Lincoln Journal Star
What does disintermediation look like? For local newspapers, it might resemble this: A Nebraska court system has built its own mobile apps to publish schedules of hearings.
The Lincoln Journal Star reports that the free apps launched last week:
“The Nebraska Court Calendar app lets users search most district and all county court hearing schedules by name or date to find day, time and location information for open cases. Hearing schedules are pulled in real time from court databases.”
It would be hard to argue that this specific type of source-provided information is a significant threat to local media. But it is another reminder that in the digital age, anyone can be a publisher.
Much as Craigslist contributed to the decline of print classified ads, there are few barriers keeping civic and governmental groups from bypassing traditional media outlets and publishing content not just to the Web, but also directly to mobile devices.
