Exploring a new business model for online newspapers

My tweet above was a verbal expression of an interesting problem that I had been thinking about for a little while. It's no secret that newspapers are in a heap of trouble. Just today I read that average industry revenues fell 7.9% in 2007, 16.6% in 2008 and 30% projected for 2009. But the reaction that followed was astonishing and incredibly exciting. Immediately I had people respond saying they wanted to join in on the conversation - @davegray was my first responder, followed by @nickheise, @elledog, @annaobrien and @christopherberry. I had a flurry of links sent to me, and conversations immediately started happening on what people thought the core challenges were for this industry. Our passion is there. Many people who aren't even remotely involved with this industry want to solve this problem.

But why do so many people care to solve this problem that doesn't directly impact them? This isn't global warming and it isn't the future of health care. I think people want to solve this problem for the same reason I do - because we don't want to see newspapers die, and we know they can have a role and exist profitability in an increasingly digital world.

The point of this post is to begin a series of whiteboard ideas on how we (the dispersed group of individuals passionate about the same issue) can solve the broken business model of online newspapers. I have started to house links that people are sending me in my delicious account http://delicious.com/Digitalinfant tagged under "newsmodel" and for instant communication of ideas, I am tagging most conversations with #journchat or #newsmodel on twitter.

I'm off to a rabble event in Toronto tomorrow to discuss "what's wrong with our newspapers". I won't be live tweeting but I will be following up with a blog post.

Looking forward to the journey.

Interesting reads and a question to be answered for next week

Saturday's Globe and Mail was immensely boring again, but today's Sunday NY Times made up for the lull with a few interesting articles.

• "States are slashing social programs for the vulnerable". An interesting look at what states are having to do in order to reduce their budget deficits and meet the increased demand on social programs. They highlight Arizona as having one of the highest deficits and the result is an increased number of elderly without proper assistance. This isn't the first time I've heard about John McCain's state being one of the worst offenders of social programs. How did this aristocrat get so far in the presidential race? http://tinyurl.com/d5efbb
  

• "Life of crime and time behind bars inspire a drug dealer to turn author". A former drug dealer who ran a lucrative cocaine business, served 20 years in jail and has now become an author. Apparently his novels, which use fictional characters and plots to express the life the author had before he went to jail, are incredibly interesting reads. http://tinyurl.com/c2tved

• "Tech recruiting clashes with immigration rules". This is part of an ongoing series the NY times has had on immigration. To be honest, the whole series has been very well written and tends to look at both sides of the theme being discussed. It was interesting to learn that 60% of engineers with PHD's in the U.S are foreign born - I think this referred to the valley though. http://tinyurl.com/czj5w

I'm also currently working on a blog post for this week which will dive into the question, "What is more important, the message (brand) or the platforms we use to engage the audience with it?".

Johnathan

Don't just sit there, adapt!

I've been reading Leonard Fuld's book on conducting competitive assessments called, "The secret language of competitive intelligence". I'm not the biggest fan of the title, but the book is interesting and applies to what I'm doing right now to say the least. I started to think about an example he brought up on research houses, about how the internet drastically changed their industry. This leads to my curious thought/statement/whatever you want to call it: when you see other forces that begin to change your traditional model, that changes the way consumers interact with your services, don't fight it, learn it and see how you can work with it.

Learning how to adapt. I think of Fuld's quote, "gone were the days when online information pioneers, such as SDC ORBIT and Dialog, information aggregators, could act as critical (and sometimes sole-source) distribution centers...the dialogs of the world lost influence since publishers could sell their wares directly to consumers". How we adapt and how fast we adapt to these changes are incredibly important in determining the survival of your company.

How not to adapt to industry change. Don't think it will go away. Many of the worlds CD and DVD retailers such as HMV thought digital music transfers would, while Apple jumped on the opportunity to offer the digital HMV's of the world. Don't pay it lip service and then not act. In response to Sony's introduction of the first digital camera in 1984, Kodak amassed more than a 1000 digital patents. They even announced a 1.4 megapixel CCD chip in 1986, but failed to bring not only this announcement to the market, but failed to capitalize on any of their patents.

What you should consider when things change. Learn everything you can about it, gauge customer reaction to it, even go so far as prototyping the idea. Begin to think about what it could become. Going back to Fuld's book, and thinking about the online information pioneers, things didn't die, they evolved. Those research houses that adapted - that began to realize mass access to information didn't result in quality information, that people didn't have the time to search for everything and required information on their speciality, i.e. Forrester - not only survived, but began to gain greater market share.

It's interesting where a tangent can take you, and if you want to read a good book on conducting a competitive audit and analysis, I recommend Fuld's book.

When the product experience overshadows the web

"I remember why I never take this thing". These were my last few words before I ended my conversation with my friend. I was near the end of my journey on the TTC. A journey that I normally avoid due to its long commute times, grimy seats, and share of odd balls. I have been thinking about this journey, and its timeliness to a conversation I was lucky to have with a user experience designer. This designer had just finished telling me about the "launch" of the new TTC website, http://www3.ttc.ca/, and there involvement with it. It was a cool conversation because of the amount of usability testing they were doing, but that's a side bar.

The more important part: the site sounded awesome, since checking it out, I would say they moved from the 1920's to the 1980's. I'm not jumping for joy, but it's a step up. For me, nothing really touches the London transport site: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/

But this isn't the point here. What was important, was that I realized that no matter how well the redesign was, even with its fix to the trip planner, the bad experiences I have on the TTC overshadow the improving web site. The experience on the TTC matters more to me than its presence online. My bus was crowded, it was late, and I didn't get a seat. Compare this with GO Transit's website: it is arguably now less advanced or "cool" than the TTC's, but the GO is mostly on time, it doesn't smell, I can get reading done. The "Go product" is an enjoyable experience and makes up for the sub-par site.

I thought this was an interesting problem. It made me think about its application to clients agencies choose. If the product is just a really bad experience for users, does your ability to provide them with a completely different look online matter. Aren't you just trying to provide a bandaged solution at this point. On the other side, if you can find clients that understand this symbiotic relationship. That the product experience + communication experience (here I refer to online) are both important tools in an experience formula, that they are willing to improve the product, than you have yourself a good client to work with.

It was an interesting experience aboard the TTC and it made me think about the relationship between products and what we do online.

And no, I won't be taking the TTC again unless it's a Sunday afternoon.

-Johnathan

Knowing what company you work for

For those starting off in interactive, one of the most difficult things that occurs is not a challenging problem or an angry client. It is explaining what your company does. I'm sure you can recall saying to a friend, "I work in digital advertising" or "I work in an interactive agency". You explain it. You know it. But the inevitable result is the distorted words that comes out of your friend's mouth, "so you build websites then". Ughh. Sigh. Why can't your friend understand what you do?

Explaining it from the wrong angle. I think we have trouble explaining what we do because we are trying to define ourselves strictly as marketers. We, the digital community, are product designers first, and marketers/advertisers second. We create digital products. We have information architects, project managers and builders. We create exceptional designs but also consider the experience of the user when they interact with the digital product. Secondly, we consider our digital products place in the advertising social circle, and what methods will help make people aware of this new "building".

So next time, when someone asks what you do, tell them you design digital products. A simple metaphor helps us most of the time.

What do you do when you are at blog theme cross-roads?

I read an excellent article by David Armano by Logic + Emotion (http://tinyurl.com/62pkhs) and one of the things that immediately stuck out in my mind was, what do we do when our theme of our blog changes? I agree with David 100% on the fact that we need a theme or angle for our blog, but what do we do when we find ourselves at theme cross-roads?

This has direct application to me and people like me. We can't expect the blogs we initially create when we first start out in our industry to have the same theme after a few years of experience. My theme now, "What it is like to start out in interactive" is already starting to shift as I learn more about the industry.

Thankfully, I was able to pose the question to a veteran blogger, Jason Theodor. His advice, "
don't worry about your blog changing. People will expect it to. You will eventually move to an area that is your speciality/interests you, and there will be readers who follow you there and readers who don't." It made sense. I also thought of someone else who changed their theme/angle and went on to have their "readers" accept them, and that person was Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln first started out in politics, his platform was not the same one he used to bring the Republican party to the white house. It was only after experience in the field and being surrounded by great men such as Edward Bates, that he became the strong proponent of freeing slaves in America and developed one of the greatest presidential legacy's on this.

So don't worry when you first start out and your blog theme changes. Expect it to. Lincoln did and he became arguably one of the greatest presidents the U.S. has ever seen. But if you have a well developed theme 10 years from now and suddenly you make a radical departure, just call that a mid-life crisis.

Websites worth taking a look at

I have been heads down in a few things lately: scouring every source I can find to develop a persona checklist, reading Ulwick's, What Customers Want, and studying the way Sherlock Holmes framed problems and its application to modern strategy.

In between these various tasks though, I have begun to compile a list of websites and blogs that anyone who is new to interactive should take a look at. Enjoy:

• http://darmano.typepad.com/
• http://www.imediaconnection.com/
• http://interaction08.ixda.org/
• http://www.uie.com/
• http://www.ted.com/talks