How to use a semicolon. - Why newspapers need to think of themselves as apps to survive. Maya Baratz: In the App Economy, Newspapers are Apps. In this past fall's Web 2.0 Summit conference, Mark Pincus, CEO of social gaming startup Zynga, declared Web 3.0 the "app economy" - a web in which people use apps to consume and share things, the way we do using Facebook and the iPhone.
Sure, it was an easy argument to make by someone working in an industry that lends itself to profiting off of standing on the shoulders of a giant (in this case, Facebook). But it's also an insight that may hint at the solution to one of the bigger obstacles so-called "old" media - the newspaper industry in particular - is up against: If news media outlets want to thrive in this new environment, they need to start thinking of themselves as apps. Platform + Apps = News Consumption.