Seattle paper shifts toward aggregation
February 27, 2009 · Filed Under Future of Media, Blogs
The Stranger says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer plans to shift toward a site that emphasizes aggregation of regional news.
What would be the point of moving the P-I’s website in this direction? Increased traffic, for one. The online P-I already draws a considerable number of readers—more than 2.8 million page views for its blogs alone in January, and half a billion hits overall last year—but if it can transform itself into a “sticky” entry point into the online universe of Northwest news and opinion (in the sense that people tend to come there and stay a while before moving on, which advertisers like), then it has a chance to draw even more readers and, presumably, revenue.
In other words, by unmooring itself from the idea that its own content is king, drastically lightening its staff load, and mixing up its presentation, the new online P-I is going to try to float to the top of the Northwest link heap.
