SEATTLE, Wash. -- As a thousand journalists and "new media" people convene this week in the damp Northwest, the newest mass medium -- news on the Internet -- is coming of age. I'm here representing starbulletin.com, our Worldwide Web edition, a finalist for Best Overall U.S. Newspaper Online Service (under 100,000 circulation) in the annual Editor & Publisher EPpy Awards. Online: the new
mass mediumThe growth of online news is unprecedented. Where newspapers took centuries to reach 50 million users, broadcast took decades. This new medium? Less than five years. Microsoft, we were told on Friday, estimates 48 million people are using the Internet already.
Online news consumers now spend an average of 3.5 hours a week in front of their computer screens reading the news.That's only six minutes less than newspaper readers spend with their paper, but two hours less than TV news viewers watch the tube each week.
Merrill Brown of MSNBC, the NBC-Microsoft joint venture, says only five U.S. newspapers have "circulations" as large as his online news service, seen by three million "unique users" a month. MSNBC launched in July 1996, four months after starbulletin.com. One of its biggest "spikes" in readership happened the day NBC Dateline covered the Hawaii Diet on the air, including the MSNBC Internet address for more information.
Separating cyber-hype from online-reality is difficult. But what's clear is news consumers have more and better options than ever before.