Wow, check out all the strong language from the AP chief and News Corp's Rupert Murdoch:
"it is time for search engines and others who use news content for free to pay up"
"We content creators have been too slow to react to the free exploitation of news by third parties"
"We content creators must quickly and decisively act to take back control of our content"
"We will no longer tolerate the disconnect between people who devote themselves — at great human and economic cost — to gathering news of public interest and those who profit from it without supporting it"
"The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content. But if we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid content, it will be the content creators — the people in this hall — who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs who triumph"
Ironic that my link is on Google, hosting AP:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j-QHPkd1wPcAZL8SOqSTACDn33TgD9B7G7TG0
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Twitter bottlenecks & potential
I thought this was interesting. Tweets are routed through a central server, unlike Facebook or Microsoft Outlook Exchange... that's why Twitter slows down sometimes. Users with a lot of followers, like ABC News journalist George Stephanopoulos, have so many followers (nearly 1.4 million) that the bottleneck at the server. Twitter doesn't limit the number of followers - in comparison, Facebook and other social network tools limit friends to 5,000 and require reciprocal friending.
This author also suggests that Twitter could make money along the lines of how Microsoft makes $2 billion a year, with minimal subscription and access fees.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/04/twitter-should-decentralize-and-make-money-via-twitter-server/
This author also suggests that Twitter could make money along the lines of how Microsoft makes $2 billion a year, with minimal subscription and access fees.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/04/twitter-should-decentralize-and-make-money-via-twitter-server/
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Making use of secondary data
Pew Research Center for the People and the Press -- Biennial Media Consumption 2004, 2006, 2008
http://people-press.org/dataarchive/
Pew Internet and American Life Project
http://www.pewinternet.org/datasets.asp
ABC -- Newspaper/Magazine Circulation Data
http://www.accessabc.com/products/freereports.htm
Newspaper Association of America -- Trends and Numbers: Newspaper Web sites (Reach by DMA)
(Click on menu items on the top and on the left for more stuff)
http://www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers/Newspaper-Websites.aspx
Scarborough:
The 2008 Scarborough Newspaper Audience Ratings Report (Combined audience numbers for newspapers in DMAs)
Understanding the Digital Savvy Consumer (Guess which city is the most digi-savvy in the U.S.?)
http://www.scarborough.com/freeStudies.php
Newspaper Next 2.0 --
1. Market Selector
2. Online Spending Analysis
3. 2007 Online Spending Per DMA
4. Future Tools (one for each quintile)
5. WebAudits (one for each quintile)
http://www.newspapernext.org/2008/02/online_revenue_resources.htm
Borrell Free Data -- 2008 U.S. DMA Ad Spending (newer but not as detailed as Newspaper Next 2.0)
http://www.borrellassociates.com/freedata.aspx
Newspaper Association of America -- The Newspaper Audience Database or NADbase (membership required)
http://www.naa.org/Resources/Articles/Circulation-The-Newspaper-Audience-Database-or-NADbase.aspx
ABC's Audience-FAX online database (registration required):
Data on newspapers' average circulation, average print and online readership, total combined audience, and total unique Web site users as well as a variety of print demographic information for both national and local newspapers.
http://abcas3.accessabc.com/scarborough/login.aspx
ABC's Audience-FAX* eTrends Tool (registration required):
The tool is designed to allow users to create trending reports by reporting period on newspaper's average circulation, average print and online readership, total combined audience, and total unique Web site users.
http://abcas3.accessabc.com/audience-fax/default.aspx
http://people-press.org/dataarchive/
Pew Internet and American Life Project
http://www.pewinternet.org/datasets.asp
ABC -- Newspaper/Magazine Circulation Data
http://www.accessabc.com/products/freereports.htm
Newspaper Association of America -- Trends and Numbers: Newspaper Web sites (Reach by DMA)
(Click on menu items on the top and on the left for more stuff)
http://www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers/Newspaper-Websites.aspx
Scarborough:
The 2008 Scarborough Newspaper Audience Ratings Report (Combined audience numbers for newspapers in DMAs)
Understanding the Digital Savvy Consumer (Guess which city is the most digi-savvy in the U.S.?)
http://www.scarborough.com/freeStudies.php
Newspaper Next 2.0 --
1. Market Selector
2. Online Spending Analysis
3. 2007 Online Spending Per DMA
4. Future Tools (one for each quintile)
5. WebAudits (one for each quintile)
http://www.newspapernext.org/2008/02/online_revenue_resources.htm
Borrell Free Data -- 2008 U.S. DMA Ad Spending (newer but not as detailed as Newspaper Next 2.0)
http://www.borrellassociates.
Newspaper Association of America -- The Newspaper Audience Database or NADbase (membership required)
http://www.naa.org/Resources/Articles/Circulation-The-Newspaper-Audience-Database-or-NADbase.aspx
ABC's Audience-FAX online database (registration required):
Data on newspapers' average circulation, average print and online readership, total combined audience, and total unique Web site users as well as a variety of print demographic information for both national and local newspapers.
http://abcas3.accessabc.com/scarborough/login.aspx
ABC's Audience-FAX* eTrends Tool (registration required):
The tool is designed to allow users to create trending reports by reporting period on newspaper's average circulation, average print and online readership, total combined audience, and total unique Web site users.
http://abcas3.accessabc.com/audience-fax/default.aspx
Too many newspaper too little profit
For some reason, reading these two articles reminds me of a story about China's economic. This is going to be an awkward analogy, but maybe the revenue of online news is just like China's economic: growing rapidly, but from a very low point.
Will the idea of subscription work? For laptop or PC, I don't think so. Just think of how tedious it will be when you need to login to read any news story that you're interested in. Even though the cookies can be stored in your computer, you still need to login again and again when you switch computer. For example, when you want to use the computer in CMA lobby to check today's news just real quick. Besides, will you really store every login? That's something going to cost you money. Can you really trust everyone who might use your computer?
But for mobile device, I think that's possible. Because the hardware itself can be used as a identification. Actually this is already happening in Japan. Japanese can be said as heavy cellphone users, generally. They can buy almost whatever you can think of with their cellphone. And, most important of all, their system has be so sophisticated that websites can be designed that only certificated cellphone can browse. (In fact this brings a lot of negative effect, say, Internet bullying among teenagers.) Base on this technical reason, I think charging for content on mobile device will work.
However, charging users for content might work on books, music, movie, but I really doubt if that will work on news. I hate to say that, but there are just too many substitute. As long as there is one, even if only one, news organization offers their content for free, users have 100% reason to switch to free content.
Of course you can argue that if one offers news story with higher quality, people will still buy. The problem is, how many people appreciate and will pay for a "better" story? Given the quantity, and the amount they are willing to pay, can the revenue cover the cost of producing better stories?
I think arguing "we have better content" is relatively weak. If the content comes along with better service, then that might be more attractive. This is totally based on personally experience. I'm subscriber of KKBOX, a music content provider. I paid 20 dollars for half year, and I can listen to all the music on their site. I can also download the music, but the downloaded file can only be played in their software.
I've been using this service for 3 years. The reason I started buying it is because their interface saves my effort of organizing files in my computer. If I download private music, I need to create different folders and organize them in a way that I can remember. (Usually I couldn't find them right after I downloaded them.) But if I use this software, I can just do search. And I know a lot of users subscribe base on similar reason. Their content is fine, but we won't subscribe if that's only content.
So what service can newspaper offer? Search function that can help college student finish their final project? Adjust the length of different story base on users taste? I can't really think of many. But I do think news stories should be provided along with better service.
Will the idea of subscription work? For laptop or PC, I don't think so. Just think of how tedious it will be when you need to login to read any news story that you're interested in. Even though the cookies can be stored in your computer, you still need to login again and again when you switch computer. For example, when you want to use the computer in CMA lobby to check today's news just real quick. Besides, will you really store every login? That's something going to cost you money. Can you really trust everyone who might use your computer?
But for mobile device, I think that's possible. Because the hardware itself can be used as a identification. Actually this is already happening in Japan. Japanese can be said as heavy cellphone users, generally. They can buy almost whatever you can think of with their cellphone. And, most important of all, their system has be so sophisticated that websites can be designed that only certificated cellphone can browse. (In fact this brings a lot of negative effect, say, Internet bullying among teenagers.) Base on this technical reason, I think charging for content on mobile device will work.
However, charging users for content might work on books, music, movie, but I really doubt if that will work on news. I hate to say that, but there are just too many substitute. As long as there is one, even if only one, news organization offers their content for free, users have 100% reason to switch to free content.
Of course you can argue that if one offers news story with higher quality, people will still buy. The problem is, how many people appreciate and will pay for a "better" story? Given the quantity, and the amount they are willing to pay, can the revenue cover the cost of producing better stories?
I think arguing "we have better content" is relatively weak. If the content comes along with better service, then that might be more attractive. This is totally based on personally experience. I'm subscriber of KKBOX, a music content provider. I paid 20 dollars for half year, and I can listen to all the music on their site. I can also download the music, but the downloaded file can only be played in their software.
I've been using this service for 3 years. The reason I started buying it is because their interface saves my effort of organizing files in my computer. If I download private music, I need to create different folders and organize them in a way that I can remember. (Usually I couldn't find them right after I downloaded them.) But if I use this software, I can just do search. And I know a lot of users subscribe base on similar reason. Their content is fine, but we won't subscribe if that's only content.
So what service can newspaper offer? Search function that can help college student finish their final project? Adjust the length of different story base on users taste? I can't really think of many. But I do think news stories should be provided along with better service.
Monday, October 5, 2009
OMG! Something new?
I mentioned earlier the lack of creative approach seemingly drowning journalism economic pursuits. But check out what ESPN is doing. What began as a tabloid-style magazine of features and editorials is growing into an empire.
Sure, they've been on TV for a while ... but not like this. ESPN is efforting niche sports coverage in each city, offering that coverage through a pay channel (like $9.99/month) or as part of a pre-existing package. The numbers are huge and the coverage has the potential to wipe sports coverage at local stations out, hence stripping away a major component of local TV news advertising.
Austin IS on the ESPN possibility market ...
C'mon, Randy!
Man, I wonder if Randy Siegel is using his background in kids' books when he makes the absurd argument that newspapers shouldn't be giving away free content because "the book industry and the movie industry don't give their content away."
All three media forms couldn't be more different. Books, which are beginning to seep into the free Internet market, usually offer a specific reading environment that engages the reader (purposefully) for hours on end. Movies are an experience -- the seats, the previews, the atmosphere, the shared space. But newspapers online? They aren't usually read for hours on end like books and they certainly don't offer the entertainment value of movies. How could the publisher of Parade and a contributing founder of the Newspaper Project be so blithe in his assessment?
Everyone seems to be in a dire panic over the situation, so they're throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. And everyone gets sucked in, pontificating for hours on end about the horrific future of journalism. Yet, everyone seems to be chasing the carrot rather than creating a new one.
When presented, new issues call for new solutions. The article illustrates the lack of creativity in the newspaper industry right now when it comes to economics, which is disheartening. How long will editors and publishers be buckled into their ideas while restricting growth?
True, ideas are floating everywhere and most are a little wild. But perhaps that's what the industry needs right now. A little kick in the creative rear.
Dead end?
- The traditional concept of business as a “winner takes all” contest is giving way to a realisation that in the networked economy, companies need to both co-operate and compete. This perspective will need company to come up with business strategies that try to create maximum value in the marketplace. However, it seems to me that the co-opetition relationship between newspaper company and search engine sites such as Google and Yahoo is that newspaper companies are always in an inferior position. Even though they move their advertising revenue to online environment, the online ad revenue seems not grow fast enough to replace what they lost in the old media as the AJR article mentioned.
- Different media might need different model after a thorough assessment of a company’s network of players and a deep understanding of the business environment. An article I read (A framework for analyzing emerging business models: Cases of China’s media industry), proposes a participation business model concept after reviewing the existing perspectives of IT business model. The model consists of five dimensions:
- information technology
- business environment
- value
- the firm in terms of capability and resources
- firm boundary
- This model might be able to be adopted to newspapers’ online sites due to the technology-driven environment and the participatory features employed by newspaper company. There should be a way out for not being in an inferior position in the relationship with those search engine giants. Can newspaper company find out new open ad networks or new ad models that could reform the relationships?
Back to the Penny Press?
I remember reading Patterson's PEJ project just two years ago, which was cited in Fahri's article. And how outdated it looks now. His recommendation that time was "Just play new better online!". Nowadays, I don't think many will believe that making stories with lots of interactive feaure will save the mainstream media.
It is outdated because Patterson's recommnedation is based on the old business model. Standardized news symbolized by AP stylebook, hypocratical ethic of Objectivity, strong brandname such as New York Times, Bob Woodward, Walter Cronkite...and most of all heavy depence on mega size adverisers.
I get angry when scholars say that media refused to change. It's almost sad! I think they have tried to change for a long time. The association of newspaper had opted for a slogan "We are digital!", several years ago, before Patterson's recommendation. But their effort was fruitless because they thought competition was against another online news media. In actuality the threat was from aggregators, search engines or craiglist.
I like the way David Carr put it, the old media decided to "shoot their way out". Well, many media cannot escape the fate of death even though they charged for their news, I think. Because it is not only aggregators who are parasites of contents. In reality, substantial proportion of old media don't have their own contents. They relied on AP or other media, meaning there ain't anything for them to sell.
Paid contents business model is not totally new to the industry. There were time when a Yellow Kid would run around shouting "Read all about it." So paid news is not abondoning the practice that media had from the birth. It's more of back to the past, when they relied more on pennies from the subscirbers, rather than on million buck from advertisers.
It is outdated because Patterson's recommnedation is based on the old business model. Standardized news symbolized by AP stylebook, hypocratical ethic of Objectivity, strong brandname such as New York Times, Bob Woodward, Walter Cronkite...and most of all heavy depence on mega size adverisers.
I get angry when scholars say that media refused to change. It's almost sad! I think they have tried to change for a long time. The association of newspaper had opted for a slogan "We are digital!", several years ago, before Patterson's recommendation. But their effort was fruitless because they thought competition was against another online news media. In actuality the threat was from aggregators, search engines or craiglist.
I like the way David Carr put it, the old media decided to "shoot their way out". Well, many media cannot escape the fate of death even though they charged for their news, I think. Because it is not only aggregators who are parasites of contents. In reality, substantial proportion of old media don't have their own contents. They relied on AP or other media, meaning there ain't anything for them to sell.
Paid contents business model is not totally new to the industry. There were time when a Yellow Kid would run around shouting "Read all about it." So paid news is not abondoning the practice that media had from the birth. It's more of back to the past, when they relied more on pennies from the subscirbers, rather than on million buck from advertisers.
The secret formula known as advertising
Whoever finds the magic formula to create advertising revenue on the Internet the way it has been produced on television and in print ads will be a wealthy person themselves. It’s very interesting to read the tension and the stress that so many in this industry are going through as they not only struggle to keep what they do profitable, but also keep their jobs. I’m very well aware that advertising revenue pays my salary and making an advertiser mad could result in the loss of my job.
I think one of the important points those in this industry who are in the process of trying to come up with a new model for advertising need to keep in mind is to not get greedy. I look back at the 1980’s in the television industry when news was king on TV. Reporters from back then will brag about the days of a big story breaking in Washington DC and the station would fly them there on a moment’s notice to cover it. Pitching a story in another country and finding the funds to send a crew wasn’t a problem. Now just pitching an idea like that will have the bosses laughing in your face because they know there is no budget for it now or anytime in the near future.
The conversation surrounding new models for advertising will hopefully continue but in a more constructive way. Instead of people bashing those who try something different, such as paid content on the web, why not embrace the new idea and if it fails it fails. Without innovation we wouldn’t be in the place we are now.
I think one of the important points those in this industry who are in the process of trying to come up with a new model for advertising need to keep in mind is to not get greedy. I look back at the 1980’s in the television industry when news was king on TV. Reporters from back then will brag about the days of a big story breaking in Washington DC and the station would fly them there on a moment’s notice to cover it. Pitching a story in another country and finding the funds to send a crew wasn’t a problem. Now just pitching an idea like that will have the bosses laughing in your face because they know there is no budget for it now or anytime in the near future.
The conversation surrounding new models for advertising will hopefully continue but in a more constructive way. Instead of people bashing those who try something different, such as paid content on the web, why not embrace the new idea and if it fails it fails. Without innovation we wouldn’t be in the place we are now.
Inferior audiences
David Carr, NY Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/business/media/13carr.html?fta=y
You know, you can argue, as the “digital evangelists” do, that monopoly newspapers should have saved for a rainy day while they were pocketing 15% profits, but when ad revenue drops 48% in a single quarter http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/28/new-york-times-ad-revenue_n_161607.html it’s like kicking a guy when he’s down.
You can tell when content generators and content aggregators are using language like “parasite” and “shut up” that things are getting interesting.
Especially interesting in the video Yonghwan posted are the comments of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper talking about the importance of competition. So which is it – were newspapers arrogant monopolies which refused to save a bit of their obscene profits or were they aggressive competitors in two-paper towns fighting for the best journalism because that’s what sold? You have to admit, the quality of the journalism is getting a lot worse now, after cutbacks and buyouts... after the economics of media tanked, not before. I’ve said this before – I don’t think daily newspapers or the AP were broken a few years ago (I think they are now). I think what’s broken is the audience. If people strove to stay informed about their communities there would be more value for local newspapers, which still provide unique content – as Google has learned. Inferior goods? How about inferior consumers, who are the driving force behind this: “consumers...are used to paying for entertainment.”
You know, you can argue, as the “digital evangelists” do, that monopoly newspapers should have saved for a rainy day while they were pocketing 15% profits, but when ad revenue drops 48% in a single quarter http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/28/new-york-times-ad-revenue_n_161607.html it’s like kicking a guy when he’s down.
You can tell when content generators and content aggregators are using language like “parasite” and “shut up” that things are getting interesting.
Especially interesting in the video Yonghwan posted are the comments of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper talking about the importance of competition. So which is it – were newspapers arrogant monopolies which refused to save a bit of their obscene profits or were they aggressive competitors in two-paper towns fighting for the best journalism because that’s what sold? You have to admit, the quality of the journalism is getting a lot worse now, after cutbacks and buyouts... after the economics of media tanked, not before. I’ve said this before – I don’t think daily newspapers or the AP were broken a few years ago (I think they are now). I think what’s broken is the audience. If people strove to stay informed about their communities there would be more value for local newspapers, which still provide unique content – as Google has learned. Inferior goods? How about inferior consumers, who are the driving force behind this: “consumers...are used to paying for entertainment.”
Scarcity versus surplus & "inferior goods"
The Taloussanomat case study is interesting because December 2007 is the earliest I know of any newspapers ceasing print publication altogether. The Christian Science Monitor didn’t stop until April 2009; http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1029/p25s01-usgn.html.
Taloussanomat’s 10% spike in online readers with the cessation of print is amazing – I think that’s a pretty impressive jump given that most U.S. print readers also read online. Of course, it loses its luster when compared to the increase in online consumption of the Guardian and London Times. Now, the fact that the spike lasted 5 months is a mixed bag – is it good that it didn’t drop off after just a few weeks or is it bad that it dropped off at all? It’s a bit scary from an advertising perspective that online readership continues to fall. That means the payoff from the online-only gamble is entirely staked in cost savings, not an increase in online revenue. Scary. On page 6, Thurman and Myllylahti finally get to the crux of the decision – the paper was in dire straits and abandoned print out of desperation (losses of 31%). In that environment it, literally, pays to experiment.
I love the discussion of the key difference in economic principles of print versus online – the economics of scarcity versus surplus (p. 7). That’s fascinating and betrays that it will be hard for “inferior goods” like newspapers with dwindling audiences to be able to compete strongly online. Rather than a clash of the titans it’s a clash of the cheaps – low production cost versus low renumeration. How do you make the cost numbers small enough to run in the black from minimal and capricious online income? You use the Web to do what newspapers have long done – you target a subset of reliable, lucrative readers like the Taloussanomat is doing with the e-mail, and you “re-purpose” content so you can sell it twice, on other sites and in other publications. Interesting.
Most interesting is how the change to online only has affected the paper’s journalism: fewer original enterprise stories; more narrative rather than scholarly economic reporting; more stories from other sources, including PR people. Is this the future of American journalism? Can online-only outlets like the Voice of San Diego or Spot.us pick up the slack and tell the important stories? Or will corruption become easier to get away with without traditional newspaper journalism? It seems sadly ironic that newspapers will follow the ways of TV production (p. 13) – first, fast, piecemeal updates – when TV news in the U.S. has been riding newspapers’ coattails for decades.
Paul Farhi, Online Salvation
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4427
Wow, the NY Times draws more than 10% of ALL online newspaper traffic and still is losing $18 million a quarter? And they stay for a minute a day – 20 seconds a day at the next nine newspapers? Ouch. The Farhi article mentions “hard core” visitors online and I suppose people like me and Kang fit that profile. We both still read print newspapers but Kang raises a compelling point. With print circulation you can reasonably predict to advertisers how many people will read your product next week or next month. Even with dwindling readership you can promise some number. But online who knows? I know that, unlike with print, online advertising is paid for after it runs, not before, which means this is more vital for news outlets than for advertisers. Also, I read papers in print and online, but I also go first to news aggregators, like Kang mentioned. Is Alice beginning to influence my behavior?
The Patterson study is already dated – it’s from 2007: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/presspol/research/carnegie-knight/creative_destruction_2007.pdf
But it’s interesting, finding that brand names matter, probably more than anything else. In Miami and elsewhere, local newspapers teamed up with local TV stations in coverage partnerships, sharing some resources (video, reporting) and cross-promoting each other. Given that both are sinking ships, that model hasn’t been very stable either, with rotating TV stations and newspapers signing and breaking deals. And Miami is a big-paper town, with Tribune’s Sun-Sentinel and McClatchy’s flagship Miami Herald. TV stations are familiar with CMP – it’s how they set ad rates based on ratings. But if it takes 10 (or more) online readers to replace 1 print reader, that won’t compensate for the savings – even 70% savings – of printing and distribution. Look at it this way – the San Jose Mercury News “touted plans to increase its share of Internet revenue to 20 percent – by 2012.” So 80+ percent of revenue comes from print (90% for the Times). Saving 70% on publishing costs you 80% in revenue – and that’s bad math. My new BFF Craig Newmark seems to agree.
Taloussanomat’s 10% spike in online readers with the cessation of print is amazing – I think that’s a pretty impressive jump given that most U.S. print readers also read online. Of course, it loses its luster when compared to the increase in online consumption of the Guardian and London Times. Now, the fact that the spike lasted 5 months is a mixed bag – is it good that it didn’t drop off after just a few weeks or is it bad that it dropped off at all? It’s a bit scary from an advertising perspective that online readership continues to fall. That means the payoff from the online-only gamble is entirely staked in cost savings, not an increase in online revenue. Scary. On page 6, Thurman and Myllylahti finally get to the crux of the decision – the paper was in dire straits and abandoned print out of desperation (losses of 31%). In that environment it, literally, pays to experiment.
I love the discussion of the key difference in economic principles of print versus online – the economics of scarcity versus surplus (p. 7). That’s fascinating and betrays that it will be hard for “inferior goods” like newspapers with dwindling audiences to be able to compete strongly online. Rather than a clash of the titans it’s a clash of the cheaps – low production cost versus low renumeration. How do you make the cost numbers small enough to run in the black from minimal and capricious online income? You use the Web to do what newspapers have long done – you target a subset of reliable, lucrative readers like the Taloussanomat is doing with the e-mail, and you “re-purpose” content so you can sell it twice, on other sites and in other publications. Interesting.
Most interesting is how the change to online only has affected the paper’s journalism: fewer original enterprise stories; more narrative rather than scholarly economic reporting; more stories from other sources, including PR people. Is this the future of American journalism? Can online-only outlets like the Voice of San Diego or Spot.us pick up the slack and tell the important stories? Or will corruption become easier to get away with without traditional newspaper journalism? It seems sadly ironic that newspapers will follow the ways of TV production (p. 13) – first, fast, piecemeal updates – when TV news in the U.S. has been riding newspapers’ coattails for decades.
Paul Farhi, Online Salvation
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4427
Wow, the NY Times draws more than 10% of ALL online newspaper traffic and still is losing $18 million a quarter? And they stay for a minute a day – 20 seconds a day at the next nine newspapers? Ouch. The Farhi article mentions “hard core” visitors online and I suppose people like me and Kang fit that profile. We both still read print newspapers but Kang raises a compelling point. With print circulation you can reasonably predict to advertisers how many people will read your product next week or next month. Even with dwindling readership you can promise some number. But online who knows? I know that, unlike with print, online advertising is paid for after it runs, not before, which means this is more vital for news outlets than for advertisers. Also, I read papers in print and online, but I also go first to news aggregators, like Kang mentioned. Is Alice beginning to influence my behavior?
The Patterson study is already dated – it’s from 2007: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/presspol/research/carnegie-knight/creative_destruction_2007.pdf
But it’s interesting, finding that brand names matter, probably more than anything else. In Miami and elsewhere, local newspapers teamed up with local TV stations in coverage partnerships, sharing some resources (video, reporting) and cross-promoting each other. Given that both are sinking ships, that model hasn’t been very stable either, with rotating TV stations and newspapers signing and breaking deals. And Miami is a big-paper town, with Tribune’s Sun-Sentinel and McClatchy’s flagship Miami Herald. TV stations are familiar with CMP – it’s how they set ad rates based on ratings. But if it takes 10 (or more) online readers to replace 1 print reader, that won’t compensate for the savings – even 70% savings – of printing and distribution. Look at it this way – the San Jose Mercury News “touted plans to increase its share of Internet revenue to 20 percent – by 2012.” So 80+ percent of revenue comes from print (90% for the Times). Saving 70% on publishing costs you 80% in revenue – and that’s bad math. My new BFF Craig Newmark seems to agree.
Nothing will work?
It seems very hard to find a business model for media companies and even very pessimistic to fine it:
"Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuGRGqHYTj0
Given that this issue has been centered in media economics field, lots of efforts should be made to suggest (a better) business model for news media companies.
Then what has been done both in academic field and professional field in terms of proposing appropriate models? Nothing was working?
What would be a good way for graduate students to (start) come up with doing research touching on media business model?
"Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuGRGqHYTj0
Given that this issue has been centered in media economics field, lots of efforts should be made to suggest (a better) business model for news media companies.
Then what has been done both in academic field and professional field in terms of proposing appropriate models? Nothing was working?
What would be a good way for graduate students to (start) come up with doing research touching on media business model?
Christian Science Monitor on Web only
This is a 10-minute video from back in April - it's a conversation between the editor and publisher of the Christian Science Monitor over their decision to abandon print.
http://www.csmonitor.com/mediaplayer/index.html?file=http://csps.edgeboss.net/download/csps/csm/flash/webmedia2/csm-vision-public-081027_flash_high.flv&height=403&width=600
This is a link to the article in the CS Monitor about this last April. The paper had endured a 40-year decline in print readership and, even with a $12 million annual subsidy from the Christian Science Church the "paper" is losing money.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1029/p25s01-usgn.html#
http://www.csmonitor.com/mediaplayer/index.html?file=http://csps.edgeboss.net/download/csps/csm/flash/webmedia2/csm-vision-public-081027_flash_high.flv&height=403&width=600
This is a link to the article in the CS Monitor about this last April. The paper had endured a 40-year decline in print readership and, even with a $12 million annual subsidy from the Christian Science Church the "paper" is losing money.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1029/p25s01-usgn.html#
Division of labor?
It seems news companies return their focus from asking audience to pay to asking the platform or search engine companies such as Google and Yahoo to pay for using their news products. Is restricting or prohibiting other websites to use their news content for free a way to narrow the supply channels? Do ad revenues become a limited sources mostly occupied by Google? The big platforms do play a free-rider role in gaining money from other people's content, but on the other hand, they also do provide better system for users to gain information or for ad companies to get attraction.
Here comes my idea, will it becomes a broader division of labor? Google is in charge of the platform and ads service, and other news companies are in charge of the content supply, and they share the revenues together. Though it could damage the independence of news companies: people may be fully drawn to Google news and no longer stay at their own online news websites, but it seems no other choice if the current situation keeps going on.
My other question is, where the new business model should come from? Come from focusing on audience and consumers? on other news media? on the search engine giants? on the advertisings? on new technology? or on anything else? The initial concern of how to build up a model might be important. It seems there're so many focuses, just as the news companies' only strategy is to attract more and more people and write more and more kinds of articles, that hard to build up a general business model.
Here comes my idea, will it becomes a broader division of labor? Google is in charge of the platform and ads service, and other news companies are in charge of the content supply, and they share the revenues together. Though it could damage the independence of news companies: people may be fully drawn to Google news and no longer stay at their own online news websites, but it seems no other choice if the current situation keeps going on.
My other question is, where the new business model should come from? Come from focusing on audience and consumers? on other news media? on the search engine giants? on the advertisings? on new technology? or on anything else? The initial concern of how to build up a model might be important. It seems there're so many focuses, just as the news companies' only strategy is to attract more and more people and write more and more kinds of articles, that hard to build up a general business model.
New, but unexpected readers
The readings for this week posed a question regarding why media organizations, particularly the newspaper industry, have tried to stick to Web ads and the revenues they derive from them. Of course, one of the possible answers is because they believe that the online platform attracts both advertisers and readers. But here is a question. How can the newspapers anticipate how many readers will actually visit their Web sites? What facilitates newspapers’ ability to predict with any accuracy the potential number of visitors? Is there a dependable method of measuring the numbers that may ultimately contribute to a newspaper’s revenue? If not, then these actions may be viewed as nothing more than a gamble, since they cannot anticipate any return on their investments.
Alternatively, is it possible that the newspaper industry is misjudging the readers? Many comments regarding articles in the New York Times state that people are willing to pay for the valuable information provided by “the paper of record .” But what makes newspapers believe that paying for information is still attractive to readers in this technology-driven media environment? Regarding the readers, I do not believe that print readers and online readers necessarily belong to different groups. People who do not read print newspapers are no more likely to visit the newspapers’ Web sites and read the articles online than people who read print newspapers regularly. Of course, I do not belong to either group because I read print newspapers and visit their Web sites frequently. But I may be a skewed statistic: I am a j-school student who needs to be an information seeker. If my assumption is not terribly wrong, why does the newspaper industry seek to distinguish between its online users and visitors? To what extent does the newspaper industry trust consumer behaviors?
I do not believe that online news platforms are always attractive to users. In fact, they often seem more annoying. One of the studies surveyed South Korean online users, and the research showed that they are more likely to visit portal sites to get information than newspaper Web sites. The New York Times reported this online trend in South Korea. One of the studies that surveyed South Korean online users found that the plethora of online ads compels people to leave the current sites and move to others to get information. Further, the users said that overload information online lowers the credibility of the information.
Alternatively, is it possible that the newspaper industry is misjudging the readers? Many comments regarding articles in the New York Times state that people are willing to pay for the valuable information provided by “the paper of record .” But what makes newspapers believe that paying for information is still attractive to readers in this technology-driven media environment? Regarding the readers, I do not believe that print readers and online readers necessarily belong to different groups. People who do not read print newspapers are no more likely to visit the newspapers’ Web sites and read the articles online than people who read print newspapers regularly. Of course, I do not belong to either group because I read print newspapers and visit their Web sites frequently. But I may be a skewed statistic: I am a j-school student who needs to be an information seeker. If my assumption is not terribly wrong, why does the newspaper industry seek to distinguish between its online users and visitors? To what extent does the newspaper industry trust consumer behaviors?
I do not believe that online news platforms are always attractive to users. In fact, they often seem more annoying. One of the studies surveyed South Korean online users, and the research showed that they are more likely to visit portal sites to get information than newspaper Web sites. The New York Times reported this online trend in South Korea. One of the studies that surveyed South Korean online users found that the plethora of online ads compels people to leave the current sites and move to others to get information. Further, the users said that overload information online lowers the credibility of the information.
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