Warning Signal
September 2001 worsened the situation. The situation in Indonesia was pretty much the same. A number of news portals, whose income were mostly booked from ads, were either shut down or prolonged by merger. Kopitime.com, Astaga.com, Satunet, and Catcha.com were finally history. Dotcom companies merged or trimmed down managerial structures aiming at a more segmented readership. However, the attempts proved failed. Among the news portals, only Detik.com survives and gains success, apart from other online publications which have been part of newsprint strategies. The bubble in early 2000 does not bring trauma. Yet, media in Indonesia needs time to try new luck on the business seriously6. In fact, until 2006, as the United States recorded rising trend in the use of the Internet, the media in Indonesia was not yet ready for the new digital era7 - albeit some have chosen to have conglomeration as the most possible alternative in making growth and be big. The past did not easily ignite media players in Indonesia to take up promising opportunities instantly in the digital space. However, as long as history is concerned, global affairs will always test the future of the digital world, including in Indonesia. Given the now contexts and situations, it is only a matter of time before media capitalists leave their conventional strategy, which is by depending on a single platform, to multiplatform era. Most decision makers in media firms have opted in online publication as future strategy. It is by convergence that the goal 6 Poynter Institute marks the year 2000 as the milestone of new media era following the decline of the dotcom http://poynterplayground.com/200moments/index.php?s=year-2000 dan http://www. poynter.org/uncategorized/28786/new-media-timeline-2000/ 7 Lovea Antony, targeting newspaper and magazine market in 2007, Challenges and Chances, Media Directory 2007, yang diterbitkan oleh SPS dan Infoemdia, Jakarta, 2007, hal. 32.
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