Category Archives: Innovation

Interview with Alan Murray: New WSJ.com marks the beginning of a period of rapid innovation

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Telephone interview with Alan Murray, Deputy managing editor and executive editor, online for The Wall Street Journal. This is transcribed from a telephone interview between Alan and I, so don’t kill me if I flubbed a word. Some answers are paraphrased.

First, thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I will disclose to you and my readers that I am a print and online subscriber to The Wall Street Journal and some years ago I worked there as a press operator in South Brunswick New Jersey.

META: Alan, after my review of the new website for WSJ.com I was left wanting a little more information regarding the specifics of the new website. Metaprinter’s readers also are interested in some site specifics so I hope this phone interview answers those questions.

META: How long has it been since the site was redesigned?

ALAN: The site was built in 1996 with the intention of being a news service for our paid print-newspaper subscribers. The site underwent a slight redesign in 2002 but until yesterday remained relatively unchanged throughout that time.

META: What prompted you to launch a new site?

ALAN: As I just mentioned, the site was not meant to do what it was trying to do as of late. The new site was designed and implemented to be a news website for subscribers, the general public, (and, Metaprinter assumes, advertisers). In the last one and a half years alone our website traffic has more than doubled. We wanted to better serve that audience.

META: Who did the site design and development? Was it in-house?

ALAN: Early on our in house team worked with Avenue A/ Razorfish for design and other things. Later we worked with Sapient to build and launch the site. Our in house team was involved throughout the entire process.

META: What was the biggest technical departure from the old site?

I didn’t ask this question but id say it’s the emphasis on community and interaction with their readers. The old site didn’t have many opportunities for dialogue.

META: WSJ is in a unique position where many of its paid subscribers come from Wall Street financial institutions. As those institutions collapse and cut back, do you see it impacting your paid subscriber revenue model?

ALAN: Large financial institutions represent a very small portion of our million plus subscribers. Most of our subscribers are small to medium size business owners, CEO’s, CFO’s and individuals interested in business finance.

META: As the only large newspaper with a paid online subscriber model, do you have any plans to go to an advertising based model?

ALAN: many of our offerings are already free to the public and advertiser supported. Sections like politics, and features like our videos and blogs. In the next few months we plan to open up our new community feature to non-subscribers however they will be required to login with their real names.

META: Linked in has a similar model no?

ALAN: Having a community with people interacting is nothing new. We want to test the notion that our unique subscriber base will build a community for intelligent, high-profile discourse.

META: Thank you, any final comments?

ALAN: Our new site is not the end of the line. It is a launch pad for new applications and innovation. It marks the beginning of a period of rapid innovation for WSJ.com. Stay tuned for lots of new developments and thanks for taking notice.

META: Thank you Alan.

End of Interview….

Well readers, Mr. Alan had to catch a plane, but that quick phone interview certainly shed some light on the thinking and planning that goes on when launching a site. Again, this is not a redesign. This is new programming, new applications, a new way of approaching the interaction of between man and machine and the evolving technology behind it.

Change is good
Change is bad
What is the only thing that stays the same?
Change is

Online is the future but does not account for enough of the revenue stream yet to be self sustaining.  What did I learn from this interview?  Hire kick ass developers, journalists, and editors to differentiate your news site from everyone else.  Offer a real value addition to people’s lives.  Even better?  Do one thing and do it so well that it becomes your brand.  News agencies that don’t do this will be swallowed up by other successful site and papers, speeding up the print to online transition.

New WSJ.com site, NOT a redesign!

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Given that technology and taste changes so fast, it is a wonder that websites change so little over time. I would say that after 2 years a site should be seriously courting developers for a new product and after 3 years without change readers are starting to wonder if you really care about them. If your site is 4 years old without extensive modifications, you are probably losing customers because the customer experience is so horrible.

I am happy to report that the new WSJ.com site is not a redesign, but a completely new experience.

As you can see from the before and after photos below, the new WSJ.com site is wider, minus a side bar, and less cluttered. My initial reaction is that I like it.

OLD wsj.com site

NEW wsj.com site

I go to log in and right away encounter a problem. On my Imac I cannot log in using Firefox. I can however log in using Safari. As soon as I log in I send WSJ a note using the comment feature about the problem and within 15 minutes the problem is fixed. Maybe it was me, maybe not, either way small glitch corrected.

The WSJ.com site is the only newspaper website I know which offers real online communities.  The Journal Community is where people post profiles, make connections, share news items, and form groups around their interests.  I set up my profile, which takes about 2 minutes, and peruse the categories for newspaper groups. There are none so I start one. Here it is. Please Join.

Newspaper Industry Group wsj

Exploring the site, I get lost in a series of links and have to hit the home button a few times to get my bearings. This should resolve itself after a couple visits to the site. I read a few articles and check out the comments section, video tab, interactive graph tab, and slideshow section associated with them. They are nice new features. I should mention that at press time, only paid subscribers can comment on articles and join the community. There is also a newsreel widget that can be downloaded or embedded into any blog or social networking portal.

A redesign takes what was before, moves stuff around, puts bells and whistles on it and calls it done. What the Wall Street Journal did was completely change the way people interact with their product AND expand on the capabilities of what can be done with a multimedia website. Aside from a few kinks that will be worked out in the next few days, I think the new site is a homerun.

Alert.com… should have been a newspaper app.

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Alerts.com recently unveiled MySchoolAlerts at DEMO fall 2008.  The application allows schools to prepare a message and send it out via text, email, voice mail, on the web, and instant message.  The idea is to use it for school delays, closings, events, and emergencies.  GREAT IDEA!!!!

They also have alerts for CraigsList, GasPrices, LocalNews, WeatherAlerts DailyHoroscope, HeadlineNews, NCAAFootball, PressReleases, BirthdayReminders, PriceWatch, RememberIt, WakeUpCall, DailyTidbits, MovieAlert, NFL, and many more.

As my title states, these should have been newspaper apps.  I know some newspaper allow alert features and Google has GoogleAlerts, which I use for very specific keywords, newspapers are not using this technology to its full benefit.

Example?  Almost every newspaper has an events page that is searchable and has a calendar and all that fun stuff.  But almost none have an alert notification feature. Given that people are inundated with information every day, wouldn’t it be easier and more effective to sign up for a specific alert than to put it all up there and hope someone finds it?

I have a young son; I want to put an email alert on NJ.com for family events in Monmouth County.  I can’t do it.  This is a problem.  This does not add value to your product line and it does not add to my self-actualization.

The Wall Street Journal debuted its WSJ magazine in this morning’s newspaper

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The magazine is targeted to extremely rich people, but us poor folk like to look at the content and ads as well.  Hell, I even went to the Vertu website to find out how much a Vertu Ascent Ti. cell phone costs ($6999.99), pretty amazing. Although I’ll never buy one, perhaps my wife would like that Smythson raspberry croc print leather continental purse for Christmas?
The overall build quality of the magazine is good but not great.  The Magazine is perfect bound and suffers from a coversheet that is too thin (for the glue and ink coverage).  As you can see from the picture below the cover is wrinkled at the spine.

wrinkled cover
Another problem I found was on page 94 with ink lay-down resulting in streaking. Again, seen below.
print defect
Innovation? YES!  Why innovation? Continue reading →

What Is A Newspaper’s Greatest Asset?

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I have been contemplating this a lot for the past couple of months now.  In light of all the changes in information delivery, what is a newspaper organization’s greatest asset?  What differentiates it from other forms of information delivery?  What does a newspaper do that Google can’t do?  That CNN can’t do?  That news aggregators can’t do? That the internet alone can’t do?

Newspapers deliver a physical product to people’s homes and businesses.  And not only that, the product is invited into the home or office by the subscriber.  No one else can do this.

The big problem for newspapers is that although they hold this monopoly, they haven’t evolved their product to serve their customers, hence the migration online – away from print.

The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction Colorado has a unique spin on this conundrum.   Instead of innovating their newspaper, they decided to offer a delivery service to anyone in their newspaper distribution area.

The Sentinel Express operates by using existing trucks and delivery logistics to deliver packages overnight.  The courier service is almost 3 times as cheap as using DHL, Fed Ex, or UPS.

I like this kind of out-of-the-box thinking, however you are now moving further away from your core competency.   I wonder if that’s what parent company COX thought too, because they announced last week they are selling the newspaper.

Adrian Holovaty & Rob Curley Hack the Newspaper – Video

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The following video goes way back to 2005, but I wanted to share before it’s lost forever. This is newspaper Innovation. It all started in Lawrence Kansas with Adrian Holovaty and Rob Curley.

These next 4 videos feature Rob Curley speaking on hacking newspaper databases using open source software. He shares his experiences with Lawrence Journal World, Lawrence.com, Scripps, and The Washington Post. I like his anecdotes and the applications he and his team develop. But where are the applications now? I don’t see them in wide practice at newspapers.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Twitter Immortalized In Newseum, Biz Stone Q&A

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As you all know I took a trip to the Newseum in DC recently.  In what I think is their new media section I came across the infamous “tweet heard round the world”.   I contacted Twitter to get more info and they responded quite quickly.  Thank you Mr. Stone!

My email to Twitter:

I couldn’t help but notice your appearance in the Newseum in Washington DC.  There is a mention of how Twitter beat out the multibillion dollar Bloomberg News Service by 22 seconds in reporting the May 12th earthquake in China this year.

  1. Introduce yourself
  2. How do you feel about being immortalized in this nation’s news museum?
  3. What was that experience like?  Did they call you? Write you? Send a Tweet?
  4. Was the China incident a one-time thing or will Twitter continue to influence the future of news reporting?

Their response:

Hi Robert,

My name is Biz Stone and I’m the co-founder of Twitter. Yes, the Newseum folks emailed with a few questions about how Twitter works and I answered them. We’re happy to be included in the collection. The China incident is by no means isolated on Twitter.

Two weeks ago there was an earthquake in Southern California and Twitter started collecting first-hand reports the same minute the quake struck at 11:42am. Nine minutes later, the AP send out a wire. During those nine minutes, Twitter collected 3,436 updates from people on their way to work, school, the doctor, etc containing the word “quake.”

Later that week another quake struck China. There’s also floods, windstorms, Olympics, and any massively shared event you can imagine surfacing on Twitter in real time. Have a look at the trending topics at search.twitter.com to get an idea of how it works.

Because Twitter has a massive real-time feed of what people all over the planet are seeing, feeling, thinking, and doing we believe there are some interesting compliments to existing news services. We’re just now beginning to explore these opportunities.

Thanks,
Biz Stone, Co-founder
Twitter, Inc.

Newspaper on Mobile Phones – You Paid For What Now?

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First, the stats from wikipedia (not the best source I know):

An increasing number of countries, particularly in Europe, now have more mobile phones than people. According to the figures from Eurostat, the European Union’s in-house statistical office, Luxembourg had the highest mobile phone penetration rate at 158 mobile subscriptions per 100 people (158%), closely followed by Lithuania and Italy.[7] In Hong Kong the penetration rate reached 139.8% of the population in July 2007.[8] Over 50 countries have mobile phone subscription penetration rates higher than that of the population and the Western European average penetration rate was 110% in 2007 (source Informa 2007). The U.S. currently has one of the lowest rates of mobile phone penetrations in the industrialized world at 85%.

A recent article in The New York Times about newspapers on cellphones had this statement from, “Tim Repsher, who oversees Media General’s mobile products, said he chose Verve because he would not have to hire new staff members to figure out how to publish newspapers on cellphones. Mobile readership quadrupled in a year”

Now, my question is this. If you are already giving away content for free online, outsourcing delivery, partnering with Yahoo on ad placement and classified ads, and losing paid print readership without creating a new deliverable, are you still a newspaper? Or are you a collection of freelance journalists?

What if Media General had hired staff to develop a cell phone application? Their ROI would be higher. They may even have come up with an application to sell others. We’ll never know I guess. What is the cost / benefit of outsourcing a service you think is integral to the viability of your organization? That doesn’t make any sense to me.And as for “quadrupling the mobile readership in one year”, what does that even mean? Did you go from 1 person to 4? Tell us what your penetration in the market is.

Tell us what you really paid for…

A Sigmoid Curve in action – The Newspaper Industry

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sigmoid curve

During growth, and certainly maturity, companies must make the effort to innovate to avoid the decline phase of their business life span.  Most newspapers have failed to do this and are now attempting to innovate while in steep decline.

sigmoid with new product

The timing of new product launches must come well before the old product decline phase so that declining revenues and new product revenue growth offset each other.

Hewlett Packard Inkjet Web Press For Newspapers

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I blog about innovation within the newspaper industry here at metaprinter and this is truly an innovation. At Drupa 2008 Hewlett Packard unveiled a new 36.5-inch wide inkjet web press. The press is capable of running 400 feet per minute and utilizing various impositions executing jobs ranging from broadsheet newspaper to standard size letter.

HP inkjet web press

What can be done with such a piece of equipment you might ask? Well, Editor & Publisher summed it up nicely as such:

“Possibilities include: newspaper products other than the core daily edition; moving late-breaking news out from a national paper’s newsroom and page-assembly hub to remote print sites to augment the main print runs; production of larger papers’ local sections at distribution centers rather than trucking them from central plants, reducing their cost, stretching their deadlines and creating more advertising opportunities at lower price; production of the local paper with a national or nearby metro daily, or the weekly addition of a certain section of the larger paper to the local paper for certain subscribers.”   Editor&Publisher

To see and hear the press running check out this YouTube video here and below:

No quiet room needed for this bad boy and a far stretch from the presses I am used to working on.

TKS newspaper offset web press

Then again, this type of equipment can print 70k to 90k impressions per hour, which is 12 webs at roughly 2,100 to 2,700 feet per minute given a 22″ cutoff. This is 60 times faster than the HP.

Just for fun lets say you are printing a 96-page Black Friday newspaper on the TKS press above. You would need 12 webs running at 70k impressions per hour for 5 hours to print 350,000 newspapers.The same job on the HP would require 24 HP Inkjet Web Presses running 25 hours! or 120 HP Inkjet Web Presses running 5 hours! Moore’s Law, if it applies here loosely, suggests that the HP will be able to print a complete newspaper as fast as the offset web presses in 12 years. See you in 2020.

RELATED:

Metaprinter Offers a New, Innovative, Digital Newspaper Business Model – Infinite Zoning
This model uses the HP Inkjet Web Press to print infinitely customizable newspaper inserts. In late 2008 this idea was pitched to The Washington Post and Tribune, however they felt going to a pure online play was more in-line with their long term goals.

UPDATE:

This story got picked up by the Newspaper Association of America’s magazine Presstime. Click to read the article. Thanks for the heads-up Pete!

March 23, 2009 Océ aims new digital press squarely at newspapers http://tinyurl.com/d3c7ap

Rob Curley on Loudon ‘flop’

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We try like crazy to give our readers content that is relevant to their lives, and give them other services in any way that they want them in order to help them live their lives better and be more informed.

And do it all in entertaining and interesting ways that keep them coming back.

Some people call that “hyperlocal”. We call it doing our damn jobs.

 

Taking good care of your readers will always be the right answer.

Just make sure you do whatever it takes to let them know what you’ve built.

To that point, our team has a few new tricks up our sleeves that we can’t wait to try out. And to say that we’re motivated is the understatement of understatements.

We’re going to Vegas, baby!

Excerpts from Rob Curley’s response to a recent Wall Street Journal article entitled, “Big Daily’s Hyperlocal Flop”.

My Take

Lawrence.com is an awesome site that is intuitive and engaging. I live in New Jersey and I still visit the site regularly, that’s how interesting the content and features are. Extrapolating that interest to a “general population” site like LoudonExtra.com is difficult. I give Rob and his team credit for trying like hell to do something innovative. There are too many haters and doomsday watchers in our industry right now.

The Newspaper As A Strong Brand

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Newspapers get a bad rap on a lot of fronts in this internet age of instant gratification. Let’s pause and take a few moments to appreciate some of the finer qualities of a newspaper business.

When a newspaper serves its local market it can stay relevant. Two days a week I’m in Manhattan and you can’t help but trip over a NY Post or NY Daily News. These two publications are designed and executed to better suit their fast paced commuting readers. The tabloid style format and flashy photos, short stories, and bold, catchy headlines are just some of the features drawing people to these publications. Now take this idea and extrapolate it out to the area your paper is operating in and serve your content to that end.

Brand recognition is high among newspapers, mostly because they have dominated their communities for decades before the internet came along. Newspapers need to build on this recognition. A strong brand is an essential thing to be successful and a difficult thing to attain. My recent article in which the Shelby Star is highlighted shows how a community paper uses its strong local brand combined with a little technology to grow readership. Members of that community know exactly where to go for their local information, whether they like it or not, the paper and the website are their destination for knowledge and discussion.

Environmentally Friendly Newspaper Bags And Other Innovations

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Innovation!Eco-Cycle recyclable plastic newspaper bags. I don’t know why this is big news now.  I’m pretty sure the bags that the Wall Street Journal uses have had the recycle symbol on them for a year now.  Now all we need to do is get people to recycle!un recycled newspaper bags

ProImage OnColor ECO This software works to save on CMY ink costs by applying UCR or Under Color Removal to 4 color images.  The end product is a process image that uses a smaller percentage of expensive CMY inks.  Here is yet another innovation which cuts costs, reduces waste, and improves image quality, that I swear I’ve seen before.

Apture: This hyperlink technology uses a mouse over to reveal websites, pictures, video, etc… without clicking through.   This might get annoying, however there is a delay built in so it not as bad as it sounds. Go to the Washington Post’s Celebritology website to see it in action.

2008 America East Newspaper Operations and Tech. Conference Review

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Held in Hershey Pennsylvania. I was only able to attend one day. There was very little new information being presented at the conference lectures. One exception was Editor of The Shelby Star, Jon Jimison, who gave a nice presentation about strategies they have implemented to grow readership. The exhibits were uninspired and even though I see more and more CMS companies attending these things, Apple Inc. was the only one showing something that could add value to one’s existing operations.

The keynote speaker was futurist Michael Rogers from the NY Times. He spoke in generalities and reiterated things already known throughout the industry. Some quotes, “hard times ahead”, “online revenue will ONE DAY catch up to print”, “millenials are opportunistic and omnivorous media consumers”, “mobile communication devices will replace laptops as the standard”…Somethings he said that I disagree with. “Growing WiFi coverage” all trends say this is not the case in the USA and in fact the New York Times reports otherwise here. One other thing and I’ll move on. He states local is an untapped market. This is true. but how can medium to large newspapers monetize that market and incorporate it into their large operation? My point is that local is best done by very few people with the interaction of the actual locals. The ideal local site or publication needs little capital and expect modest margins when compared to traditional newspaper margins. Big organizations need the national and international accounts.

Durring the Q&A I asked Michael and a panel of three newspaper publishers whether they have considered offering some classified services for free in order to drive readership. I was met with a brick wall of ignorance as everyone on the panel rejected my notion based on the fact that “we still need to make money”. I brought up the example of giving away a razor to sell the blades, they didn’t miss a beat, they didn’t care or they didn’t get it. I can live with rejection, but they didn’t offer any ideas, alternatives, examples or new business practices they were using …Right, so how is your business going to grow with no readership growth? I’m constantly disappointed by the lack of open mindedness by leaders in our DECLINING industry.

THE SHELBY STAR …online at least, nothing of note was mentioned about their print product.  The editor of a small North Carolina newspaper, THE SHELBY STAR spoke about their attempts to stay relevant and grow readership. They partnered with IFRA and their parent company Freedom Communications to dramatically increase readership.  How did they do it?  Mainly, the vehicle below.

Continue reading →

NY Times Offering Internship For Tech Savvy Journalists

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NY Times Job Site

“Candidates must have a strong, demonstrable interest in journalism and experience in a variety of multimedia technologies includingFlash, Photoshop, audio editing, HTML and XML. An understanding of how to integrate databases into multimedia presentations, knowledge of Flash AS2 and AS3 scripting and a familiarity with JavaScript frameworks and libraries are all highly desirable.”

Journalism Scholarship For Computer Programmers

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The Knight Foundation in conjunction with the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern is offering scholarships up to and including a full ride for programmers and developers looking to make their mark in journalism. The program is a Master’s degree program condensed into one year and designed for people with NO prior journalism experience. The scholarship and program are designed to advance the state of online media.

To get a better idea of what kind of people this program is seeking familiarize yourself with Adrian Holovaty. Adrian received a Knight Foundation grant this year to start his own internet startup EveryBlock.com. You may already know him as the guy who is the Django king, and co-creator of sites like lawrence.com, chicagocrime.org and the Ellington content management software.

This is an awesome opportunity. Individuals and media companies need to get involved. Also keep checking on the Knight Foundation for future grants.

MinnPost To Test Water For Reader Supported News Site

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MinnPost.com is a new idea in the world of Newspaper Journalism. A kind of cross between a traditional newspaper website and a blog.  The content will be generated by actual journalists, mostly ones recently laid off by Minnesota newspapers caught in the revenue crunch.  The business model however is unlike advertiser supported blogs and newspapers and more like National Public Radio in that revenue will come from member donations and corporate sponsorships.  Another interesting feature of the site is that it will have a 8.5″ x 11″ print version available for home printing and which will be distributed in downtown Minneapolis during lunchtime.

MinnPost is the brainchild of Joel Kramer, one time editor and publisher of the Minnesota Star Tribune.  He raised $1.1 million dollars to get this idea off the ground and it is slated to go into production by the end of this year.  It is estimated that the current revenue streams will leave the business operating at a loss for several years until enough membership and support is established.

My hats off to Mr. Kramer and those involved.  I am curious to see how this will turn out.

NY Times Audio Slide Shows Utilize Web Capabilities

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By now you probably know that I am a big fan of they NY Times audio slide shows.  I personally  feel that they are a hallmark of the New York Times online experience.  Here, a powerful bit of journalism expressed in the audio slide show format reports on the foreclosure process in Atlanta, Georgia and the human components of such an event.  I really enjoy this multimedia approach to sharing information via the internet.  More established media companies need to utilize the capabilities of web media and broadband internet connections.

 http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/weekinreview/20070902_FORECLOSE_FEATURE/index.html

No Innovation In Handling The Bridge Collapse Story

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Comments on the Bridge collapse and how papers handled it. I find nothing original and where is the hyper-local emphasis when papers around the country ran with this story as their centerpiece? I contend that news is news and no one want to look stupid for not reporting an obvious news story, but come on. If you want to survive then differentiate yourself. All these papers are doing the same thing and all are in decline.

Josh Jackson, News designer/planner, Savannah Morning News starts the debate off on BestFrontDesign.com Below is my comment in full. Go back and check them all out yourselves though, it is a worthy discussion. Where is the innovation?

Metaprinter
“I’d like to build on what Josh Jackson mentioned. When I was at the NAA Mid-Year Media Review, all the papers were talking about the “hyper-local” movement and what they were doing to capture this market. But here I am all the way in New Jersey and this event is all over the cover of our largest newspaper. So is “hyper-local” just an industry invented catch phrase to give the impression of a newly created market and revenue stream? or is it a reality? It seems the more things change, the more nothing changes at all. This news would have been handled the same way 20 years ago.”

Effective Newspaper Websites

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Newspaper websites need to take advantage of their multimedia capabilities if they are to engage readers and advertisers the way printed newspapers once did. An effective website design will increase traffic to the site and increase revenue streams.

The following Newspaper websites are just some examples of effective newspaper website design. These sites take cues from other successful websites. They are visually pleasing, uncluttered, and integrate multimedia into their product. This is extremely important to keep in mind when considering the following; websiteoptimization.com states that, “Web users form first impressions of web pages in as little as 50 milliseconds (1/20th of a second).

Continuing… The sites are centered on the computer screen. They break down their offerings in an easy to follow fashion whether you are visiting for the first time or 100th time. The sites use non invasive means for gathering their site metrics. The sites have online social networking features which get their readers involved and spending more time on the site(as of this writing, Technorati is tracking 90.5 million blogs!). The articles written on these sites are not interrupted by advertisements and the stories are presented in one or two pages, not page after page as many newspaper sites do to get their hit counts up. Remember, no matter what, content is king so don’t kill it and don’t bury it.

Too many newspaper websites are using their online presence as a data dump and creating unmanageable offerings which no normal person can navigate. The internet is a success because it does things print cannot do. It connects people in real time, it can be updated instantly, it is multimedia, and it is interactive.

http://dailycamera.com/
http://www.bakersfield.com/
http://www.roanoke.com/
http://www.naplesnews.com/
http://www.postbulletin.com/

NY Times Audio Slide Show Captures Pride

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I’ve been away getting married and enjoying my honeymoon, I apologize to all of you who rely on Metaprinter for your daily Newspaper industry updates.

The last time I wrote Anne MacDonald was getting confrontational with the newspapers. Well it seems they had the last laugh, as she was fired from Macy’s quickly after making her “shape up” comments. Macy’s new CMO will be increasing ad spending and coupon printing. I bet those coupons will be printed or inserted into many newspapers.

Printing and Newsroom History:
For those interested in some newspaper printing history check out the article entitled, “Copy” and this New York Times three and a half minute audio slide show. The narrator does not mention it in the slide show, but the new building does not house NYT printing operations. Their flagship printing facility is now College Point Queens, New York. I just wanted to clarify, because the article states it and the slide show does not.

The thing which struck me when viewing the slide show was the look on the faces of those men and women in the photographs. It is pride. Pride in workmanship, pride in their contribution to the final product. These people worked hard, and although they may have grumbled or groused about the conditions or deadlines, I doubt for an instant any one of them would have traded it in for some other profession. I think that look is lacking in today’s pressrooms and newsrooms and I do not know if it will ever return. How do we get it back? We must get it back! It is an important feeling which no one can wrench from one’s grip, the way faith cannot be questioned and the way hope never lacks to motivate. Pride is freedom. It is the swagger in one’s step, and the confidence required to be successful. Pride allows the individual to contribute more that they ever thought they could. Pride let’s you do good work for the work’s sake, because it just feels so good and not because you were told to do so. I long to see that look again…

This is an excellent piece of reporting by David W. Dunlap, and I enjoyed the multimedia presentation of the story immensely.  The New York Times audio slide shows are one of the most innovative applications newspapers have created.

Dinosaurs vs Newspapers

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I often read or hear about the impending death of newspapers and the fact that no one is interested in anything they have to offer and they have become totally irrelevant in our current electronic culture. Don’t get me wrong, I know our information is now disseminated in a multimedia landscape, this is true, but then I hear… “and they just don’t get it”. They don’t? Really?

Sometimes Blogger, Walter Abbott, refers to newspapers as, “The Dinosaur Media: A One-Way Medium in a Two-Way World” in his apocalyptic blog posts Dinosaur Media Deathwatch. I agree that large media outlets are slow to change, however the use of the word dinosaur implies these companies have no idea what is coming. As if they are all standing around saying to each other, “is it cold in here? What happened to the sun?” They know very well what is going on and are actively working to integrate these new mediums into their business model.

I will always argue that there is still power in the printed word because I see it. Newspapers are in every city in the world. The content they provide to their readers is tailored to the local politics, sports, and culture they report on. To advertise in one of these papers is an open invitation to enter someone’s home. With this trust comes an exchange of money and services which drives the business in that area. Almost all newspapers to date have online websites, but these sites are not self sufficient. They rely on revenue from their print editions to maintain and grow new business. Remember what I just said about trust? Reputable companies rely on advertising placement in newspapers and do so because they know a great deal about the readership of that particular publication. The advertiser can also direct where an ad is to appear. Macy’s can tell the Star-Ledger that they want the back page of section one for instance. Conversely, a Google ad is cheap and easy, but where is it going to appear? What appears next to it? How is the audience receiving the company’s message?

People still read the newspaper, smart people, people with money and as long as they do, advertisers will not abandon this medium. Here is something to think about:
“Education does correlate to readership. The most recent survey data from the Pew Research Center, for instance, found that 52 percent of college graduates reported reading a newspaper “yesterday,” compared with 41 percent of high school graduates and 24 percent of people without a high school degree.”
Quote taken from -Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Public’s News Habits Little Changed By Sept. 11,” June 9, 2002, p.34

Newspapers get it. They are working to secure their futures by providing the service to their customers which they have always provided. Newspaper circulation is in constant flux and always seeking to find a level of readership commensurate with the economics and culture of the times. The changing media landscape is a little more cutthroat and faster paced and newspapers no longer enjoy the virtual monopoly they once had, but there is no meteor racing towards the world’s newspapers. So relax, go outside, that’s right, into the bright warm sunlight grab an iced tea and read a newspaper.