A DIFFERENT TYPE OF AGENCY

As a collective, The Factory Interactive is fueled by a passion for developing enduring messages conceived through a marriage of design and technology. At the core, we are explorers of possibility and architects of memory. We create rich immersive experiences that increase message retention and reward the audience. Our mission: give personality to products, resulting in a stronger, more effective brand.

_{June 4, 2009}
How much will YOU pay to read online news? _{By Ashley}

Back in April, I wrote about newspapers charging for their online content. After reading summaries of The American Press Institutes “Newspaper Economic Action Plan”, I still stand with my feelings that I don’t feel confident it will succeed (yet). I just want to touch on the main points discussed in the 31 page report, which you can find in full here, and give you some of my thoughts.

Right off the bat, the report says that industry leaders should follow 5 new “doctrines”:

• True Value. Establish that news content online has value by charging for it. Begin “massive experimentation with several of the most promising options.”

• Fair Use. Maintain the value of professionally produced and edited content by “aggressively enforcing copyright, fair use and the right to profit from original work.”
• Fair Share. Negotiate a higher price for content produced by the news industry that is aggregated and redistributed by others.
• Digital Deliverance. “Invest in technologies, platforms and systems that provide content-based e-commerce, data-sharing and other revenue generating solutions.”
• Consumer Centric. Refocus on consumers and users. Shift revenue strategies from those focused on advertisers.

Ok, fair enough. Those are all practical and insightful rules to live by…and plausible. Moving on…here is how they propose they will be paid (as summed up in bold by Rick Edmonds).

Focus on “core loyalists,” lose “fly-by users

If I had to guess, I’d say well over 50% of users are “fly-by users” opposed to the “core loyalists”. Most people who log on to an online news site, are looking for something in particular. Once they find it, they log off and often times don’t come back. Or users are sent there via a link pushed out by another source (whether it be Twitter, blog, etc.). I end up at newspaper websites from around the world this way and will likely never revisit them.

Paid content wall would protect print subscriptions

The report claims that putting up a paid content wall would prevent readers from canceling their print subscriptions. It says that 22% of people dropped the printed version due to the fact they can get it all online for free. Wouldn’t a more logical approach be if you have a print subscription, you are able to access free online content? That’s not mentioned though. Their mentality seems to be very “take! take! take! mine! mine!”

Pressure Google

Thou that controls all… Google. The report concedes that 25-35% of traffic to news Web sites comes from the search giant and its Google News. So why wage war on them? The API wants to bring pressure on Google from several directions to “reinstate value along the supply chain, from the creation of content, through its harvesting and presentation.”

Kindle offers limited revenue potential, duplicates print audience

First the report says, “Publishers are coming out on the wrong end of the partnership with Amazon, which takes 70 percent of the subscription revenue,” plus most ad revenue plus republication rights. Well duuuh, the publishers knew this before entering into any kind of agreement with Amazon. No is forcing them to offer services on Kindle; and besides, it’s better than nothing.

The report also says that more than half of Kindle buyers are over 50 (I found that fact interesting), so usage tends to duplicate the existing print newspaper demographic rather than capturing a younger or a non-traditional audience.

My advice to the API: Get a better plan before presenting it next time. I don’t think they have any grounds to stand on so far. There will always be the bloggers, tweeters, etc. of the world who will produce newsworthy content… and faster than you. I’d also like to see what kind of number$ they are talking about when discussing charging, a penny an article? A dollar? I think this will make a huge difference for a lot of readers as well.

Filed under: Media News — Tags: american press institute, api, newspapers, online content, recession — @ 4:51 pm

_{April 15, 2009}
Whether we like it or not, Publishers set on charging for content _{By Ashley}

On the brink of the announcement that Marriott hotels will stop delivering newspapers to hotel doors, top journalists form Journalism Online, LLC; a company that will quickly facilitate the ability of newspaper, magazine and online publishers to generate revenue from the digital distribution of the original journalism they produce.

“We have formed Journalism Online, because we think this is a special moment in time when there is an urgent need for a business model that allows quality journalism to be the beneficiary of the Internet’s efficient delivery mechanism rather than its victim,” said co-founder Steven Brill. “We believe we have developed a strategy and a set of services that will establish that model by restoring a stream of circulation revenue to supplement advertising revenue, while taking advantage of the savings to be gained from producing and delivering content electronically.”

It seems that whether we like it or not, we will most likely be charged for the content we seek out. The model will offer web-browsers the option for monthly, weekly or one-time passses to view content from different publishers. As I previously mentioned in my blog post, Paid For Content?, I genuinely think it will be a toss up on whether or not this model will work or not.

On a side note: I mentioned that Marriott hotel is no longer delivering newspapers. They are calling it a “green” iniative but we all know it’s probably more or less (for lack of a better expression) a waste of  money at this point. In implementing this new “policy”, it will reduce newspaper distribution by about 50,000 newspapers every day or by about 18 million newspapers every year. That’s a huge loss for already down newspapers.

Update: After reading this article, I can’t help but to feel there are major gaps in this plan and while they may have some success, I do not believe it’s the golden ticket they are looking for.

Filed under: Media News — Tags: content, journalism online, marriott, newspaper, newspapers, paid for content — @ 12:23 pm

_{April 7, 2009}
Paid-For-Content?? The Great Debate (of the day, at least) _{By Ashley}

There has been a lot of buzz lately about whether media organizations should start to charge to view their content. And is the model that will save these companies from going under?

I have two trains of thought on this:

Thought Process Numero Uno: I think back to pre-iTunes days when I would use programs like LimeWire to download ALL of my music for free. The days of buying CD’s were long over for me. Then iTunes came along, and gasssp, they were going to charge for their music. I won’t lie… I boycotted for as long as possible. But then I saw the light… it was SO much easier and convenient to download off of iTunes. I always knew what I was getting and that the quality would be perfect; and on top of it all I was supporting the artists I enjoy.

I think it’s very possible that web-users will ultimately do the same thing with getting their news/videos. Most of us will be rebellious at first but soon enough we will see the light…and the value in getting quality content, and supporting the staff that work so hard to bring us this content. Of course, this all depends on how reasonably priced it will be. If companies are competing with each other for eyeballs, I imagine it will have to be pretty low cost.

Thought Process Numero Dos: Newspapers/Broadcasters will  be shooting themselves in the foot if they adapt a paid content business model. Why? Because there will always be ways to find similar, if not the same, content for free so we will never want to pay. Furthermore, according to a Knowledge Networks poll, 80% of online network TV viewers would prefer to view ads in exchange for unpaid video content, up from 67% in 2006. So clearly users will go to some type of extent to avoid paying fees for content. Can the same methodology be applied to a “print” ad before reading any articles? Seems like a plausible scenario.

The Associated Press unveiled rate cuts on Monday to help member newspapers reeling from declining advertising revenue and said it would also sue websites that use its members’ articles without permission. They have been the first to announce such an aggressive plan. I am very curious to see how this plays out, but I know one thing is for sure… I have read a lot of articles about their announcement this week and none of it seems to be positive. Let the foot shooting begin…???

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: ap, associated press, broadcasters, cable, content, itunes, newspapers, paid — @ 10:32 am

_{March 23, 2009}
Newspapers want a bailout plan?? Say what??! _{By Ashley}

Ad Age reported today that the companies on Google’s Publishers Advisory Council — a fraternity that includes The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time Inc. and Hearst, among others — are aggressively making the case that their content ought to be more prominently displayed in search results. In a sense, a bail out plan of their own to try to gain some relevance once again.

“You should not have a system,” one content executive said, “where those who are essentially parasites off the true producers of content benefit disproportionately.”

The Advisory Council is urging Google to revise their algorithms to add credibility and seniority to news organizations so their websites/reports show up higher in the search results. They claim that the bloggers “parasites” are stealing the news from their sites to begin with. But the publishers also said they’re not asking for a leg up over amateurs and link-happy bloggers. “This would in no way mean that only professional content publishers would get an advantage,” one said. “It really just says that the original source, and the source with real access, should somehow be recognized as the most important in the delivery of results.”

Here is my thought… maybe these big time media organizations need to invest in a better SEO/SEM program (cough cough, shameless plug…like http://seotrackonline.com). It seems to me that The New York times should organically rank higher than any Joe Shmo’s blog… if not, there may be some bigger issues at hand.

Filed under: Media News,SEO — Tags: content, Google, media, newspapers, publishers, Publishers Advisory Council, SEM, SEO, seotrackonline — @ 10:55 pm

_{March 11, 2009}
Newspapers are finally catching on (sorta) _{By Ashley}

With The Miami Herald’s announcement today (cutting 175 employees and reducing salaries) hot on our heels, I came across an article with a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, newspapers may be starting to catch on. It was title “10 Ways Newspapers are Using Social Media to Save the Industry”. In a nutshell, here are the 10 reasons:

1. Twitter headline feeds (which oddly enough could be the ultimate demise of the industry in the long run)

2. Aquiring providers of social media services

3. Creating more online events to attract readers

4. Promoting and monetizing on user-generated content (ding! ding! ding! You’ve hit the jackpot. ireport.com by CNN… perfect example)

5. Story based communities

6. Collaborative outsourced news services

7. Customized delivery

8. Publishing API’s for third-party developers

9. Branded communities (example)

10. Buring the boat that brought you – This is the ultimate way to save a paper through social media: make the Web its only channel of distribution, and leverage the history of the brand.

Even if newspapers decide to all jump on the social media  bandwagon, and decide to go fully digital, reporters will lose their jobs, the printing houses lose their jobs and even the Paper Boy is jobless. They will just become much smaller organizations surviving in a much larger world (and a much larger world of competition).

Filed under: Marketing — Tags: content, digital, Marketing, newspapers, online, social media, user-generated content — @ 3:57 pm

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