NAA sent me a letter with this month’s Presstime magazine letting me know that this is the last print edition I will be receiving.  They are moving online only.  Truth be told, it was probably the last print edition I would be getting anyway you see I graduated from NYU in January and NAA wants proof that I still qualify for their student rate. I do, but you know what NAA, I’m not wasting my time to send you the appropriate paperwork. 

Why is NAA, the NEWSPAPER Association of America, eliminating their print publication and moving online only?  The reason they cite in the letter is “to adapt our organization to the realities of today’s newspaper business”.  I’m calling bullshit on their reasoning.  The real reason I suspect is because NAA is too big a coward to try something innovative and instead is hoping to just hang in there a little longer like everyone else and hope for the best.

According to NAA’s website, here is the association’s purpose:

Today, NAA serves the newspaper industry in strategic efforts to:

. Serve as a catalyst for industry growth
. Identify and disseminate examples of industry innovation
. Provide tools to exchange information and ideas
. Advocate and communicate industry views and interests to the Federal Government and to third-party standards and measurement bodies
. Communicate the vitality of newspaper media to external constituencies including the advertising community, Wall Street and the news media.

Did you read the first and last bullet points?  What an awful message eliminating print sends to NAA’s advertisers, NAA’s members, and to the advertisers who spent roughly 34 Billion dollars in PRINT advertising last year.  We are adapting “to realities of today’s newspaper business”… by getting out of paper and everything that entails.   http://www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers/Advertising-Expenditures.aspx   This doesn’t sound like adapting to me, it sounds like abandonment and surrender to the whims of whatever may come to newspapers.

Here is what NAA should have done:

Leverage the Newspaper Industry’s greatest asset and that is – the invitation to deliver a print product to people’s homes.     

Figure out how to deliver Presstime to readers using existing distribution channels of member newspapers and 3^rd party distributors like PCF.  

Show newspapers and advertisers how much money NAA is saving by distributing PressTime this way versus the US Post Office.  Show Newspapers and Advertisers how their existing distribution infrastructure can be used to deliver products to homes across the nation.  What kinds of things?  Things like magazines, catalogs, coupons, flyers, samples, and probably many other things an ad or marketing executive would jump at the chance to drop on a subscriber’s doorstep. 

For example, I get the Wall Street Journal delivered to my doorstep 6 days a week. Why aren’t my magazines and fishing catalogs delivered this way or anything else for that matter?    I can imagine a time in the future when I end my print subscription of WSJ but if I were getting other things via this home delivery service, I would continue to welcome my magazines and catalogs on my front step.  It’s a win-win situation.

If NAA thinks that a newsPAPER’s greatest asset is delivering news via websites then they and their members should expect ad revenue to plummet while competition rises everywhere. There is NO WAY to differentiate a newspaper online. 

If NAA thinks newspapers are unique media entities, as the association’s mere presence implies, then NAA must push the newspaper industry’s greatest asset – the invitation to deliver a print product to people’s homes.  This will open new revenue streams to newspapers and offer advertisers new and less expensive ways of advertising.       

RELATED:

Big Job Cuts at NAA — And No Longer Will Print ‘Presstime’ – Editor & Publisher

The fundamental problem of newspapers on the internet – The Krugman Paradox – Metaprinter

Metaprinter Offers a New, Innovative, Digital Newspaper Business Model – Infinite Zoning

News Media Innovation, Convergence and Sustainability – Interview with Don Carli

In 2007, UPS route planning technology, which minimizes left hand turns:

- shaved nearly 30 million miles off already streamlined delivery routes;
- saved 3 million gallons of gas; and
- reduced emissions by 32,000 metric tons of CO2 – the equivalent of removing 5,300 passenger cars off the road for an entire year.

Perhaps newspapers can follow suit?  It won’t save the industry, but if physical distribution is part of their business model, they must implement these policies.

Amazon plans big screen Kindle: Textbook margins are the real aim not saving newspapers -from ZDnet

Editor in Chief of ZDNet, Larry Dignan convincingly writes that the new Big Screen Kindle’s are designed and marketed to serve the $8.6 Billion college textbook market.

It’s for Newspapers

Looking to Big-Screen E-Readers to Help Save the Daily Press -from NYTimes

“…it is Amazon, maker of the Kindle, that appears to be first in line to try throwing an electronic life preserver to old-media companies.”

We don’t know who it’s for

Will Anybody Buy The New Large-Format Kindle? -from wired

Wired is owned by Conde Nast who is owned by Advance who owns many newspapers like the Staten Island Advance and Newark Star-Ledger so this is an interesting take on the situation.  Where’s the market demand?

This is a must read for all news media professionals.  The document is insightful and creates great potential for reflection on business practices. I’m not saying his blueprint is THE best, but even if you hate his ideas, there are lots of salient points to build on. One obvious forehead-smacking point he raises is that the details of his blueprint, “will be determined not by my decree but by the needs of the marketplace and by the creativity and abilities of the staff”.  Did you catch that?  THE NEEDS OF THE MARKETPLACE.  In the internet paradigm, what needs are you now filling?  I love it.

Something I wish Steve would have addressed more clearly is the distinction between geographic communities and communities of interest.  Does he agree there is a distinction?  Why or why not?  Can print and online serve both communities equally well? How does his blueprint address these distinct communities?

I emailed Steve and asked about the above points.  Here is his response:

Robert, absolutely there is a difference between geographic communities and communities of interest. However, the local media organization has its strongest opportunities to appeal to communities with at least a geographic tie. For instance, we attract attention of Iowa Hawkeye fans around the world. They are a community of interest, but they have a geographic tie. The blueprint details plans to help countless communities of interest within and overlapping a geographic community – the family/friends of each high school graduate or engaged couple, congregations, etc. Print can serve some communities of interest (we have a business magazine and a magazine geared for young adults), but because of the cost of transportation, print is quite geographically based. Thanks for asking.

There you have it metaprinter readers, ask and you shall recieve.

RELATED:

How are you going to make money? By changing your relationship with your community -from OJR.org

Investors Business Daily has a short article in their editorial section today entitled “Dying for An A”.  The article starts out with this line, “From once-revered print institutions to formerly dominant TV giants, the major media are crumbling. And the White House press secretary just told them why, “grading” them a “strong A” — A for acquiescence.”

The article then goes on to explain that “White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who recently took it upon himself to give the White House press corps a collective report card affixed with a gold star, telling reporters he was awarding them “a strong A” for their coverage of the administration’s first 100 days”.

Zing!

IBD has an agenda and people usually either love IBD or hate it, but you have to respect their ridiculous number of revenue streams, and print circulation… growth!  IBD generates approximately $10 million in annual revenue from its seminar business.” as reported recently in TheBigMoney.

Many newspapers have not honestly asked themselves this question because if they did they would be the largest creators of business websites in their DMA.  As a consultant I work with local business owners to do things like build / rebuild their websites, add their sites and business to listing sites like Google Maps, Yahoo Local, Yelp and others.

Newspapers should be doing this, not me.  It should be a big, growing part of their revenue stream.  I know of only one newspaper doing something close to this and that is Cox Ohio publishing.  Here’s an excerpt from a quick interview with Internet General Manager Ray Marcano from Cox Ohio Publishing explaining more.

End America East Session Follow up with Ray Marcano:

RI- Looking forward, what will your main revenue streams be?
RM-  Direct sales not tied to print / classified upsells.  Our direct sales are up 30% year over year.

RI- Tell me about your Ad Studio business.  When did it launch?  Who is using it?  Is it a major revenue stream?
RM- We started that business in 2008.  Our biggest customers are media companies outsourcing to COX for ad design.  It is a significant new revenue stream.

RI- Is an online only presence like the what the Seattle P-I did anything your company has considered?
RM – No because our product is thriving, that’s not to say we don’t have stand alone online sites because we do have 937moms.com and activedayton.com

RELATED:

Free Advertising Ideas For Newspaper Publishers

Part 2 More Advertising Ideas For Newspaper Publishers where I talk about setting up an advertising fair for for courting local businesses.

Second Street Media Solutions Owners Matt Coen and Doug Villhard Discuss Upickem online contesting platform.

56 page report on the outlook of the industry ask lots of great questions the industry should be asking itself like “What does your audience want from you – and do you
know what they will pay for?”, many newspapers have not honestly asked themselves this question because if they did they would be the largest creators of business websites in their DMA.

Newspaper Outlook 2009 Related Video (sorry PWC doesn’t allow embeds at this point).

Today Topix announced that Topix becomes #1 news site of Gannett, Tribune & McClatchy Internet Portfolio -from Topix blog.  I have a few problems with this:

1. This sounds like a made up category,  ie. Metaprinter is the #1 news site of the Metaprinter Inc. portfolio!
2. Topix is ranked #32 in the news category on Alexa.
3. Compete doesn’t show Topix beating USAToday as stated in the above article.

4. I don’t know anyone who uses or likes Topix.  In fact, reading through the comments at the above post, it seems most people suspect the site is full of flame wars, trolls and hate speak.
5. For their size, Topix does not have a vibrant hyperlocal online community.
6. Where are the local advertisers?

I’ve contacted them for an interview.  We’ll see if they can clear some things up.

UPDATE:

An anonymous tipster has revealed to me that some news sites use Topix for their article comments section.   See for example this Gannett owned news site: citizen-times.com

Note the ‘comment on Topix forums’ option directly below the social bookmarking tools in addition to the Pluck Sitelife comments option at the end of the article.
“If you choose the Topix comment option, and enough discussion is generated on topix, it presumably bubbles up the story on Topix and the inbound links to the news site generate page views and more discussion”.

A little more digging on my part revealed that Tribune is using Topix.net to link to “Related News From the Web” as here below the Google Ads box in the body on their Baltimore Sun site.  The purpose here again is to increase pageviews and links.  It seems that Topix is nothing more than a solution for member newspapers to game the system and/or get more Google Juice.

Read my interview with Alan Jacobson to learn more about “community of interest” news sites and how TweenTribune can monetize a newspaper’s NIE campaign while bringing it into the internet paradigm.

RI- what is your affiliation with journalism online LLC?
MB- I am the strategy consultant at the moment, this is a start-up so we all have varied roles.

RI- I see in your Bio that you are an advisor to evri.com, a site that looks and feels to me like a news aggregator, does this complicate your involvement with Journalism Online LLC?
MB- No, it’s not an aggregator at all it is a natural language search site that builds related topics pages for new sites and others.  Our largest distribution deal is with WashingtonPost.com and if you look at the bottom of every new story page you’ll see our widget there.

*RI- I’ve never seen the widget because ever since the WashingtonPost put up their membership wall, I don’t visit the site.  But for the purposes of this interview I backed in through Google News and found the widget here:

RI- Do you have a domain name picked out or a name for your site?
MB- No, our brand is still something we are thinking through.  The corporate entity, Journalism Online LLC, is the only naming we have decided on.

RI- What publishers have agreed to sign on?
MB- We have no deals to announce since we launched 2 days ago, but we are speaking with many interested parties.

RI- Do you have a Facebook or Twitter account?  Do the other founders?
MB- Me personally, yes.  Gordon has both as well.  For the company, we are building our own Facebook and twitter pages and strategies right now.  …Social media development is an important part of succeeding online.

RI- What free news sites do you visit personally?
MB- Ha!  That’s a ridiculous question because you know I’m going to say MSNBC.com because I built it in 1996!  I don’t have any great insights into that except to say that it’s my homepage.

RI- Do you see a free site like MSNBC.com as a free competitor to what you are attempting to do with Journalism Online LLC?
MB- Not necessarily, They’re in the same bucket as people who produce newspapers and wire services who produce content and are looking for greater margins and new revenue streams.  They have great ambitions and would like to hire more people and do new things, though I haven’t spoken to them i’m sure they are intersted in creating new subscription products.  We’ll be talking to them in the future I’m sure.

RI- Do you expect traffic to go down if a publisher sign on to your service and puts up a pay wall?
MB- Of course we expect a loss of audience in the short term as habits evolve but we certainly don’t see a loss in revenue.  Over the long term, those audiences will return in large numbers.

RI- When faced with free options, why will they return?  It is because you feel paid content is a superior product?
MB- Quality content in all categories whether it is Sports Illustrated or Glamour Magazine or CNN or Washington Post has a long history of attracting lots of eyeballs and quality brands will ultimately be successful.  So, we’re convinced that permutations of what we are proposing will work.

RI- It seems to me you are using the term “quality brands” and “legacy brands” interchangeably? There are new media outlets available that are doing great things without a pay wall.
MB- You’re preaching to the choir there.  There was no MSNBC in 1995, there was no TalkingPointsMemo, There was no Huffington Post.

RI- So you’re saying that MSNBC is looking to put its content behind a paywall as well?
MB- I’ve had no conversations with them whatsoever but I know for a fact that quality online only brands are concerned with the long term viability of their advertising only revenue model.

RI- I’d like to see a press release between you guys and a new media outlet verifying that claim.
MB- Verify it right now.  Call up anybody running an online only website and ask them if they are intersted in developing subscription revenue models.

RI- I kind of did, in a recent interview I asked Liz George from Baristanet the following question: If newspaper websites put up a paywall would it hurt your business or help it? What is your opinion on paywalls? and this is her answer: The pay firewall was a bust for the New York Times. In general, I think paywalls are not smart. They go against the spirit of the Internet and they drive people from your site. As far as how it would affect us, I don’t think it would hurt us, and it might actually help.
MB- That’s a different question than I pose.  I don’t think the downturn in the newspaper industry affects negatively affects hyperlocal or national niche sites, it gives them a bigger business opportunity.  But that’s different than asking them, “is your long term belief with certainty that your only revenue stream is advertising”?  I think they would say “no, we’ve often thought about what kind of subscription products we can offer our audience”.

RI- Ok, what happens if I buy an article only to find it is now what I anticipated?  Do I get a refund?
MB- We haven’t work out our pricing strategies to that detail but that’s not an unanticipated problem.  It happens with magazine subscriptions all the time, we just have take that model and transform it to our situation.

RI- When you are envisioning your site, is there anything can share about the look or feel?
MB- We’re not even sure if we are going to have a content repository.  We are going to have a site that is a store front in the spirit of Amazon.com.  We are not trying to create a news portal.  It is not on our agenda.  We are not going to discourage sharing via social media. WSJ is a partial pay site that does a good job of it now.

RI- How do you plan to build critical masses of paying customers and of content? You will need to have a critical mass of customers before publishers will be willing to put some of their content that could generate ad revenue behind a pay wall instead. And they will need to have a critical mass of content before readers will sign up.  This seems to me like a critical switch you attempting.
MB- I agree that that’s a critical issue. We are going to do a lot of testing.  We can’t imagine a scenario where in the first month, 20 large publishing companies put 100% of their content behind a paywall.  We are going to do lots of testing and find out whether newspaper y’s sports content is good for a subscription model or magazine x’s utility content works well and gather data and move on that.  We’re trying to build a collaborative model that takes advantage of experiences that people will build over time and get it right.

RI- what’s been the biggest pushback from those in the know and the ordinary citizen who couldn’t care less?
MB- To your latter part first, the convenional street wisdom is that everything is free on the internet and that’s how it should always be is kind of a cliche.  The second one from the publishers is “what is the risk to our advertisers”?  Our expereince has been that ad inventory delivered to paid site commands higher cpms than a free site.

RI- Have you spoken to a large advertiser like proctor and gamble?  What’s been their reaction to your idea?
MB- Yes.

RI- Yes… anyone in particular?  anything you can share?
MB- No I won’t tell you what advertisers or publishers we’ve spoken to.

RI- Alright, thanks for your time and good luck.
MB- Thank you, we hope to hear from you again soon.

To learn more about Journalism Online LLC visit their site.

RELATED:

Brill, Crovitz, Hindery Launch E-Commerce Venture For News Business -from paidcontent.org

Brill: Bring Back an Old Business Model for New Media -from advertising age

Media Executives Plan Online Service to Charge for Content -from NYTimes.com