The Survival of Newspapers

[drplokta]

The survival of newspapers in the Internet age is back in the news, with the Murdoch titles starting their suicidal move to lock their content out of the ongoing dialogue that is the Internet. So here's my view.

There is still a role for newspapers, and they can thrive online by filling that role. What they have to do is to cut their costs dramatically -- probably by 95% or more -- by stopping doing everything that someone else, anywhere in the world, is doing better. Why would I want to read the Guardian's coverage of the US elections when there's fivethirtyeight.com? Why would I want to read the Times's technology column when there's ArsTechnica? Why are newspapers still paying journalists to lightly rehash press releases that they don't even understand (of which I have lots of personal experience from looking at the generally appalling house price journalism in the UK)? I don't need a newspaper to compile the news for me any more; I have an RSS reader.

So, my advice to newspapers, and to journalists, is to specialise. Journalists have to do a 180° turn -- it used to be that a good journalist was one who could write shallowly about anything; now a good journalist is one who can write in depth about one topic better than anyone else in the world. Identify what content you have that's better than anyone else, and keep it; ditch the rest. Your advertising revenues should then seem quite reasonable. If you can still make money by printing a generalist publication on paper, then stick with it, but don't expect the Internet to work the same way, and don't destroy your Internet presence to try to save your old business model. We will end up with a lot fewer journalists doing a much better job.

Comments

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Not convinced. I personally click through on Google ads pretty regularly, especially when I am trying to buy something that is hard to source in the UK. Because it is my experience that a company that has bought a strapline on the Google search for a particular product name has a vastly greater chance of having the product in stock in the UK for shipping than any of the top few search hits, and I am rarely so price-sensitive that I can be bothered to shop around once I know I can't get the thing on Amazon or eBay.

I also have a cast iron example of purchasing an item that I didn't know existed because of a poster ad on the Underground.

So clearly some advertising works for me.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

Someone in fandom is in the 99th percentile? I would never have predicted that.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

Somewhat less snarky reply:

I split advertising into two groups: "New products" vs "Maintenance."

"New products" advertising generally lets the public be aware of something actually novel, and brought out for the first time. They would never have learned of it any other way. It's like Tim O'Reilly's line, "Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy." New products adverts fight obscurity. As such, they have a chance to make a difference, until the public forms an impression of what the product is.

That only takes about six months or so, though (I'm guessing wildly here, and I'm partly leaning on experience with political ads, which are sui generis, but hey). After those six months, you're left with "maintenance" ads, which are usually the equivalent of, "I'm not dead yet!" The problem is, once the impression of the public is set, it tends to be set for a loooong time.

No one on this list (of top advertisers) is really in the "new products" camp. A new flavor of Pespsi? Who cares.

So when you say you, "purchas(ed) an item that (you) didn't know existed," that's exactly the type of "new products" ad I think has the best chance of working, and is probably worth the shareholder's equity.

But the nth Guinness ad? Not so much.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Certainly both the examples I cited are 'new product'.

On the other hand, most Apple advertising is in the first (maintaining market share) camp, and nevertheless I get a warm feeling every time I see it. I don't really mind that Steve Jobs is spending my hard-earned money on carpet-bombing Victoria Underground station, for example. Though I accept the iPad is a new product, but truly -- is there anyone in the target market who isn't already familiar with it?

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

Apple to me is a special case.

Garry Trudeau had a wonderful Doonesbury a few years back. It was a Sunday strip, so more than the usual number of panels, most of which featured snippets of overheard commercials done in the political style: "Don't believe Pepsi's lies!" "What does GM have to hide?" "Walmart -- Bad for Connecticut; bad for America." This ends with the lead character doing a facepalm and asking himself, "My god -- What have we done?"

I thought it was great because it showed the perfect counterexample to the idea, "They sell candidates just like they sell toothpaste." No, not really. Hardly anybody does the negative campaign-style ad for everyday household products.

The exception, of course, is Apple.

I'm thinking here particularly of the "Mac vs. PC" ads, which could be showing any two opposing candidates in an election.

So Apple's iPad commercials, I think, have a very political aim: To whip up support among the base, and to convince the press a marginal niche product is somehow mass-market. ("Hey, I saw the ad last night; they must be everywhere!")

The iPhone, for example, has a market share of about 3% among global cell phone sales in Q1 2010. (Smartphones sold 54.7 mil units; they're 18.8% of global sales; that yields global sales of 290.96 mil units; of which Apple sold 8.8 mil). 97% of the market looks at the iPhone -- and buys something else. Yet the iPhone retains mindshare all out of proportion to its less-than-Linux market share. That's partly due to Apple's marketing, but it's also due to the fervor of its acolytes. Apple isn't a "normal" company, in that sense. {shrug}