Taking a step back - the consequences of the digital business model

This week's readings dives into everything that makes me nervous as a journalist of the the digital age. These insecurities stem from the current digital media business model. More specifically, Jiyoung Cha's article takes a look at how prominent and expansive social media companies, like Facebook and Twitter, make money. These industries are increasingly becoming an option for journalists to work for—as they are adopting many forms and habits of publishing the news.

According to Cha, the social media business framework can be simplified as such:

•     Value creation
•     nature
•     scope (how it’s created, firms role in production or service delivery)
•     Target market: 
•     customer types
•     geographic areas
•     geographic dispersion
•     interaction requirements with customers
•     Sources of competencies:
•     technology 
•     marketing
•     supply chain management
•     networking
•     resource leveraging
•     branding
•     Revenue 
•     how the firm makes money 
•     prices 

       After reading this logistical article that does well to outline the business model, I made a series of  observations that leave me torn on the concept of social media networks playing such an integral part  of providing information and news. 

      Problem 1: Our info is being pimped out to search engine companies

       What becomes complicated and problematic is how these companies sell our publicly  available  information. And we've all been there—we click on a link on Facebook and all of a sudden we see  eight similar links on our News Feeds when we return to scroll through. But the benefits, from a  journalistic standpoint, include the likelihood of article and publication visibility that digital  publishers receive through this information selling process. But as a consumer, our tastes are almost  being decided for us. Humans have a natural tendency to like certain things at certain times, but this  model limits those varieties if social media keeps our interests on a certain trajectory. 

       

      Problem 2: Putting a price on information just seems wrong. 

d     "It's difficult to transfer information into a commodity," Cha says. Should we, though? 

       But, as far as we know, it's the only way journalists of the future can make money. This conflicts  with the original intent of the  invention of the Internet. The Internet was born as a democratic idea.  An information provider made by the people for the people. Perhaps, also created with no foresight  of the current maintenance and policing we see from information powerhouses Google and  Facebook. As a result, our information becomes increasingly filtered, as mentioned in last class with  the risk of living in a filter bubble. 

    

       Ricardo Bilton's article outlines a true concerning reality—social media is making it more expensive  for publishers to be read. Facebook is scaling back the amount of traffic it sends to publishers to  keep users in its own walled garden. This implies less encouragement to send users out to receive  different sources of information from a wider variety of publications. 

      

      Everyone can benefit from a balanced news diet and with increasing monetary limitations and publisher reliance on social media and advertising, I'm afraid it'll limit our options for consumption.

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