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The rise of informal news networks
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Articles by Celeste LeCompte

Celeste LeCompte is a 2014-15 Nieman Fellow. She writes from San Francisco and Guangzhou, China, about innovation, the environment, and entrepreneurs. She also is the startup columnist for Robotics Business Review and co-founder of Climate Confidential, an experiment in reader-funded journalism about the intersection of environmental issues and technological innovation. Previously, she was the managing editor and director of product for Gigaom Research, one of the first subscription products offered by a major blog network.
“The thing that had the strongest connection to someone’s propensity to develop a habit and their propensity to give is sociability — that it gives people things to talk about.”
“Most people don’t consume news because they want to be more informed about the news; they want to be informed about the news that they’re likely to talk about.”
“The newsroom’s creativity over the past few years has been part of a radical reimagining of what journalism looks like. Revenue models need to undergo a similar transformation.”
“Free content isn’t free; it’s subsidized by advertisers, who want to get their messages in front of users. But increasingly, users say, they’re the ones paying for the ads: with their privacy, their patience, and their mobile bandwidth.”
“Let’s have a computer do what a computer’s good at, and let’s have a human do what a human’s good at.”
Gigaom’s sudden collapse this week seemingly caught its journalists by surprise. Keeping them informed of the financial state of affairs — how money gets made and spent — can lead to better decisions on all sides.