From the category archives:

New Business Model

Newspaper – Revenue or Journalism: Is It One or the Other?

August 15, 2010

If you were to ask an editor for a local newspaper what type of value local news provides, you would probably get an answer along the lines of: “Quality information is an intrinsic civic good whose value cannot ever be fully measured. Our constitution’s second amendment could not stand without the aid of this indispensable [...]

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6 Ways that the LA Times Can Increase Its Revenue

July 19, 2010

I recently read an article over at sfnblog.com entitled “LA Times Adds E-Commerce Links, Revises Comment Policy.”
When I first glanced at this headline, I thought: “Great! Finally some of these big newspaper people are realizing that they need to monetize their content.” But then, as I proceeded to read through the article, I realized that, [...]

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Dear Corporate Newspaper, Paywalls Won’t Work.

June 13, 2010

I have a message for all of the corporate news organizations sitting in their ivory towers behind their mahogany desks:
Quit trying to convince people to pay money for content that you’ve been giving them for free for years! No one who is used to getting the news for free online is going to start giving [...]

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Can Local Newspapers Afford to Report in Real Time?

May 19, 2010

Or rather, can they afford not to? People in the digital world expect information to be delivered right away, as soon as events happen. But local news papers are too strapped for resources to make this happen. What’s the solution?
In order to deepen my understanding of the issues that we’re trying to tackle here at [...]

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Should Newspapers Ditch Google News?

May 9, 2010

I noticed a post on April 23rd on EditorsWebBlog.org about the struggle that newspaper websites are going through right now over whether or not to continue giving their content to Google for free. The author, Maria Conde, cites the internet consultant Arnon Mishkin, who is a major proponent of payed content, and who has been [...]

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I Will Never Pay for “News Aggregation.” Would You?

April 27, 2010

A couple of days ago I realized why news organizations are having such a difficult time getting people to pay for news. It’s because, most of the time, what we are fed by the media isn’t real reporting, it’s just news aggregation. Let me explain:
I was getting ready for work in the morning and I [...]

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New Local Newspaper Revenue Model: Text Message Marketing

March 28, 2010

I’ll admit it, I don’t read the newspaper in the same way that most people do. Just like everything else in life, I look at it through a “business filter.” I try to think of ways to make it more profitable, to monetize it. Some people might say this is a flaw (my wife certainly [...]

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Print Media Is Fading Fast. But What About Journalism?

March 22, 2010

There’s really no denying it. Sure, we may still be reading books for awhile, and even magazines. But eventually, all of these models are going to go digital, and in fact, they already are. And while the time frame for this change is unsure, one thing is certain: the more frequent and ephemeral the publication, [...]

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A New Way for Local Newspapers to Make Money

March 7, 2010

Our last few posts have concentrated on defining the major problems facing local newspapers. Now it’s time to start looking for solutions.
As I’ve already stated several times in the last few weeks, local newspapers are in desperate need of a new business model. While ads may still be a part of revenue for a time, [...]

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2010 Newspaper Ad Revenue is Fool’s Gold

February 28, 2010

You heard it here first!
Political pundits and financial officials are now telling us that the recession is coming to a close. They say that the worst is over and that businesses are going to start making money again soon. It is inevitable that the local newspaper industry will latch onto this news and assume that [...]

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