NAA Digital Edge Blog

Welcome to the Digital Edge Blog! The Digital Edge Blog focuses on developments, trends, best practices and more in newspaper digital media. The blog launched in 2006 (archives before August 2008 are here). We look forward to reading your comments and contributions to the Digital Edge Blog. Questions? E-mail Beth Lawton at beth.lawton@naa.org.

June 2009 - Posts

• Personalized News Reaches a Turning Point

  In a year, the media world has gone from no large-scale, truly-personalized, printed news products to five. MediaNews Group's I-News, The Washington Time's personalized news weekly (the pilot project ended recently), Printcasting and others seem to indicate that personalized news has reached a turning point. All of the programs rely on highly complex RSS to choose-your-medium technology.  (By the way, who would have thought that RSS would power things so complex?!) Printcasting At yesterday's Individuated News Conference at The Washington Times complex in D.C., Printcasting founder Dan Pacheco said his venture is partnering with MediaNews Group and is now available in five cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver and Boulder, Colo., and its original site in Bakersfield, Calif. MediaNews Group owns newspapers in 11 states. How newspapers can benefit: By making select content available to individuals who want to publish small newsletters, newspapers could take a share of whatever revenue comes in through the upcoming self-serve paid advertising service in the program. In addition, it offers a way for small businesses with limited ad budgets to get into print advertising. Pacheco noted that in Bakersfield, 65 percent of the local businesses have ad budgets below $10,000 per year, but less than 40 percent of print advertisers in the newspaper were from companies that had ad budgets of this size. Washington Times' I-Newsweekly The Washington Times presented at yesterday's conference about its weekly edition, currently mailed to more than 50,000 subscribers across the country. Sixty people - not all of whom were regular newsweekly subscribers - participated in the individuated news pilot project. The final product looked exactly like the newspaper's regular newsweekly - a large, newsprint tab. People in the pilot project could choose their topic areas of interest, and their newsweekly arrived with dozens of half-page (or longer) articles designed to meet their needs. This was the first time a project on this scale had incorporated half-page modules rather than full-page or full-section ones. People in the pilot project said they liked it and indicated that being able to choose their own content and interests was very important to them. Seventy percent said they would subscribe to the publication (though fewer said they were willing to pay more than the normal price for it). MediaNews Group's Peter Vandeventer suggested this type of personalization could be used to personalize e-editions of newspapers, rather than print/deliver personalized, full-size publications. That way, people can have their own e-edition with stock tables, personalized sports content and other content (blogs, maybe?) that isn't normally printed in the standard-run newspaper. I-News Vandeventer also showed a short infomercial for MediaNews Group's I-News program, which allows people to choose their news and their way of receiving it: Either through e-mail, through their mobile phone or through a home-printed multi-page newspaper. (MediaNews has already started giving wireless printers to some home users to test the program.) Earlier this year, MediaNews Group tested a print program with guests staying at a Marriot Residence Inn in Denver. You can read more about these projects through Newspapers & Technology's coverage of the conference.  Also check out these stories: MediaNews to Begin Customized Printing in Denver Homes (Poynter)  MediaNews to Test Individuated News at L.A. Daily News (Poynter) IndividuatedNews.com Printcasting.com Posted Jun 26 2009, 01:14 PM by Beth Lawton with no comments Filed under: Industry Conferences, print, paid content

• Mobile Sales Advice from the Experts

  NAA this month hosted a series of Webinars on mobile revenue opportunities for newspapers. The following is a round-up of the best pieces of advice from our Webinar presenters. The Webinars focused on online classfieds, text messaging and mobile display ads. A fourth Webinar, on mobile phone application development, is coming later this summer. The archives from these Webinars are available now at www.naa.org/mobile. Products Find out what your advertisers are looking for in the mobile space before you build out capabilities. Some advertisers may want your newspaper to build and manage mobile micro-sites for them. Others may want text-messaging capabilities. Your mobile vendor probably has many of these solutions ready to go, but you need to know what your advertisers need first! Calls to action in mobile ads work. Prompts to "click to call" or "send a text message to..." invite consumers to interact with the advertiser. Be smart about matching your advertisers and products. A grocery store may be a good sponsor for weather alerts, for example. (Think of how crowded grocery stores get before snowstorms or hurricanes.) The Sales Pitch Equip your sales team with mobile devices - BlackBerrys, iPhones, Palm Pres, etc. The sales pitch is much more powerful with live demonstrations that your sales associates can guide the potential advertiser through in person. Show - don't just tell! Make your sales team passionate about the product. If your sales team is energized about the power of mobile marketing, your advertisers will catch that enthusiasm and embrace it.  (The Star Tribune offered mobile-themed prizes, like an iPod, to sales associates.) Make mobile sales a part of a larger digital media experience for your advertisers, but don't just throw it in as a "freebie." Building Audience Cross-promote your offerings. USAToday does a lot of mobile promotion in the print edition of the newspaper as well as on USAToday.com. Raising awareness of your mobile offerings is the key to getting people to sign up. Make sure the advertiser is prepared to handle customer interactions. If an advertiser offers a mobile coupon, the advertiser needs to make sure his employees know how to handle customers who come in with that coupon!  Otherwise, customers will have a negative experience, which ultimately hurts the advertiser and your newspaper. A positive experience will drive word-of-mouth marketing for your newspaper's mobile products. More Advice Be sure to go to www.naa.org/mobile to download the Webinar archives and to get more advice about mobile advertising and sales.   Posted Jun 18 2009, 04:33 PM by Beth Lawton with no comments Filed under: Mobile, Advertising, NAA Webinars

• NYT, Pro Publica Win Knight News Challenge Award

  Nine projects won News Challenge grants from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation earlier today. The projects focus on ways to use technology to foster community journalism and interaction. The biggest grant - more than $719,000 - went to The New York Times and ProPublica.   From the press release: The largest winner is DocumentCloud, a project conceived by journalists from The New York Times and ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative newsroom. DocumentCloud will create an online database managed as an independent nonprofit where the media, watchdog groups and the public can find, share and analyze source documents. This is the third year of grants in the Knight News Challenge, which has $25 million in funding to grant over five years to individuals who propose open-source, community-oriented digital media projects. Tomorrow afternoon, Poynter will host a chat with the grant winners from The New York Times and ProPublica about their project. Read more here. NAA's Mobile Revenue Opportunities Webinars Be sure to check NAA's Presstime Now! blog later today for a recap of today's mobile revenue Webinar with iLoop Mobile and the Star Tribune. The archived Webinar will be available online Friday if you missed the event this afternoon! The archive (along with many, many more mobile resources for newspapers) will be at www.naa.org/mobile. Posted Jun 17 2009, 04:00 PM by Beth Lawton with 1 comment(s)

• Mobile Revenue: 'Opportunities are Significant' and will Grow

  In an E-Media Tidbits column yesterday, Amy Gahran wrote this: "Mobile media offers not just a huge audience, but also existing revenue models -- including ample room to make money through premium personalized content, advertising, interactivity or location-based services. These opportunities are significant today and will only grow in the future." Gahran hits the nail on the head. NAA has been pushing our newspaper members to explore new technologies and revenue models for years. And that's part of the reason why this month NAA is presenting a series of Webinars specifically focused on mobile revenue. Here's more information: Text Messaging: Revenue Potential in 140 Characters TOMORROW (Wednesday, June 10) at 2 p.m. ET It can be tough to put both content and an effective ad into 140 characters, but newspapers are getting real results for their advertisers through text messaging. Learn from the successes of USA Today and the Virginian-Pilot. Speakers: Shaun Fogarty, Virginian-Pilot, and Jason Fulmines, Gannett. Register here.  Plus: Creating Effective Mobile Ads: Standards and Best Practices Next Wednesday, June 17 at 2 p.m. ET. Creating effective mobile ads is both easier and more complicated than you may think. Learn about how mobile standards impact your mobile advertising and revenue in this Webinar focusing on standards and best practices. Speakers: Michael Becker, iLoop Mobile, and Daniel Krolczyk, Star Tribune. Register here. In the last week of June, we'll present a Webinar on mobile application development - more specifics on this event will be available soon. Last week, NAA hosted a Webinar on mobile classified services with Dan Hellbusch, manager of real estate advertising at the Orange County Register. You can see the archived version here.  By the way, if you're interested in sponsoring an NAA Webinar, please e-mail Kevin McCourt at kevin.mccourt@naa.org. Additional Resources In addition, NAA has these resources available right now: Moving to Mobile: A Development & Growth Guide (at www.naa.org/mobile) has information on everything from how to reserve up a short code to creating WAP sites and the current state of mobile local search. The Digital Media Advertising Toolkit (at www.naa.org/adtoolkit) has good tips on how to sell mobile to your advertisers.   Posted Jun 09 2009, 10:08 AM by Beth Lawton with no comments

• Online Consumers Say Fewer Ads are a Sign of Financial Weakness

  Here's a good reason for banks and other retailers to advertising even when times are tough: Your customers may be gauging the health of a company by how often they see ads. eMarketer reported today, "Nearly one-half [48 percent] of the Internet users surveyed said that if they noticed a drop-off in ads from a bank, they believed it was struggling, and 12 percent believed the financial institution might not be in business much longer," according to a study from Ad-ology Research. For retail stores, the link between advertising frequency and perceived business health was even more pronounced, with 56 percent of Web user saying a decrease in retail store ads made them think the store was struggling and 15 percent thinking the outlet may not be in business much longer. Digg Ads a Gamble for Businesses Digg has launched a new advertising system that effectively rewards ads for being popular with Digg users. Sponsored messages from advertisers will start appearing in the regular Digg stream of stories in the coming months. "The more an ad is Dugg, the less the advertiser will have to pay. Conversely the more an ad is buried, the more the advertiser is charged, pricing it out of the system," according to the Digg Blog. "The goal here is to give advertisers a way to present content related to their brands and get immediate input on whether it's relevant to the Digg audience, or not." Mobile Revenue Yesterday, NAA hosted the first Webinar in a series of Webinars on mobile revenue. Read about it on NAA's PRESSTIME Now!. Later today, NAA members will be able to go to www.naa.org/mobile to download a recorded version of the Webinar. Posted Jun 04 2009, 12:18 PM by Beth Lawton with no comments Filed under: Mobile, Advertising

• NAA Begins Free Webinar Series on Mobile Revenue Opportunities

  A brand new, innovative program from the Orange County Register is driving mobile revenue in classifieds. Gary Tackett and Dan Hellbusch from the newspaper will be talking about this program in a Webinar this Wednesday (June 3) at 4 p.m. ET. (Register here!) This Webinar is the first in a series of free Webinars for NAA members about mobile revenue opportunities for newspapers. The Webinars will become part of NAA's "Moving to Mobile: A Development & Growth Guide for Newspapers." In addition to classifieds, there are opportunities for newspapers in text-messaging (SMS) programs, mobile display ads, and even in smart phone application development. This Webinar series will provide you with information on increasing revenue in all of these areas. Here's more information on this free Webinar series. Mobile and Classifieds: Searching for Revenue  June 3 at 4 p.m. ET Some analysts see classified ads on the mobile platform as an opportunity for newspapers to earn new ad revenue. For many newspapers, it's already working! Learn about a new program from the Orange County Register that is helping build revenue for local businesses and the newspaper. Speakers: Dan Hellbusch, Real Estate Manager, and Gary Tackett, Classified Director, Orange County Register.  Register here! Text Messaging: Revenue Potential in 140 Characters June 10 at 2 p.m. ET It can be tough to put both content and an effective ad into 140 characters, but newspapers are getting real results for their advertisers through text messaging. Learn from the successes of USA Today and the Virginian-Pilot. Speakers: Shaun Fogarty, Virginian-Pilot, and Jason Fulmines, Gannett. Register here! Mobile Advertising: Standards and Best Practices June 17 at 2 p.m. ET Creating effective mobile ads is both easier and more complicated than you may think. Learn about how mobile standards impact your mobile advertising and revenue in this Webinar focusing on standards and best practices. Registration to open later this month! Newspapers and Smartphone Apps Date TBD (late June) The iPhone and the popularity of other "smartphones" lit a fire under the mobile advertising market. Learn how The Washington Post and other newspapers are capitalizing on the smartphone market by creating in-demand mobile applications. Registration will open later this month! Become a Sponsor! To learn about the benefits that come with sponsoring an NAA Webinar, please contact Kevin McCourt at Kevin.mccourt@naa.org with the subject line: Sponsor Interest in [Name of Webinar].   Posted Jun 01 2009, 11:03 AM by Beth Lawton with no comments Filed under: Mobile, NAA Events, Advertising, NAA Webinars, classifieds