It’s always interesting to see how established media outlets respond to the ever quickening pace of online news. How do you keep that “trusted newspaper of record” status when you’re forced to keep up with speedy blogs and the relentless, if sometimes inaccurate, Twitterverse?
Seemingly in response to this situation, The Financial Times has today launched an intriguing new service called Tilt which sits somewhere between a blog and a private members’ club.
Billed as a “Premium online financial news and analysis service”, it aims to provide “A lively blend of news and analysis” for those with a real need to keep up with highly detailed news from emerging financial markets around the world.
The site combines short, bloggy articles about specialist topics like the Dubai property market and “The Jakarta Composite” with a community forum called “Tilt Populi”. Access to premium news from Tilt will require a monthly subscription fee, while the community section is free but interestingly requires aspiring users to demonstrate a genuine interest in the financial news from emerging markets before they’re let in.
Discussing the launch with Paid Content UK recently, FT Editor-in-Chief Paul Murphy said that the aim with Tilt was to build on the company’s existing Alphaville site by offering “A fast, conversational style of journalism” aimed at “A very, very professional audience who know their stuff”. In that respect, Tilt feels very much like what tech blogs have been doing for half a decade but charging for it in a market that’s used to paying for specialist news.
Why this new approach? Murphy explained to Paid Content UK that “This audience want companies and markets in these fast-growing regions covered to a similar depth that we cover companies and markets in the west. That isn’t really happening at the moment. It comes down to resources – most papers have cut back on international staff quite dramatically in the last decade.”
It will be interesting to see if the approach extends beyond emerging markets to some of the FT’s other reporting in time. While there’s certainly still a place for in-depth journalism in 2011, short, quick-fire, drip-drip news is arguably just as necessary now.
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