Tag: magazines

A new tipping point in favor of paid content

PaidContent.com reports that the annual media study by media investment banker VSS (Veronis Suhler Stevenson) showed a tipping occurred in 2008: It was the first time people spent more time with media they paid for — such as books and cable TV — than they did with media that is primarily ad-supported. That report raises a few points:

1. Cable TV is not predominantly ad supported? I must be watching the wrong cable stations.

2. It should come as good news to all the ad-supported media that are feverishly looking for ways to monetize their audience. It means people are willing to pay for content if there is enough value in it, and if they are trained over a long-enough period of time that the stuff just won’t come free.

3. By the time that happens, nobody knows how many traditional media will fail — their markets taken over by an upstart that “gets it.” My short answer: plenty.

4. Even those that are succeeding and profiting from paid content will have some struggles. Competition for the audience dollar is only starting to heat up, and over the next few years will become intense and insane. If you, as a consumer, are paying the full cost of content for books, movies, music, etc. and all of sudden you start hearing from newspapers and magazines that you need to pay more for their content too, and what point do you start making hard decisions about which content you really want and need? It’s not safe to assume that everything you’re paying full-ride for right now is necessarily going to be the winner in that evaluation.

The latest ain’t the greatest in new publishing models

Printcasting.com has launched the latest in an all-out salvo to find a business model that works for media in the digital age.

It’s community-based publishing. Here’s how Printcasting describes it:

If, like us, you’ve always wanted your own publications but you didn’t have the time, technical expertise or talent — no problem! We’ve made it as easy and fast to start a magazine as it is to start a blog…  We do this by separating apart the three primary roles  that exist in any magazine or newspaper: the publisher, the content and the advertising. Instead of one person or organization needing to be responsible for all of that, anyone can participate in any one role.

More specifically, if you’re a writer, you can have your blog’s RSS feed picked up by Printcasting as available content. If you’re a publisher, you can choose any subject  you like, pull content from people who have written about it, punch it into a template and you’re done.

You don’t have to sell any ads, according to Printcasting, because, “We’ve built an extremely simple self-serve advertising tool that makes it as easy for a small business to advertise its wares as it is to write an e-mail. Because Printcasts are niche, the ads are extremely affordable, starting at only $10 per ad.”

Printcasting is supported by a grant of more than $800,000 from The Knight Foundation, which puts a lot of money into media projects of all kinds, and which is especially interested in development of new media models. But that doesn’t mean it’s an idea that’s going to fly.

I’ve said to a lot of people, since the day I first tried to sell content online (1996), that if the Internet is going to prove one thing over time, it’s that people need editors. At the most basic level, that’s what Printcasting is all about. It’s about giving would-be editors the opportunity to practice their craft: identifying content around a theme, pick the best of it and packaging it for like-minded souls.

Here’s what’s wrong with it:

  1. The content is just repackaged from stuff that’s already available if anyone is actually looking for it.
  2. Being able to amass enough credible content to empower the would-be publisher of super-niche topics will be an obstacle.
  3. Printcasting’s view of what publishing is all about is simply wrong. Stating that there are 3 roles to a magazine — content, publisher and advertising — is like saying the principal components of water are ice and a heat source. In Printcasting’s world, audience doesn’t matter; publishing becomes a vanity that is all about picking up someone else’s words, plunking it into someone else’s template, running a few ads (maybe) that someone else sold, and getting to put your name on top of the masthead. The website says it benefits publisher, writer and advertiser alike. But that’s only if a large number of players in all three groups play their roles exceptionally well.
  4. And speaking of advertising, the message I’m getting here is that the problem with advertising is that it’s been too expensive and too hard to buy. So if you can knock down the price to almost nothing and make it self-service, businesses that have never advertised before will suddenly start. Nobody who has actually inhabited the world of advertisers — large or small — could actually believe this.
    Especially if the products they have to choose from are a bunch of magazines that haven’t been through the painful and fundamental process of creating an audience and demonstrating its desire for a publication.
  5. And finally, the ad rate is fixed, no matter how many or how few copies of a publication get printed. That’s a contradiction that can’t be overcome: Publishers need to develop an audience to prove the publication is wanted and read; but they have every incentive to print as few copies as possible, because they can’t recover printing expenses with an increased  rate base.

There is some nuance here. Printcasting could add value — as The New York Times describes it — at the hyperlocal level where a more traditional publication could never offset its costs. The local softball league, for instance, could have its own publication.

But is this new? Or is this just a slicker package around the same  newsletter that the softball league already publishes — with sponsor ads from local bars and the guy who won the trophy concession.

Maybe Printcasting.com will prove viable over time. But if it does, it won’t be as a serious media model or as a meangingful marketing outlet for advertisers. At best, it will be a success in the spirit of those websites that let you design your own greeting cards. It may serve a certain purpose for a certain number of people, and it is one more interesting idea of the Internet Bubble 2.0.

New study says consumers like ads. And it won’t change a thing.

Adweek Magazine and its parent company, Nielsen, have released a study that shows consumers believe in advertising, they accept adveflo-progressivertising as a way of subsidizing other content and, in some cases, they actually like it.

They’ll use this to try to change the rush of money out of traditional advertising, and they won’t succeed.

In an article announcing results of the study, Adweek states that: “67 percent of respondents agree …. (including 14 percent agreeing “strongly”) that ‘Advertising funds low-cost and free content on the Internet, TV, newspapers and other media.’ Likewise, 81 percent agreed (22 percent strongly) that ‘Advertising and sponsorship are important to fund sporting events, art exhibitions and cultural events.’ ”

The only thing startling about this is that such a large percentage of people seem to understand the media business model.logo_adweek2

Adweek also wrote: “Respondents also acknowledged that advertising is useful to them personally as they navigate the marketplace. For example, 67 percent agreed (14 percent strongly) that ‘By providing me with information, advertising allows me to make better consumer choices.’ Respondents even confessed to enjoying advertising, at least some of the time, with 66 percent agreeing (13 percent strongly) that ‘Advertising often gets my attention and is entertaining.'”

This means two things:

1) Adweek is doing its job; it is, after all, a magazine for the people who produce ads, plan campaigns and buy space for them.  This study will be a tool used by readers to convince advertisers to shift money back from the new and social to more traditional ad campaigns.

That’s especially evidenced by this finding in the article: “And there was a lackluster rating for ‘ads served in search-engine results,’ with 4 percent trusting these completely and 37 percent somewhat. Ratings for old media were closely bunched, with TV getting a typical rating for these of 8 percent “trust completely” and 53 percent “trust somewhat.”

In other words, Google’s astoundingly ascendant paid search model — traditional media’s Great Satan — isn’t as effective as many believe. At least, that’s the kernal that media reps are likely to grab onto and use.

Which raises the second meaning of the information:

2) There are lots of highly respected voices in media and advertising who still don’t get it. The epochal media meltdown we’re experiencing has nothing to do with the opinions of consumers.

Advertisers aren’t pulling campaigns because they don’t work; they’re pulling campaigns because they can now do what they’ve always wanted to do: reach consumers directly without an intermediary media.

Back in another era — the Internet bubble of the late 1990s — this was called disintermediation.

Disintermediation is why people book flights directly with airlines rather than through travel agents; it’s why Progressive and Geico have a higher profile than the independent insurance agents who used to do most of the selling in their industry; it’s why people will visit a magazine advertiser’s website instead of filling out a reader-response card in the back of a magazine.

Disintermediation is a simple process of applying new technology to eliminate an old and costly middleman. Heck, media is the root of the word; is it really a surprise that media is now a target?

So it doesn’t matter if old advertising works; it ads a layer that is no longer necessary. Just as there are still travel agents and insurance agents, there will still be media — as we recognize it today — far into the future. But it will be smaller than it used to be, and it will find its success by serving niches.

You can download the full Nielsen study here: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/trustinadvertising0709.pdf

On YouTube, celebrity correspondents acknowledge the power of citizen journalism

YouTube has organized a library of how-to videos for citizen journalists. Much of it won’t be relevant to the vast majority of citizen journalists. But the talent that is now spending time helping ordinary folks to create content is amazing and impressive. I still talk to journalists almost every day who continue to resent the infiltration of their work by “ordinary people.”

In fact, I met this morning with 2 individuals who have been stymied in their efforts to cultivate citizen journalism by “old school” journalists who can, collectively, green-light or red-light their work — and who resent this intrusion by the untrained and unindoctrinated.

These old dogs are already finding themselves on the wrong side of history.

Journalism IS and always has been the work of ordinary people; every journalist is merely a proxy for a larger number of ordinary people. When the local investigative TV reporter asks a zinger to the director of the dysfunctional city water department,  that reporter isn’t there because of some special privilege or status; he’s there because it would be impractical to open the doors to anyone and everyone who questioned the director’s management. It’s easy to forget this in the day-to-day melee. But it’s still the truth.

More than that, though, the economics of media essentially mandates the growth of citizen journalism.  That Nicholas Kristoff, Bob Woodward and the Pulitzer Center (to name a few), are open to this fact is refreshing to me, and is an encouraging sign that the moribund state of the news is beginning to evolve.

If you can’t bring journalists to the computer, then bring geeks to journalism

Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism is turning out its first group of graduates in a master’s program that teaches computer geeks to be journalists, according to Time magazine. The idea is to combine advanced programming for computer applications and other interactive tools with reporting and journalism — making data and databases an integral part of the news.

Here’s a paragraph from Medill’s master’s degree course catalog:

The Digital Innovation Project (JOUR 435-0, 435-1)
This project challenges students to answer a specific editorial business challenge by inventing interactive solutions, often with a focus on innovative content delivery. Editorial challenges sometimes are posed by partner media organizations, sometimes by faculty or students. Students in this project have explored new ways of designing content for handheld devices, and new ways of creating interactive community, and in one case wrote a new software program to help a news operation engage more closely with its community.

In other words, if the medium is the message, this is huge. It has potential to change the very nature of how journalists work and what they do. Especially since Medill isn’t alone; among other schools starting to turn out journalist programmers are University of Missoure, Georgia Tech and University of California at Berkeley, according to Time.

Imagine an investigative article on government judicial conflict-of-interest, for example, that includes an application allowing readers to conduct their own searches by judge, defendant and plaintiff.

That’s admittedly a utopian view of journalism creating ultimate and constructive transparency — something it’s always strived to do and has rarely, if ever, achieved.

Or, I suppose, it could go the other direction: creating a bunch of people writing about the programming nuances of WordPress v. Blogspot. Which would you rather see?

A must-read for all you content types (that’s ‘editorial’) in the old paradigm

recessionwire-logo1Here are 7 non-nonsense rules for any editorial types who plan to survive the 2009 Media Meltdown and transform themselves into the content creators of the future. For the detail, read the original blog on Recessionwire, written by Laura Rich, a journalist and regular contributor there.

  1. Readers are your competitors — and your friends.
  2. Identify your expertise.
  3. Build your brand.
  4. Be transparent.
  5. Crowdsource (actively seek participation in the development of your story).
  6. Use self service tools.
  7. Interact with your readers.

You’ll find the full explanation behind each at the original blog.

Go forth, do good and do well.

More than ever, the medium is the message

mcluhan-book

At the time, he was talking about the fast advent of TV. But if you want to see the truth of his statement in action, you’re already in the right place: online.

  • A message in Twitter is 140 characters long.
  • A message on 12seconds.tv is, well, 12 seconds long.
  • You get about 400 characters to express your thoughts on Facebook.
  • LinkedIn is businesslike; you can’t get as lost as you can on Facebook, and the variety of activities in more limited.
  • Squidoo lets you type in original content, but it’s really about packaging other content — yours or somebody else’s — under a single thematic umbrella.
  • A blog is unlimited, but is accepted as “good” only if it gets updated frequently.

There are at least dozens more kinds of electronic media where you can place your messages. I know people who market themselves online using all of the above media and more.  But if you want to get people to pay attention to what you’re writing, you can’t just cut and paste your blog post onto Facebook and Twitter and Squidoo, etc.

In some cases, there are limitations such Twitter’s infamous 140-character limit. In all, there is the simple and unarguable feedback from the market. If you do it right, people will pay attention. If you do it wrong, they won’t.

Doing it right means integrating strengths, weaknesses and peculiarities of the medium into whatever it is that you’re writing, videotaping, podcasting, etc. If you want to give a lecture, don’t bother putting it on YouTube unless you have strong visuals to go with it. And don’t simply post the transcript of your lecture as a blog if you want anyone to say anything nice about it.

Today, as newspapers face their toughest economic environment ever, they’re trying to figure out how to get people to pay for content online. When I ask people about this, the usual response is that they aren’t sure they’d find an electronic newspaper to be worth reading, let alone paying for.

But they’re imposing their view of newspapers as a print medium on the coming reality of newspapers online.

To be sure, some publishers will make a mess of it. They’ll try to do exactly what they’re doing now — but without the paper costs. And they’ll fail.

Others will figure it out. The paper of the future may provide headlines to your cellphone in the morning, with updates all day. On a Smartphone, the headlines may link to the full story. You may have the choice whether you want to get one section (world news, for instance) in-depth, and another (perhaps sports) on only a cursory basis. The website might offer configuration and search tools, letting you scan for all articles containing a specific keyword, or filter out stories from the opposite side of town. It could give you Tweets as news breaks, video clips of big events, or full context about ongoing, longterm stories. It may led you contribute news in the form of short video and photos. You might be able to read it on a Kindle, on screen or hear it through your ipod. And somewhere in there, they’ll figure out how to not only collect a critical mass of paid subscribers, they’ll also figure out how to serve advertisers.

In other words, newspapers will survive. But they won’t look like they do today, and they won’t DO what they do today either, because they’ll come to us not just through the same old medium, but through a Dagwood sandwich of media.

So McLuhan’s old saw really is more important than ever. When he wrote it, he was dealing with print, TV and radio. Today, because the medium is the message, it means the message changes many times a day depending on where you happen to be when you choose to accept it.

More on the suing of Entrepreneur

UPDATE: Entrepreneur magazine, being sued for publishing information in its “Top 100” list of entrepreneurial companies about a CEO who was subsequently arrested and charged with running a Ponzi scheme, has now asked that the suit be dismissed.

The original suit, for $178 million by a group of 87 investors, alleged that, by printing information about the company Agape World (this was covered in more detail in my previous blog entry, Are Magazines Really That Important?), Entrepreneur magazine played a role in their making a bad investment.

Entrepreneur‘s motion for dismissal strikes me as pretty fair and on-target. I have no sympathy for investors dumb enough to bet millions of dollars on information taken from Entrepreneur magazine.

The strange thing is that’s pretty much Entrepreneur‘s defense. According to Folio:, the magazine cites New York law in stating: “A publisher is under no duty of care to its readers to ensure the accuracy of published information unless it constitutes a breach of contract, obligation, or trust, or amounts to deceit, libel or slander… A publisher, even those who maintain a paid subscription service, such as Entrepreneur, owes its readers no duty to ensure the accuracy of its publications, and thus, cannot incur liability for an allegedly inaccurate statement.”

OK, I agree that magazines make mistakes and shouldn’t be held accountable for the cost to someone who uses that information to make a business decision. But does Entrepreneur really want to be on record saying that it doesn’t need to worry whether the information it prints is accurate?

A shocker about ad budgets – and why

According to a consortium of advertising agencies, ad budgets are down this year. Who woulda thunk?

Seriously, according to B2B, a survey of 40 ICOM agency members indicated that more than half the agencies have seen client budgets drop at least 21% this year.

That seems to have translated directly to the magazine sector. The Seybold Report cites  data that consumer magazine pages were down 25 percent in Q1, with a corresponding decline in “rate card revenue” (that is: it’s just a calculation) of more than 20 percent.

According to the Magazine Publishers of America, this is just more of the same; pages were down about 12 percent in 2008. And various reports put them flat or down slightly in ’07.  So this isn’t just about the recession.

According to Seybold, more than half the respondents to the ICOM survey agreed with this statement: “Budget cuts and new challenges have served as catalysts for clients to come up with new ideas and experimentation to market their products.”

Again, this isn’t just about the recession. This is about businesses deciding that their marketing departments can and should play the role of publisher.

I started observing this bypass about 10 years ago, as my biggest and most sophisticated advertisers  literally started publishing their own magazines. Since then, it’s become easier and less expensive; today you can become a publisher with a website, a blogger and some folks who are really good with Facebook and Twitter.