A Topic Near and Dear to QuickFacts.com
. . . A line in the sand?
A throw down the gauntlet moment?
You be the Consumer. You will be the Decider.

How to Save Your Newspaper     This is a great article from Time Magazine on critical challenges in the newspaper publishing business.  It links directly to the challenges of free online delivery of news and information. 

COMMENT:  QuickFacts.com respectfully disagrees with portions of the arguments in "How to Save Your Newspaper."  We believe news aggregation is and will continue to develop an increasingly important channel driving traffic to quality content providers including newspapers, magazines and other media outlets.  New aggregation works by establishing a community of common interest and focusing those so interested to an array of intelligently selected relevant content from diverse online media.

Fair Use law protects the copyright holder by preventing a third party from the publishing of full content articles without proper payment or release.  We are legally limited under current interpretations of Fair Use to use only the headline and a short blurb.  In QuickFacts.com's case, that blurb is limited to a brief excerpt of the published content. To get the story, readers must externally link to the article as presented by the original publisher wherein they may read the article and have the opportunity to be presented with advertising messages which often are contextually relevant to the article and readers interests in terms of information and offers.

The writer in the Time article describes a three part revenue model of advertising,subscriptions, and newstand sales.  We challenge newspapers to stay review carefully their revenue model to update it to the currently evolving marketplace instead of just whining about unfairness.

Advertising
Perhaps publishers should focus on enhancing or even innovating the quality, appeal and integration of their advertising presentations.  The internet is a constantly evolving format as user experience requirements demand publisher innovation.  We noticed recently on Hulu.com, a new video provider backed by NBC, they have placed full 30 second commercials at the top of their "free" video offerings - that's great but "internet time" doesn't allow for the 30 seconds.  People won't wait 10 seconds for a page to load, much less 30 seconds for a commercial. Because they are thinking like TV execs, they see 30 second commercials as the norm.  They need to start thinking in the mindset of the format they are using to deliver content.

Advertising that works allows for advertising rates to increase.

Subscriptions
We applaud the Wall Street Journal's approach to paid subscriptions. By allowing users somewhat limited access to certain stories they are creating demand. People that value the deeper content should and will pay. We only hope there is an acceleration in creating a more efficient means of payment protocol. 

As news aggregators, we are pleased to drive content to the WSJ knowing that on some stories the viewer may only get a portion of the story without a subscription. Let their content sell itself.  We are glad to facilitate the introduction.

Often readers will bookmark directly providers of content they have been introduced to by news aggregators.

As far as subscriptions to traditional print media, we see encouraging signs as the New York Times and Los Angeles Times both recognize that people no longer have the time to read a daily each day and they are now offering innovative subscription offers for "Weekender" and other partial week offers.  This is a smart reflection of how people are changing how they choose to allocate their time.  Magazine format changes will continue to evolve cognizant of the public's ongoing demands that in selecting how they spend their time noting in general that efficiency is a paramount value.

Newstand Sales
We're not sure the financial realities of Newstand sales but looking at the resource intensive processes required to support newstand sales in bundles of 10 or 20 copies we wonder how this aspect has ever been significantly profitable.

When you are a hammer, there are alot of things that look like nails.  We think that newspapers ought to put the hammer down, refocus their energy and value judgements and actually start thinking about truly new and innovative channels to develop revenue. Continuing to jury rig their old physical print model has not and will not work online. 

Journalists shouldn't be consumed with worrying that their principles are compromised by a heavily ad-weighted revenue model.  There will be plenty of advertisers willing to step up to the plate if the product delivers an audience..

We hope they start thinking outside of the box soon because professional journalists are too important in the success of a democratic society.  We saw a story about how Rupert Murdoch "had great faith in the newspaper industry"   We look forward to a symbiotic evolution.

07/09