What will Silicon Valley do if the news supply runs dry?

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[Commentary] With nearly three-quarters of the population spending an average of three hours a day checking their smartphones for the latest buzz, the Silicon Valley behemoths are zeroing in on news as a valuable consumer service — and revenue source. The news-delivery frenzy in Silicon Valley poses profound questions for the incumbent players in the media.

Legacy publishers and broadcasters are being forced to decide whether to contribute their expensively produced content to the master apps — or risk being marginalized as consumers forsake their carefully tended digital brands for the convenient and compelling aggregation platforms fielded by the tech giants. If techies take control of the front page with increasingly intuitive interfaces, how much audience and business will be left for the traditional providers of the news? Tech behemoths could well squeeze the life out of many of the independent news-aggregation sites that have emerged over the years. And even legacy publishers may not be safe. Algorithms may be great at finding and organizing stories, but what will Silicon Valley do if the news supply runs dry?

[Mutter is a former newspaper editor and Silicon Valley chief executive. He teaches at UC Berkeley and is a strategic consultant to global media companies]


What will Silicon Valley do if the news supply runs dry?