Stop the Presses
By: John Gartner
Pressure from the digital world - especially social websites - is forcing
newspapers to update their publishing model.
 Prepare the obituary: The era of the daily newspaper as the news source is
over. The Daily Tribune, Inquirer and Journals of the world have been recycled,
replaced by multiplatform (online and off-line) entities that engage readers
and operate around the clock. This rebirth is good news for advertisers big
and small who will be able to more effectively target a growing audience.
Newspapers have been increasing
their online operations in the past few
years in an effort to replace falling revenue
from diminishing print subscriptions
as more people turn to online news and bloggers
for their daily digest. Now they are going
on the offense to expand their audience and
build loyalty.
Publishers have been hemorrhaging print
advertising dollars as retailers have been moving
online. Print advertising was down by more
than $11 billion (2.6 percent) in the third quarter
of 2006 from the previous year. While online
advertising on newspaper sites grew by $638
million during the third quarter of 2006, that is
less than 6 percent of the print deficit, so the
pressure is on to grow online revenue to make
up the difference.
Publishers see engaging their audience
through community and social collaboration
features – which are part of the socalled
"Web 2.0" technology wave – as the
keys to driving traffic and advertising revenue
growth. By incorporating "community"
aspects from blogs and websites such as
Digg, MySpace, YouTube and Del.icio.us,
publishers hope to increase reader loyalty
and become the epicenter of their online
news activities.
COMMUNITY PAYBACK
The Washington Post Newsweek Interactive
(WPNI) Company saw this change coming
and started to incorporate community participation
into its websites two years ago.
The company saw online revenue jump 24
percent during the third quarter of 2006,
and by more than 31 percent for the year.
WPNI vice president of marketing Tim
Ruder says bringing readers into the news
process can enhance readership as well as
the quality of the editorial. "Publishing is
no longer in the realm of the exalted few,
and to ignore the potential [of reader contributions]
is suicidal," he says.
Because reporters are generalists it is
difficult for them to match the expertise of
individuals on all topics, according to
Ruder. "There is somebody out there who
knows more" about nearly every topic, he
says, and publishers can profit from giving
them a forum for participation.
During the first quarter of 2007
WashingtonPost.com will introduce social
networking, Ruder says. Readers will be
able to create personalized Web pages to
link to, comment on and share content,
including articles, images and video. These
new features will enable errors to be corrected
and generate comments and new
story ideas that can be used in print, he says.
Ruder believes that adding social networking
features will increase traffic and
give the company more online inventory to
monetize through advertising. While adding
one social aspect "won't make us a million
dollars," collectively creating a dialogue
with readers "will separate us editorially
from others" and greatly increase reader
loyalty, Ruder says.
Austin, Texas-based Pluck enables publishers
to add social media aspects to their
website without requiring programming.
Pluck's "Sitelife," service includes the ability
to attach comments to articles, create
forums and blogs, and enables readers to
post photos, according to general manager
Eric Newman.
Pluck hosts the social areas on its
servers, but the content is thoroughly integrated,
according to Newman. Social networking
elements "promote additional
discovery on the website, which equals
reader loyalty and page views," he says.
Brad King, assistant professor of media
informatics at Northern Kentucky
University, says publishers who create a
community by allowing readers to contribute
could see "astronomic" growth in
Web traffic. King warns, however, that publishers
must provide oversight of the comments
and user contributions so that
advertisers will feel comfortable in having
their ads alongside the content.
Publisher Gannett, which prints 98
regional newspapers plus the national
paper USA Today, is among the most
aggressive when it comes to redesigning its
editorial and sales process around its community
of readers.
Michael Maness, vice president of
strategic planning for Gannett, says all of
its newsrooms are being transformed to
"information centers" that operate around
the clock and will heavily rely on user contributions.
"The future is pro-am, as in professional-
amateur," Maness says. Readers
are asked to provide assistance in obtaining
documents and images relevant to investigations
and videos of breaking news events.
Maness says the Ft. Myers, Fla., News-
Press got readers involved in investigating
sewer utility rates, and the "crowd-sourced"
investigation resulted in uncovering pricefixing.
At Gannett's NYK.com, readers in
the Northern Kentucky metropolitan area
post information about local events and
community stories, enabling Gannett to
connect with a younger demographic of
readers who primarily go online for news,
according to Maness.
While the morning paper and nightly television
news used to be the dominant
sources of news, the Internet is becoming
the go-to place for news for many
Americans. According to the Pew Internet &
American Life Project, the majority of people
with broadband say the Web is their first
choice for science news.
Peter Negulescu serves a technologysavvy
readership in his role as the vice president
of digital media at the San Francisco
Chronicle's SFGate.com. Inviting readers to
contribute will attract a desirable community
of participants for advertisers and make
the content more valuable, he says. "The
role of the new media arm is to aggregate
content to tell a more complete story."
By recruiting "citizen journalists," publishers
can add to the breadth and depth of
their content. Continued on Page 2...
More From Articles
See What Else is in This Issue |
Print
Email
Digg This
