The newspaper industry experienced a lot of disruption by the Internet. Previously, it was a very normal thing to go to the kiosk and buy a printed newspaper. Nowadays, the news is available on the internet 24/7 and most publishers thought they were safe with their digital content. However, the emergence of Internet lowered the entry barriers for new entrants and suddenly little start-up platforms like Blendle and BuzzFeed entered the industry.
Blendle is a Dutch journalism startup which is the first platform to offer the possibility to buy single articles. With the entrance of internet, a lot of content like music, movies, application, articles etc. were free on the internet ready to be downloaded. Later came the introduction of Itunes, Spotify and Netflix for music and movies which made sure people would again pay for content, Blendle was introduced to do the same for news articles. With the idea that people just want to pay for something they actually consume, the reader can buy single articles using Blendle. Therefore the consumer will select just the articles which are interesting enough to buy. When the reader does not like the article after reading it, he/she can get a refund with a couple of clicks. With a Blendle account the user can also follow friends/family and share articles. This summary of Blendle will lead to a conclusion that the Long-tail concept is applicable. The platform sells a large number of articles which each sell in smaller quantities.
BuzzFeed on the other hand is a platform which not only brings the news, but also wants to entertain the visitor. The website is comprehensive and contains a lot of different content like articles, videos, quizzes, puzzles, recipes. Moreover, it is all free accessible. But that is not the only reason why BuzzFeed is so popular. It is because they bring their content through social media to the audience instead of luring the audience to their website. Buzzfeed has actually been profitable since the first year they operated and now have more than 7 billion views each month.
But will all of this be enough to beat the traditional way of consuming the news? The predictions of this digital disruption can be seen in the video.
