Sunday, February 28, 2010
"YouTube - I Just Can't Live (Without My Daily Snailpaper)"
This is great fun! More of the background here.
"In a Country of Monopoly Newspapers, Palo Alto Is Awash in Competition" - NYTimes.com
Note the print-only Daily Post!
"We aim to preserve value of print newspaper" - The Indianapolis Star
Well said as a snapshot of where so many newspapers are in their thinking.
"Let s teach news literacy" - Herald-Sun
Imagine a daily run-down of errors, ommissions, mileading content, etc in the web as it affects a printed newspaper's market?
Print offers a huge advantage, I think, to be the error-corrector of the internet as it affects the newspaper's market.
What else should be able to challenge a newspaper to be the authoritative source of truth? That assumes that the newspaper is doing its job in the first place!
Print offers a huge advantage, I think, to be the error-corrector of the internet as it affects the newspaper's market.
What else should be able to challenge a newspaper to be the authoritative source of truth? That assumes that the newspaper is doing its job in the first place!
Saturday, February 27, 2010
"Shortcuts - The Paralyzing Problem of Too Many Choices" - NYTimes.com
This is an excellent article and tells a great story.
It seems to me that this presents newspapers with a tremendous opportunity to help people at least tread water in a rising sea of choices - in terms of both news and information and products and services.
The printed newspaper can organize those parts of our lives that we choose to ask it to do for us, and do so in a very orderly manner.
Communicating with customers about this could be a great first step, and quickly offering some initial organizing content to customers as a test. This does not even have to be personalized to start. Imagine, for example, the newspaper's recommendations of three choices - in priority order - for what a reader might watch on television this evening and tomorrow morning? That's the sort of thing that is so much easier to use during the day without having to fire up a device, although it surely could be presented electronically as well.
It seems to me that this presents newspapers with a tremendous opportunity to help people at least tread water in a rising sea of choices - in terms of both news and information and products and services.
The printed newspaper can organize those parts of our lives that we choose to ask it to do for us, and do so in a very orderly manner.
Communicating with customers about this could be a great first step, and quickly offering some initial organizing content to customers as a test. This does not even have to be personalized to start. Imagine, for example, the newspaper's recommendations of three choices - in priority order - for what a reader might watch on television this evening and tomorrow morning? That's the sort of thing that is so much easier to use during the day without having to fire up a device, although it surely could be presented electronically as well.
"How do i print newspaper text onto another surface?" - Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers
Lots of people want to print newspapers!
"Cellphone Applications Let Shoppers Point, Click and Buy" - NYTimes.com
Why isn't this happening with newspapers as well? In other words, why not "point, click and purchase" by using your device with something printed a newspaper page?
Friday, February 26, 2010
"Newspaper earns top honors for printing quality" - Standard Speaker
This is quite an impressive story about ciruclation gains....
"Ace Hardware Stores"
This hardware retailer is a significant printed newspaper advertiser in many US newspaper markets.
I am including it here because of an observation of what I saw both here on its principle website and in its printed materials, both brochures and in local newspapers.
The firm includes - now as standard practice apparently - a suggestion (with appropriate logos) to go to the firm's Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages to "find us" or "stay connected".
What's wrong with this picture from a newspaper's perspective, I ask?
There is no suggestion in print or online that the local newspaper is a part of its store-with-customer relationship. There is no suggestion to go to dailybugle.com and to do anything there that advances the shared customer's interest.
If there ever was a missed opportunity for newspaper as digital services explode, this is it. Insert yourselves with powerful printed products and digital services into the lives of your customers as they relate to whatever it is that you give them - from Ace Hardware advertising and catalogues to humanitarian assistance to the people of Haiti.
I am including it here because of an observation of what I saw both here on its principle website and in its printed materials, both brochures and in local newspapers.
The firm includes - now as standard practice apparently - a suggestion (with appropriate logos) to go to the firm's Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages to "find us" or "stay connected".
What's wrong with this picture from a newspaper's perspective, I ask?
There is no suggestion in print or online that the local newspaper is a part of its store-with-customer relationship. There is no suggestion to go to dailybugle.com and to do anything there that advances the shared customer's interest.
If there ever was a missed opportunity for newspaper as digital services explode, this is it. Insert yourselves with powerful printed products and digital services into the lives of your customers as they relate to whatever it is that you give them - from Ace Hardware advertising and catalogues to humanitarian assistance to the people of Haiti.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Daily guide to (audio) book reviews and much more
The printed version of a newspaper is headed - if newspapers can see through too much of their own fog - toward becoming a market/community organizer. For dailies, that means a kind of daily guide to life in that market. Some of that is simply a reference to what's going on, but to win a greater share of customers' time and attention, a huge portion of it needs to be offerings that come from newspapers.
Just one example: The Economist has just launched a podcast service offering book reviews. How did they tell me as a customer about this? In the printed "newspaper". (The New York Times does the same thing, apparently, but I learned about it on the newspaper's website.)
Alas, there are endless potential examples and very few that newspapers are actually doing. It's big hole that newspapers need to fill.....very quickly.
Just one example: The Economist has just launched a podcast service offering book reviews. How did they tell me as a customer about this? In the printed "newspaper". (The New York Times does the same thing, apparently, but I learned about it on the newspaper's website.)
Alas, there are endless potential examples and very few that newspapers are actually doing. It's big hole that newspapers need to fill.....very quickly.
"Pakistani Newspaper Attributes Mystical Powers to Diplomat" - The Lede Blog - NYTimes.com
The world would be quite a different place without great newspapers, right?
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
"Threat to Web Freedom Seen in Italian Google Case" - NYTimes.com
The core problem here is that Google's business plan cannot possibly support prior review of everything that is posted.
Newspapers - the printed kind - have always distinguished themselves by doing just that - reviewing what is published before it is published. With some exceptions, newspapers are fully responsible for everything they publish in print.
What's so bad about insisting that entities like Google do the same?
All of a sudden, the value of what newspapers have always done might become much more apparent to many.
And the world could escape much of the garbage that now gets added to the internet because no one is intervening.
Imagine an array of print and internet-based services which really have editors doing well what editos are professionally supposed to do - edit (i.e, choose, modify, reject, etc.).
Here's another good discussion of the case.
Both of the links from this post are to media that have real editors. That makes me a lot more confident in passing them on here.....
When was the last time you saw a printed newspaper talk about this difference?
Newspapers - the printed kind - have always distinguished themselves by doing just that - reviewing what is published before it is published. With some exceptions, newspapers are fully responsible for everything they publish in print.
What's so bad about insisting that entities like Google do the same?
All of a sudden, the value of what newspapers have always done might become much more apparent to many.
And the world could escape much of the garbage that now gets added to the internet because no one is intervening.
Imagine an array of print and internet-based services which really have editors doing well what editos are professionally supposed to do - edit (i.e, choose, modify, reject, etc.).
Here's another good discussion of the case.
Both of the links from this post are to media that have real editors. That makes me a lot more confident in passing them on here.....
When was the last time you saw a printed newspaper talk about this difference?
information.dk
This is the front page of the printed newspaper, Information, in Denmark on 22 February 2010. More on the subject here.
"Despite Small Numbers, Magazines Are Big on Bar Codes" - Advertising Age
Why aren't newspapers more active experimenters here? Too many burned fingers?
"Reflections of a Newsosaur: Don’t know about Aardvark? You should."
This actually goes to my point about newspapers providing "help" to their customers.
Why have newspapers allowed this role to be usurped first by the local librarian and now by Google? It's a mystery to me.
Imagine, tho, the print opportunity to include selected questions and answers from Aardvark that seem relevant to the core interests and needs of any newspaper's print customers. After all, knowing those core interests and needs is quite central to what a great newspaper should be, no?
Why have newspapers allowed this role to be usurped first by the local librarian and now by Google? It's a mystery to me.
Imagine, tho, the print opportunity to include selected questions and answers from Aardvark that seem relevant to the core interests and needs of any newspaper's print customers. After all, knowing those core interests and needs is quite central to what a great newspaper should be, no?
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