Scot Morrissey becomes the new Publisher of The Athens Banner-Herald and OnlineAthens.com today. Read his statements here. Somebody forward that article to Paul Mulshine.

Scot Morrissey:

While some newspaper executives complain that free access to news content online is killing paid circulation, turning a profit from an online product is just “logistics of business,” Morrissey said.

“We are no longer mass marketers. We are niche warriors,” he said. “We are putting out magazines for women’s issues only. We are putting out magazines for music. We are putting out products for Georgia football only. Those are unique segments of our market.

Again, go read this article. I really like Scot’s positive attitude but more, I like his ideas for innovation. Many times you hear publishers, like the Detroit Duo, who stay positive on newspapers but then completely blow it by staying the course.

The OnlineAthens.com website has pretty good stats for the area it serves. The Quantcast stats show it has roughly 28k uniques per day, and 176k per month. The one big problem is that every single metric for the site has been falling for the last 3 months. However, if Scot sticks with his plan for diversified revenue streams and niche content, this will not be a problem.

Congratulations Scot! We’ll be tracking your progress here at metaprinter.

UPDATE:
January 18, 2009 Quantcast shows online visits still trending downward.

RELATED LINKS:

Here is another one-man story of enthusiasm 
Starting Your Own Paper Blog… er Newspaper – The Ed Shamy Model

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