Ran across this recently and found it pretty interesting:
The stated intent is to turn around the newspaper industry:
The Printed Blog is changing the way people read and consume news and other information. We hope to play a vital part in reversing the fortunes of the newspaper industry with this new media project... but we need your help.
Wired had a piece that talks a bit more about the business. It looks like they will be starting in Chicago, San Francisco, and New York and branch out from there.
The production model looks interesting as well:
The printing is done on commercial printers located near each distribution point. Each 11x17-inch paper will be three pages, six sides in full color. And the ultimate goal is to automate the production process as far as aggregating the stories into the separate editions, with the ability for readers to vote on which blogs appear in the next issue.
It will be interesting to keep an eye on this and easy to do seeing how they are embracing SM tools. Following them on Twitter now.
What do you think?
Discussion
By Jim Hamilton on Jan 21, 2009
I'm not sure how this helps newspapers but the concept of "blogslurping" is an interesting one. I've wondered whether there is a print-on-demand opportunity for really popular bloggers to turn their blogs into books. One problem is the linked nature of blogs. You lose that in printed form. On the other hand there is the attractive aspect of a book that develops chapter by chapter and yet can be viewed as a coherent entity later on (such as a political blogger's view of the presidential primaries).
By robert ivan on Jan 21, 2009
I wish them the best of luck. I pitched a similar product to the washington post and tribune however neither was interested.
My idea, found here http://www.metaprinter.com/?p=400 uses feedjourn.com's software to aggregate and paginate content and images.
The real up-sell here is taking the one competitive advantage newspapers have (distribution) and leveraging it to deliver ads and other products better than direct mail and the internet can.
Take a look at this mockup and the advertising associated with it.
http://metaprinter.webfactional.com/PDF/MYPOST_ROBIVAN.pdf
The revenue potential is great. General interest newspapers that just move their product online are dead.
By max on Jan 21, 2009
Their success will be decided by sales team. Newspapers don't die because they have no content to print. They die because no one wants to advertise in them.
By Helene on Jan 21, 2009
I am SUPER EXCITED by anything positive for print! This is wonderful, and Eric thank you so much for the tweet on it.
By Peter Renton on Jan 21, 2009
Interesting idea but I am not optimistic about their success mainly because they will need to sell a lot of ads to make money.
I would rather see established newspapers morph into something like this. Why can't one of the sections of my newspaper be personalized feeds from blogs or other content from around the web. I want to read the main sections of the newspaper but I would also love a section devoted to my favorite blogs that I choose from available RSS feeds.
Surely this can't be that difficult to pull off? Why doesn't someone in the newspaper business try something new and groundbreaking?
By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 21, 2009
My two cents.
Advertising is a loser unless you are Google. For everyone else it's a nice revenue source but that's all. The way to make money is to sell stuff, entertainment or convenience.
Printblogs will work if people are willing to buy the Print version. If not, then not so much. If the blog is popular that means it has fans. Fans buy all kinds of stuff. If they aggregate enough fans on the web, they should have a pretty secure market.
It's just the music model, but in Print.
By Michael Josefowicz on Jan 22, 2009
@Helene,
Here's another good Print story. It's about a small local radio station in Central PA, that has a website and produces a monthly Print product.
Maybe the big NEWSPAPERS should spend more time looking at the bottom of the pyramid, instead of bemoaning their fate and going to conferences?
After all real Printers live close to ground and don't have time go to conferences or bemoan their fate.
http://sellingprint.blogspot.com/2009/01/newspaper-folks-do-this-next.html
By Bryan Yeager on Jan 23, 2009
I wrote about this concept last year on The Digital Nirvana: http://thedigitalnirvana.com/2008/07/reader-driven-newspaper-content
This concept isn't necessarily new, although this particular venture is a lot more ambitious than BostonNOW, the free daily newspaper in Boston that used user-generated content via blogs.
There are a lot of new, interesting newspaper-related concepts and start-ups kicking around right now, paving the way for more sustainable newspaper business models in the future. The face of the newspaper industry will definitely be changed after the dust of the recession settles. Ultimately, though, I think it will be for the better and I think we'll still be reading the paper... at least for a long while.
By Eric Vessels on Jan 23, 2009
@Bryan Yeager: Thanks for adding that link to this discussion. Very relevant - and a good piece, btw.
Discussion
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