Tag Archives: Revenue

DOS Attack? I would pay for Twitter and I think You Would Too

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Twitter Fail Whale - Over Capacity

Twitter has been down and up and down all day… This made me nuts. And then I realized, I would pay for twitter. I have gone days without reading a newspaper, days without watching TV, and it never bothered me. But not having access to the serendipity engine that is Twitter today left me in the lurch.

In April of 2009 Techcrunch said Twitter has 200,000 active weekly users so if all of them paid $5 a month for 12 months 200,000x52x5=$52million dollars per year. That’s not bad considering they could use the money to pay back their Venture Capitalists in One Year. OR use that money to stabilize Twitter against Denial of Service (DOS) attacks like the one causing trouble today.

Hey Biz. Sign me up for a year. My $60 is waiting, otherwise i’m going to go outside and do stuff.

RELATED:

Metaprinter interviews Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone


Snarky WSJ front page article about Twitter DOS attack (the comments section is the best, people going off how useless twitter is but failing to realize that their commenting on a front page news article by the paper they subscribe too).

Most Redditors Find Newspaper Website Page Jumps Annoying

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Dear Washington Post and every other internet newspaper: if you have a long article, PUT IT ON ONE PAGE. My browser isn’t paper, you don’t need to break it up into 6 pages

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.

Newspaper Association of America Abandons Its Members

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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. Continue reading →

    Big Screen Kindle – What’s It For?

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    It’s for Textbooks

    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?

    Advertising in the Internet Paradigm is Free or Damn Close To It

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    Making commercials for the web -from SethGodin’s blog

    The biggest shift is going to be that organizations that could never have afforded a national campaign will suddenly have one. The same way that there’s very little correlation between popular websites and big companies, we’ll see that the most popular commercials get done by little shops that have nothing to lose.

    Businesses that rely primarily on advertising revenue take note.  I’m looking at you Mr. Newspaper, and MS. Magazine and… oh well you get it.  The internet paradigm breaks traditional busines models by undermining prohibitive cost structures.  I don’t need a printing press.  I don’t need a television studio.  All I need is a computer, camera, and passion.

    How will you adjust?

    IBD Editorial Slams Major Media

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    Dying For An A -from Investors.com

    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.

    Google to offer Premium Advertising for Select News Sites

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    Eric Schmidt on Google’s New Plan for the News -from TheWrap

    Sharon Waxman who writes Waxword for the Wrap… ugh, we get it we get it, has an interesting interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt who reveals that in about 6 months Google will launch a premium ad service for “premium content”.  The pilot news outlets to get this treatment will be the NYtimes and WashingtonPost.

    The participating news outlets won’t get direct revenue bumps but the theory is that they will enjoy greater traffic from search.

    In my opinion and Google’s too, websites need to figure out a way to better connect with their audience to create a community and lessen the reliance on search for revenue generation.

    2 More Papers Join TweenTribune

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    Sandy Sanders, the publisher of the Valdosta Daily Times in Valdosta, GA gave TweenTribune the green light this week. Here’s his page of local content on the site: http://tweentribune.com/valdosta.

    David Leone, the publisher of the AmericanNews in Aberdeen, SD, told TweenTribune owner Alan Jacobson that he wants to move forward with TweenTribune. Here’s what Dave said:

    “I like the content, the look and I have some ideas on how we can utilize it, not just for NIE purposes but to market it towards that tough age and frankly, the age where many kids have no clue about newspapers or newspaper websites. I do think there is a good opportunity to sell local advertising also.”

    Local news from both papers, as well as Norfolk, Bakersfield and Wilson can be seen beneath the “your town” topic at tweentribune.com

    RELATED:

    Sustainable Revenue Idea For Newspaper Publishers

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    “What does your audience want from you – and do you know what they will pay for?”.  -from PWC

    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.

    PricewaterhouseCoopers Releases Newspaper Outlook 2009 Report

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    Outlook for newspaper publishing in the digital age | 2009 report -from PWC.com (pdf)

    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).

    Interview with Journalism Online LLC Strategy Consultant Merrill Brown

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    BIO:  Merrill Brown is the founder and principal of MMB Media LLC, which provides clients with management and strategy consulting, corporate, editorial and program development, business analysis and marketing services. Since the founding of MMB Media, clients have ranged from companies in the news, information and wireless businesses to a large foundation. Brown serves as Chairman of the Board of NowPublic.com, the leading citizen journalism company in the world.  (bio provided by Journalism Online LLC)

    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. Continue reading →

    USA Today Launches Another “Community of Interest” News Site Today

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    In my interview with Alan Jacobson recently he emphasized the importance of newspapers shifting their online focus to “community of interest” news sites instead of geographic community sites; which are essentially general interest newspapers recreated on a website.  I agree and have been pushing the idea here on metaprinter for quite some time as well.

    Because of their inherent targeting, community-of-interest news sites have high reader engagement, more vibrant communities, and are better venues for targeted advertising.  Just look at techcrunch or Kotaku.

    USA Today launched  MMA Fighting Stances, a mixed martial arts community site today.  This is the newest in a string of community sites that Gannett is launching (Open Road, Hotel Check-In, Game Hunters, The Oval, and Faith & Reason).  

    What do I like? Continue reading →

    Steven Brill, Gordon Crovitz, and Leo Hindery today announced the formation of Journalism Online

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    Media Leaders Form Journalism Online, LLC
    Company Will Be Global Platform for Easy Payment Option Enabling New Revenue Models For News In Time of Crisis

    ‘Strong interest’ already expressed by major newspaper, magazine companies

    NEW YORK, April 14, 2009 – Citing “the urgent need” for a comprehensive, immediate plan to address the downward spiral in the business of publishing original, quality journalism, experienced journalism and media industry executives Steven Brill, Gordon Crovitz, and Leo Hindery today announced the formation of Journalism Online, a company that will quickly facilitate the ability of newspaper, magazine and online publishers to realize revenue from the digital distribution of the original journalism they produce …continue reading Media Leaders Form Journalism Online, LLC

    Here is what the above press release boils down to:

    “…there is an urgent need for a business model that allows quality journalism to be the beneficiary of the Internet’s efficient delivery mechanism rather than its victim,” said co-founder Steven Brill Continue reading →

    How Scott Adams Saved Newspapers – I’ll Pretend I Didn’t Read This

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    Dilbert creator Scott Adams writes a blog post, How I Saved Newspapers.

    Normally I like Dilbert comics.  They are witty and fun and relevant and I imagine the creator of those comics sometimes has a window into my world.  When I read Scott Adams blog post about saving newspaper though I couldn’t help but think that Bottleneck Bill or some other minor character wrote the piece.  Adams solution for a failing newspaper industry is called “super-local news” and relies on volunteers submitting content to newspapers… “the super-local news has to have lots of content about classrooms, Cub Scout meetings, local movies listings rated less then R, and that sort of thing.” Sounds like the internet only useless.

    Adams states that this new newspaper will of course feature Dilbert comics.  *sigh* I’ll just pretend I didn’t read this Scott.

    American Public Radio | No More Free Rides On The Internet?

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    Marketplace Morning Report

    Kodak, one of the major online photo repositories, will soon start charging user fees at the risk of photo deletion. Are Web fees for formerly free sites becoming the norm? Renita Jablonski talks to LA Times business columnist David Lazarus.

    As far as revenue streams go, I would be willing to sponsor this one particular podcast and have my logo appear beneath it on the American Public Radio site and on all embeds, but no one offers thi$. Maybe in the future?

    WashingtonPost.com Membership Wall

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    Has anyone else noticed the membership wall that the Washington Post website Washingtonpost.com has erected?  Visit the site, click ANY headline or navigation link and you are redirected to the page below.  It wasn’t always like this and I don’t like it at all.  Every time I just click off, and visit NYTimes.com or some other news site where the info is still free.

    If I really want to see a particular article I can back into it by copying and pasting the article title into Google news and then clicking through the search result.  This works for WSJ paid content too which makes me wonder if these large publisher have an agreement with Google, but at the same time are angry about it.

    What has been your experience on their site?  I remember being able to read national headlines without logging in.  So while others are going to paywalls, The Washington Post is moving to a membership wall? Maybe just for the time being. I’m hoping this is an experiment that will transform into something better.  I will never create an account and then log in to any newspaper’s website just to read one article and I suspect that others will not either.

    UPDATED ON APRIL 9-2009

    Why are they doing this?  When newspaper websites do what the washingtonpost site is doing, they are looking for ways to behaviorally target their readers and charge higher CPM’s to their advertisers. Continue reading →

    America East Newspaper Operations and Technology Conference Day2

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    Roughly 565 registered attendees at this point.  This post will be continuously updated throughout the day.  Check back often.  Just arrived in God’s Country, Hershey PA for the

    America East Newspaper Operations and Technology Conference

    First Session (that I attended)

    Pitching Your Media Company

    Jane Hungarter -VP Marketing and Communications, Pennsyvlania Newspaper Association Continue reading →

    Second Street Media Solutions Owners Matt Coen and Doug Villhard Discuss Upickem

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    Interview with Second Street Media Solutions Co-owners Matt Coen and Doug Villhard to learn more about their fastest growing product, Upickem, which is an online contesting platform.

    RI - Simply publishing content on a website is not enough.  How does Upickem bring news sites into the internet paradigm?
    MC - By virtue of the way contests work, ie. participation, we make newspaper news sites much more interactive with their target community.

    RI - How do you drive user engagement? How do you build communities?
    MC - The contests engage a passionate community. “cutest dog contest” for example generated 4.5 million pageviews, 6800 dog photo submissions, over 1million votes, and 15,000 registered users for The Minneapolis Star Tribune.  The users who register to participate in the contest provide the paper with their email info that can be used to drive participation in future contests. Continue reading →

    Newspapers on life support – The TakeAway Podcast with Jeff Jarvis

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    Newspapers on life support
    By John Hockenberry, Daljit Dhaliwal, Nadia Zonis
    Guest: Jeff Jarvis
    Thursday, February 12 2009

    From The TakeAway.org

    [display_podcast]

    When asked by Daljit what serving up page impression upon page impression will do to news value, Jarvis argues that “aggregation and curation becomes a value”. This is a short interview, but Jarvis makes predictions about a couple papers and states his opinion that he is against a newspaper bailout.

    He also talks about the successful New Jersey news site / blog baristanet.com and one of my old employers, The Star-Ledger (and Jarvis’s through Advance) and how these media companies might come together, network, and grow her platform.

    About The Takeaway

    The Takeaway is the new national morning news program that delivers the news and analysis you need to catch up, start your day, and prepare for what’s ahead. Hosts John Hockenberry and Adaora Udoji, along with the BBC World Service, The New York Times and WGBH Boston, invite listeners every morning to learn more and be part of the American conversation on-air and online at thetakeaway.org.

    The Takeaway is a unique partnership of global news leaders. It is a co-production of PRI (Public Radio International) and WNYC Radio in collaboration with the BBC World Service, The New York Times and WGBH Boston.

    RELATED:
    Kübler-Ross Model For Newspapers – Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

    Podcast – Video Game Revenue Models To Save The New York Times?

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    I am Following up my original post below about micropayments with this interview I conducted with GamesOverGirls.com founder Jack Bartolucci.  The purpose of this interview is to learn more about the different revenue streams game companies and console manufacturers use to make money.

    Through the interview I learn that money comes not just from selling the games themselves but also:

    1. Add ons (like buying new songs for RockBand via their in game store – 28million downloads since Dec.2008)
    2. New Chapters (like for Grand Theft Auto 4)
    3. Peripherals (like game specific controllers)
    4. In-game advertising  (like the ads Barack Obama ran in Burnout Paradise and 17 other games)

    And the point-of-purchase is really simple.  Depending on what system you are using it’s either done online or right through the console.  Regardless of what system you are using all the major gaming systems work like E-ZPass. Just set up a one time account with your credit card and all purchases from that point on are transacted with one click.  iTunes works similarly.  Super Easy, Super Convenient.

    What newspapers are doing now is not working.  If NYTimes.com can’t break even with advertising revenue, who can?  LATimes.com thinks they can, but they can’t.

    How can newspaper sites use these types of revenue streams to make money?  As I say below, I would have paid 10cents to watch the Mike Tyson interview.  What would NYT need to do to get my account info to enable such a “one click transaction”?  How about having the video cut out halfway through at which point you are asked to submit any monetary amount above zero cents? Just like the the videogame companies you would only have to input your credit card info One Time.  After that, transactions occur through one simple click as described earlier.

    Obviously you can’t do this with every single article, but you can absolutely do it for every single video and audio slideshow.  Make sure to allow comments and ratings viewable by everyone so people will be even more inclined to pay to view the multimedia piece.  If people don’t want to pay?  That’s their loss, you’ve got bills to pay NYT.

    Here’s how Nintendo and Activision are doing compared to NYT stock over the last 2 years.

    The interview is safe for work until about halfway through when Jack decides he wants to interview me and we wind up talking about all sorts of things we are not qualified to talk about like Professional Journalism, Sexism, Maria Bartiromo, and Race Relations in the USA.  But it sure is funny to listen to and if you are a gamer and not easily scared by political incorrectness then head on over to GamesOverGirls.comfor more.

    [display_podcast]

    Continue reading →

    Lauren Rich Fine Explores Non-Profit Status As A Business Model

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    Lauren’s article:  Sure, Newspapers Could Just Die A Painful Death; But Here’s Another Option appears on washingtonpost.com.  She proposes the old idea of turning a for-profit newspaper into a non-profit news organization.  There are some fundamental problems with this, the least of which is that by definition:

    “…the objective [of a non-profit] is to support or engage in activities of public or private interest without any commercial or monetary profit.”

    With that in mind, the current owners and stakeholders would never get their money back.  MNI is in the hole for $1.9Billion plus another few billion in lost market capitalization.  Sam Zell is personally in the hole for $8.5Billion on his purchase of Tribune. His personal “investment”.

    This sentence, “While converting to a not-for-profit won’t improve the financials…” is where the non-profit option fails for companies already drowning in debt.

    Metaprinter Interview With CSM Editor John Yemma Discussing Newspaper Business Models

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    Regarding this post and his comments, Robert Ivan conducted an email interview to let John Yemma state his case.

    RI: We seek to interview any person or company doing innovative things in new media or traditional media. We prize innovation here at metaprinter and encourage media organizations to come on and trumpet their achievements. The goal of the interview is to find out a little bit more information than what can be found already online or in print.

    JY: Excellent idea. And good for you for seeking that information via interview.

    RI: I’m not a journalist. However, some recent interviews I conducted were with Jimmy Leach, Editorial Director for Digital at The Independent and Alan Murray, Deputy managing editor and executive editor, online for The Wall Street Journal.

    John, my intention with the very first post was commentary and analysis of the video interview. I am sorry it displeased you so much. I found that video through Google while researching information regarding newspaper business models. As I said in that post, I admire your consideration in utilizing diverse revenue streams, but I am concerned that they are unsustainable because they rely on:

    JY: Robert, it only displeased me because it didn’t seek answers to specific questions. In that video that you cite, Len Witt was asking specific questions to which I was giving specific answers. It isn’t logical to expect that all of your questions would be answered by my answers to Len. At any rate, we’re past that now since you’re asking specific questions and I’m responding below. Peace.

    ——————————————— Continue reading →