Discussion

By Gordon Pritchard on Oct 22, 2009

I don't think that the experience and environment that Jacek found himself in really relates to or provides much insight for publishers here.
North American newspapers have used creative design layouts for decades. They've also greatly increased the amount of color pages in order to increase visual appeal.
However print newspapers, despite the Newspaper Association of America's surveys that point out their efficacy as an advertising media, cannot compete with the perception that newspapers have little or no relevance in today's social and connected environment. That perception will kill them.

A parallel occurred recent episode of the television series "Mad Men." Western Union Telegrams was quickly losing business as more people turned to the telephone for personal communication. The advertising solution was to position the telegram for important events - "because after all you can't frame the telephone call that lets you know you've become a grandparent."
When major events occur in the world, newspaper sales go up because people still want a physical record - something to frame the moment - a permanence that doesn't exist with the net.
Unfortunately there aren't going to be enough significant events to warrant maintaining a newspaper printing infrastructure.

By Eric Vessels on Oct 22, 2009

I don't disagree fundamentally with what you are saying, but I've surely not noticed a dramatic difference in newspaper design here. Of course I don't typically read newspapers in print so how would I know?

By John Dowd on Oct 23, 2009

I applaud any effort to revitalize newspapers but I think many, this one included, mistakenly labeled opportunities for improvement as salvation. Is the level of design in any newspaper as high as it could be? Of course not. Would a better designed newspaper see a positive effect on its circulation? Seems likely. But the positive effect may simply be a slower decline, rather than actual growth.

Design, micropayments, and other ideas being bandied about miss what I believe is the fundamental point. Value is created when an industry or company can help mitigate problems of scarcity. Newspapers prospered when access to news was scarce and discretionary time was abundant. With the internet the situation has reversed - lots of information, little time. Since the new scarcity is time media that maximize the return on a reader's investment of time will prosper while others fade into oblivion. The internet offers myriad ways of customizing content for each individual, and so it is prospering.

Until newspapers learn how to deliver personally relevant content the best they can hope for is a managed decline.

By Miichael J on Oct 24, 2009

John,
With all due respect, I have to disagree. IMO, the flaw in your argument is the idea that most people have ever bought newspapers primarily for what would traditionally be called news.

The looked at newspapers for the sports, the pictures, the ads and the gossip. As any business manager of most newspapers can tell you, the "news" was to fill the space between the features and the ads. That's always been the purpose of the AP.

Now that versioned newspapers can be digital produced at production speeds and reasonable cost, I think it's safe to paraphrase Mark Twain, "the reported death of newspapers have been greatly exaggerated.'

As QR and other 2d codes are integrated into newspaper ads, that will give advertisers the clickstreams they need and should lead to a resurgence of a profitable, right sized, newspaper industry.

By Gordon Pritchard on Oct 24, 2009

I agree that people looked at newspapers for the sports, the pictures, the ads, and the gossip (and the crossword puzzles, horoscope, and comics) those are now available over the interweb for free in a more compact and portable format.
Versioning of content is done with online media - I don't need a printed version.
I don't think that QR coding for print ads will have much impact since there's diminishing readership to even know that QR coding is being used in the paper. For example, I don't know if my city daily has QR codes or not since I don't buy it.
I think that newspapers encourage their readership to stop buying the print version by directing readers to their online website for "extras." Interestingly they never seem to direct online readers to the printed version to get more/better/different content.
Neighborhood, or microzone, newspapers will probably survive longest because they are free and contain very local news/info that is not available on the interweb. In my region these neighborhood papers (rather than the city daily) are the prime delivery method of advertising flyers. Since the current method of consumer going to a retailer's web site and downloading coupons and printing them is awkward to say the least - these papers should survive until flyers and their coupons are replaced by better evolved electronic means - hopefully not too long from now.
The real innovative thinking that might make printed newspapers relevant to the next generation and reverse the trend of declining readership isn't happening.
The not very distant future may be the same as what happened to Life magazine - a print version only when current events demands a physical memorial - a keepsake.

By Miichael J on Oct 25, 2009

I still have to disagree.

The fact is that the web is still a niche method of conversation. Even with 100's of millions of users there are 6 billion people on the planet.

I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I think something close to over 50% of the planet doesn't have electricity.

There are many defensible values of print that have been drowned by the noise of the internet.

For example, the half life of a web page or a tweet is very short. Information in print on the other hand remains available when the reader is ready.

At it's root, the advantage of print is that right side of the brain can process visual information orders of magnitude faster than the left part which seems to be restricted to words.

While search is easier on the web. Discover is much easier in print. Discover is fun. Search is work. Fun usually wins.

I would be very careful with the notion of "for free". The emerging currency of the global economy is attention, not money. In the context, consider how long it takes to scan a newspaper vs the time it takes to search a website.

I think it's very important for us self selected folks who use the net everyday for our enjoyment and work to be very wary of the "people-like-us" fallacy.

In fact the mass market is almost by definition not composed of "people-like-us."

By John Dowd on Oct 26, 2009

Michael,
Strange - I disagree with your argument but agree with your conclusion, or at least one of them.

I think it's a bit silly to generalize that people don't read the newspaper for news, but the point isn't worth debate because of your explicit and my implicit conclusion - modern printing technology allows for personalized content. Readers interested in gossip should get that unencumbered by the stuff they don't want. When (if?) publishers embrace this new technology I believe industry revenues will not only stabilize but grow as they steal advertising market share from Direct Mail. I'm excited about QR codes too, but think it will be some time until people have the right phones and familiarity with the technology.

Gordon,
Like Michael I believe print in general, and printed newspapers in particular, will prove more resilient than folks like you seem to think. Further, I think there's a good empirical test going on every day across the country. College campuses should be ground zero for the death of print - lots of young people, free wifi, and ubiquitous iPhones and laptops. Yet roughly 8 in 10 have read the print edition of their campus paper in the last 30 days, while only 2 in 10 have done so online.

Why would that be? Both online and web editions are free, so money is not the answer. The newspapers are distributed in racks that are conveniently located at all the coffee shops and gathering places, but the phone is in the student's pocket and the laptop is in his backpack!

I think the only reasonable answer is that the printed medium is generally - even by young people - preferred over screens for a given set of content. Of course, that misses one of the web's big advantages - vastly larger and more customizable data sets than currently offered in print. Which brings me back to my original post - no matter what clever design tweaks print newspapers engage in, they will continue to lose readers to the web. That migration away from newspapers won't stop until newspapers let readers (or even better - do it for them) personalize their daily content.

By Miichael J on Oct 26, 2009

John,

I think this is the crux of our disagreement.

"I think the only reasonable answer is that the printed medium is generally – even by young people – preferred over screens for a given set of content."


Some content works better in print than the web, but the larger issue is that printed medium is often more convenient at a given time..


Consider the amount of work needed to open the mobile and search for something. Not likely unless you know what you're looking for.

Then consider picking up the paper, while you're talking to your friend, fold into your back pocket and scanning it while having a conversation and a bite to eat.

It's a longer story, but the issue of convenience is what makes TV and Print the real mass mediums. From a marketing point of view, the value of the internet is primarily analytics.

By Miichael J on Oct 26, 2009

Sorry but I wanted to add just one point. The value of QR and other 2d codes is the clickstream that is produced. As print can give marketers the analytics they need, it will re enter the communication eco system.

By John Dowd on Oct 26, 2009

Michael,
I think we agree on that point, if I'm reading you correctly.

Is paper fundamentally becoming an anachronism? NO! For significant swathes of information and, to your point, circumstances, a printed set of content will be preferred to a screen by readers young and old.

While the web has well-understood advantages over print - audio, video, inexhaustible depth, real-time updates, etc - print has vitally important but under-appreciated advantages over the web. You pointed out one advantage - convenience. I think there are several others as well. But - and this is my fundamental point - the advantages of this or that medium are secondary to the content I can get access to through that medium. If I am not interested in 85% of my print newspaper's content (obits, stock tables, sports section, lifestyle section, the vast majority of the ads, etc) and meanwhile I have access to a customized myYahoo homepage - 85% of whose content I AM interested in - I will go with the "inferior" medium for the sake of the superior content it offers.

Modern printing technology offers publishers the opportunity to relieve me of that trade-off. They just need to embrace that change to their business model and work-flows.

By Miichael J on Oct 26, 2009

John, I think we pretty much agree on where print is going, but ....

I hesitate to clog this thread by going on too long, but I think this is an important point.

You say,
"the advantages of this or that medium are secondary to the content I can get access to through that medium."

But that assumes that you WANT to get access to a particular content.

The facts that I see is that most people for much of the time do not want more information.
"No news is good news" in an attention scarce economy.

Mostly, as in a mass market context, people hope to find something to keep the boredom away. If lucky they find something that will stimulate a laugh or tell a good, juicy story or create a new thought. The brand value of a newspaper depends on the reasonable expectation that a specific kind of reader will easily find something new-to-them.

This behavior is observed by the way people channel surf instead of "watching" TV. The short attention span is a very old story. But we never before had the technology to make it easy.

It's also what powers alot of the "surfing" through the web. One link is "interesting" that you follow to another link that in turns might take you someplace else.

Print newspapers have evolved on exactly this reality. People scan the paper, hoping to discover something interesting. Headlines, subheads the inverted v of newspaper journalism emerged exactly because most people, most of the time do not read content. But it's there if they want it.

The defensible advantage of print is that it's the most convenient medium optimized for scanning for something "interesting." When it was the only media it was about search (yellow pages) and discover. Now the the internet is in place "search" has moved to a better tech. But "discover" is still most conveniently accomplished in print.

This morning I found some new research that speaks exactly to this point.

"Two out of Three Americans Prefer Print Media In Spite of the Benefits of the
Digital Revolution" http://ilnk.me/4cc

If you are ever in New York, maybe we could share a beer or coffee. I'd welcome the chance to really kick this around.

By Gordon Pritchard on Oct 26, 2009

It's not whether the students prefer the free printed campus paper over the online version - as John wrote - it's whether they would pay for the campus paper. And that I doubt.

Heck, I read the free copy of USA Today in the hotel lobby - but that doesn't mean I'd pay for it.

Newspaper circulation has been in steady decline since about 1990 and the decline will continue and accelerate - at last in the US. You just have to look at the latest US newspaper readership statistics published by RIT to see why.

Currently, the core newspaper readership - 43.89% - is in the 55+ year old group. The key demographic 18-24 year olds represent just 8.07% of readership with the next group 25-34 year olds at only 10.98%.

To me, that suggests that as the 55+ year old population ages, and the current core readership ends up in the obituaries, there is not going to be a large enough paying readership audience replacing them. Further, an inability to attract the key 18-34 high spending demographic dramatically reduces the attraction of printed newspapers to advertisers - no matter how well they may be able to use analytics in the future.

The traditional business model revolved around the printed paper and it will certainly continue for a few years to come, however, that focus will have to shift because it is not financially sustainable.

I don't know how long it will take before printed newspapers completely disappear (and they probably won't disappear completely as per the Life magazine model I mentioned earlier) however, I doubt very much that my obituary will be able to be published in a printed newspaper.

By John Dowd on Oct 26, 2009

Gordon,
I think you are right on all points for the current newspaper model.

Sounds like we differ on the ability of personalization to alter that outcome. In my view personalization will increase readership, even at the current price of $.50 or so per copy. The targeted advertising that personalization supports would increase ad revenues enough that I believe you could offer those personalized papers for free (up to some finite page count).

The college example suggests that if the print content and the price tag are the same, even 17-21 year olds will prefer print. Metro daily newspapers don't have the luxury of printing for as uniform an audience as college students, however, which means they'll have to embrace personalization for their paper to contain content as interesting to their readers as the college paper is to students.

By John Dowd on Oct 26, 2009

Michael - found an email address for you on your blog and sent you some additional thoughts. Would love to grab that beer!

By Per Helge Seglsten on Oct 27, 2009

digital technology is superior to paperprint technology in so many ways. The only thing stopping the entire readership of this planet to switch to digital reading is the hardware. We still don't have a digital reading device as convenient as a paper newspaper or a paper magazine. But that is about to change. In a few years from now e-readers will have developed so much that they will be able to replace their paper predecessors. In addition to the tecnological development, the publishing industry itself will do what it can to make their readers embrace thir digital papers and magazines, as they will save billions by replacing tree paper with e-paper.

By John Dowd on Oct 27, 2009

Per,
People have been saying that suitable e-readers are a couple of years away for 20 years or so. Someday that statement will be true, but I'm not sure that day is today. Despite my skepticism I am eagerly awaiting Apple's rumored entrance into this market - if anybody can get it right it's them.

By Per Helge Seglsten on Oct 28, 2009

I know. But the newspaper/magazine industry hasn't been on the verge of bankrupcy before now. today we have 10 or so large companies competing to be the leader of the e-book race. Yesterday only "nutty" researchers spent time on epaper technology. I think new powerful forces has started pushing this, and the speed of the epaper development will continue to increase as these forces become even stronger.

By Miichael J on Oct 28, 2009

Per,

We agree that the growth of epaper will be very fast. But, like growth in web advertising, the growth percentages are based on very small denominators.

It would be a mistake to merely extend the growth lines into the future to assume scale. The facts as i see them is that newspapers will evolve as e readers evolve.

You might want to check out the latest on versioned newspapers in Berlin. http://ilnk.me/47e

An analogy is the amazing efficiencies in offset printing in response to market demands and the appearance of digital printing.

By Gordon Pritchard on Oct 28, 2009

I would love to see the business plan that Niiu (following the link Michael J provided) put together. From what I can see they make no economic sense. I guess we'll see in six months or so whether they are still in business after they start up on Nov. 16.

Perhaps I'll get my free, web-based, personalized newspaper (http://www.meehive.com) to keep me up to date.

By Miichael J on Oct 29, 2009

Hi Gordon,

I don't know what their model is. But if it were me, I would sell ads to local business and get paid one price for placement and another price based on clickthroughs on QR or other 2d codes.

Given the information the paper gets about each user who requests a copy and the automated composition system, I would think it should work.

The other cool thing about a versioned newspaper is that one can sell the same paper real estate as many times as their are users.

The model is pretty similar to ad words.