One of those days

This morning Kirstin, Matt and I boarded the train bound for London. We got there fairly early and frolicked around in Green Park for an hour before heading to our destination - The headquarters of The Economist.

There we were the guinea pigs in a facilited lunchtime discussion with the Board on the online habits of upcoming leaders of tomorrow (my words, not theirs). Interesting. A few key points came out:

• Today's users of the internet are active not passive, this means that they want to be in control, not to sit back and let the news be served to them.
• It became very clear that we were much more online than anyone else in the room
• Ease of use is a very important feature
• We are willing to pay to view, but it must be very easy to use and cheap!

What was it like? A bit surreal. I recognised many of the people there, but unfortunately we didn't get the chance to network with them. Still, it was an awesome experience.

Alan Rusbridger
In the evening, the Editor of the Guardian spoke at the Business School a bit tongue in cheek on the topic "Is it all over for bloggers?". A topic which is obviously on interest to me. I found him a very realistic, likeable man with a good sense of humour.

He started by looking at the question, is it all over for newspapers? and in answering it, had two points.
1. There are commercial issues that face traditional newspapers

• citing the example of Craigslist, he pointed out that much of the small advertising revenue that used to go to newspaper has now been eroded
• in real monetary terms, paid for subscriptions are declining
• internet ads have now overtaken print ads

2. There are editorial implications

• Younger readers don't want to be passive receivers of news - what we were saying in the morning session
• trust is given to people that users know and like

He drew a parallel between the traditional news media and the new media in three areas, expert vs experiential reporting; occasions where the public know more than the journalist e.g. travel guides; and commentary.

This led to his reservations about blogging such as:

• Quality of the comments
• problems of being anonymous - people are more aggressive, sources cannot be reliably checked/trusted
• time issues for readers

He ended by saying that he thought that there was a future for newspapers but it will probably be in a different form from the existing one. I hope that a newspaper like the Guardian makes the cut.