The World of Online News

July 29, 2007 4:29 PM | Written by Yan Shikhvarger

According to the Pew Internet Project, 50 million Americans use the internet for news content everyday. Many questions arise from such massive numbers, but the two that are top of mind are:

1) What are the top used online news sources? And,
2) How are those top sources keeping up with the demand for real-time news that the Internet allows?

An interesting analysis can be done by performing a "mashup" (see chart below) between Nielsen/NetRatings numbers for top online sources and a new study recently featured in eContent Magazine on verbatim pickup of news stories online. It seems that massive online news outlets are more than likely picking up stories from the wires without even slight edits. Yahoo! for example is the top online news destination and 97% of its stories are picked up verbatim from the wires. The situation is similar for MSNBC and AOL News. Online news sources have massive reach but little resources to run a real news department, and that is the biggest difference from print and TV outlets.

Of course this does not mean that the online news providers do not have any editorial resources. Yahoo!'s redesign of the home page late last year was centered around creating editorial features yet the content that is generated is still a tiny minority versus what is being picked up directly from the wires (AP and Reuters).  

Although many conclusions can be drawn from this reality there are some additional items for thought in the "online news" situation.

1) Online News Relationships: Online news sources rely on specialized and topical news providers for various areas like health, science, etc... - so what are those networks for each important online outlet?

2) Wikipedia and YouTube: Those two are growing so fast as news providers that no study can currently keep up on its impact, however, they are emerging as massive news providers

3) Online video: the question still remains of whether this will take off. Broadband adoption rates have been stagnating so it remains to be seen if online video news will continue to grow

4) Niche news providers: Local and topical news providers may not have mass reach but often have a very targeted following which is illustrated by growth of vertical search engines and these providers should not be disregarded

Digg It | Reddit | De.lic.ious | Facebook