In response to the Associated Press’ announcement that six US newspaper companies have declared bankruptcy, Jeff Jarvis suggests some experiments that these firms could still carry out to help reverse their fortunes:
- staying in print, but splitting up the functions of the company and outsourcing everything possible;
- investing in a widely distributed network of independent local and interest sites with the company adding value with curation and sales;
- creating a pure ad network;
- creating a very high quality product and – yes – charging a lot for it;
- creating a series of special-interest niche services and, in some cases, publications;
- creating the still mostly free, but higher value Craigslist with more curation for quality and more services;
- experimenting with new services for local merchants – especially those too small to ever have afforded big, inefficient newspapers – including helping them succeed through Google, Yelp, et al;
- creating citizen sales forces to scale while serving those small merchants.