California Magazine
That's according to Duke University economist
James T. Hamilton. More from Hamilton in
Michael Zielenziger's article, "Newspapers in retreat":
"We’re not there yet," Hamilton argues, "but if you can get really good at determining the preference of individual readers, then you can aggregate those preferences back up and sell it to advertisers." In the end, local content might generate a healthy stream of revenue if Web publishers can clearly ascertain what the interests of their readers really are. And that elusive element of "surprise" or synchronicity might be recaptured when websites inform readers which other stories are also proving popular. When sites rank the articles that are the "most e-mailed," they are essentially employing the "wisdom of crowds" to push us toward material we might not otherwise scan.
