15 years and counting

May 6, 2014
by Björn Jeffery
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For over 15 years the newspaper industry has been looking for “the right business model” for digital.

Think about how many hours have been spent by bright people at New York Times and all the other fancy places. The smartest people in the industry have been thinking about this for over one and a half decade. And yet they have not found anything that works well enough to even be able to keep their colleagues employed. Real growth was a long time ago.

What if there isn’t a business model for news? Think about it. Because it is not the same thing as saying that news has no value, which is the knee jerk reaction. What would it mean? Perhaps it is time to start thinking about that scenario at least.

The Author

Björn Jeffery is a Swedish technology columnist, advisor, and independent analyst based in Malmö, Sweden. He is the technology columnist for Svenska Dagbladet and co-hosts a podcast for the newspaper. He was previously CEO and co-founder of Toca Boca, the kids’ media company that grew to over one billion downloads. Through his advisory practice, Outer Sunset AB, he works with companies on digital strategy, consumer culture, governance, growth, and international expansion.