http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free

Information wants to be free, because we’re drowning in information. To get your information noticed, you have no choice but to make it free.

Information wants to be expensive, because certain bits of information can be very valuable. Investment information, if specific and unique and helpful is very valuable to people looking to make money off that information, which is why the most successful paid services are financial in nature.

We’ve seen no evidence that generalized neews coverage bestows on the receiver any economic benefit, or other valuable personal benefit; it’s just information; hence, people won’t pay for it.

@Chris O’Brien: I just don’t buy that there is a wide swath of newsroom staffers who “get it.” The “we don’t have time” formulation sounds more like an excuse, because I see journalists every day who deal with all the same pressures, but they find a way to get the online job done. If you really do get it, you find a way to get the job done. You don’t make excuses.

Here’s the problem: We still make 85 percent of our money from the print edition of the paper. And anything that takes away from that print golden calf makes management and ownership VERY nervous. It’s not the newsroom, it’s the ownership which in many cases is now up to its eyeballs in debt.

So the message is: Yes, keep trying new things. Just keep doing everything else you were doing for the print paper, too. That’s unrealistic for most people on a personal level, and leads to a lot of experiments failing simply for lack of time and resources, rather than because the concept was necessarily bad.

People in the newsrooms are already over capacity, and can’t take on more duties and be expected to sustain it. Until newspapers resolve this issue of capacity, and figure out a new business model for online, reporters will continue to trickle away from the job, burned out from exhaustion. It’s easy to be snide and say “Good riddance.” But these folks all too often leave with unmatchable knowledge of their local communities that only comes with putting in years on the job.

There are a lot of good traditional writers out there who could easily make the shift to online and have a positive impact on the content that’s available there.

Unfortunately, they’ll likely need to leave their traditional media company to do it – like many of their colleagues already have.

First, editors I’ve talked to recently do seem to be acclimating to the idea that print and online are different products. Unfortunately, the online product is rarely treated to the kind of professionalism and thoughtfulness it deserves or that the print edition gets. I think this will change, but it’s been slow in the Bay Area.

Second, on classifieds: I’m starting to wonder if we should be relying so heavily on advertising (and the media model, as Chris Anderson describes it). I know numbers are climbing, but as has been said often, it’s probably going to be a while until revenues are at a comfortable level again, if ever. There have to be additional services news organizations can provide, a way to leverage the massive amounts of information collected. I’m thinking about sites like Motley Fool, or some of Dow Jones products, or even the research service some newsrooms offer. Something along the lines of, “Some information wants to be free, and some wants to be very expensive.”

Well said.