Hope for Print

Gregg Hano of the Popular Science Media Group said, "I believe the dimes and quarters will add up." He was talking about micropayments and how they will (hopefully) monetize emerging and existing digital media. His analogies were clear--people spend a lot more money without much thought on stuff that is far less valuable than content that can help people with their daily lives.

His advice was also clear. The process has to be "spontaneously easy." People won't run upstairs to grab their credit cards to pay 99 cents for an article. The payment process must accommodate impulse.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Digital Magazine Strategies

What's in the future for digital magazine editions, from Gregg Hano of Popular Science Media Group:

* Digital readers are the future. Prepare to optimize content for things like Kindle now.

* Then figure out how to monetize it. Micropayments are a likely option. Digital readers from Sony, Samsung, Plastic Logic will need carriers. Content payments can be added to bills.

* Work with advertisers to develop metrics for success. Make sure both parties are on the same page.

* E-ink readers are only 3-5 years away.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

WSJ.com Growth Strategy

Key points on the growth strategy of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network from President Gordon McLeod:

* Audience growth is linked to free and paid content working together. Not one or the other but both.

* Move users through a funnel - web visitor to registered user to subscriber to premium subscriber.

* Free, unique content feeds the funnel.

* Make web registration simple, quick. Offer additional benefits to registrants. These users are more valuable to advertisers and are more likely to move through the funnel.

* Be transparent about what is free and what is paid content.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Social Media Ideas

Ideas related to social media's integration with traditional media from Brendan Monaghan of Slate and Stephen Wellman of Ziff-Davis:
* Make it easy for people to comment o articles. Don't assume that it is.

* Content is your chief marketing tool. Editorial and marketing should be sharing info all the time.

* Should we build web pages based on where people are coming to the site from? Digg-optimized pages, for example.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Good Content Sells

(From the Audience Development Conference) Brian Wolfe of Time Inc. said strong editorial content still sells magazines. Consumers need a break from the frenetic pace and they need information organized and analyzed, he added. Content testing should be done whenever possible as long as it brings ROI. Other highlights from Wolfe:

* Respond to consumer needs like companies such as Netflix, Sirius and iTunes have done. Compare their actions to what traditional media have done for consumers (next to nothing, I say).

* Commit to training your staff, even in these down times.

* Make sure your best people are working on your best products.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Coverage of Audience Development Conference

In my job as editorial manager for the PTA national organization, I will be attending the Audience Development Conference and Expo, June 7-9 in Chicago. I will be blogging from the conference. I'll also be using Twitter (@readership101) to send updates.

 

One of the sessions I'm most looking forward to is "Digital Edition Strategies for the Next Five Years" with Gregg Hano of Popular Science Media Group. There is some buzz about digital magazines and their possibilities. I am hopeful the case studies can be useful springboards for innovation.

 

That's kind of the point of going to this conference...it's about audience. Sure, there is an emphasis on magazine (it is sponsored by Folio), but it's not about one media in particular. Sessions address the most effective ways of reaching people. Newspapers, trade publications, radio, TV, social media, etc., can all benefit from these ideas. I will try to bring some of the best back to this blog.

Let's Start Over...

By now everyone knows the state of newspapers. It's beyond doom-and-gloom. It's ugly and nothing will ever be the same again. Time to get over it...

Obviously, I have not posted since fall. My book wasn't going anywhere, my work at PTA kept me incredibly busy and, frankly, I succumbed to the gloom and followed the downward slide of the newspaper industry.

Then one day, I took out a sheet of notebook paper and wrote this sentence: "LET'S START OVER." I wanted to ignore where we were and concentrate on where we are. Instead of focusing on a decline (from which newspapers were never going to rebound), I thought of establishing new benchmarks. Of course the numbers are bad...compared to where we were.

But what about where we are now? We have audience. Media proliferation and generational preferences created audience fragmentation. But that audience is still there to be captured--through print (yes, print), websites, e-newsletters, podcasts and a medium that hasn't been invented yet...a suite of products that, as one unit, delivers an audience of news consumers.

What we're talking about is multiple platform delivery...sounds labor-intensive. But is it? Change the thinking: A story is not just a story; it is many. Let's use my work at PTA as an example. We start with an authoritative, in-depth magazine article. If we owned a newspaper, we could optimize this piece for publication in one or more editions, possibly framing it with expert commentary or local opinion columns. We could optimize differently for web reading, condensing it and adding links to more information or supporting documents. We condense it further for delivery to our e-newsletter audience with links back to the website. We condense it further to tweet out to our followers on Twitter, post on our Facebook fan page or start as a discussion on our upcoming Ning page. Further, we could create a podcast on the soon-to-relaunch PTA Radio that references all of these media.

Yes, it takes some time to optimize for the various formats, but it's editing time not writing or reporting time. Content editing takes far less time than content creation.

With that, let's start over, shall we?

Readership Institute: Get Smart About Your Readers

Readership Institute: Tribune Redesign Comments
Cheers to the Readership Institute's Mary Nesbitt for reflecting my exact thoughts on the Chicago Tribune redesign. In particular, these thoughts...

• I don't know how the Trib is doing it exactly, but I can't have not noticed any difference between the much-talked-about 50/50 ad-news split. In fact, the way the pages look I'd almost say there is the appearance of MORE newshole. Amybe it's more full-page ads, maybe it's a "brighter" newshole instead of gray text blobs.
  
• Thankfully, they have revamped and refocused the awful Q section. Never has there been a section of a major American newspaper that has been so unfocused.
  
• Hooray for alternative story forms.

For mroe on the Trib redesign (and how it has irked "core" readers) go to this post from Alan Mutter's blog (and look for my comment).

A "viewspaper"

Newspapers need courage to change, says Michael Gawenda, former editor of The Age. Not big news, but he does offer some sharp insight into why newspapers struggle. They didn't play to their strengths. Instead, they tried to address their weaknesses. Other comments:

• Newspapers need to control their website and truly integrate the newsroom instead of just talking about it.
  
• Newspapers need to get smaller and clearer in focus.
  
• Commentary is important if it is presented as just another form of reporting: "Tell me something I have not thought about."
  
• No lousy puns in headlines.