Are Newspapers Obsolete?

Google Newspass is a new platform that is expected to materialize later this year. Newspass will be a news aggregate for news publishers to monetize their online news publications. Google will be that news infrastructure highway that charges the fee.

Features may be similar to Facebook, allowing universal access in a global arena. Users will access via computer, laptop, mobile phone, and iPad. The content will add a variety of uses. From text to video.

News corporations are already applying “paywalls” to various newspapers. The UK Times paper will start charging for content, probably this coming Friday. The newspaper website had already required viewers to register for free. The site lost half of its viewers after the registration wall was applied.

The New York Times already announced earlier in the year that it will charge for online content in January of 2011. Starting in January, online viewers can view a limited amount of articles for free. To read more, a flat fee will be charged for unlimited access (The Guardian). Will the New York Times join other publishers at Newspass? No doubt?

Should newspapers charge for online content? If they do, will it help their bottom line? The move is surely risky because of the heavy traffic that Google generates. Heavy traffic that newspapers will lose when they charge for content.

But the real question is this. Will the paid content strategy save the newspaper business? Is the newspaper industry obsolete anyway?  Do new technologies surpass old ones? Are we leaning more toward opinion columns?

Are we willing to pay for online journalism? Is do-it-yourself journalism replacing old school journalism? I would say that journalism is evolving into another creature. For better or for worse.

It seems that the internet has become extremely efficient in gathering information and news, just maybe too efficient (mmm, can you say Google hegemony?). In the great new age of Wiki, internet surfers demand free information. But, will so called loyal readers pay for online news? I wouldn’t bet on it.