I’ve been wondering a lot recently how print media will survive in the years ahead. How, for instance, might newspapers integrate relevance, utility, and innovation as various circumstances pressure them into finding greater sales through lowest common denominator content.

Of course the same applies for the Dharma.

Anyway, it looks as if my smart and innovative brother, Matt, may have come up with what looks to my eye to be something powerful. It’s called The Guardian Open Platform and to my untrained eye, it appears this “open API” allows for something truly remarkable.

The newspaper has just announced a new suite of online services that some go as far to suggest may be the future of distribution. It’s no printing press 2.0, and won’t be printing money just yet, but it’s the sort of courageous innovation crucial to the news-industry’s survival.

Imagine this…

The Guardian aren’t purely in it for profit; their composition assures that they don’t intend to seek profit for shareholders benefit. Instead, their motivation is independence and conformity to their trust’s founding values. They can afford to be innovative and take risks in order to lead the way: being courageous, as their values state, is important. Indeed, shareholders “would normally have a heart attack at such a move.”

Does this make them “socialists” by American standards? Or are they simply being integral in their thinking and practice?

Bows, guardian.co.uk.

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