Here’s where newspapers need to invest their resources

Of the seven strategies Mark Potts lays out for the news industry to adopt, two in particular stood out for me as of particular importance. His criticism of news sites that spread themselves thin by trying to appeal to all readers is one that bears repeating. See if you agree.

I’m excerpting them here, but I recommend you read the entire post.

Vertical products: One of the most broken things about the newspaper business is the “all things to all people” model. By trying to do a little of everything, newspapers don’t really do anything well—for readers or for advertisers. New products that focus on specific, vertical audiences should be the wave of the future, but so far they’re barely even a trickle (let’s see—there’s Gannett’s MomsLikeMe franchise, and then…not much else).

New forms of advertising: Banner ads are so…1997. Interstitials, pop-ups and intrusive ads are so…obnoxious. Classifieds are so…dead. Meanwhile, Google is making money off of local search, other non-newspaper companies are pioneering things like click-per-call and pay-per-click, and various startups are perfecting cheap ways to create and sell local ads. Could it be that newspapers are having trouble making online advertising revenue grow because they’re selling the wrong kinds of online ads? Hmmm.

Behind newspaper website traffic numbers

Martin Langeveld pours some cold water on the Newspaper Association of America’s report that traffic to newspaper websites accounted for 43 percent of all Internet users in the first quarter of 2009, a 10 percent increase over last year:

Newspaper page views at 3.5 billion per month are less than one percent of total U.S. page views (386 billion in February). …

… As NAA does note, 43.6 percent of that audience visited a newspaper web site, but given that newspaper site traffic works out to only about 1.6 page views per reader per day, many of the newspaper site uniques are clearly represent one-time-only traffic. …

… In the light of the data as seen in context, it is ludicrous for them to be considering a tollbooth to make readers pay in some fashion (other than for carefully selected premium content) — any simple paywall barrier would serve to reduce their online audience share even more.  Similarly, any effort to prevent or restrict Google and others from aggregating content will backfire, since newspaper sites would lose substantial traffic in the absence of traffic driven by aggregator links.

Design a better newspaper website

Malcolm Coles has a post that has yet to go out of style — how newspapers can improve their websites. And he critques those that could use his advice.

Gina Chen’s open letter to newspapers

Gina Chen of Save the Media has an outstanding post today that tells newspapers what she as a consumer expects from them.

 Here’s Chen on:

Wanting original, well-reported articles:

While we still have a newspapers, don’t fill it just with 6-inch stories and snippets of yesterday’s news. I’ve read those already online. What I haven’t read already onlineis enterprise, a well-written profile that really digs deeply into a person, investigativepieces that expose government waste, inequity and greed. The short, shallow story isn’t going to save newspapers.  And if that’s all I get in the print, honestly, I don’t need the print at all. …

… There’s really no excuse for running most feature wire stories these days with a few exceptions, such as movie openings or some science and technology pieces.  And if you must run it, please make sure it has some additional information to localize it. That can be as simple as: Can I buy the product here? Is the trend happening here? What’s the local impact.  And, please, please, don’t tell me you don’t have enough reporters because you’ve laid them all off or cut their hours or furloughed them. That may be true, but as a consumer, I don’t really care. …

… Every reporter should be doing enterprise reporting on his or her beat. Some stories may be simply noticing a trend in a community; that’s fine. Not every story has to be Watergate. But there should be many stories that tell me something I can’t get anywhere else.

On integrating print and Web:

Next time, buy Google

No, this isn’t stock advice. It’s more of a logical extension of Alan Mutter’s criticism of the newspaper industry for failing to do what Google did: understand how to make loads of money on the Web:

The airwaves have been clogged in the last couple of weeks with newspaper people alternatively blaming Google for the industry’s problems or begging Google to come to their aid.

Google isn’t responsible for saving the newspaper industry or journalism. Publishers and editors are. …

… For the record, newspapers actually had a head start over Google. But Google “got” the web. And newspapers didn’t. That’s not Google’s fault. …

… For an excellent example of the sort of opportunities missed by the industry, look no further than this tale of how the Boston Globe blew the chance in 1995 to buy a significant share of Monster.Com for a comparatively modest $1 million.

Or, ask yourself why Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, never started its own online stock site. Instead, Dow Jones waited until 2004 and spent $520 million to buy MarketWatch, faithfully printing stock listings in the newspaper all the while. …

… None of this is Google’s fault. Blaming Google won’t help.

Imagine if instead of cannibalizing each other and going into severe debt, newspapers had purchased the very technologies that now threaten to put them out of business.

The danger of comparing print to online

A couple of days ago, I posted a link to Martin Langeveld’s assertion that only 3 percent of newspaper reading happens online. Dan Thornton counters with a compelling argument that the comparison between print and online readers isn’t very useful. And that the numbers Langeveld uses as the basis for his calculation may be way off:

If you’re taking shared readership of print products into account, then surely you’d also need to factor in people reading newspaper website content without ever being logged as a visitor to the site?

That includes people blocking cookies, people using RSS, people reading reposts of newspaper content (Great example of the spread of multimedia news by Martin Belam by the way), people reading content via aggregation sites and site scrapers etc, etc.

And by the time you’ve taken into account all the vagaries of print readership figures (which aren’t a bad guide to something so difficult to measure), and then taken into account the vagaries of online measurement (Less inaccurate, but still pretty fairly vague), and using data and research from 2+ years ago (But that’s probably the most recent readily available) it starts to be apparent that quoting a an exact figure is pretty irrelevant – especially when some people will undoubtedly take it as gospel.

Don’t fight Google, work with it

Forget walled gardens of content: Steve Outing says the newspaper industry can help itself by working with Google, not against it:

So here’s an idea for newspapers, the AP, et al: Think through how you can help Google make more money! Figure out how to spread your content much more widely instead of focusing on how to restrict its flow. …

… If they can achieve an intelligent dialog with Google and come up with a plan that benefits both sides, then newspapers can follow Huffington’s advice (of which I concur, 100%), and do everything they can to get their content everywhere possible online. Monetize it not just within your walled garden (website), but on every blog or website that your content appears on.

Newspapers that went Web-only

Paper Cuts has put together a map that shows eight former newspapers that have stopped publishing their print editions and are now Web-only (since 2007). Be sure to check-mark the past three years to see all eight.

Five is a magic number (for newspapers)

There are five things newspapers must do to avoid certain doom. Not four. Not six. Five.

I know what you’re thinking: “One of them involves Twitter.” You’re right. It’s like I can read your mind.

DO THEM NOW!

Newspapers should be like me

Scooping the News lists five ways newspaper Web sites must change. Me? I don’t need to change, because I’m already way ahead of the curve:

1. Two-way communication between the writer and the reader. — I often respond to my peeps.
2. Links to similar stories being published elsewhere on the Web. — All the time.
3. Show us reader comments on the very first page of your Web site. — Yep.
4. Tell us, the readers, about the people writing the stories. — You mean, like about me?
5. Don’t worry about the presentation. — Well, I did take care to choose a snazzy WordPress design.