出版与作家生涯2009ycombinator.com
YCRFS 1：新闻业的未来
YCRFS 1: The Future of Journalism
导读
这是 YC 发布的“未来新闻业”创业征集（RFS），评论围绕“技术能否拯救新闻业”展开，多数人认为真正的瓶颈是内容与编辑判断，而非分发渠道或变现模式。对写作者而言，它把“写什么、为谁写、谁来买单”这三个问题摆到了台面上，值得一读。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
先问内容是否值得读：渠道、算法和付费墙都救不了空洞的报道，读者只为真正有用的内容停留。
- 02
明确受众是谁、他们关心什么，围绕这一点写高质量的故事，同时控制内容生产的成本。
- 03
把编辑判断当作核心竞争力：选题眼光和鲜明立场比技术工具更能留住读者。
- 04
让读者参与选题（投票、付费、提供线索），既能验证需求，也能让写作方向持续下去。
HN 评论精选
技术方案若缺乏编辑判断和优质内容就不会成功，新闻业的未来由记者而非程序员塑造。
除了爬虫、聚合器、CMS 之类，我看不出一个没有任何编辑洞察力的程序员小团队能为新闻业带来什么真正的创新。真正的问题在内容，不在分发渠道或变现模式；忽视读者需求的技术方案不会成功。看看 Drudge Report：它是最成功的新闻网站之一，完全靠编辑眼光驱动。华盛顿邮报、华尔街日报网络版和经济学人也活得不错，因为读者看重它们的内容——它们在商业模式和分发方式上并没有大改。内容差的报纸倒闭是有道理的，让它们倒吧，没人需要拯救它们。YC 的几个程序员不会塑造新闻业的未来，记者才会。
jfornear查看英文原文
Aside from crawlers, aggregators, CMSs, etc., I don't see how a small team of programmers without any kind of editorial insight can really do anything innovative for journalism. The real problem lies in the content, not the distribution channels or monetization models. Technical solutions that ignore what readers want won't succeed. Look at Drudge Report for case in point: Drudge Report is one of the most successful news websites out there, and it is completely powered by editorial vision. Also, The Washington Post, WSJ (online), and The Economist are doing well because readers value the content. They aren't doing anything drastically different in terms of business models or distribution methods. All the newspapers with poor content are going under for a good reason IMO. Let it happen, no one needs to save them. A handful of programmers from YC aren't going to shape the future of journalism, journalists will.
新闻业唯一的活路是广告资助的有用内容，其余问题都是常识经济学。
“新闻业”不会靠数据挖掘、算法或漂亮设计得救，也不会靠“超本地”报道、个性化主题过滤、社区搜索和 RSS、内容联合、mashup、API 或付费墙得救。想靠新闻赚钱？由广告资助的有用内容，是唯一答案。如果这样都赚不到钱，要么你没生产有用内容，要么公司背负了太多无关开销——找到做得不够的地方去改进。当下的局面并非前所未见的灾难，只是常识经济学：不生产人们想要的东西，或花太多钱去生产，你就会输，别人会取代你。找到广告商在意的人群，弄清他们在意什么，给他们高质量的故事，并且别多雇人、别多花钱。做到这些，你就赢。
ubernostrum查看英文原文
"Journalism" isn't going to be saved by data mining or algorithms or nice design. It is not going to be saved by "hyperlocal" reporting. It is not going to be saved by per-user customizable topical filters. It is not going to be saved by search systems and RSS feeds for your neighborhood. It is not going to be saved by content federation. It is not going to be saved by mashups. It is not going to be saved by APIs. It is not going to be saved by putting everything behind a paywall. You want to make money off journalism? Useful content funded by advertising is the one and only answer. If you can't make money from that, you're either not producing useful content, or you're carrying too much unrelated overhead in your company. In either case, find the place where you're not doing as well as you need to, and improve it. Despite the popular opinion currently prevailing, the current situation in journalism is not some radical, never-before-seen catastrophe. It's good old common-sense economics at work: if you're not producing things people want, or if you're spending too much money to do it, you lose and someone else will take your place. Find some people advertisers care about. Find out what those people care about. Give them high-quality stories about it, and don't hire any more people or spend any more money than you absolutely have to. Do these things, and you will win.
让读者用付费或投票决定选题、众筹调查报道，是一条可行的新闻商业模式。
这段 RFS 写得像猜谜，值得逐句分析。“没有内容就没有聚合器”以及需要写作者的说法，暗示这是内容创作而非聚合。一种赚钱思路是让用户付费得到想要的东西。可能的路径：让读者竞标（或付费订阅者投票）决定调查或讨论什么。记者其实很便宜，几百个有兴趣的人就能资助一名专业记者做一周的调查，还可以让读者提供线索和研究协助。文章发表后仍有广告收入，且可精准投放给所服务的受众。记者可以边调查边直播更新，鼓励支持者追加资金；编辑部可以抛出选题建议，让用户用钱包投票。这样用户能直接支持做出好作品的记者，机构也按兴趣程度扩张。这可能不是 pg 的本意，但并非不可能。
GavinB查看英文原文
This is phrased almost as a guessing game, so forensic analysis of RFS 1 is in order. The phrase "you can't have aggregators without content" and suggestion that a writer is needed implies that this is content creation, not aggregation. One way to start from making money is to let users pay to get what they want. Here's one place it could lead: Let readers bid (or paying subscribers vote) on what they want investigated or discussed. Journalists are actually quite cheap, so a few hundred interested parties could fund a weeklong investigation by a professional journalist. You could also solicit leads and research assistance from the readers. Then, once the story is published you still get any ad revenue, which could be targeted to the audience that you serve. Journalists could liveblog updates as they investigate, encouraging supporters to give additional funds to help them through the search. The editorial staff could float suggestions for stories and let users vote with their wallets on what they want investigated. In this way users could also directly support the journalists who do good work, and the organization would scale by the level of interest. Probably not what pg had in mind, but it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility.
未来新闻更像 TechCrunch：主题化、有立场、小团队小利润。
作为 RFS 这特别有意思，因为 Paul Graham 的支持从一开始就带来曝光；如果新新闻模式带社交属性，还能绕过吸引初始用户的“先有鸡还是先有蛋”问题。祝尝试者好运，但我猜新闻业的未来看起来像 TechCrunch：按主题而非地理位置组织，不那么中立，员工数和利润规模都小得多。
lacker查看英文原文
This is particularly interesting as a RFS because Paul Graham's support will get you publicity from the beginning, and if there is a social aspect to your new news model, it will be able to get around the chicken-and-the-egg problem of being able to attract initial users. Best of luck to the takers, but I would guess that the future of journalism looks like TechCrunch: organized by topic rather than by location, not particularly unbiased, and much smaller in terms of both number of employees and size of profits.
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