At IJ-6 (the Sixth Conference on Innovation Journalism), held at Stanford, the man often referred to the father of the Internet said that, in the digital world, branding will be more important than ever before for journalists.

Prefacing his remarks by noting that the vast amount of information created online creates tough competition for the attention of readers, Vint Cerf, who designed Internet protocols and the first commercial email service, said "journalism is going to become all about branding."

In this gigantic mass of information that's accessible to anyone who's interacted with the Internet, how can we help people learn to trust opinions, learn to trust selections, choices and reports coming from journalists? ...[Branding] is one of the elements that will help you compete against all the other sources of information that people are exposed to.

After the jump, Cerf's thoughts on journalism business models.

Cerf, who has worked at Google since 2005 as its Chief Internet Evangelist, said that, in the deluge of information, many of the classic journalistic functions—selection and prioritization—will still be in high demand.

"We still are going to need to have our attention drawn to things," he said. "Just because all the information we could possibly want is out there, doesn’t mean we have either the time or the energy or interest to read all of it."

Cerf, who conceded that his comments were "mostly opinion"—and who invited the audience to disagree with him—said he didn't have an answer to the question of what the future business model of journalism will be.

But he did say he believed the advertising model can work. "Anything that draws attention has the potential to be supported by advertising," he said.

And for those who still believe that making news work on the Internet is simply a matter of digitizing the print product, Cerf had this to say: "You need to change your thinking about the use of the medium. It doesn't just transfer over. It really does force you to do something different."