How a Florida library's value calculator might translate to newspapers

Newspapers often have difficulty communicating value to consumers. We have paid newspapers, free newspapers, and now our free web sites are flirting with paid models.

I just ran across a personal savings calculator from the State Library and Archives of Florida, attempting to show library users the commercial value of their services. Titled “What Is Your Library Worth To You,” it's a graphical interface asking how many books borrowed, magazines borrowed, museum passes borrowed, how often you use a meeting room, and so on.

It seems like this is a simple idea for newspapers. How often do you read a newspaper left on a table? How often do you view a newspaper web site? How often do you call the newspaper for a question? And I'm sure there are more. It would be fascinating to generate a dollar value for the “free” stuff newspapers provide. It would be fascinating to calculate that over the course of those “free”' experiences.

In ...[more]

At Apple e-reader’s birth, remember to respect the platform

I can't recall the last time there was this much excitement among newspaper publishers about, well, much of anything. Yet the announced launch of the new Apple e-reader – with its promises of colour, video, audio, iPhone-like interface, and more – has publishers positively giddy.

Yet as Obama might say, there is a “learning moment” at this Apple launch that can't be ignored.

Market value for content providers is generated by the clever integration of audience, content, and platform.

Not all audiences are the same.

Not all content is the same.

Not all platforms are the same.

Slicing across all three and finding the synergies is where money can be made.

The value of the Apple e-reader, at launch, will not be the same value in a year.

Start with the audience and work your way backward. This will be a tech-savvy audience with loads of disposable income, information-hungry, and gadget-starved. Probably ...[more]

Keep your company's foot on the transformation pedal

What's more important to publishers today, transformation or maximising what you have?

I'm getting a vague sense, this the third week of the New Year, that many newspapers are awakening to this question.

Newspaper executives accustomed to their still-generous holiday schedules – yes, some still haven't returned to the office as of this writing – are feeling the full effects of 18 months of downsizing.

Two and three jobs have been crammed into one, yet the same amount of work is expected to be produced. The New Year always produces a rush of activity in newspaper offices, and the 2010 rush is burying many offices.

Where do we get the mental bandwidth to squeeze in time to think about where our business is going? Or is that something we ponder in a serene moment ...[more]

Paid content debate peels new layers in an industry torn by influence and profits

Influence versus profits.

Sounds like an academic debate, doesn't it?

Yet as we usher in a new year, this simple stand-off is at the heart of agonising debates within newspapers about whether to put up barriers to content.

A publisher of a mid-sized daily laughed when I asked what business he's in. “Profit” – so put up the pay wall if that's what is necessary.

A senior executive at a major North American newspaper said his company is “absolutely opposed” to erecting barriers to content because their charter stresses they are in business to influence society. Said the executive of this Top 10 daily: “We'd be happy to make 5% margins and continue to influence. For that reason, we will remain all about volume, volume, volume.”

And now we peel back another layer of an industry we thought we knew.

These “academic debates” are being hashed out in very un-academic settings these days: board ...[more]