By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor
Yahoo further strengthened its ties to the newspaper industry by announcing plans to roll out new services and features and adding a 12th newspaper publisher, McClatchy Co., to the consortium founded late last year.
Various elements of the partnership will be implemented in the next few months, said consortium backer Robert W. Decherd, chairman and chief executive officer of Belo Corp.
“The search and content integration activities will begin during the second quarter,” he said. “Content integration is going to be in phases and we hope to complete them in 2008.”
Under terms of the beefed-up agreement, newspapers will now place news across Yahoo’s local news modules and begin using Yahoo’s search engine for their Web sites.
“It is clear that newspapers and Yahoo, collectively, bring unique strategic assets to this relationship, but it is their complementary nature that really puts the power of this partnership into focus,” said Sue Decker, executive vice president and head of the advertiser and publisher group at Yahoo. “The newspaper’s brand, content and sales forces are unparalleled in the local marketplaces.”
Blended options
Newspapers will be able to use Yahoo’s ad-serving targeting and inventory capabilities. Yahoo said its sales force may also sell unused newspaper inventory to national advertisers while newspaper sales forces can sell Yahoo’s local online ad space to local advertisers.
Users will also have access to a customized Yahoo toolbar, which will be distributed on newspaper Web sites.
The newspaper content used within Yahoo’s news modules will be linked back to the newspaper sites.
Hilary Schneider, Yahoo’s executive vice president of local markets and commerce, said that local newspaper content helps ensure that users have the stories that matter most at their fingertips.
“Pulling this kind of local coverage into key integration points across the Yahoo network provides not only a more compelling user experience, but can also be the catalyst for driving significant user traffic to partner Web sites,” she said.
The addition of McClatchy, meantime, brings the number of newspapers in the consortium to 264.
Increase value
McClatchy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the partnership will help the publisher bolster the value of its Real Cities Web operation.
“In addition to that cross-selling between Yahoo and individual newspapers, our Real Cities operation will continue to sell ads into a national network of newspaper Web sites only,” he said. “Its ability to do so will be enhanced by using Yahoo’s ad serving and targeting platform on behalf of advertisers looking for the value of newspaper brands.”
Advertisers will be able to purchase ads on multiple sites by placing only a single order and receiving a single bill, Pruitt said.
Pruitt said the future promise of local online sales is extraordinary.
“Between 2006 and 2010, local online spending is projected to rise at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent and that isn’t just the steep growth rate, it also represents a big total figure, rising from $3.4 billion to $12.4 billion,” he said.
Follows agreement
McClatchy’s agreement with Yahoo came a few weeks after the publisher agreed to supply the search engine with news and blogs from McClatchy’s overseas correspondents.
Finally, Yahoo Hot Jobs picked up two new newspaper clients, the Boston Herald and Scranton (Pa.) Times, the search engine said.
That was then…
The newspaper consortium working with Yahoo added several newspaper groups since the announcement of the alliance last November.
November 2006
176 Newspapers
Over 35 million unique users
•Belo Corp.
•Cox Newspapers
•Hearst Newspapers
•Journal Register Co.
•Lee Enterprises
•MediaNews Group Inc.
•E.W. Scripps Co.
April 2007
264 newspapers
Over 50 million unique users
•Belo Corp.
•Cox Newspapers
•Hearst Newspapers
•Journal Register Co.
•Lee Enterprises
•MediaNews Group Inc.
•E.W. Scripps Co.
•Calkins Media
•McClatchy Co.
•Media General Inc.
•Morris Communications Co. LLC
•Paddock Publications Inc.
Friday, June 1, 2007
USA Today takes social networking to heart
By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor
Earlier this year, USA Today unveiled a new look to its Web site incorporating the national newspaper’s goal of sparking community-level dialogues between readers across the country.
To that end, the redesigned site features a variety of social tools to give readers an opportunity to interact with reporters and other network participants.
It’s all part of USA Today’s network journalism initiative, said Joel Sucherman, executive producer of USA Today.
“It’s in the USA Today pedigree to reach out and to talk to the community and have a sense of respect for them and their views,” he said. “Since day one of the newspaper we’ve been more of a community around the United States.”
The Gannett Co. Inc.-owned paper’s Web site is using Pluck Corp.’s SiteLife and BlogBurst syndication software to offer visitors blogs, photos, reader comments and other social networking options.
“We worked with Pluck to incorporate these social networking tools that we deployed — comments, recommendations and reader profile pages — and used their API (application programming interface) to style and blend the functionality of the software exactly to what we were looking for,” Sucherman said.
Wider format
The redesign, launched in early March, takes advantage of the wider 1,024-by-768-pixel resolution used on many computer monitors.
The main homepage has dozens of links with headers color-coded to reflect USA Today’s four major sections. To make navigation easier for users, the page is divided into two sections. The left side highlights top news stories; photos, videos and blogs. An “Only on USA Today” section features additional enterprise stories, photo galleries and other content, including the paper’s ongoing 25th anniversary coverage.
The upper left portion boasts a photo “carousel,” featuring the day’s main photos. When users move their mouse over the thumbnail photos, the images change depending upon what’s selected.
“The lead thumbnail is usually what USA Today feels is the top news story of the moment,” Sucherman said. “But then the second through fourth thumbnails will be a little softer (news), a big sports story or something from the Life or Money section we want to feature prominently.”
The other half of the page presents tabs that feature the day’s top headlines as well as a news notes that contain postings from USA Today reporters.
Additionally, usatoday.com introduced interactive elements to the top banner, including quotes from readers commenting on a particular story.
“We feel it’s very important to the page; it’s one of the first things you see and it’s an early tip-off that adds to reader involvement,” Sucherman said. “It shows what readers have to say is valued and does matter.”
Reader participation extends throughout the site, with readers encouraged to comment and register their opinions on the popularity of posted articles.
For their part, USA Today’s reporters are also capitalizing on reader access, Sucherman said.
“Six months ago, many of our reporters were wary to opening the doors like this. Who knows what kind of stuff we would get from readers,” he said. “We now have a number of reporters that want to write their own blogs on profile pages about their beat or put out a call to action on specific stories.”
Changing times
USA Today began to lay the groundwork to retool the site last summer, with the primary goal of adding more interactive features.
By fall, almost 50 people were working on the redesign, Sucherman said. “They were a combination IT staff, developers, designers, editorial and business people working side by side on this project from mid-September through the launch in March.”
Although the redesigned site sports a number of features enabling reader participation, Sucherman said usatoday.com is not trying to become another MySpace. Instead, the site offers readers a variety of easy-to-access options to give them a chance to communicate with reporters and other readers.
“We know our readers are time-pressed, busy and they are not going to spend four hours a night pulling YouTube videos onto their page,” Sucherman said. “But we thought that even if a small percentage of our audience actually is active in the (online) community, then it has value to the overwhelming majority of the audience.”
The revamped site is an effort by Gannett to adapt to the dramatic way people are consuming media, Sucherman said.
“You had the 500-year old model of the printing press and one media organization speaking to the masses,” he said. Now, “New media technology gives everyone a chance to become their own publisher.”
Web site Snapshot
www.usatoday.com
Launched April 17, 2005
Last major redesign: March 2007
Owner: Gannett Co. Inc.
Employees dedicated to staff: 120
Editorial*: 75
Number of comments posted
March 2007 – 60,000
April 2007 – 100,000
Web Traffic for USA Today**
Unique Visitors: 10,349,773
Active Reach: 7.18 percent
Web Page Views: 142,012,570
Web Pages Per Visitor: 13.72
Visits Per Visitor:3.96
Time Per Visitor: 00: 15: 56 (hh:mm:ss)
NAA NAdbase report for USA Today
All-Total
Unique Visitors 10,349,773
Page Views 141,128,249
Visitors’ household income:
$25,000-$49,999
Unique Visitors 2,388,819
Page Views 34,228,024
$50,000-$99,999
Unique Visitors 4,221,880
Page Views 52,276,295
$100,000+
Unique Visitors 2,645,835
Page Views 45,795,719
*Editorial employees include Gannett’s merged newsroom imitative in 2005.
**Source: Nielsen/NetRatings NAA NAdbase Combined Home and Work November 2006
Associate Editor
Earlier this year, USA Today unveiled a new look to its Web site incorporating the national newspaper’s goal of sparking community-level dialogues between readers across the country.
To that end, the redesigned site features a variety of social tools to give readers an opportunity to interact with reporters and other network participants.
It’s all part of USA Today’s network journalism initiative, said Joel Sucherman, executive producer of USA Today.
“It’s in the USA Today pedigree to reach out and to talk to the community and have a sense of respect for them and their views,” he said. “Since day one of the newspaper we’ve been more of a community around the United States.”
The Gannett Co. Inc.-owned paper’s Web site is using Pluck Corp.’s SiteLife and BlogBurst syndication software to offer visitors blogs, photos, reader comments and other social networking options.
“We worked with Pluck to incorporate these social networking tools that we deployed — comments, recommendations and reader profile pages — and used their API (application programming interface) to style and blend the functionality of the software exactly to what we were looking for,” Sucherman said.
Wider format
The redesign, launched in early March, takes advantage of the wider 1,024-by-768-pixel resolution used on many computer monitors.
The main homepage has dozens of links with headers color-coded to reflect USA Today’s four major sections. To make navigation easier for users, the page is divided into two sections. The left side highlights top news stories; photos, videos and blogs. An “Only on USA Today” section features additional enterprise stories, photo galleries and other content, including the paper’s ongoing 25th anniversary coverage.
The upper left portion boasts a photo “carousel,” featuring the day’s main photos. When users move their mouse over the thumbnail photos, the images change depending upon what’s selected.
“The lead thumbnail is usually what USA Today feels is the top news story of the moment,” Sucherman said. “But then the second through fourth thumbnails will be a little softer (news), a big sports story or something from the Life or Money section we want to feature prominently.”
The other half of the page presents tabs that feature the day’s top headlines as well as a news notes that contain postings from USA Today reporters.
Additionally, usatoday.com introduced interactive elements to the top banner, including quotes from readers commenting on a particular story.
“We feel it’s very important to the page; it’s one of the first things you see and it’s an early tip-off that adds to reader involvement,” Sucherman said. “It shows what readers have to say is valued and does matter.”
Reader participation extends throughout the site, with readers encouraged to comment and register their opinions on the popularity of posted articles.
For their part, USA Today’s reporters are also capitalizing on reader access, Sucherman said.
“Six months ago, many of our reporters were wary to opening the doors like this. Who knows what kind of stuff we would get from readers,” he said. “We now have a number of reporters that want to write their own blogs on profile pages about their beat or put out a call to action on specific stories.”
Changing times
USA Today began to lay the groundwork to retool the site last summer, with the primary goal of adding more interactive features.
By fall, almost 50 people were working on the redesign, Sucherman said. “They were a combination IT staff, developers, designers, editorial and business people working side by side on this project from mid-September through the launch in March.”
Although the redesigned site sports a number of features enabling reader participation, Sucherman said usatoday.com is not trying to become another MySpace. Instead, the site offers readers a variety of easy-to-access options to give them a chance to communicate with reporters and other readers.
“We know our readers are time-pressed, busy and they are not going to spend four hours a night pulling YouTube videos onto their page,” Sucherman said. “But we thought that even if a small percentage of our audience actually is active in the (online) community, then it has value to the overwhelming majority of the audience.”
The revamped site is an effort by Gannett to adapt to the dramatic way people are consuming media, Sucherman said.
“You had the 500-year old model of the printing press and one media organization speaking to the masses,” he said. Now, “New media technology gives everyone a chance to become their own publisher.”
Web site Snapshot
www.usatoday.com
Launched April 17, 2005
Last major redesign: March 2007
Owner: Gannett Co. Inc.
Employees dedicated to staff: 120
Editorial*: 75
Number of comments posted
March 2007 – 60,000
April 2007 – 100,000
Web Traffic for USA Today**
Unique Visitors: 10,349,773
Active Reach: 7.18 percent
Web Page Views: 142,012,570
Web Pages Per Visitor: 13.72
Visits Per Visitor:3.96
Time Per Visitor: 00: 15: 56 (hh:mm:ss)
NAA NAdbase report for USA Today
All-Total
Unique Visitors 10,349,773
Page Views 141,128,249
Visitors’ household income:
$25,000-$49,999
Unique Visitors 2,388,819
Page Views 34,228,024
$50,000-$99,999
Unique Visitors 4,221,880
Page Views 52,276,295
$100,000+
Unique Visitors 2,645,835
Page Views 45,795,719
*Editorial employees include Gannett’s merged newsroom imitative in 2005.
**Source: Nielsen/NetRatings NAA NAdbase Combined Home and Work November 2006
Power to the people: WaPo debuts 2008 campaign features
By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor
The most competitive White House race in the past 40 years has sparked The Washington Post to beef up its online political coverage.
“The new features make the site more dynamic,” said Jim Brady, executive editor for washingtonpost.com. “We are using our access to campaigns across the nation to take our readers directly to the scene with in-depth reporting in all forms. It is important we offer readers a unique blend of news and analysis, video, photos, databases and other interactive features as part of our comprehensive political coverage.”
Over the past few months, the newspaper (daily, 699,130; Sunday, 929,921) launched several new features on its site, including blogs, podcasts and video content from the campaign trail.
Custom database
But it’s the paper’s custom-built online database projects that will offer users the most intriguing features, Brady said.
The Washington Post debuted Campaign Tracker, a feature that lets users monitor the travels and appearances of their favorite presidential candidates. The Tracker is one of many new services washingtonpost.com is making available to its readers.
Case in point: Campaign Tracker, an online tool that lets users pinpoint where candidates will appear every day. The site also includes campaign finance data as well as the candidates’ congressional voting records dating back to 1991.
The newspaper collected the data by breaking down the number of visits each candidate made to a particular state or how much in campaign funds they have raised.
“We try to provide as much information as we can so people can get a sense of where the candidates are focusing their energies,” Brady said. “It’s a combination of blogs, database information and online video news shows.”
Washingtonpost.com’s daily political podcast is a compilation of political news from The Post as well as other sources nationwide.
Many products, many audiences
“We are trying to put as many products out there that touch many different mediums — text, video and audio — and trying to put it on as many devices as we can,” Brady said.
Meantime, washingtonpost.com last month partnered with video weblog company PrezVid.com to provide the site with YouTube campaign videos and other multimedia content.
Video production
The paper also plans to produce its own videos, Brady said.
“One of the first initiatives we’ll be making with washingtonpost.com is to invite voters to ask questions and invite candidates to answer,” Brady said. “We are also making our own Internet shows criticizing the candidates’ and voters’ videos and interviewing the players in this new world.”
The video shows includes “PostTalk,” a bi-weekly program featuring interviews with presidential candidates, congressional leaders and White House officials.
On alternate weeks, washingtonpost.com offers a webcast of a roundtable discussion about the latest developments on the campaign trail, at the White House and on Capitol Hill.
Remodeled studio
The shows are produced at a remodeled studio in Arlington, Va., said Chet Rhodes, washingtonpost.com’s assistant managing editor for multimedia.
The studio, equipped with robotic cameras, sports a new backdrop specifically designed for the 2008 campaign.
“Two people can run the whole studio, so what we do is train our existing producers, depending on what section is doing a show in there,” Rhodes said.
The studio, built in 2000, produces two scheduled shows a week for the Web site and also handles a number of other projects.
Associate Editor
The most competitive White House race in the past 40 years has sparked The Washington Post to beef up its online political coverage.
“The new features make the site more dynamic,” said Jim Brady, executive editor for washingtonpost.com. “We are using our access to campaigns across the nation to take our readers directly to the scene with in-depth reporting in all forms. It is important we offer readers a unique blend of news and analysis, video, photos, databases and other interactive features as part of our comprehensive political coverage.”
Over the past few months, the newspaper (daily, 699,130; Sunday, 929,921) launched several new features on its site, including blogs, podcasts and video content from the campaign trail.
Custom database
But it’s the paper’s custom-built online database projects that will offer users the most intriguing features, Brady said.
The Washington Post debuted Campaign Tracker, a feature that lets users monitor the travels and appearances of their favorite presidential candidates. The Tracker is one of many new services washingtonpost.com is making available to its readers.
Case in point: Campaign Tracker, an online tool that lets users pinpoint where candidates will appear every day. The site also includes campaign finance data as well as the candidates’ congressional voting records dating back to 1991.
The newspaper collected the data by breaking down the number of visits each candidate made to a particular state or how much in campaign funds they have raised.
“We try to provide as much information as we can so people can get a sense of where the candidates are focusing their energies,” Brady said. “It’s a combination of blogs, database information and online video news shows.”
Washingtonpost.com’s daily political podcast is a compilation of political news from The Post as well as other sources nationwide.
Many products, many audiences
“We are trying to put as many products out there that touch many different mediums — text, video and audio — and trying to put it on as many devices as we can,” Brady said.
Meantime, washingtonpost.com last month partnered with video weblog company PrezVid.com to provide the site with YouTube campaign videos and other multimedia content.
Video production
The paper also plans to produce its own videos, Brady said.
“One of the first initiatives we’ll be making with washingtonpost.com is to invite voters to ask questions and invite candidates to answer,” Brady said. “We are also making our own Internet shows criticizing the candidates’ and voters’ videos and interviewing the players in this new world.”
The video shows includes “PostTalk,” a bi-weekly program featuring interviews with presidential candidates, congressional leaders and White House officials.
On alternate weeks, washingtonpost.com offers a webcast of a roundtable discussion about the latest developments on the campaign trail, at the White House and on Capitol Hill.
Remodeled studio
The shows are produced at a remodeled studio in Arlington, Va., said Chet Rhodes, washingtonpost.com’s assistant managing editor for multimedia.
The studio, equipped with robotic cameras, sports a new backdrop specifically designed for the 2008 campaign.
“Two people can run the whole studio, so what we do is train our existing producers, depending on what section is doing a show in there,” Rhodes said.
The studio, built in 2000, produces two scheduled shows a week for the Web site and also handles a number of other projects.
Union-Tribune goes wacky for wiki
By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor
The San Diego Union-Tribune has gone wiki.
The paper’s first wiki, AmplifySD, went live last month and is aimed at the city’s music scene. Visitors can post articles, images, video and MP3 clips of their favorite bands, said Chris Jennewein, vice president of Internet operations at Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
If successful, the paper hopes AmplifySD will breathe new life into the grassroots approach first attempted by the Los Angeles Times’ ill-fated Wikitorial experiment in 2005. The Times’ Wikitorial let users post and edit opinion stories, but the paper had to shelve it after only three days after the site was flooded with inappropriate material.
Jennewein said The Union-Tribune hopes to avoid the Times’ pitfalls by using monitoring and management tools offered by MindTouch Inc., whose Nexus software is anchoring AmplifySD.
The San Diego Union-Tribune’s AmplifySD Web site is an effort to breathe
new life into the wiki approach.
Nexus is a hosted app that integrates with the paper’s SignOnSanDiego.com Web site and publishing software and lets editors manage how user-generated content is blended with existing editorial and syndicated information.
Contributors can post text, images, video, MP3 clips and link related stories or pictures — all of them indexed, searchable and taggable.
“We had two editors on our staff plus a local music expert doing the initial population of the site and then we opened it up to the fans,” Jennewein said, explaining how the site was developed.
Second part
The second phase of the project includes integrating wiki modules onto SignOnSanDiego.com’s community sites covering North County and East County. That’s expected to happen within the next few months, Jennewein said, adding that he has high hopes for the wikis.
“The wiki steps beyond simple comments and forums and becomes a place where the community creates an organized and comprehensive guide to what’s important,” Jennewein said. “As editors we can guess, but with the wiki technology we’ll know what the community is truly interested in.”
The newspaper plans to launch two more community sites by the end of the year.
Jennewein said that the newspaper isn’t sure what it’ll find out through the wikis, but he said he believes the software will enable users to access powerful tools that will help editors set the agenda for coverage.
“The wikis will be mainly text,” he said. “For example, in East County we may find that recreational activities are very important or people may write about the best places to fish, hike or run.
“We may find that local government becomes very important or that traffic is a hot-button issue.”
Users can view the community sites without restrictions but must register to contribute content.
Managing responses
Jennewein said he’s optimistic that SignOnSanDiego.com’s wikis will avoid the torrent of pornography and foul language that spelled the end of the Times’ Wikitorial feature.
“Looking at this over a number of years, you occasionally get bad entries but the percentage is very low,” he said. “We’re talking about under 1 percent.”
Jennewein said The Union-Tribune does not plan to use the wiki material to generate reverse printed community-oriented publications similar to YourHub.com or TribLocal (see Newspapers & Technology, May 2007), but he didn’t rule out the option of using the community material in the daily paper.
Jennewein wouldn’t disclose how much The Union-Tribune is spending to support the wikis. The paper pays for hosting, initial customization and integration, but MindTouch itself is compensated through a pay-for-performance model, according to Ken Liu, the vendor’s chief executive officer.
“The payout for us is the page views, and at this point we negotiated very good terms with The Union-Tribune,” Liu said. “As they generate page views, they monetize that and we get a certain percentage.”
Associate Editor
The San Diego Union-Tribune has gone wiki.
The paper’s first wiki, AmplifySD, went live last month and is aimed at the city’s music scene. Visitors can post articles, images, video and MP3 clips of their favorite bands, said Chris Jennewein, vice president of Internet operations at Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
If successful, the paper hopes AmplifySD will breathe new life into the grassroots approach first attempted by the Los Angeles Times’ ill-fated Wikitorial experiment in 2005. The Times’ Wikitorial let users post and edit opinion stories, but the paper had to shelve it after only three days after the site was flooded with inappropriate material.
Jennewein said The Union-Tribune hopes to avoid the Times’ pitfalls by using monitoring and management tools offered by MindTouch Inc., whose Nexus software is anchoring AmplifySD.
The San Diego Union-Tribune’s AmplifySD Web site is an effort to breathe
new life into the wiki approach.
Nexus is a hosted app that integrates with the paper’s SignOnSanDiego.com Web site and publishing software and lets editors manage how user-generated content is blended with existing editorial and syndicated information.
Contributors can post text, images, video, MP3 clips and link related stories or pictures — all of them indexed, searchable and taggable.
“We had two editors on our staff plus a local music expert doing the initial population of the site and then we opened it up to the fans,” Jennewein said, explaining how the site was developed.
Second part
The second phase of the project includes integrating wiki modules onto SignOnSanDiego.com’s community sites covering North County and East County. That’s expected to happen within the next few months, Jennewein said, adding that he has high hopes for the wikis.
“The wiki steps beyond simple comments and forums and becomes a place where the community creates an organized and comprehensive guide to what’s important,” Jennewein said. “As editors we can guess, but with the wiki technology we’ll know what the community is truly interested in.”
The newspaper plans to launch two more community sites by the end of the year.
Jennewein said that the newspaper isn’t sure what it’ll find out through the wikis, but he said he believes the software will enable users to access powerful tools that will help editors set the agenda for coverage.
“The wikis will be mainly text,” he said. “For example, in East County we may find that recreational activities are very important or people may write about the best places to fish, hike or run.
“We may find that local government becomes very important or that traffic is a hot-button issue.”
Users can view the community sites without restrictions but must register to contribute content.
Managing responses
Jennewein said he’s optimistic that SignOnSanDiego.com’s wikis will avoid the torrent of pornography and foul language that spelled the end of the Times’ Wikitorial feature.
“Looking at this over a number of years, you occasionally get bad entries but the percentage is very low,” he said. “We’re talking about under 1 percent.”
Jennewein said The Union-Tribune does not plan to use the wiki material to generate reverse printed community-oriented publications similar to YourHub.com or TribLocal (see Newspapers & Technology, May 2007), but he didn’t rule out the option of using the community material in the daily paper.
Jennewein wouldn’t disclose how much The Union-Tribune is spending to support the wikis. The paper pays for hosting, initial customization and integration, but MindTouch itself is compensated through a pay-for-performance model, according to Ken Liu, the vendor’s chief executive officer.
“The payout for us is the page views, and at this point we negotiated very good terms with The Union-Tribune,” Liu said. “As they generate page views, they monetize that and we get a certain percentage.”
NAA: Newspaper sites’ audience continues expansion
New data released at the Newspaper Association of America’s annual convention in New York shows that the audience for newspaper Web sites is growing at nearly twice the rate of the overall online audience.
A Nielsen//NetRatings NetView custom analysis reported an average of more than 59 million people visited newspaper Web sites each month during the first quarter, a record number that represents a 5.3 percent increase over the same period a year ago.
During the same time period, the overall Internet audience grew 2.7 percent.
“Newspaper publishers have aggressively transformed their business models, continually providing groundbreaking content to consumers with their expanding digital portfolios,” said NAA President and Chief Executive Officer John F. Sturm.
The study finds that 11.9 percent of newspaper site visitors have an annual household income in excess of $150,000, compared with less than one in 10 of the overall Internet audience.
Other findings include:
•A little more than 88 percent of newspaper Web site visitors made a purchase online in the last six months compared with 78.9 percent of the overall Internet audience.
•Forty-one percent of newspapers’ Web site visitors are employed in professional or managerial occupations compared with 32.7 percent of the overall Internet population.
A Nielsen//NetRatings NetView custom analysis reported an average of more than 59 million people visited newspaper Web sites each month during the first quarter, a record number that represents a 5.3 percent increase over the same period a year ago.
During the same time period, the overall Internet audience grew 2.7 percent.
“Newspaper publishers have aggressively transformed their business models, continually providing groundbreaking content to consumers with their expanding digital portfolios,” said NAA President and Chief Executive Officer John F. Sturm.
The study finds that 11.9 percent of newspaper site visitors have an annual household income in excess of $150,000, compared with less than one in 10 of the overall Internet audience.
Other findings include:
•A little more than 88 percent of newspaper Web site visitors made a purchase online in the last six months compared with 78.9 percent of the overall Internet audience.
•Forty-one percent of newspapers’ Web site visitors are employed in professional or managerial occupations compared with 32.7 percent of the overall Internet population.
K.C. Star taps Olive for e-edition
The Kansas City (Mo.) Star formally launched its E-Star electronic edition following a short trial.
The edition is powered by Olive Software Inc.’s ActivePaper Daily app.
“The reason that we went with Olive is because the app is much more intuitive, it is much easier to navigate and find your way through the architecture of the printed product,” said Joe Coleman, The Star’s product development director of circulations.
The paper first introduced an e-edition three years ago, using software from another vendor that was part of a corporate-wide initiative by Knight Ridder, The Star’s former owner.
E-Star now boasts more than 1,700 subscribers, Coleman said, up significantly from the 170 reported last year.
“We retained 95 percent of its customers who were on the (older) product when the paper converted over to the Olive platform in April,” he said.
As part of the official launch, The Star is offered free two-week subscriptions to users at www.kansascity.com.
The edition is powered by Olive Software Inc.’s ActivePaper Daily app.
“The reason that we went with Olive is because the app is much more intuitive, it is much easier to navigate and find your way through the architecture of the printed product,” said Joe Coleman, The Star’s product development director of circulations.
The paper first introduced an e-edition three years ago, using software from another vendor that was part of a corporate-wide initiative by Knight Ridder, The Star’s former owner.
E-Star now boasts more than 1,700 subscribers, Coleman said, up significantly from the 170 reported last year.
“We retained 95 percent of its customers who were on the (older) product when the paper converted over to the Olive platform in April,” he said.
As part of the official launch, The Star is offered free two-week subscriptions to users at www.kansascity.com.
Internet giants becoming more visible on newspaper sites
Several Internet giants are making moves to woo advertisers and newspapers to their respective camps.
Google, for example, last month purchased DoubleClick Inc. for $3.1 billion, adding the ad services firm to its portfolio of services.
“The combined company will offer more tools for publishers, enhance productivity and provide additional revenue potential while letting them focus more on creating and maintaining Web sites that appeal to users,” said Google spokesman Aaron Zamost. “Upon closing, DoubleClick publishers will then have access to our large base of advertisers.”
Google launched its PrintAd service, linking potential advertisers with newspapers with space to sell, last year (see Newspapers & Technology, December 2006.)
The search engine is also showcasing newspapers through its Google News product while AdSense allows publishers to make money from their Web sites by delivering relevant ads to their readers.
Meantime, Microsoft Corp. purchased a minority equity stake in CareerBuilder.com, the online job site owned by Gannett Co. Inc., Tribune Co. and the McClatchy Co.
The investment, reportedly a 4 percent share, also calls for the firms to extend their existing relationship and increase CareerBuilder’s presence internationally.
Microsoft and CareerBuilder first began working together in 2004, when the job site became the exclusive job listings service for MSN Careers. The companies said they will now work together through 2013, with CareerBuilder paying MSN up to $443 million over seven years to continue its exclusive arrangement.
“Microsoft’s equity stake builds on this successful relationship and establishes a global alliance with one of the world’s most ubiquitous technology powerhouses,” said Matt Ferguson, chief executive officer of CareerBuilder.
The alliance between the two will expand CareerBuilder globally, where MSN will integrate the job search engine’s services across international sites, primarily in Europe. The first sites will launch later this year.
Google, for example, last month purchased DoubleClick Inc. for $3.1 billion, adding the ad services firm to its portfolio of services.
“The combined company will offer more tools for publishers, enhance productivity and provide additional revenue potential while letting them focus more on creating and maintaining Web sites that appeal to users,” said Google spokesman Aaron Zamost. “Upon closing, DoubleClick publishers will then have access to our large base of advertisers.”
Google launched its PrintAd service, linking potential advertisers with newspapers with space to sell, last year (see Newspapers & Technology, December 2006.)
The search engine is also showcasing newspapers through its Google News product while AdSense allows publishers to make money from their Web sites by delivering relevant ads to their readers.
Meantime, Microsoft Corp. purchased a minority equity stake in CareerBuilder.com, the online job site owned by Gannett Co. Inc., Tribune Co. and the McClatchy Co.
The investment, reportedly a 4 percent share, also calls for the firms to extend their existing relationship and increase CareerBuilder’s presence internationally.
Microsoft and CareerBuilder first began working together in 2004, when the job site became the exclusive job listings service for MSN Careers. The companies said they will now work together through 2013, with CareerBuilder paying MSN up to $443 million over seven years to continue its exclusive arrangement.
“Microsoft’s equity stake builds on this successful relationship and establishes a global alliance with one of the world’s most ubiquitous technology powerhouses,” said Matt Ferguson, chief executive officer of CareerBuilder.
The alliance between the two will expand CareerBuilder globally, where MSN will integrate the job search engine’s services across international sites, primarily in Europe. The first sites will launch later this year.
Publishers tap Indigio to retool Web sites
The St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press launched a redesigned Web site using software from Indigio Group. The new site went live March 20 and is the fourth MediaNews Group-operated newspaper Denver-based Indigio redesigned.
New features
Features in the site include links to discussion boards, a tabbed rollover approach and cascading style so that readers can quickly browse sections that appeal to their individual interests, Indigio said.
Meantime, the Contra Costa (Calif.) Times in Walnut Creek and the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News launched redesigned sites with Indigio. Both newspapers’ sites now include redesigned tabs that allow readers to browse different news articles and classified sections by category.
New features
Features in the site include links to discussion boards, a tabbed rollover approach and cascading style so that readers can quickly browse sections that appeal to their individual interests, Indigio said.
Meantime, the Contra Costa (Calif.) Times in Walnut Creek and the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News launched redesigned sites with Indigio. Both newspapers’ sites now include redesigned tabs that allow readers to browse different news articles and classified sections by category.
Dallas Morning News Rolls out civic site
The Dallas Morning News last month rolled out civic journalism site neighborsgo.com, becoming the latest paper to embrace community journalism.
The site, covering 55 communities in the Dallas area, is powered by software developed by Small World Labs, an Austin, Texas, company.
The Web site is designed to mimic MySpace. Users can choose to navigate through different communities and connect with others through blogs, forums and other options.
Users can share and broadcast stories and photos pertaining to their neighborhoods and interests.
The Morning News reported that in the first two weeks of operation, the site attracted some 1,200 registered users.
A printed edition appearing every Saturday in The Morning News will complement neighborsgo.
Wikis and blogs
The online world includes a number of ways for users to get the word out and newspapers have begun to adapt and offer several features on their sites to get their readers involved.
Software companies like MindTouch Inc. are popularizing the wiki-module approach on the World Wide Web. The San Diego-based company offers a number of different wiki-development services.
MindTouch Chief Executive Officer Ken Liu said there is a difference between blogs, forums and wikis.
“The big difference is that blogs are for anybody to come in and express something that is time- or event-based, a quick impression, like the Virginia Tech shootings,” he said. “A wiki is much more in-depth, you are producing an article and depending on how passionate you are, you can provide encyclopedic knowledge on the subject you ware writing.”
A wiki is also a collaborative effort among different users providing content on a particular subject, or in The San Diego Union-Tribune’s case, the San Diego music scene. A blog, on the other hand, is written and posted online by a single user stirring the pot on a particular topic.
“When someone posts a blog they can just rant anonymously,” Liu said. “But when somebody goes to a wiki, then their mindset is more in-depth and they can write more deeply about the subject matter.”
The site, covering 55 communities in the Dallas area, is powered by software developed by Small World Labs, an Austin, Texas, company.
The Web site is designed to mimic MySpace. Users can choose to navigate through different communities and connect with others through blogs, forums and other options.
Users can share and broadcast stories and photos pertaining to their neighborhoods and interests.
The Morning News reported that in the first two weeks of operation, the site attracted some 1,200 registered users.
A printed edition appearing every Saturday in The Morning News will complement neighborsgo.
Wikis and blogs
The online world includes a number of ways for users to get the word out and newspapers have begun to adapt and offer several features on their sites to get their readers involved.
Software companies like MindTouch Inc. are popularizing the wiki-module approach on the World Wide Web. The San Diego-based company offers a number of different wiki-development services.
MindTouch Chief Executive Officer Ken Liu said there is a difference between blogs, forums and wikis.
“The big difference is that blogs are for anybody to come in and express something that is time- or event-based, a quick impression, like the Virginia Tech shootings,” he said. “A wiki is much more in-depth, you are producing an article and depending on how passionate you are, you can provide encyclopedic knowledge on the subject you ware writing.”
A wiki is also a collaborative effort among different users providing content on a particular subject, or in The San Diego Union-Tribune’s case, the San Diego music scene. A blog, on the other hand, is written and posted online by a single user stirring the pot on a particular topic.
“When someone posts a blog they can just rant anonymously,” Liu said. “But when somebody goes to a wiki, then their mindset is more in-depth and they can write more deeply about the subject matter.”
Hearst adds video to sites
Hearst Newspapers is rolling out ad-supported Internet video channels using software from Brightcove.
The San Francisco Chronicle and Houston Chronicle will be the first two papers to launch the service later this year, Hearst said.
Vlogs
“We are excited to roll out Internet video channels and vlogs,” said Lincoln Millstein, senior vice president and director of digital media for Hearst Newspapers. “The video will enhance offline content and will also build an entire experience and community around this new content.”
Channels
With Brightcove, Hearst will be able to create ad-supported video channels on the newspapers’ Web sites, through affiliates across the Web and on Brightcove.com. Newspapers will also be able to solicit and post video from readers.
The San Francisco Chronicle and Houston Chronicle will be the first two papers to launch the service later this year, Hearst said.
Vlogs
“We are excited to roll out Internet video channels and vlogs,” said Lincoln Millstein, senior vice president and director of digital media for Hearst Newspapers. “The video will enhance offline content and will also build an entire experience and community around this new content.”
Channels
With Brightcove, Hearst will be able to create ad-supported video channels on the newspapers’ Web sites, through affiliates across the Web and on Brightcove.com. Newspapers will also be able to solicit and post video from readers.
Four questions with Craig Newmark
If you’re looking for detailed responses to questions, you won’t necessarily find them from Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. But his distilled replies reflect more than meets the eye. Newmark, whose business card reads customer service representative and founder of Craigslist, launched what would become the online classified site more than 10 years ago while working for Charles Schwab. Today, Craigslist is available in more than 450 cities and typifies how the Web has transformed publishing.
If Craigslist is not a huge threat to the newspaper industry, what would you consider a larger threat to the industry?
Newmark: Pressure from investors to get large profit margins. Loss of trust due to not enough of the “speak truth to power” community-service mission. Attacks on freedom of the press by the powerful, including successful and routine disinformation attacks.
What steps should newspapers have taken to avoid the losses in classified ad revenues they have suffered, and is it too late for them to recoup some of those losses?
Newmark: I don’t know how to avoid losses in that area, but the study cited in the May 2007 Atlantic (magazine) discusses how to improve profits by increasing quality journalism. (I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, and so I defer to people who really know this stuff.)
Editor’s note: The Atlantic story Newmark refers to is entitled “Pink Slips and Red Ink” and covers a study published in the Journal of Marketing that contends that the more money a publisher invests in its newsroom, the better its business prospects. For more information about the study, go to www.marketingpower.com/content707950.php.
You maintain that newspapers should allocate more funds into investigative journalism. At the same time, many large newspapers are cutting their newsrooms and allocating more resources to civic journalism sites. How can newspapers profitably do both?
Newmark: I don’t understand the contradiction.
How can newspapers make money from their Web sites? Did the industry make a fundamental mistake by commoditizing their value by posting their news online for free?
Newmark: No one’s solved that, beyond considering the usual models, including sponsorship, ads, subscription, etc. I feel the mission of newspapers, as a community service, is to inform people, so I feel that (newspapers) are doing the right thing.
If Craigslist is not a huge threat to the newspaper industry, what would you consider a larger threat to the industry?
Newmark: Pressure from investors to get large profit margins. Loss of trust due to not enough of the “speak truth to power” community-service mission. Attacks on freedom of the press by the powerful, including successful and routine disinformation attacks.
What steps should newspapers have taken to avoid the losses in classified ad revenues they have suffered, and is it too late for them to recoup some of those losses?
Newmark: I don’t know how to avoid losses in that area, but the study cited in the May 2007 Atlantic (magazine) discusses how to improve profits by increasing quality journalism. (I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, and so I defer to people who really know this stuff.)
Editor’s note: The Atlantic story Newmark refers to is entitled “Pink Slips and Red Ink” and covers a study published in the Journal of Marketing that contends that the more money a publisher invests in its newsroom, the better its business prospects. For more information about the study, go to www.marketingpower.com/content707950.php.
You maintain that newspapers should allocate more funds into investigative journalism. At the same time, many large newspapers are cutting their newsrooms and allocating more resources to civic journalism sites. How can newspapers profitably do both?
Newmark: I don’t understand the contradiction.
How can newspapers make money from their Web sites? Did the industry make a fundamental mistake by commoditizing their value by posting their news online for free?
Newmark: No one’s solved that, beyond considering the usual models, including sponsorship, ads, subscription, etc. I feel the mission of newspapers, as a community service, is to inform people, so I feel that (newspapers) are doing the right thing.
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