Newser.com – Agree or Disagree

In this video, Michael Wolff is describing his aggregating news site Newswer.com. I agree with Wolff’s argument that the future of media is leaning towards more local blogs reporting and being linked through various sources. It will provide first hand accounts, it will be cheaper, and it will play into the ever-shrinking attention span of the modern reader.

I think Newser.com is very astute to start by not only providing the links to other stories, but actually thoroughly reading them and summarizing them for the readers. These brief write-ups are the perfect length for people who wish to quickly check the news on their phones or on their computers. Reading news stories has diminished to scanning headlines and excerpts. Newser.com simply takes away the excess words, and replaces it with a convenient version of itself. This leaves open the possibility to have a story remain alive and streaming to its reader.

The site also seems to use a multimedia approach to engage the reader. It utilizes pictures, audio, and video; which also save time and manpower when being delivered to the reader.

Newser.com has also began to utilize social media- particularly its use of Twitter plays well into its model of reading less while still getting the information.

This site agrees that Newser.com is making news gathering more convenient for the reader. It brings up a good question, however; in terms of how the sites will manage to be profitable. Will Google ads alone bring enough traffic to the site for solid advertisements? This blog argues that Newser.com will not be able to survive without asking for payment in some way.

Newser.com also wants to pick up as many local markets as possible, as explained in this blog, and with over 86 markets already it could easily start catering to individual viewer’s preferences.