How The Newspaper Business Killed Itself

How The Newspaper Business Killed Itself

02.23.10

Newspapers are on life support, and they have no one to blame but themselves.

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by John C. Dvorak

The New York Times is about to make a huge mistake. The paper thinks it can charge readers $360 or so a year for the privilege of browsing its pages on the iPad or Kindle. When will newspapers realize that the party is over? They can't go on in this dream world.

Sure the print edition of The New York Times and other papers are still making money, but that number is waning. Papers around the country are bleeding cash. Many exist as shells of their former selves or as hyper-local small town papers.

The decline of the big metro daily began with the advent of television. The Internet has sped up that deterioration by highlighting the curious redundancy of the news. Ironically, this began with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times syndicating their entire paper for anyone who wanted to pay for it. Now there are papers all over the country running the exact same stories and columnists you find in the Times. They're there when you read Google News—thousands of redundant stories, all the same. The Associated Press is part of the problem as well.

How stupid has all of this become? Here's an example.

Once in a while, there is a story about XYZ. If you visit the New York Times site, it gives you the headline and prompts you to register in order to read the full story. It's a waste of time. Cut and paste the headline into Google, and you'll find the exact same story running in a Florida paper for free. Now The New York Times wants $30 a month from you. It's laughable, unless it stops syndicating everything to other papers that post the content for free. Good luck with that.

The Times and other papers set out to destroy smaller publications by replacing local content with their own stories. One of the keys was getting local papers to dump their expensive columnists, foreign correspondents, and national reporters, in favor of outsourced content. Once the local paper was essentially publishing Times content, The New York Times would slowly begin rolling out localized editions of the paper. People were already used to the paper's content anyway. The Times was trying to take over the country, market by market. The fact that the local papers didn't see this ploy coming from a mile away shows just how dumb they are.

The San Francisco Bay Area was a classical example of this. The San Francisco Examiner and the Chronicle soaked up content from the aforementioned papers and the Associated Press, leaving only restaurant reviewers, food writers, and metro beat reporters in-house. The papers got so dependent on syndicates that many local stories were covered by outside sources.

Just as it became clear that the scene was going to consolidate into five national papers (The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal), the Internet foiled the plan. There wasn't enough time to rid the nation of its local papers. The smaller papers went online and the syndicated content created a flood of news redundancy. Its value waned and soon everyone expect it all for free.

What really killed the papers was their dependency on classified ads. Along came Craigslist, and boom, the classifieds were decimated—and so too were the papers. To save money, publishers cut writers and used more syndicated material than ever. It was like attempting to fix a flat by letting the air out of the rest of the tires.

Many papers began producing a crappy product with no local value. The Internet, radio, and TV all served the public better. Worse, what staff was left on the paper all seemed politically motivated in a very singular, unbalanced, and preachy way. It had no appeal for readers. Most big metro dailies continue to bleed readers like crazy.

Now The New York Times thinks it can charge $360 a year. For what? A daily PDF filled with redundant news and feature articles about the growing use of smoked paprika? This is too funny to watch.

More John C. Dvorak:
• How The Newspaper Business Killed Itself
• Macworld Expo's Iffy Future
• Hey Microsoft, Get Out of the Cloud
• Apple's Good for Nothing iPad
• Why the Past Decade Was No Good for Tech
• more

Go off-topic with John C. Dvorak.

See John get cranky about technology in his new Cranky Geeks IPTV Show.

via pcmag.com

Posted via web from Local Andy

Adify Data Points To Rising Ad Prices

Highlighting a rebound in ad pricing, the median effective CPM on sites across vertical ad network Adify increased to $6.04 in the fourth quarter of 2009, up from $4.28 in the prior quarter. The minimum espy saw a quarterly increase from $1.55 to $2.36 while pricing at the high end remained essentially unchanged at $8.95, according to the latest quarterly data from

Adify.

Among the 11 ad categories tracked on Adify, fashion and beauty enjoyed the biggest gains over the last year -- up 57% to a $4 eCPM, while travel continued to commands the highest rate of nearly $9. The study concluded the fashion audience is spending less on big-ticket offline purchases, but increasing spending on less costly items online such as cosmetics.

The sports vertical had the fastest growth in the last quarter, jumping from a $4 to a $7 eCPM. Adify said the sharp rise in ad pricing in the category wasn't seasonal but the result of attracting high-paying advertisers such as sports drinks, auto, and personal hygiene advertisers.

More broadly, Adify said that the number of page views across the network more than tripled in 2009. "This trend is the result of more vertical ad networks adopting the Adify platform, existing vertical ad networks adding sites and content to their network, and increases in traffic to sites within vertical ad networks," according to the report.

The traffic growth also stems from an increase in repeat visitors to sites. The proportion of unique visitors per month that visit an Adify-powered site on a given day increased from 9% to 14% during the last year. The company's platform overall encompasses more than 200 vertical ad networks and 17,000 sites and blogs.

Underscoring the growing interest of agencies and advertisers in branded content, Media Contacts, the interactive media agency of Havas Digital, last week announced a partnership with Adify to develop custom networks on behalf of clients.

Posted via email from Local Andy

Mobile Phones Organize Lives

A total of 234 million people age 13 and older in the U.S. used mobile devices by the end of Q4 2009.

According to a new survey recently announced by Ruder Finn, Americans are spending an average of 2.7 hours on the mobile Internet, connecting socially, managing their personal finances, and even as a means for advocacy. 91% of mobile phone users go online to socialize compared to only 79% of traditional desktop users. Mobile phone users are 1.6 times more likely to manage finances compared to traditional desktop users. Mobile phone users are 1.4 times more likely than traditional desktop users to rally support for a cause.

According to the Mobile Intent Index, mobile phone users do not access the mobile Internet for educational purposes or for creative expression, as the transitory nature of mobile intent goes against spending time to engage in discussions about personal issues. Usage by gender and age differ, with men accessing the mobile Internet 'to escape,' and women to entertain others.

Kathy Bloomgarden, Ruder Finn co-CEO, says "Mobile phones have become the way people organize their lives... and this trend will... accelerate... the faster businesses can adapt their services... the more rapidly they can... understand their customers to drive growth."

The Mobile Intent Index asked respondents how frequently they use their mobile phones to go online, and the results show that immediacy is the primary factor driving behavior.

Marty McGough, director, Ruder Finn Insights says, though, that "Mobile phone use goes beyond instant gratification...people use their mobile phones... for instant access to conduct business with the most recent information or advocate on the spot on issues of pressing concern and breaking news."

Michael Schubert, Chief Innovation Officer overseeing digital strategy at Ruder Finn added, "... people are taking advantage of (mobile technolog y)... to do their core work while using desktops to navigate longer format and higher bandwidth content and tools... resulting in huge... opportunities across industries... making mobile an essential channel in keeping businesses competitive."

Key results from the Mobile Intent Index Survey, include:

Mobile phones are a social connector, says the report. 91% of mobile users go online to socialize, compared to only 79% of traditional users. The top socialize intents are:

* Instant message (62%)

* Forward e-mails (58%), content (40%) and photos (38%)

* Post comments on social networking sites (45%)

* Connect to people on social networking sites (43%)

Mobile phone users are more likely to go online to do business compared to traditional users, and are 1.6 times more likely to manage finances. Mobile phones offer users the chance to conduct business in real time, and this is the major reason that business-related intents are so high. The top business intents are:

* Online banking - 46%

* Check bill/credit card status - 40%

* Read business blogs - 33%

Nearly half of mobile users go online to advocate compared to only 41% of traditional users. Mobile phones offer users the chance to immediately respond to breaking news, whether it is a new piece of legislation or the latest ongoing development of a corporation or politician under siege. The top advocacy intents are:

* Activate support for a cause or position - 67%

* Post opinions on social networking sites - 45%

* Forward content on a cause - 40%

* Mobile users are much less likely than all users to go online to learn. Learning requires time and patience, something mobile phone users are in short supply of.

* They are 1.5 times less likely than the traditional user to go online to educate themselves

* They are 1.4 times less likely than the traditional user to go online to research

* They are more likely than the traditional user to go online to keep informed

* Mobile users are 1.3 times less likely to personally express themselves online compared to traditional users. The transitory nature of their intents speaks against spending the time to engage in discussions about personal issues while using their mobile phones.

* They are 1.7 times less likely than the traditional user to go online to opine

* They are 1.8 times less likely than the traditional user to go online to be creative

Additionally, gender and age influence the Intent of mobile phone users according to the study:

* Men (79%) are much more likely than women (61%) to use their mobile phone to simply "escape"

* Many more women (70%) than men (58%) go online using their mobile devi ces to entertain others

* Youth (44%) are more likely to shop over their mobile phones than the average mobile user (35%)

* Seniors (82%) are much more likely than the traditional user (64%) to use their mobile phones to educate themselves

Posted via email from Local Andy

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Will Twitter launch an ad platform? The hot news at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting is the possibility, revealed by SocialMedia.com chief executive Seth Goldstein, that Twitter will unveil an ad platform in about a month. Twitter's head of product management, Anamitra Banerji, clarified the rumor, saying that a platform was in the testing phase. When Twitter does launch such a platform, Banerji noted, sponsored content would be clearly identified. MediaPost Communications/Online Media Daily (2/23)

Posted via email from Local Andy