A Big Weekend for Two Publishing Models
For newspapers, it was the best of weekends and the worst of weekends.
Here in Philadelphia, the owner of the Inquirer and the Daily News filed for chapter 11, citing “The financial burden from an advertising downturn, rising costs for newsprint, and the migration of readers to the Internet.”
But travel just under two hours north on I95, and you’ll hear a completely different story told by the New York Times, as the confetti thrown by developers is being swept up after a successful Times Open seminar.
What you’ll see right away from clicking either of those links is one newspaper clearly clinging to the marketing and distribution methods of the past, while another understands the progression of how to monetize and reach the valuable readers of today and tomorrow. Here are a few points worth considering:
Developers’ networks: you need them for successful marketing
While on its face the Times Open initiative seems rooted in the techie world, even the URL http://www.nytimes.com/marketing/timesopen/ tells the real story. This isn’t anything new to the newspaper industry. Find the best way to economically and efficiently distribute the work of your news gathering organization.
In the past, newspapers employed armies of newsboys to go yelling the the headlines out at populated street corners. As labor laws developed and suburbs sprawled, newsstands replaced the kids, and then honor boxes complimented and permeated our suburban landscape.
Today’s newsboys are developers: consuming content via APIs, and distributing them to localized audiences through the interfaces that are the most convenient to those readers: whether it’s on a Website, a handheld, or whatever interface technology comes next.
The only facet that has changed here is the distribution method. The Times continues it’s place as a premier news gathering organization with top-notch writing.
There’s no loss of control
People hear the word “open” and immediately come to some irrational conclusion that everything within the company is fair game. The reality is anything but.
APIs are in fact an excellent way to control the information that flows out, and measure how that data is consumed. As I wrote last month, think of APIs as a rental car fleet equipped with GPS.
In this case, buried underneath all the fancy talk and celebration is that the only openness is being able to consume a few streams of data: political, movies, and soon news headlines. The Times continues to control the content flowing through the switchboard to developers.
Yes, it generates revenue
Speaking at a Philadelphia Social Media Club event a few months ago, Chris Krewson, Executive editor, online / news, Philadelphia Inquirer responded to a question on portable content strategy by saying something to the effect that Philly.com needed to focus on ad revenue for right now. Which is why the Philly.com sales department is such a large percentage of the overall staff. The strategy of Philly.com is to funnel as many visits to the main site as possible.
Clearly, this strategy isn’t effective. Luckily, there is a great, simple Quid Pro Quo in the API equation: supply great content (the newspapers’ #1 job) in this Open environment, and you can target ads to exactly the small groups most disposed to the messaging. Not only is this advertising, it’s the most valuable kind of advertising there is.
This is tough for legacy organizations to swallow, as engaging developers and shifting the newspaper to being a news-gathering platform feels foreign, but it’s no more or less of a capital expense than gassing up and maintaining trucks or honor boxes or printing off reams of paper in the small hours of the morning.
I just hope our local papers start to get on board with this before all my local news comes from the Philadelphia desk of the New York Times.
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