The creators of Epic imagine a world in the not too distant future where the New York Times has gone offline. Yet in an interview with Eytan Avriel (NewsTrust review), Arthur Sulzberger of the New York Times, Sulzberger talks of a day, perhaps even sooner when the New York Times publishes only online.

The article talks about losses in the newspaper industry, including “a $570 million loss because of write offs and losses at the Boston Globe. “ Yet provides the interesting observation that costs of moving to an all digital platform “aren't anywhere near what print costs” are. As cost and revenue structures change, information distribution organizations need to rethink what they are doing.

Interestingly, the vision that Sulzberger describes of the New York Times as “curators of news” is perhaps not all that different from a rosier view of what Epic presents. At Toomre Capital Markets we do our own curating of news related to financial services innovations. Yet the thing that seems to be missing from Sulzberger’s view is the role of community.

Yes, there is a community of readers, but how much do they interact? There is a community of sources that reporters use, but too often that community seems particularly small and disconnected. Interesting news and ideas emerge when different parts of community get linked together. It is part of what we try to do at TCM. It is part of the wider sets of social networking sites, and if the New York Times is going succeed, it is something they need to focus on as well.

(Cross posted at Toomre Capital Markets)