What the blogs say: What's going on at the Guardian?

An announcement to staff on Thursday by Andrew Miller, chief executive of Guardian Media Group, and Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian's Editor-in-Chief, combined some grim financial news (£33 million losses last year; almost the same as the year before) with heady ideas about a future 'digital-first' strategy.

Reactions on the blogs have mostly been along the lines of 'I hope this will work', with fellow journalists as anxious as the Guardian's accountants to find a way of participating online while still paying the bills.

Kevin Charman-Anderson, a freelance journalist and media strategist, offers some 'tough love' to encourage the Guardian to face up to its financial difficulties.

He says the group needs to accept that it's in "the same sinking boat as other newspapers" and that it badly needs a business model: a digital strategy isn't enough. "The Guardian's often lauded as the future of journalism," Anderson writes, "but without a sound business model it doesn't have a future."

As to what that might be, Anderson isn't specific, but he encourages the group to capitalise on the unusual loyalty of its readers: "The Guardian has the brand of Apple but the business focus of Twitter."

GigaOM's Mathew Ingram has a rather less optimistic take on the Guardian's strategy. Boasting a GigaOM interview with Rusbridger, Ingram reports that "The bottom line, the Guardian Editor-in-Chief said, is that the paper 'will do less in print' - which he said would likely mean layoffs from the editorial side."

Key to the digital strategy is turning engagement into revenue. Ingram reports that "The newspaper has identified 'about ten different revenue streams', including a recruitment business that's growing rapidly, as well as more traditional streams such as display advertising, and even a dating site."

The shape of things to come can be seen in the launch a couple of weeks ago of the Guardian Comment Network, which partners other websites to present their content on the Guardian's site. Writing about that launch, the Guardian'sNatalie Hanman said it was all about "further breaking down barriers between us and them, between the Guardian's journalism and the ever-growing wealth of other sources for interesting and informative views on the world".

Comment Network so far includes about a dozen blogs, from the collective (Conservative Home) to the personal ("Sit Down Man, You're a Bloody Tragedy is an architecture, politics and culture blog written by Owen Hatherley").

Good for the blogs in question to reach a larger audience, and maybe for Guardian readers, but is this really going to replace more than a slither of the group's losses with extra online ad revenue?

Probably more critical financially was the reference in the Guardian's own press release to the opening of "a new US operation based in New York". There are already almost 12 million unique users of the Guardian site in the US - a figure likely to grow with the opening of the new New York operation under Janine Gibson later this year.

In the press release, Rusbridger gives some hints about the future editorial direction of the printed Guardian "to take account of changing patterns of readership and advertising. Half our readers now read the paper in the evening: they get their breaking news from our website or on mobile."

So, a feature-led newspaper? Joe Pompeo of the Yahoo! news blog the Cutline had his own phone interview with Rusbridger, from which he was able to report:

"The print edition [in future] will have fewer pages and a smaller selection of stories, but those pieces will go into greater depth. The print content will remain free online.

'We'll make rougher choices about the things we want to delve into,' Rusbridger clarified for the Cutline. 'The paper needs to be tighter and we have to find ways of simplifying its production.'

He stopped short, however, of suggesting that this was the first step in a gradual march toward creating a digital-only publication.

'I can't foretell the future,' he said, 'but when you crunch the numbers it doesn't make sense to get rid of print at the moment.'"

At the moment?

Stepping back to see the big picture, but at a tweet's length, Jay Rosen, who teaches journalism at New York University, reacted to Mathew Ingram's account of developments like this:

"Looks like the three major strategies are staked out, @mathewi. Gated (Times of UK). Open (the Guardian.) And metered (New York Times, FT.)"

An exemplary tweet, with just one character to spare. Twitter does bring back the old newspaper discipline of keeping writers to the point.

In a few years time, either the idea that you could charge for a newspaper online just like the old printed newspaper or the idea that you could continue to run a news brand but give away its work for free online will seem crazy. We just don't know which yet.