1.  At the core of digital communications is something called packet-switching.

In brief, packet-switching takes messages that were once indivisible and divides those messages into tiny little “packets.”  Once messages are in these packets, it’s lots easier to send those messages over telecommunications networks, like, for instance, the internet.

The Sandman is the personification of packet-switching.  (That’s the Sandman in Marvel Comics, by the way, not the Sandman in the Roy Orbison song).  The Sandman can dissolve into little particles of sand — packets — and these little particles of sand can then go wherever they want to go.

2.  In the olden days when I bought a newspaper…

…I got news and sports and editorials and this and that and (once upon a time) lots and lots of advertising.  Somewhere in there was probably what I wanted to read — but it was locked inside an indivisible newspaper package.

Currently, when I get on the packet-switched internet and Google the news, I don’t have to deal with newspaper packages. Instead, I deal with news “packets.”  Maybe one of those packets, for instance, is the New York Times.

And then, when I go to the NYT website, I find more little packets — headlines, they call them.  So I click on a headline, and I read what I want to read.

And I say yay for the NYT, because I didn’t have to buy a package to read a packet.

3.  Some people think newspapers are packet-switched too much.

These people think the NYT is nuts.

These people would like for the NYT to continue to sell you a newspaper package — because that’s what newspapers have sold you for a long time, and that’s what some people are still trying to sell you.

4.  Some other people think newspapers aren’t packet-switched enough.

If the NYT can “packetize” their news, these other people ask, why can’t the NYT packetize the price of their news?

If I only read Malcolm Gladwell’s articles in the New Yorker, for instance, why shouldn’t I pay just for those articles instead of paying for the whole New Yorker magazine package?

“Packetized” payments for individual articles — or even individual words — are called micro-payments.

And some people think micropayments are a really good idea for newspapers like the NYT and magazines like the New Yorker.

Others don’t.

5.  But, before the Sandman becomes the Micropayment Man…

…he gets to bust up Rupert Murdoch and the newspaper packaging cartel.

Shouldn’t take long.

Jump to comments | This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 12:37 pm.