Newspapers - in a Funny Old World

Turning Content Into Cash

I have just returned from Hyderabad, India, where I attended the WAN-Ifra World Congress and Editor's Forum .

Mark Hollands from the Pacific Area News Media Publishers Association in Australia made me smile when he shared a text message that he had received during the event; it read: "It's a funny old world when the "Ah Ha!" moment of a conference is when someone suggests that they should charge - yes money - for their product."

The value of online content was a recurring theme.

The move toward paid content online has started for real. Rupert …

The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Tweeting

Tweets - Facr or Opinion?

Tweets are good. They can amuse, inform, and even improve social lives. But we should not always assume that what we read in a Tweet - or anywhere else for that matter - is fact. Many Tweets are opinions only. We all have opinions. That's what makes discussion and debate interesting. Columnists have opinions too - and so do newspaper proprietors.

News journalists however are meant to state only the facts. There is no such restriction for Tweeters.

Some have described Social media or ‘user generated content' as being less biased - even more truthful …

Le Tour de France

A huge marketing extravaganza

In my last posting I reported that I had heard at a WAN conference that those newspapers reporting increases in circulation were focused on high quality content - and marketing.

Yesterday the Tour de France travelled through the village in which I am fortunate enough to live - on the stage from Le Cap D'Agde to Perpignan. The riders are preceded by ‘le caravane' - a flotilla of sponsor vehicles that ‘entertain' the crowd gathered along the route. I realized that they were all from B2C companies, providing such essentials as washing powder, telecommunications, food and …

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them.
Shakespeare: Hamlet, Act 111, Scene 1

Outrageous fortune, a sea of troubles - or a golden opportunity? The Internet means different things to different people and media organizations. It is clear that we won't end it by opposing it.

It was also clear however from listening to several of the speakers at the recent World Association of Newspapers advertising conference in …

Content is King in the South of France

Although I buy the local paper, as a Brit living in France I enjoy reading English language, preferably British, newspapers. My French still isn't nearly as good as it needs to be, but thankfully I can buy 'newspapers from home' a short walk from my house, even though the village in which I live has only three thousand inhabitants of which less than two percent are English speakers. How's that for customer service!

The community also has the benefit of fibre-optic high-speed Internet access linking its residents to the rest of the world. News is available online 24/7, in any …

Why did I visit that new car showroom?

Advertising - the food sustaining news media. Or is it?

Despite the recession, according to Forrester Research , online advertising is growing , yet I constantly hear that newspapers - and I guess the same goes for magazines - are financially struggling because they are losing the battle for advertising with (lower-cost) targeted online publications.

'Struggling' does not necessarily mean 'not making profits' - many businesses might be very content with the margins still being made by many news media organizations.

Chicken Not Egg

Newspapers are losing print advertisers because they are losing circulation (and also because advertisers these days …

While Asia newspaper readership grows, with it grows journalistic responsibility.

Many of today's business leaders, not only in the media, are experiencing a frightening loss of control. Seemingly stable businesses collapse while recently unknown companies challenge entire industries.

Printed newspapers have lost the majority of classified advertising to ‘upstart' online classified sites - much as free newspapers ‘stole' classified ads under the noses of their more expensive paid-for rivals, before building the significant circulations that enabled them to successfully compete for display ads. Traditional paid-for newspapers then acquired their free competitors - just as today they are acquiring, as well as launching their own Web sites. It reminds me of …