The Amazoning of news has now begun
Expect Jeff Bezos to leverage Amazon's predictive analytics, as well as its means of digital content and physical distribution, to reboot the Washington Post
Jeff Bezos' purchase of the old-media Washington Post took everyone by surprise this week. Expectations are high that after pioneering e-commerce at Amazon.com and becoming a major force in digital content delivery with the Kindle tablet and Amazon Prime streaming service, Bezos will now pull off a tech-oriented reboot of the newspaper publishing industry.
He has his work cut out for him. Newspapers look like a dying breed -- and Bezos himself once predicted that in 20 years, print newspapers will be all but extinct. So what magic elixir does Amazon's founder have up his sleeve?
Bezos' statement after the purchase focused more on what he wouldn't do: Meddle with the day-to-day running of the news organization. Nature abhors a vacuum, and in the absence of specifics from the new owner, pundits have been in full swarm. Hopes generally run high for the at-first-glance unlikely pairing. As media consultant Alan Mutter writes in his Reflections of a Newsosaur blog, Bezos is a true digital native who "is uniquely equipped to bring unprecedented innovation and fresh energy to an industry whose managers run their businesses like the people of Cuba treat their 1953 Plymouths: tinkering with them just enough to keep them running."
For starters, look for future Kindles to ship with a free trial subscription to the Washington Post, and for Post videos to be featured in a prominent position on the Amazon Prime welcome screen. In addition to opportunities for digital content delivery, Wonkblogger Lydia DePillis notes that because Amazon "probably (has) the most efficient physical delivery system the world has seen, and print advertisements still generate a lot of the Post's revenue, (Bezos) could put a print copy in every (Amazon) package, and have a circulation of millions."
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http://www.infoworld.com/t/mampa/the-amazoning-of-news-has-now-begun-224491