Creating a Viable Business Model for New Forms of Information and Journalism

One of the most important ways in which the Internet is already changing and will continue to change journalism is through interactivity.

Interactivity has already taken many different forms. All but a few of the most staid newspapers now have options for readers to post comments as well as to rate articles. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The blogosphere has become, at various times, extremely influential through fact-checking, analysis, and spirited debate.

Furthermore, the proliferation of digital cameras, including those on cell phones that can take still photos as well as short videos, have helped change regular citizens into “citizen journalists.” From videos of the London train bombings in July of 2005 to the 2006 incident of a police tasering of a student at the UCLA library, cell phone videos have provided additional context as well as commentary on important events. Some of this commentary, explicit or implicit, has also been directed at mainstream media coverage of those events.

But what motivation is there for regular people who happen to be “in the right place at the right time” to share their videos through the internet with the world? Certainly some people are motivated by notoriety, or having their “15 minutes of fame.” (Considering the speeded up pace of our 21st century world, perhaps Andy Warhol’s famous epithet could now more accurately be stated as “15 seconds of fame.”)

Beyond that, though, what motivation is there for someone to post their video on any particular site, and perhaps as importantly, what kind of business model could be adopted so that the various involved parties can actually make money off of this new form of information distribution?

Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube and already a thirty-something multi-millionaire, thinks he has come up with one solution. Hurley proposes attaching advertising to user-submitted videos and giving their creators a cut of the profits.

The details of exactly how to do this (more revenue based on more hits? paid into a PayPal account?) have yet to be ironed out, but the overall concept itself seems viable.

Will this be yet another nail in the coffin of the Old Media paradigm of you-give-me-money-for-a-news-product-in-which-I-tell-you-what-I-think-is-important-because-I’m-the-gatekeeper-and-you-can-take-it-or-leave-it?

Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all…

Click on the "YouTube to Share Revenue With Users" link on the right to see the full story.