The future of news is online, and traditional media outlets must learn to tailor their products for consumers who demand instant, personalized information, the head of The Associated Press (AP) said on Friday.
The growth of high-speed broadband connections is leading to a future in which computers are always on "and so are the users," Tom Curley, president and chief executive officer of the world's largest news organization, told the Online News Association conference in Hollywood.
The Internet is picking up the readers and viewers that newspapers and TV news shows have been losing, Curley said. It has also changed the balance of power from news providers to consumers, who use Web-surfing programs and video recording devices to control what they want to know and when and where they'll learn it.
Curley, who was publisher of Gannett Co's USA Today newspaper before becoming the AP's top executive last year, offered a scenario in which a "news enthusiast" would download to various electronic devices an array of news -- sports scores, headlines, financial reports and analysis -- from a variety of sources.
In the world of personalized news, "the content comes to you; you don't have to come to the content," Curley said.
"So, get ready for everything to be `Googled,' `deep-linked' or `Tivo-ized.' You have to let the content flow where the users want to go, and attach your brand -- and maybe advertising and e-commerce -- to those free-flowing `atoms,'" Curley said.
That already is leading to changes in how news is covered. For example, Curley said AP is furnishing US bureaus with cameras to provide video for multimedia use and is increasing coverage of news of interest to young audiences.
Stephanie Busack, 22, an Ohio University journalism student who attended the conference, said she gets most of her news online.
"I just go to the Web sites, basically ... it's right there, everything you need to know," she said. "I don't like reading newspapers."
Curley also touched on Internet users who disseminate news and ideas through Web logs, citing one recent estimate that there are 4 million "bloggers" making 400,000 posts per day.
"That works out to roughly 16,000 posts an hour, or about as many stories as the AP sends out in an entire day," he said.
"It will get even tougher to be heard above the roar of the Internet crowd, and the business bets will have to be for greater stakes," he said.
Still, Curley predicted current news giants will survive.
"The bloggers need a baseline of facts and professional analysis on which to base their work," he said. "Imagine Drudge without somebody to link to, or Wonkette without somebody to poke fun at."
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure