What will Amazon's Bezos do with The Washington Post?
Nobody is quite sure why Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com decided to buy The Washington Post. Was it to satisfy his ego? Was it an act of altruism or business genius? Is he trying to "save a social institution"? Or is it something in between?
Bezos could open up new avenues for valuing content – if it can be delivered to the relevant audience at the right moment. If that can be carried out successfully, the delivery of news content could empower a consumer’s decision.
Media analyst Gabriel Kahn wrote, “While Bezos is fresh to the news business, it’s clear that during his near-20 years of designing Amazon.com, he has thought deeply about the value of presenting people with relevant information at an opportune moment. By now, regular Amazon shoppers are hip to the fact that the company knows more about their shopping preferences than they themselves might. While that can be an eerie experience, it does help us consider how a major content producer (the Post) might make those interactions more meaningful.”
He cited a passage in Bezos’ letter to Post employees after the purchase was announced: “Our touchstone will be readers, understanding what they care about – government, local leaders, restaurant openings, scout troops, businesses, charities, governors, sports – and working backwards from there.”
Julius Genechowski and Steven Waldman, writing in The New Republic, had this to say: “At Amazon, Bezos didn’t just ‘crack the digital code’ in a technological sense; he understood how the Internet changed the economics of serving consumers. And while he looked at the long run he also pursued the long tail. Amazon mastered the capacity to provide products and services not only for the big sellers but the smaller ones, and not only for buyers who want to buy the biggest-selling products but also consumers with unique interests. He did this, for instance, by deploying technology to improve the economics of low-volume sales. With infinite shelf space, he built a business that offers everything to everyone, something you couldn’t do in a store, even a big-box retailer.”
The authors insist that, despite the bleak prospects for the industry, the news media can be profitable, “but only if companies better serve their customers, transform their business models and alter their financial time-horizons. That includes having the kind of patience that Bezos demonstrates at Amazon. Outlets that cut back on basic services, especially reporting, will improve their near-term quarterly profit but squander the future.”
Cass Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School, suggested in a recent Bloomberg column that Bezos could ensure the future of the Post through personalisation – tailoring the news products to suit people’s specific tastes – an art the new owner has mastered with great commercial success.
Sunstein quoted Bezos as saying in 1998, “If we have 4.5 million customers, we shouldn’t have one store. We should have 4.5 million stores.” The writer asks, “Can’t the same be said of newspapers? If the Post has 19 million readers, could it have 19 million newspapers?”
He went on to suggest, “If he wishes, Mr Bezos could easily take The Washington Post in this direction. A redesigned website, or an app, might create headlines and sort stories, ideas and opinions on the basis of people’s previous choices. If you are bored with politics, or if new science-fiction movies are what most interest you, then your Post could be set up accordingly. Why shouldn’t people see what they want?”
That, he laments, would bid “serendipity” goodbye. The writer insists that the experience of serendipity is critical for individuals and societies alike. “When like-minded people speak only with one another, they tend to go to extremes, thus aggravating political polarisation,” he writes.
He says that newspapers create what might be called an “art of serendipity” – readers encountering all sorts of stories, facts, ideas and opinions they didn’t select. If Bezos does with the Post what he has done with Amazon, serendipity will surely be a thing of the past.
Whatever the motives behind this dramatic turn of events in the media world, quite a few people, both in the Post’s newsroom and outside, are more than willing to give Bezos the benefit of doubt.
A media analyst pointed out that Bezos has got it right with his statement recently that the three big ideas at Amazon are long-term thinking, customer obsession and willingness to invent.
He will have to prove that he can apply those principles at the 136-year-old Washington Post too.
