When i was a kid one of stories we had in our English classes was about Reuters and how he set up his wire service and how big of a deal it was. I remember being impressed – a lot – enough to remember it 15+ years later.
One of the things that has been puzzling me is that the speed at which news travels is still not as rapid as it ought to be. For example, after the Giants won the Superbowl, i checked on Google News and it took a while before there were updates on this. In fact, even hours later, the highlighted stories were mostly 4th quarter updates.
Given that the largest audience ever for a Superbowl, why weren’t there instantaneous updates? In fact, why aren’t there instantaneous updates for all sports – actually, there are. It’s just that the news channels don’t really have instantaneous updates because they have to be accurate. They have to be edited, and often they have to be censored.
With blogging or for that matter most internet communication like IM, email etc. the author is literally – judge, jury, executioner and has all the control. How long before a band of people come together to form an instant news online newspaper – the key question in my mind is not when – because it’ll be pretty soon (i it isn’t already going on and i’ve just been sleeping). The key question in my mind is what is the smallest number of people that can come together to form a viable to traditional alternatives online just in time newspaper? and what is the largest?
Filed under: kindle Tagged: | evolution of newspapers, speed of news
