Convergence - Tuesday, January 6, 2009 2:50 - 0 Comments

The Future of Newspapers? It’s Shoved in My Mailbox…

I began receiving a free weekly newspaper jammed in my  snail-mailbox about a year ago called Community Reporter.  The newspaper is published by Gannett’s Asbury Park Press operating in New Jersey. The paper is thin, has 3 sections, and serves up content from 6 towns in my “area”.  It also contains a classified section and usually has a couple inserts from Kmart and a grocery store.

The paper is completely useless to my family and I. There is nothing that the paper offers which I can not get online at my own convenience and without cluttering my mailbox.  I never asked to be sent this junk mail, yet it comes… every week.  I asked my postman if he can stop giving them to me, but he says he’s required to deliver it by law.  He says the only way to stop is somehow get the newspaper to take me off their list. Continue…

Asides - Monday, January 5, 2009 15:14 - 0 Comments

Remaindered Links January 5, 2009

Oops! Twitter phishing scam snares CNN anchor - from Cnet “I am on crack right now might not be coming into work today”

Mash Maker wins Sodosky Award - from the the mashmaker site “What if you could take data elements from multiple websites and mash them together into a single, integrated view? Intel Mash Maker gives you a radical new way to browse the internet. Whether you’re a novice or a power user, with Mash Maker it’s easy, fast, and fun to create personalized, intelligent mashups on-the-fly.”

Who are the digital natives? And what do they want? - from TimWindsor.com reports on Don Tapscott’s book, Grown Up Digital

Huffington Post worth $2million, not $200million -from Adage.com wildly different forms of valuation.  This is why Warren Buffet says that if he asks a student what a tech company is worth and they give him any answer that is not, “it is impossible to accurately say” gets a failing grade.

Asides - Friday, January 2, 2009 14:10 - 0 Comments

Remaindered Newspaper Links January 2, 2009

Newspaper Publisher Lee Delisted From NYSE? - from Milwaukee.bizjournals The company’s share price has fallen below the acceptable minimum level for listing on the New York Stock Exchange.  The Journal Register Company was delisted in April of 2007.

Connecticut Lawmaker Petitions for Newspaper Bailout - From Fox News: Connecticut, “Frank Nicastro, who represents Connecticut’s 79th assembly district, is asking the state government to do something to salvage The Bristol Press”

Some Industries Are Incapable of Profit: Is Communications One of Them? - from TMCnet.com Like the airlines and record companies, this article makes the argument that there are some industries that are incapable of making money, with newspapers being the latest edition.  

 

Advertising - Friday, January 2, 2009 6:56 - 0 Comments

Online Advertising Prediction for 2009 - It Fails

This could come back to bite me in the ass but I’m going to make a prediction for 2009 that online display advertising and all that other junk like pop-ups fails big time this year.

Why Fail?
1) No one pays any attention to online display advertising. 2) There’s too much of it floating around. CPM’s are dropping 20% quarter over quarter according to Pubmatic data (PDF). 3) The economy stinks. Businesses will cut back on advertising and realize there is little to no change in their business sales because of it. Continue…

Innovation - Thursday, January 1, 2009 22:32 - 0 Comments

Newspaper Publisher with an Excellent Attitude and A Solid Plan!

Scot Morrissey becomes the new Publisher of The Athens Banner-Herald and OnlineAthens.com today. Read his statements here. Somebody forward that article to Paul Mulshine.

Scot Morriessey:

While some newspaper executives complain that free access to news content online is killing paid circulation, turning a profit from an online product is just “logistics of business,” Morrissey said.

“We are no longer mass marketers. We are niche warriors,” he said. “We are putting out magazines for women’s issues only. We are putting out magazines for music. We are putting out products for Georgia football only. Those are unique segments of our market.

Again, go read this article. I really like Scot’s positive attitude but more, I like his ideas for diversification. Many times you hear publishers, like the Detroit Duo, who stay positive on newspapers but then completely blow it by staying the course.

The OnlineAthens.com website has pretty good stats for the area it serves. The Quantcast stats show it has roughly 28k uniques per day, and 176k per month. The one big problem is that every single metric for the site has been falling for the last 3 months. However, if Scot sticks with his plan for diversification, this will not be a problem.

Congratulations Scot! We’ll be tracking your progress here at metaprinter.

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