• by OMMA Magazine Writers , December 1, 2009

Don't panic when you lose the map

Offline publishers need to not become too fixated on the question of pay walls. The No. 1 priority in the year ahead, says Ken Doctor, affiliate analyst Outsell, is to regenerate advertising. No. 2: Come to a better reckoning with the aggregators. No. 3: paid content. "I think there may be be something to the metered model - basically the Financial Times model - although I want to see how that's going to work out in the u.s. with general circulation," says Doctor. "If you get this right, you can charge for some stuff and you can offer lots of doorways into your content for free that you can use ad monetization."

The retracted recession and recovery will force publishers to put interactivity to work by charging for more potentially lucrative connections and transactions with target consumers.

"Twitter is cannibalizing the Web's traditional link graph," says Rand Fishkin, CEO at SEOmoz. "Bloggers, journalists and Web content creators are linking to interesting content less frequently and tweeting about it more. This means search engines that rely on link metrics will have to either include Twitter data and marketers will have to be aware of the influence Tweets can have over rankings."

"Content adjacency will be huge. Delivery verification, etc. is already getting press this year - invisible ads article in WSJ -- and we've seen the emergence of verification companies, such as Double Verify, that didn't exist a year ago," says Andrea Kerr Redniss, SVP and managing director of Digital, Optimedia.

As there is more formalization of metrics and measurement surrounding video, and better comparison to other offline video metrics advertisers will continue to expand their spending in online video attracting TV dollars online, says Andrea Kerr Redniss, senior vice president and managing director of digital, Optimedia. "This coupled
with potential select paid subscription and content models will affect inventory and pricing."

Cable networks will continue to be among the most sought-after content assets, commanding high multiples. At press time, News Corp. appeared to be the lead bidder for Cox Communications' Travel Channel at more than $800 million.