now work for competitors and who know all the old world media dirty trade secrets.
The internet news channels will be working hard to build a reputation for honestly and accuracy, so as to gain as much market share as possible as news shifts from TV (the idiot box, have to laugh), to streaming content on a computer.
Re:Somebody needs to pay these guys (Score:5, Interesting)
It's funny how other industries dying during a recession is perfectly normal, but for newspapers it's TEH END.
They've still got a good 10 years of churning out pulp before the real DEATH OF NEWSPAPERS kicks in.
/Works for a newspaper corporation.
//Back in the black this fiscal quarter for the first time in 18 months.
Re:If they are smart (Score:2, Interesting)
NewsPapers need to die.
The newspapers that I choose to read don't need to die. By comparison, AOL's "idea of how to handle the internet" seems to be "news lite", flooded with as many classifieds and the like as possible. Thanks but I'll take the Guardian [guardian.co.uk] and when I want to read more about the US I'll get it from Wonkette [wonkette.com].