In a recent post, Jeff Jarvis explores a new model for syndication – he calls it resyndication. Fundamentally the idea is based on paying for “flow” or traffic to your content. Typically newspapers and other publishers pay syndicates and content providers for the usage rights or the right to publish content in their print and online publications. This model works in the print world but begins to break down for several reasons online. The first is that in the print world, the end product that your audience consumed was the paper that hit the doorstep every day. Editors worked to provide a wide variety of sources in the paper each day along with their original reporting. The web breaks this model because now you can find that content on a variety of sources on the web. It is ubiquitous.
And because it is now available everywhere, why would a newspaper website want to pay for that content? They could easily point their readers to the original source. This is what the best of the early blogs did and what Google has perfected. Syndicates are aggregators but most have business models rooted in the old world of print. The challenge is trying to figure out how to facilitate the new model or “flow” of traffic between content providers.
So Jarvis’ idea is that the New York Times would pay the Tribune company for traffic to their Iraq war coverage. This flips the syndication model on its head – instead of paying the New York Times syndicate for rights to the content, the Tribune gets paid for the traffic they send to that content.
Back in the mid 90’s when I worked in the online group at azcentral.com the buzzword of the day was “stickiness”. We were all trying to create content and applications that would not only keep visitors coming back but would keep them on our sites for a longer period of time. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that phrase in 2008.
Newspaper online sites have to remove the word “sticky” from their vocabularies. Companies that are trying to keep visitors on their sites for a longer period of time have a flawed online strategy. It is all about flow and Google set this standard a long time ago.
The way to win as Jarvis points out, is to do what you do best and point to the rest. If a site consistently leads me to information I find valuable, no matter where it is on the net, then I’ll more likely come back to that site. The days of trying to keep people on your site for longer periods of time are long gone.
It is all about flow….
And content providers like the company I work for will need to figure out a business model that gets us in the middle of the flow. I can hear the critics say the beauty of this model is that it eliminates the middle man – the role that syndicates have played for a long time. While that is true, and it is what makes this idea so disruptive, I still think there will be a role for us if we continue to push and explore new models of aggregation.
So how does Google factor into this model I wonder? I would bet that much of the traffic or flow to the Times’ Iraq coverage comes from Google. Would they be willing to pay for that traffic, traffic that is free now?
How do new news aggregation sites such as Highbeam’s Newser play into this model? They aggregate news content and point their visitors to the best news available on the net based on topics.
Another issue is the problem of counting or accounting for traffic. This can be a real pain in the neck, but would be a necessary evil in order to make this model work.
We need to identify and understand the problems of reverse syndication and perhaps we’ll find a new business model?