Lore Sjoberg has cracked the secret plan that Rupert Murdoch appears to be following:
The audiences for traditional newspapers are getting older, more crotchety and increasingly dead. Most people don’t want their news to come with such hassles as a cover price, ads or dissenting opinions. How to bring in a younger, hipper audience that’s willing to spend money just to prove that they have money?
Murdoch, that crazy mad genius, realizes that the only way to attract this lucrative demographic is to establish street cred. He’s going underground, reinventing news as an exclusive club that you can’t find just by entering a search term.
Presumably, Murdoch’s New York Post, for example, will be renamed to something hip and enigmatic, like Velocity or Unk. The new URL won’t be publicized. To get it, you’ll have to know somebody, or know somebody who knows somebody, or know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody, or show a lot of cleavage. There will be a long line outside the website, just like an exclusive club or World of Warcraft right after an expansion release. A moderator will check out your online presence and won’t let you in unless you’re a mover, a shaker, a player, a spender or showing a lot of cleavage.
Once inside, the website will be dark, noisy and disorienting, just like an exclusive club or a MySpace page. There will be a two-drink minimum. I’m not sure how that will work, actually, but if anyone can force people to buy $10 beers while browsing the web, it’s my man Rupert. People will pretend to be reading stories about police standoffs and Knicks games, but they’ll actually be looking around to see who else made it in. And all that affectation and posing is like unto money in Murdoch’s pocket.
