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.

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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).

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.

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

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?

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?

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.

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.

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

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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

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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).