In order to survive in this new digital age when almost everyone has some kind of access to the Internet, newspapers and publications are having to evolve. The Guardian newspaper is leading the way for UK print media with its new Open Platform.

Print media is, by most people’s reckoning, on its way out. It’s a sad (but inevitable) fact of life that the Internet has changed everything in this sector. Who needs to buy a daily newspaper or a weekly/monthly magazine when the Web delivers all of that same content but updated every minute.

The sensible publications and the companies which own them are looking at ways to evolve their businesses. The less sensible ones are trying to maintain their dying business models for as long as possible and themselves dying as a result.

With Time predicting that ten major American newspapers could die in the near future, it’s more important than ever for these age-old publications to look to the future rather than the past. And the future is undoubtedly online.

The Guardian newspaper is by no means the biggest national daily in the UK, with a relatively small readership. But online, The Guardian has managed to eke out a very strong brand and presence which is only really matched by The Times.

And The Guardian is seeking to become an even bigger presence on the Web, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall for its print edition. The newspaper has today launched its new Open Platform, a service which sees all its online content opened up and free-to-use. The idea being that the content will be woven “into the fabric of the Internet”.

The service is launching with two products, the Content API and the Data Store. The first is a way of retrieving content from The Guardian’s vast stock and reusing it on your own site, in an application, or in any other way you see fit. The second is “a collection of important and high quality data sets” which have been compiled by the newspaper’s journalists and can be used in a number of different ways. Both services are detailed in full here.

Importantly, The Guardian is retaining the rights to carry advertising on the content, “requiring partners to carry its advertising as part of its terms and conditions.” In effect, this ensures The Guardian is still going to be making money from its content, no matter where it’s used, and in what context.

This move follows on from a similar one by The New York Times last month, and the BBC and others have already launched similar services. It’s clear that in order to stay in business, traditional print media is going to have to embrace the Web or risk extinction.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 5:20 pm under Advertising, Internet, Opinion, Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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