Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Jeff Bezos buys the Washington Post newspaper

This is interesting.  Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, purchased the famous Washington Post newspaper .   When I first heard this my reaction was that "It makes sense that Amazon would buy this to integrate into the Kindle" and their content distribution system or something similar.  But that would be an incorrect impression.  Note that Jeff Bezos individually purchased the paper - not Amazon, and from the sound of things it's more the case of a rich benefactor stepping in to save one of the most respected papers in America from it's financial difficulties.  

Per Bezos:  “But the key thing I hope people will take away from this is that the values of The Post do not need changing. The duty of the paper is to the readers, not the owners.”

Here's an article musing about some of the plans Bezos might have for the Washington Post and includes the observation that a) when you're marketing to folks it helps to intimately know that person's interests - and a relationship with the post could aid that, and b) e-commerce hasn't really been implemented effectively in a newspaper (other than lots of banner ads).  Could the Washington post be a forum to try something more effective?  There are other cool thoughts here also.


No comments: