Reuters gets it
Tom Glocer, CEO of Reuters, is giving a keynote at the Online Publishers Association. It's good enough to live-blog. — Glocer said a year ago, the focus of Reuters was on "the consumer as editor," with tools such as RSS to allow consumers to consume differently.
Context & Ripple Effects
Reuters had already put distribution behind its consumer-as-editor framing, selecting FeedBurner for RSS delivery and advertising and opening a news-video distribution pilot for outside publishers. Glocer's Online Publishers Association keynote ties those moves to a strategy of letting audiences consume Reuters beyond its own destination.
The significance is less a product announcement than a public statement of how a wire service intends to use syndication: RSS is treated as a way to preserve Reuters' reach when readers choose the interface and publisher that presents the news.
First-order effects
- Reuters' RSS subscribers and distribution partners are positioned to receive its reporting through chosen readers and sites, rather than being confined to a Reuters-controlled product.
- Glocer's remarks give Reuters' FeedBurner-backed RSS distribution and external video pilot a common editorial rationale: consumer choice is part of the product, not merely a technical add-on.
Second-order effects
- Online publishers and blog operators gain a stronger case for carrying Reuters material, since the company is signaling that third-party distribution is compatible with its audience strategy.
- Other news providers that rely on keeping readers inside proprietary sites face pressure to make their own feeds and syndication terms useful across competing readers and publisher sites.
Third-order effects
- If major wire services continue to distribute this way, control of the news interface shifts toward feed readers and downstream publishers, while suppliers compete on the portability, reliability, and monetization of their content.
- The unresolved copyright debate around RSS becomes more consequential as syndicated feeds move from simple headlines toward commercially distributed news and advertising.
The trend: News organizations are moving from destination-only publishing toward interoperable distribution, using RSS and partner publishing to reach audiences wherever they choose to read.