I think it’s also important to remember that it essentially still a beta version and will continue to evolve. It is, first and foremost, a place to post visual representations of things we love: I think its appeal is closest to (virtual) scrapbooking. Social media experts like Jason Falls are doing a good job of sorting it out in real-time. Here is his article from entrepreneur.com: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/222740

140 characters is enough to create an idea, spark a conversation, help someone connect with another, bring down a regime, and connect those displaced by natural disasters.

What can we say in 140 characters that changes the world or helps people?

Ed

I agree with your implication: I don’t think the average consumer (or even the slightly-unusual consumer) wants “newspaper”-y content any more. One reason I’m hopeful you guys are part of figuring out how to skin this cat.

The issue, raised by John Paton and others, is more than whether media companies’ digital operations can pay for themselves. Digital is still not much more than 20-30 percent of revenues in the best situation, yet that is often enough to pay for the technical staff and digital producers.

However, the costs of staffing a full newsroom, editing and printing a newspaper, then delivering it are the expensive parts. So, if print pays for itself then digital should be sustainable. Your comment raises the bigger issue: Is the content being created (regardless of format) a product the average consumer wants?

It’s the other way around — what’s scarce are business models that *don’t* require a print product to subsidize the sustainable production of community news.

Even in the medium to long run, it’s not the print that’s inherently unsustainable — it’s the sort of close, broad, daily reporting that works well in a mass-produced print product. That’s what young and middle-aged people aren’t willing to pay for any more (either with their money or their eyeballs).

Passion and voice are one thing. But how about a willingess to gather facts from all sides of an issue? And submit those findings to various layers of independent scrutiny (editors) to ensure a semblence of objectivity?

As for ex-journalists starting their own “enterprise,” yeah, a few do: The ones who have health insurance through their spouse, and a hefty inheritance.

From the painting by W.L. Williams

Here, under Governor Bradford, who directed their destiny for a precarious quarter of a century, the Pilgrim Fathers strove desperately to maintain a foothold in America, and several times were on the point of abandoning the enterprise. To such straits were they reduced, in 1622, a year after the death of Governor Carter, that half rations were doled out, and when, in May of that year, a ship arrived from England bearing encouraging letters to the Pilgrims, but no substantial supplies, Governor Bradford remarked bitterly: “All this is but cold comfort to fill hungry bellies.”