Raja Jasti’s Blog - Renaissance Thinking

March 29, 2009

US Newspaper industry lost $7.5B last year

Filed under: Media — Tags: — Raja @ 12:50 pm

via techcrunch:

Last year was the worst on record for the U.S. newspaper industry.  Total advertising revenues (both print and online) declined 16.6 percent to $37.85 billion, according to the latest figures from the Newspaper Association of America.  That is $7.5 billion less than in 2007.  Print advertising alone declined 17.7.  Classifieds were down 29.7 percent. And even online advertising was down 1.8 percent to $3.1 billion. Newspapers are shuttering their print editions, laying off staff, or closing entirely as a result of this severe contraction in revenues bright on by the double whammy of economic recession and competition from the Web. Drilling down into the fourth quarter numbers, total advertising dollars shrank 19.74 percent, making it the tenth straight quarter in which revenues have declined, and the sixth straight quarter in which the rate of decline has been accelerating:

Wow, this is pretty brutal.

March 16, 2009

Seattle P-I goes web only

Filed under: Media, Trends — Tags: — Raja @ 7:36 pm

Seattle P-I newspaper will stop publishing its print version and go exclusively as a website.

SEATTLE — The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will produce its last printed edition on Tuesday and become an Internet-only news source, the Hearst Corporation said on Monday, making it by far the largest American newspaper to take that leap.

But The P-I, as it is called, will resemble a local Huffington Post more than a traditional newspaper, with a news staff of about 20 people rather than the 165 it had, and a site with mostly commentary, advice and links to other news sites, along with some original reporting.

Printing newspapers is not sustainable and you will see more and more of this.

March 14, 2009

Clay Shirkey on the future of newspapers

Filed under: Internet, Media, Trends — Tags: — Raja @ 10:24 am

Clay Shirkey has posted a long thoughtful piece called ‘Newspapers and thinking the unthinkable’. If you are interested in the future of media in the digital age, this is a must read.

The unthinkable scenario unfolded something like this: The ability to share content wouldn’t shrink, it would grow. Walled gardens would prove unpopular. Digital advertising would reduce inefficiency, and therefore profits. Dislike of micropayments would prevent widespread use. People would resist being educated to act against their own desires. Old habits of advertisers and readers would not transfer online. Even ferocious litigation would be inadequate to constrain massive, sustained law-breaking. (Prohibition redux.) Hardware and software vendors would not regard copyright holders as allies, nor would they regard customers as enemies. DRM’s requirement that the attacker be allowed to decode the content would be an insuperable flaw. And, per Thompson, suing people who love something so much they want to share it would piss them off.

Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. That’s been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as it is stopping before our eyes, we’re going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead.

If you don’t know who Clay Shireky is here is a video.  It touches upon some themes of my popular blog posts titled imagine:

March 13, 2009

New York Times may charge for some content

Filed under: Media — Tags: , — Raja @ 2:02 pm

NYT may go back to charging for some of its content as it used to do with New York Times Select.

March 13 (Bloomberg) — New York Times Co. may revisit charging fees to users for some Web site content to combat the “grim” economic outlook, Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said.

The company is considering “incremental” charges for Web users while keeping most of its sites free, Sulzberger said at Stony Brook University in New York, where he gave a presentation yesterday. He declined to provide details.

The company’s Internet operations will have to more quickly make up for print advertising declines, Sulzberger said.

Deteriorating advertising market makes it very difficult for high quality content publishers like New York TImes to offer all its content free. A freemium model similar Wall Street Journal where they charge for certain content would make more sense.

Theses newspapers should also look to delivering its content on devices such as kindle and iphone and charge for it. This should provide alternative revenue streams to help bolster their topline.

March 11, 2009

News personalization: Meehive

Filed under: Internet, Media — Tags: , , — Raja @ 8:43 am

There are many startups that are trying to offer personalized news and meehive joins the fray today.

MeeHive is a new service launching today that is looking to give users a custom-tailored newspaper composed of stories from sources spanning a vast number of blogs and news sites. The site leverages the power of Kosmix, a universal search engine that pulls data from a variety of sources to produce comprehensive topic pages.

Newspaper is evolving and personalization is a key aspect of it. We want to consume only the news that we care about and on devices of our choice (laptop, mobile, kindle etc). This is inevitable and companies that try to fight this will suffer.

March 9, 2009

Saving the newspaper

Filed under: Internet, Media — Tags: — Raja @ 8:01 am

Yesterday I wrote a blog post called ‘imagine’ where I ask the question what would you do in the brave new world of infinite possibilities. It seems to have resonated with a lot of people. In it, I ask this question to media executives:

If you are a media executive, think about how your company’s role changes in this new world? How can you help everyone maximize their talents and realize their dreams?

One newspaper seems to be thinking along those lines and leveraging the new world rather than being killed by it.

The Bakersfield Californian is an anomaly in the newspaper business. While other papers are shutting their doors and filing for bankruptcy, it’s expanding. The reason is the paper’s 2005 launch of an online social network, called Bakotopia.com, aimed at reaching nonreaders, especially the young people in this city of nearly 329,000.

The Web site has caught on to the point where Bakersfield Californian now publishes 20,000 copies of a free magazine with content from Bakotopia twice a month. The articles range from reviews of the local theater scene to goings-on at various hot spots. Because the magazine’s audience is young, hip, and hard to reach, “advertisers do pay full rates,” says Dan Pacheco, senior manager of digital products at the company. The magazine even turns a profit.

This is a great example of how media companies can grow their pie even bigger by embracing the new media. I hope the music labels, the movie studios and the TV networks take note.

On a related note, Yahoo seems to be doing a good job of working with the newspapers to help them with the transition. This article talks about 10 major newspaers that may have to shutdown their print divisions and go completely online or close shop. Here is the list which includes a couple of sites that I vsit often:

  1. Philadelphis daily news
  2. The minneapolis star tribune
  3. The miami herald
  4. The detroit news
  5. The boston globe
  6. The san francisco chronicle
  7. The chicago sun times
  8. NY daily news
  9. The fort worth star telegram
  10. The cleveland plain dealer

This post discusses the top 50 sites that are linked to most by bloggers. This list includes many newspapers and links are one of the most basic distribution vehicles in the web world. I have a feeling that all the newspapers on this list will thrive when all the dust settles. This list includes the boston globe, the chicag sun time, the san francisco chronicle and the newyork daily news from the above list. They will do fine based on this indicator.

February 23, 2009

Value of information

Filed under: Business, Internet, Media — Tags: — Raja @ 11:46 am

WSJ today ran an interesting opinion piece called information wants to be expensive. This articles highlights the information value conundrum.

One reason most media companies suspended normal business practices online, such as seeking subscription revenues, was a misinterpretation of one of the most powerful observations of the Information Age. When author Stewart Brand coined the expression “Information wants to be free,” he focused on how technology makes it cheap and easy to communicate and share knowledge. But the rest of his quote is rarely noticed.

This says, “Information also wants to be expensive.” The right information in today’s complex economy and society can make a huge difference in our professional and personal lives. Not having this information can also make a big difference, especially if someone else does have it. And for valuable information, online is a great new way for it to be valued.

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