The Company That's Buying the Online News Ecosystem

In the past couple years, an ecology of sorts has come into being among online news sites. It's the blogosphere metastized, maybe, or merged with the money of traditional media

A web writer, or a newspaper reporter or a far-afield staff writer finishes a story and files it into their content management system. She tweets it from her personal Twitter; her publication tweets it, too. It drops into the topmost spot of the homepage.

Then it begins. Other journalists fall upon it, read it, maybe like it. News consumers find it, too. They post it to Twitter. If they're really gung-ho about it, they share it on Facebook, where it accretes likes and trickles down News Feeds. They email it to friends. Read more...