I’ve been thinking about USA Today’s admirable conversationalizing of its site. I don’t think it will do what they want, although I’d be happy to be wrong (which means I must be happy most of them time).

The problem is that the best newspaper is the meta-newspaper, the one that pulls together articles from every conceivable source, from USA Today to the India Times to Aunt Margie’s blog. Why would I go to one of the sources as my news home when I can pull them all to me? Sure, I’ll go to read an article linked to in one of the aggregation sites, but that’s not what USAToday.com is after. Against their wishes, their content is coming unstuck…which is the best way to get my “eyeballs” to come to their site.

It may be that one of the news sources can reinvent itself as the best damn news aggregation site, but it’s not probable since they’re likely to prefer their own content. The site will have to compete with the very best aggregators around, although the newspaper’s brand and market presence and trustworthiness does count for something. We’ll see how it turns out.

(I still think the USAToday site needs to provide a thumbs down option as well as a thumbs up button. Don’t they know we readers want our revenge?) [Tags: usatoday media newspapers journalism marketing everyth everything_is_miscellaneous ]