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Sponsorships and the NYT boycott
More debate fodder:
"A deal between two old media companies is raising new-media questions
about ethics in journalism," writes Jonathan Gaw of the Star Tribune. At
issue is an accord between the New York Times and Barnes & Noble under
which the Times would get a transaction fee for books ordered through
its Web site.
The Times hasn't actually started linking the book review section to the
transaction system -- so nobody really knows what it's going to look
like or how it's going to work. Nevertheless, small bookstores that were
shut out of the deal are angry, and some are boycotting the NYT
bestseller list.
Here is the story:
http://webserv1.startribune.com/cgi-bin/stOnLine/article?thisSlug=sale03
There's been a lot of talk in the industry about how banner advertising
is never going to be sufficient to pay for the journalism we do, and a
lot of people (including Bill Gates) believe that transactions are the
path to profits.
If that's true, then what the Times is doing makes good business sense.
Does it make good sense for journalism? What rules do we need to be
following as we create services such as these? How can we make good
business decisions that also are good journalism decisions? What is the
right thing to do for our users?
This issue is going to grow quickly. The reason it hasn't been a big
deal until now is that it has taken time to build the commercial
infrastructure to support such online transactions. There are now enough
vendors offering turnkey systems, and enough merchants who are aware of
the potential, and enough people on the net to make commercial
transactions a huge issue in 1998-1999. Take a look at the projections
from SIMBA, Find/SVP, Forrester, Yankee, and other consulting groups.
Who will emerge as the primary facilitators of these transactions? The
choices we make in the next nine months may determine our course well in
to the 21st century.
--
Steve Yelvington, editor, startribune.com, Minneapolis-St. Paul
http://www.startribune.com
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