Applying Facebook’s Business Model To Journalism

Do traditional media companies need to focus on relationships rather than content in order to survive?

Journalism professor and media blogger Jeff Jarvis argues that publishers should take note of Facebook’s “relationship business” model, as it is inexpensive and scales, in his piece “What The Media Can Learn From Facebook.” Producing content, on the other hand, is expensive, he says.

Jarvis argues that media companies must respect the changing mechanisms of the media world — and must accept that journalists aren’t producers, they’re enablers. “That is when we add our real value,” he notes, by “asking the questions that aren’t being asked and answered.”

His proposed solution? Journalists can fill in the necessary reporting legwork, and like Facebook’s model, the central business model will involve tailoring to client’s needs in the style of digital agencies. “Perhaps our greatest value is not in what we produce but in what it produces: signals about people’s interests, about authority, about topics and trends,” he notes.

What do you think of Jarvis’s thoughts on saving journalism by learning from Facebook?

Image courtesy of the situationist