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.
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Digital Edge News Update: Texas Tribune; Local to Drive Online Ad Growth; Chrome Usage Up
Texas Tribune Launches
The Texas
Tribune launched this week with a robust Web site and funding to operate for
the next two years, Paid Content reported. The site features news stories and
blogs, databases, Twitter feeds and a Texas
politics wiki.
In addition
to donations from individuals and foundations, the Texas Tribune acquired the
Texas Weekly premium subscription newsletter for additional income.
Source:
Paid Content
See also:
Texas Tribune's Launch
'Just the Beginning' of Databases,
What's to Come (Poynter)
Local Expected to Drive Online Ad
Growth
Local
online advertising spending will outpace national online ad spending in the United States
by the end of this year, according to Piper Jaffray projections. "Over the next five years, Piper Jaffray predicts a compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9 percent for local online ad dollars, compared
with 4 percent for national Internet spending," eMarketer reported.
Source:
eMarketer
Wired: E-Readers May Not Solve
Publishers Woes Yet
The
technology behind many e-reader devices still has a long way to go before
consumers will embrace the devices en masse, Wired reported. However, sales of
e-reader devices could reach 3 million units by the end of this year.
Source:
Wired
Learn much
more about e-readers and newspapers at www.naa.org/e-readers.
See also:
The
E-Reader Revolution isn't Revolutionizing Magazines (Folio)
Chrome Browser Usage Continuing to
Grow
 Few people
are using Google's Chrome Internet browser, but usage is growing faster than
that of other browsers, CNet reported. In the past month, Chrome's share of
browser usage grew to 3.6 percent from 3.2 percent.
Mozilla's
Firefox grew from 23.8 percent to 24.1 percent from September to October, and
Apple's Safari grew from 4.2 percent to 4.4 percent. Opera usage was flat at
2.2 percent.
Internet
Explorer lost users, dropping from 65.7 percent to 64.6 percent.
Source:
CNet
Quote of the Day: Some Newspapers
Reconsidering Pay Walls
"The resolve to charge for most interactive content is
dissolving at some newspapers, potentially thwarting the plans of other
publishers who still hope to erect pay walls on their sites. Despite determined
statements by several publishers earlier this year that they intended to make
consumers pay for the valuable content newspapers have given away for more than
a decade, the managers of some newspapers have come to realize that they can't afford to lose the traffic that pay walls almost certainly
would turn away."
-- Reflections of a Newsosaur
blogger Alan Mutter in a blog entry.
See also:
Traffic
Drops, Then Rebounds When Sites Launch Payment Systems (NAA)
More paid
content news:
Two MediaNews
Group Newspapers to Erect Partial Pay Walls (Editor & Publisher)
Twitter Tim.es Personalized
Newspaper Based on Tweets Launches
 Twitter
Tim.es, a personalized, Twitter-based news service, is gaining fans. Twitter
Tim.es is a service that delivers links to news stories and other online
content based on the links your Twitter contacts (and their contacts) are
posting and/or retweeting on Twitter. Online Journalism Review has an interview
with the founder.
Source:
Online Journalism Review
Most Traffic to Retailer Sites is
Direct, not from Search
Less than
10 percent of traffic to online retailers' Web sites comes from search engines,
according to a Nielsen analysis. Most traffic (61 percent on average) comes from
people the retailer's Web address directly into their browser. Much of the
search engine traffic may come from people searching for a company's site
(Zappos, for example) rather than an item (like shoes), AdAge reported.
Source:
AdAge
15 Predictions on the Future of the
Web
Wider
screens, micropayments and more semantic content and applications are among
Noupe's 15 predictions for the future of the Internet. Read more of their
predictions here.
Source:
Noupe
APME, Poynter Launch Online News
Credibility Issues Series
The Poynter
Institute's News University (NewsU), along with
Associated Press Managing Editors and the Canadian Newspaper Association, is
launching a webinar series focusing on online news credibility issues. Six
newsrooms undertook APME Online Credibilty Projects and the webinars will
detail the results. The series begins tomorrow
and continues into 2010. More information about the projects is available here.
Sources:
APME, Poynter
5 Reasons Digital Media
Professionals Should Attend mediaXchange 2010
 1. Learn
about new partnership opportunities that can boost your newspaper's local
digital revenue.
2. Network
with and get new ideas from leading digital media executives in the newspaper
industry and beyond.
3. Meet
with major advertisers eager to reach out to your digital audience.
4. Maximize
your revenue by learning about revenue-driving digital media innovations from
industry leaders.
5. Gain a
better understanding of the prospects for online video, mobile, search and
behaviorally targeted advertising.
Registration
is already open
for mediaXchange 2010, April 11 - 14 in Orlando.
Published
Nov 04 2009, 09:07 AM
by
Beth Lawton
About Beth Lawton
Beth Lawton is manager, digital media communications in the Business Development division of the Newspaper Association of America. She writes and edits many of NAA’s Digital Edge reports and the Online Publishing Update.
Prior to joining NAA two years ago, she worked as a Web producer and editor in newsrooms in the Midwest and the Caribbean.
Beth is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism (MSJ New Media 2003).
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