Where is the Innovation?
 | It used to be easier, in a sense, to follow news; you just tuned in to CNN anytime there was a disaster or war or any kind of major news. Before that, people just watched ABC, CBS, and NBC for news each evening. Now, with the internet, there are a large number of news sources, and a variety of ways for people to find news. As the web has evolved, no one company has stepped in, in a leadership role, to define the direction for news in the future. |
We believe that there is still room for innovation in news, in particular with "late breaking" news. The advent of Twitter is the start of what is possible - not the end. Yet all major news media are doing the same basic thing - they tweet, and tweet, and tweet - just like everyone else.
The AP has been particularly disappointing. It used to be the case that the AP was the source for everyone to turn to to be aware of what was breaking and for summaries, but the AP has not taken a leadership role in any kind of global, news-tracking system to help the world manage news as it happens or to give a well-defined, chronological archival system. In terms of late breaking news, no media company has stepped up to take a true leadership role.
The Crowd
Making more effective use of all those smartphones out there is a key element. Its not enough to passively wait for people to send you stories; the Crowd can help us in many other ways. People are seeing things, hearing things, talking about things... these are resources that have not yet been fully utilized. No news media company has yet made full use of the crowd. It is a vast, untapped resource just waiting to be more fully utilized.
Technology
Technology is the key driver of all this. We need to make a more effective use of technology, for real-time collection, summary, and broadcast of news. Technology also enables machine-translation in real time, making if possible for someone in any part of the world to have the same, equal access to late breaking news. Not one news media company has committed to a truly universal news resource, regardless of your natural language.
Archival
We have all gotten a little spoiled by the easy access to information, using search engines. The problem is that there is no verification of facts on the web. When you search, there is no way to know that what you are seeing, is accurate - or even the current information. For example when following a natural disaster, it can be vitally important to have the latest information and not something that might be outdated - and affect decisions adversely. The real issue is that there is no global tracking system for news. What we need is a 'token' or 'news bar code' that followed a story. Whomever breaks a story first, would register it with some kind of global news repository. From then on, anyone can report on that news story and the story would be tracked by its own, unique identifier. This when would enable much better tools to see the story as it evolves. This would reduce duplicate reporting, and would enable future historians a much better way to study the past. A news-tracking system would be of great use to future historians (and students). Yet, no media company has yet created any kind of definitive, global news-tracking system.
The Future
The challenge is on for news media companies to be more innovative, to create structures for tracking and archival that will stand the test of time, and for someone to truly give us accurate, late breaking news. The major news media can solve this now, or wait for some startup to appear and add even more competition in news.
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