There is far too much content online to even think about premium content for anything but niche markets. But heck..isn’t that what magazines have been doing for decades ?

Getting back to my local paper, they are making a go of an online, paid subscription, because they focus on local and regional news and events. Items of special interest if you live in the community, and they deliver alerts each morning via e-mail for the topics I care about.

..Brave new world.

bob wyman

Instead of specific projects that remain in limbo until sufficient interest can be drummed up, I envisage journalists continually producing their work in exchange for continuous sponsorship/patronage from an interested audience continuously increasing in size (and revenue). Both journalist and audience must have confidence in each other to continue their quality and patronage, and in time the assurance of this will become self-evident.

In the context of intellectual work on the Internet it’s been described in various incarnations, e.g. Street Performer Protocol. It’s been implemented as Fundable.com, Kickstarter.com, and spot.us and many others.

What I describe above is simply putting it crudely for clarity and brevity, but by no means should that be seen as the limit of its potential elegance (spot.us is a beginning, not an end).

My point is that we should focus on the fundamental participants in the market place, the primary sources of work and money, and facilitate an exchange between them.

There is nothing else except willing seller and willing buyer. If there’s value anyone can add, they can add it later.

More importantly, how can we scale this up so that all the vital stories that should be told get reported?