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For anyone starting/managing a online news business, I highly recommend 7 Habits of Profitable, Hyper Local News Sites by Mel Taylor media group. Though not a complete list, this article does a good job laying out some of the best practices for building a profitable, web-based news business.
Having worked in the web solutions business for the last fifteen years, I've seen memorable examples of success and failure based on these principles and wanted to share a few additional observations specific to newspapers moving into the online world.
1) Addicted to Print
Just like any other business that has years of success with one business model, newspapers find it difficult to change to or even tolerate a significantly different business model within the same walls. Often the web site is viewed as a cost center and a necessary evil. Sometimes web-driven revenues are intentionally sacrificed to drive more print revenues. In the worst-case scenario, the web staff is viewed internally as cannibalizing the print business. All this can lead to an environment where the development of web-based business revenues is suppressed or even killed. Ideally, the web staff within a newspaper would be somewhat separate, with financial incentives based upon the success of the online business. If resources permit, minimal staffing should include a business/sales person and a editorial/technical person with web development experience.
2) Farmers vs Explorers
The importance of a entrepreneurial management style for the online department can not be over emphasized. Often newspapers will staff their online group with employees that have excelled in the print business. The down-side of this is that these folks are accustomed to the large, stable budgets and well defined procedures. This is very different from the lean budgets and reactive skills necessary for the online world.
3) Revenue Streams
Newspaper accounting staff are generally comfortable with a few well-defined revenue streams (mostly advertising and subscriptions). Success in the online world is different and requires a willingness to deal with messy revenue streams as new revenue models are developed and explored. Often the first hurdle that newspapers hit when building their online business is when they decide to accept credit cards for online subscriptions or other e-commerce. The nature of your staff will determine now quickly challenges of this nature can be overcome.
4) Not Written Here
Lastly, much of the power of the internet centers around enabling ordinary people to contribute content in the form of blogs, forums, comments on articles, etc. This drives the growth of internet juggernauts such as Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, etc. To any journalist with over ten years of experience in the newspaper business, the thought of ordinary folks creating content that the audience would want to read can seem unlikely, but the reality is this often the key to rapid website growth and collecting hyper local content.
These are a few of my personal observations. I hope you will post your own thoughts/experience below.
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As creators of software for blogs/blogging, we talk to clients every day that are considering adding blogs to their website. Their reasons range from "coolness" factor to a desire to impart timely/meaningful information directly from staff to customers.
My name is Tim Choate. I am the President of Bondware Inc. As we initiate blogs on our own website, I want to take a minute to talk about a few of our goals.
Transparency - We believe that being open about our company and culture creates a bond with customers that is good for business.
Feedback - Bondware's thought leaders in business and technology will be posting here as company technical direction and business policies are created. This should be a great opportunity for stakeholders to provide feedback by posting comments.
Personality - Technology companies often come across as cold/impersonal on the web, hiding behind stock photos and corporate-speak. I know we have interesting, passionate personalities on staff and I hope this will be a venue for you to see those shine though.
We hope you enjoy the blogs and let us know what you think.
Tim |
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