TECH TALK While it may be true that the Internet has enabled more news to be read online free oc charge, Mark Khoo admits that a "truly workable business model for newspapers that will lift the industry out of its present doldrums has yet to surface."

That, I'm afraid is the issue. While new media advocates can criticise publishers like Rupert Murdoch for his attempts to make people pay to read his publications' news online, the various business models that have been proposed so far, such as online advertisement-support, have not been enough to make online-only publications self-sufficient. There are, of course, some exceptions.

Also, while many netizens are bashing Murdoch and saying that he "does not understand online media" they hardly notice or mention Malaysiakini which has been around for 10 years and has been charging readers for most of that time. Murdoch is just still talking about it.

More people are said to be reading news online and buying fewer newspapers. This has resulted in some high profile closures of print media, such as the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

Still, it does not answer the question as to whether revenue from online advertisements are enough to sustain professional online-only media organisations. The answer, according to recent online media experience is NO! At least not yet.

So when will it be? In five, 10, 20, 30 or 100 years?

How many media businesses can wait that long to realise profitability, unless they have a rich daddy - taxpayers, some NGO or a rich sponsor - to carry them through

Living on blogging

So what is the future of professional journalism?

Will future journalists end up writing as a pastime or hobby while they work in regular non-media jobs, much like many bloggers do today? Heck! Jeff Ooi is a Member of Parliament - a pretty well paying job - and Ahirudin Attan (Rocky) is back with the Malay Mail.

In one article I wrote, on whether bloggers can make enough money, I interviewed Nuffnang and Advertlets, two companies which get advertisements and place them in blogs. They pay bloggers according to the pageviews or clicks.

It turned out that only a few make big money; like RM15,000 a month, The rest, at best, only earn some 'pocket money.'

Nuffnang co-founder Timothy Tiah advised bloggers not to make blogging a full time. They should keep their regular job or professions. "Even if they are making five figures monthly today, their fame could wane three years down the road and they could end up a nobody."

Prominent blogger Kenny Sia, who writes light-hearted humourous articles on his blog, http://kennysia.com said although he earns around RM15,000 a month from advertisements on his blog, he would not give up his full time job as a computer systems administrator in his family's firm.

Speaking to other Nuffnang bloggers, I found very few of them make enough to support themselves. For most, it is a hobby or a sideline.

So, unless that elusive viable business model is found, the decline we are witnessing in print media could well be a harbinger of the decline of the written media overall.

However, absent from this "print versus online media" debate is broadcast media - which probably has a much bigger consumption share than newspapers or websites.

Consumption of broadcast media requires almost no effort, apart from couch potatoes paying attention to the TV or radio with a can of beer in one hand and the remote control in the other.

Broadcast media may increasingly move away from free-to-air transmission towers, satellite and cable pay TV to optical fibres carrying Internet Protocol TV traffic to set-top-boxes in homes. This traffic is a two-way and interactive, with possible video-on-demand requests and feedback.

However, while IP-TV makes use of Internet technology, that will not change much of anything. TV viewing and radio listening will remain the same, whatever the delivery medium, and most of it will not be free. Can you imagine Ananda Krishnan providing IP-TV on demand for free in Australia?

Last bastion of old media

Though there will still be free streaming videos, such as on You Tube, I hardly imagine they can replace professionally-made programmes at any time soon, except for those seeking alternative information and are willing to excuse the lack of professional quality. Therefore, broadcast will most probably remain the last bastion of the old media for a long time to come.

Back to text-based online media, free streaming videos or audio podcasts. What could happen is a huge shakeout in the global online media universe, leaving only a handful of profitable, big, global players. We've already seen this among search portals, such as Google, and online bookstores, such as Amazon.com.

Amazon.com benefited from its first-mover advantage and rules the roost in online bookstores with no serious competition in sight. In the 1990s they were a huge choice of online search portals, such as Yahoo! Alta Vista and Lycos. But today, Google rules the roost. Yahoo! is far behind and others are hardly on most people's radar screens.

Cyberspace has been said to be a borderless global village. A physical village can support a relatively handful of businesses, such as a coffee shop, sundry shop, bicycle or motorcycle repair shop and there are simila opportunities in the next village 10km down the road. 

There is, however, only one global village on planet Earth. It can support just a few big, global online businesses.

So, anyone dreaming of becoming the next Jeff Bezos or Sergey Brin had better think twice. Once the process of industry consolidation takes place, as it already has in these two cases, there will only be a handful, nay, perhaps just one dominant player worldwide. - Malaysian Mirror