Great perspective. I watched from inside as newspapers made all the wrong decisions. Mediocrity and timidity ruled. After a while, I found myself wishing they would die so something new could emerge - still waiting. Thanks for the fair reporting here.
Very true overall. That said, I disagree with your paywall opposition. I disagreed with Rosen, Shirky and Ingram's paywall opposition. The mistake, if any, was 180 degrees opposite of what you say, Dick. Paywalls were put up too late. Deano Singleton, a chief pusher of the "TV model" of online news when chair of AP's board, was dead wrong, and that's not hindsight.
Facebook and Google provide an easy platform to select geographic locations and interests to target a desired demographic. However, their platforms are often inaccurate and rife with bots and traffic manipulation. A local news site would be in a better position to build an audience and off targeted advertising based on real people and close the loop on physical proximity.
For example, if I am a local (non-chain) restaurant I can buy boosts to my Instagram posts or FaceBook posts, do some targeted ads, and hope to reach people in my geographic area that are interested in food. Big tech lets me set my budget and tells me what my reach is. My local news site clings to a business model that uses the reach of the publication to set the budget for an ad.
Microtargeting to interest (readers who read food columns) and to my area yields a smaller reach, but a more likely response to the ad. The data that publication gleans from those interactions then feeds into editorial coverage choices. Maybe my area doesn't respond well to burger joints but there's a huge interest in Food Trucks that offer tacos.
Likes and click thrus, mean little to the local retail business, but sales do. Tying the ability to link content, ad targeting and sales is something that a local publication can do better.
Your point about the advertising revenue at scale is an interesting one. I do think it is recoverable at a local journalism level. Understanding the digital world as an information technology platform that enables the curation of audience easily means that the opportunity to increase revenue that aligns with information rather than news. For example next week local elections take place, and for 24 hours every local news site will see an increase in traffic looking for results. All those people are local, interested in politics, and likely not all regular readers. Most local news orgs attempt to gain subscriptions or memberships instead of realizing the value of having an instant segmented narrow interest audience. What information services can be built out of having that is where the revenue value is.
Great perspective. I watched from inside as newspapers made all the wrong decisions. Mediocrity and timidity ruled. After a while, I found myself wishing they would die so something new could emerge - still waiting. Thanks for the fair reporting here.
Very true overall. That said, I disagree with your paywall opposition. I disagreed with Rosen, Shirky and Ingram's paywall opposition. The mistake, if any, was 180 degrees opposite of what you say, Dick. Paywalls were put up too late. Deano Singleton, a chief pusher of the "TV model" of online news when chair of AP's board, was dead wrong, and that's not hindsight.
Facebook and Google provide an easy platform to select geographic locations and interests to target a desired demographic. However, their platforms are often inaccurate and rife with bots and traffic manipulation. A local news site would be in a better position to build an audience and off targeted advertising based on real people and close the loop on physical proximity.
For example, if I am a local (non-chain) restaurant I can buy boosts to my Instagram posts or FaceBook posts, do some targeted ads, and hope to reach people in my geographic area that are interested in food. Big tech lets me set my budget and tells me what my reach is. My local news site clings to a business model that uses the reach of the publication to set the budget for an ad.
Microtargeting to interest (readers who read food columns) and to my area yields a smaller reach, but a more likely response to the ad. The data that publication gleans from those interactions then feeds into editorial coverage choices. Maybe my area doesn't respond well to burger joints but there's a huge interest in Food Trucks that offer tacos.
Likes and click thrus, mean little to the local retail business, but sales do. Tying the ability to link content, ad targeting and sales is something that a local publication can do better.
Your point about the advertising revenue at scale is an interesting one. I do think it is recoverable at a local journalism level. Understanding the digital world as an information technology platform that enables the curation of audience easily means that the opportunity to increase revenue that aligns with information rather than news. For example next week local elections take place, and for 24 hours every local news site will see an increase in traffic looking for results. All those people are local, interested in politics, and likely not all regular readers. Most local news orgs attempt to gain subscriptions or memberships instead of realizing the value of having an instant segmented narrow interest audience. What information services can be built out of having that is where the revenue value is.