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RSSLast quarter, more than 59 million U.S. Web users visited newspaper Web sites, up 5.3% from the first three months of 2006, according to Nielsen//NetRatings data cited by the Newspaper Association of America. For the quarter, visitors to the newspaper Web sites tracked by the group saw an average of 3 billion pages, up almost 11% from 2006.
But here's the bad news. Online revenue at newspapers isn't growing as fast as the companies had hoped. At Tribune Co., interactive revenue grew 17% in the first quarter -- which, while healthy, marks a steep drop from last year's 30% growth. Gannett Co. also saw dwindling growth, and the New York Times Co. warned that Web ad revenue hadn't climbed 30% for the quarter, as previously predicted.
Clearly, the newspaper industry needs to better monetize its Web traffic. How the industry intends to do so remains murky, but one option -- paid subscriptions -- seems like a particularly bad route. After all, it's unlikely that many people are willing to pay for articles they're used to reading online for free. Besides, the reality is, keeping copyrighted content from surfacing on free sites requires never-ending policing -- as Viacom, Universal Music and others feuding with YouTube have learned.
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Reporting of the news does *not* require: - flashy animation - pretty and handsome anchor people - humorous weather personalities - hourly homicide, suicide, and vehicle fatality totals - f-bomb, n-bomb, b-bomb, and h-bomb notices, although h-bomb used to mean something else - advertising
As an aside, why the obsession with ?-bomb words? There are no bad words, just misguided people using words badly.
Modern requirements for reporting news: - Internet access - an honest witness, informant, or researcher (a rarity in commercial news) - someone reasonably familiar with the regional language and grammar
After all, news simply is edification from the north, east, west, and south--news. With advertising thrown into the acronym, it w.a.n.e.s.
It has less to do with content that is driving traffic to the sites. It has more to do with convenience-at the office, at home, anywhere there is a computer,
Online newspapers need to be more creative and inventive with their online editions to create more value for advertisers. They have an opportunity to create a multi-media platform for the first time in their history, although they continue to treat it as a simple print and static picture content source. In other words, they offer nothing new, and in many instances they still sell the online edition as a loss leader to drive the advertisers to their dying hard copy editions.
Until newspapers learn how to play in the online world and treat it as a new playing field and create value for its advertisers that go beyond the regurgitation of what exists in the morning edition, they will not succeed.
I believe the increase in numbers of online viewing has less to do with the content on the online newspaper editions. A new habit is being formed. They need to set a unit fee for each unique visitor and charge the advertiser a fee for that. It is the old impression game but this time it is played on the Internet. If the number of subscriptions increased, rates for advertising increased. If online visitors increase, then that becomes a selling points and rates should increase/
It is still an eyeball game. More eyeballs, Higher rates. And on the Internet, you can separate the impressions from the number of people who actually click on to the site.
Newspapers have to stop thinking like Newspaper people and recognize they have a new toy to play with and a new medium to enjoy. Once they learn that, they have a new world that can open up to them. Until then, they are no different than the early days of TV, trying to marry a picture with a voice. Now they need to add the color, the music, the variety acts, the comedy shows, the sitcoms, etc. In other words, start using the tools available. Stop acting as if you only have ink and still photography.
Larry Emsweller www.freeofflinetraffic.com
What does the site look like? how does layout, formatting, interactivity promote contact with the content? how robust is the search function? can i easily share and link to and with content on the site?
Also, and perhaps most important - how relevant is the advertising? The more the advertising has little to do with content and/or my stated or implied intentions the easier it will be to dismiss it. In the end, I think newspaper don't likely have the in-house talent yet to make substantial progress on this front in the short-term.
Bottom line is many newspapers just don't get it. The majority of online newspapers need a big attitude makeover. This would solve many problems but I doubt it will happen soon.
Craig McDaniei, Pres. Sweepstakes Today LLC
Newspapers need to put all their eggs into the online basket. Classifieds, ad sales, search, etc. They need to become online local portals. Local news is quite hard to come by on the web, newspapers could dominate that area.
The print edition can then become a featurized, almost daily magazine, that supports the website, not the other way around.