As the title of above Reddit thread implies many newspaper news sites spread their longer articles over several pages. It’s my opinion that they do it to drive up pageviews and advertising impressions, but in the process annoy the hell out of the reader. While the Newspaper Association of America continues to triumphantly announce record pageviews on newspaper sites, the newspapers themselves are going bankrupt. Hmmm… It’s time for a new strategy fellas.
My suggestion to these newspaper sites is put the articles on ONE page and increase CPM’s by reducing the total number of advertising spots on their webpages. In other words, don’t have 12 ad spots on every damn page. Look at Kottke.org he has ONE ad on that site (via The Deck) and it generates something like $80k year!
In the meantime people are developing workarounds for crappy user experiences by:
1. reading the article in print page view which usually puts the article on one continuous scrolling screen.
2. using the Auto Pager firefox plugin which automatically loads the next page at the bottom of the screen to create one continuous scrolling screen.
3. using ARC 90 Labs Readability tool which eliminates all ads from the screen
4. using Ad Block Plus to eliminate ALL on site advertising
5. using this GreaseMonkey Script make a multi column page
The online experience is totally different then the print reading experience. Newspapers need to get it in their heads that what works in print does not work online. Print best serves a Geographic Community. The web best serves Communities of Interest. If newspapers are selling “brand awareness” type ads, they won’t sell enough to become economically sustainable. If they sell ads that result in conversions (sales) then they will realize higher CPM’s. Newspapers however, must dismantle their behemoth catch all news sites and create community of interest news sites to best position such conversion ads. The advertiser and newspaper will both benefit. The current online advertising and user experience strategies cannot go on.
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