Chris Andersen's views on the new publishing landscape

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. The latest Press Gazette interview is worth a read: it's with Chris Andersen, author of The Long Tail - and before you groan "not another Long Tail article", this interview actually steers clear of the long over-exposed theory, instead offering some very refreshing thoughts on the media landscape. Here's some choice quotes:

"There are some who require you to log in; there are some that require you to pay for content. Our sense is that if you do that, you will get some revenues, but you will not be part of the conversation. You will not have access to that extraordinary word-of-mouth effect out there in the wide-open world."

And:

"Part of our job is making things better and part of our jobs is predicting demand. And every time we get it wrong. Not entirely wrong, but every month, there's some story that I didn't expect to be popular that turned out to be popular and some story that I thought would be popular that turned out not to be so popular.
"Maybe my hit-rate is better than others, but it's certainly not perfect. The lesson right now of the long-tail world is that you now have increasingly powerful tools to measure what people want. Put it all out there and let the market sort it out.
"Obviously we look at the blogosphere to generate new ideas, to tap into ascendant people and ideas.
"This gives us a fantastic information-gathering exercise. But that's available to all, that's not exclusive to print. The other aspect is whether we can use this technology of dialogue, of conversation with your readers to make your product better."

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