With the emergence of eReaders  and of course the widely sought after iPad by Apple, newspapers all over the world have been thinking about their stance in the game.  Is having a digital version of the today’s paper accessible via eReaders and the iPad enough? We say no, but regardless of the functionality and navigation improvements made for this digital experience, newspaper publishes are still left pondering the revenue viability of making such a move.  Given that this is a common query of those in my industry, I felt it pertinent to post one of Nielsen’s recent graphs on video ad effectiveness online, versus television.  Now understanding that Kindle and iPad users may have a different mindset during their session, as opposed to those siting down at their computers, we still  strongly believe that there are some definite synergies with the graph below and monetizing a publishers move to an iPad app.

We’ve already seen a bevvy of newspaper applications on the iPad and most have taken to still images for advertisers, with some including busy flash animations.  However, the above data from Nielsen shows that there is an appetite and an audience for video advertisements in digital devices, such as the iPad.

Check out this Ubergizmo video sample that we posted on the blog previously.  It shows some of the newspaper apps. on the iPad and gives a perspective on what some in the industry have lunched with.  We assume, given some of their Web edition similarities, many of these publishers will soon be adding to their iPad app. functionality … we hope.

I thought I would share this, as I often toy with what a unique visitor to our sites should be and is worth. The graph makes you wonder about the UMV/$ ratio when you take a look at Twitter's rev per unique number. Mind you, with promoted tweets, this number will only increase for Twitter.

I share this story on the blog with some trepidation, but it’s media news and I wouldn’t be doing my part if I didn’t.

TechDirt covered a story today on Japanese newspaper the Nikkei and how they plan to surpass pay walls to complete their protectionist plan.  The Nikkei, plans to block links that direct users to the stories on Nikkei.com.   I guess in their mind a few things are at play:

1. They feel they are strong enough as a standalone and as a result, do not need the traffic caused through links to their stories
2. They feel linking to their content should be worth something (those linking should pay), as they they probably feel that their content is unique, niche and unfounded anywhere else.

So now you understand why I am afraid to give such radical moves any play at all. Mind you, the newspaper business if far different in Japan versus Canada or the US, but in this desperate time to turn things around, publishers are trying all that they can.  I believe it is this vulnerable state that caused Rupert Murdoch’s pay wall terror to have such an affect.

Data shows that Japanese publishers may want to start looking outside of protectionist models.  A report released by Dentsu Inc. last year stated that advertising revenue fell 4.7 percent to ¥6.69 trillion in 2008, making this the first ad spend drop in five years for the Japanese market, and of course, it was traditional media that took the brunt of the hit, as spend with them dropped 12.5%

Although government in Japan has a more integral part to play in media consumption and may just save publishers, there just seems to be too many ‘if’s’ and not enough long term strategy.  Japan’s level of search traffic means to me that you would want to have your content syndicated in as many places as possible, to ensure potential readers have a clear pathway to your news portal.

AOL Drops Bebo to Focus on Patch (?)

Posted by Beverly Crandon on 4/06/10 • Categorized as Online Classifieds, Online Journalism, Social Media

There has been talk that AOL is planning on dropping Bebo, their social networking site, claiming that in the competitive world of social media, they’ve found it difficult to create a competitive and financially viable product out of Bebo.  I speculate on how much of that is really true and if their decision has anything to do with their recent and well embraced Patch.org initiative (a hyper-local online news, events, directory and classifieds site where content is contributed by the community) and their wanting to apply more energies there.  Already, Patch has progressed into an interesting business, but we’re still not convinced that it has a strong enough ’sustainability’ quality.

Whether the decision to drop Bebo is a strategic one or the right one, it seems difficult to understand the motivations, given the numbers posted about the social site.

Does the strategy change to be a geographic one, gender or age related…

If the focus for AOL truly lies in the future of Patch.org, there could be worries impending for newspaper publishers. For quite some time it’s been that suburban newspapers were maintaining some of their market share, as they were able to give advertisers a voice in a hyper-local forum found nowhere else, both online and in print.  If serious thought is put behind Patch.org and partnerships are formed to bolster key content areas of the site, things could get even more challenging for publishers.  One such natural partnership would be a play with Craigslist.  If you think about it, both properties apply a ‘for the people’ mentality and both have what the other doesn’t and both have dropped hints to wanting content sets that the other excels at.

Related information:

• Google once owned 5% of AOL and sold it at a loss to Time Warner in 2009
• Time Warner broke off the AOL extension of their business in 2009, after repeat and reported revenue losses
• AOL spent $850 million to buy Bebo in 2008