U.S. newspaper vendors beginning to say, ‘Hello mobile’

By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor


New developments in the mobile phone world are giving newspapers additional options to provide customized news services and marketing programs to woo readers and advertisers alike.

To that end, several newspaper vendors are pitching text-messaging services and developing news channels to readers.

Saxotech Inc. last month formed a partnership with mobile marketing company NetInformer LLC to allow text messaging and interactive wireless communications to be added to Saxotech’s Web content management and presentation platform.

Applications for the blended software include customized text messaging of breaking news briefs, sports and community alerts, mobile coupon services and other features newspapers can offer to readers.

Saxotech said that several U.S. newspapers are beta testing the new features.

Newspapers deploying the software will have access to more than 225 million wireless subscribers in the United States, said Paul Harris, Saxotech’s vice president of corporate communications and marketing.

Content will flow from newsrooms to wireless channels designed by NetInformer.

Tools for journalists

“We are putting the tools in the hands of the journalist so that they handle their stories only one time,” he said of the software’s benefits to newspapers.

“You may have a different length and headline for a story you that would want to use in print and you may have a different headline or the story might be a bit longer for the Web.”

The text-messaging feature, meantime, will give newspapers wide flexibility in how they handle advertisers’ marketing messages, said Saxotech Product Manager Mark Regan.

“Imagine if you receive a text message for a free Starbucks coffee, you can click on the ad and it’ll send you a numeric code you can show to the cashier to redeem,” he said. “That creates quite a personalized relationship.”

Equally as important, newspapers will also be able to customize news alerts to a near one-on-one level for their readers.

“A newspaper can create a special channel that delivers specialized news like the high school football game score,” Regan said. “That is a huge relationship that you’ve built because now they have in-depth coverage of a micro-niche that no one else can serve on any grand scale but newspapers can, because they have the information and publish it to a specific channel, with no additional cost to them.”

Booming mobile market

Regan said the partnership with San Ramon, Calif.-based NetInformer comes as mobile device usage in the United States accelerates.

“We’re predicting that 2008 is going to be a breakthrough year for newspapers in particular to deliver content to mobile devices,” he said.

According to findings from M:Metrics’ latest benchmark survey, more than 81 million Americans sent text messages in February, up 3.7 percent from the year-ago period.

That said, the U.S. market has a long way to go before catching up to European mobile subscribers, of whom more than 80 percent text-message on a regular basis.

Meantime, sleek new products like the Apple’s iPhone are broadening the concept of news on the go for a younger generation accustomed to mobile phone technology.

“The iPhone will become a catalyst for the whole mobile information revolution that’s going to happen over the next 12 to 18 months,” Harris said. “In order for a newspaper to be in touch with that next generation of readers and consumers, they are going to have to be in the text-messaging game.”

USA Today offers text-messaging service

USA Today last month rolled out a text-messaging service to provide real-time news and information to users through their mobile phones.

The national paper partnered with Palo Alto, Calif.-based 4Info Inc. to offer the service to its readers.

Users can sign up to receive free text alerts on specific subjects ranging from sports and business to movies and travel, the paper said.

USA Today previously worked with 4Info to provide mobile news and advertising programs. In one promotion during this year’s NCAA basketball tournament, more than 750,000 text messages were sent to USA Today readers.