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18 Comments
- DumbCommonHerd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16I was the webmaster for a large newspaper from 1999 to just a few months ago. I can say this: the old guard just does not get it. Newspapers for many years have had quite the monopoly on publishing hard copy news. I could never get it through their thick skulls that the Internet has changed the news field entirely, allowing even the little guy to publish to the world quickly and inexpensively.
The result? Readership of the hard copy edition dropping MONTHLY to the point where the paper is struggling while the website grows by 5 or 10 percent per month and website visits surpassing the hard copy sales by an ever widening margin.
What they also do not get is that now the news they put out is not just for a statewide audience - it is now seen by the entire world -
I will give you an example: one day someone caught a record lake trout nearby. The editors refused to allow me to put the article on the website: "we do not consider that news". Clue Train Manifesto guys....that "un-newsworthy" article about the record lake trout would be linked to by fishing related websites throughout the world, be read by perhaps millions of people, and bring more readers to the website than the total newspapers you will sell for the next month.
The hard copy newspaper industry is dieing. It is no wonder. And it is no wonder I got out. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12digg is somewhat of a portal and having a user account serves a useful purpose. However having to have a username on every news site that you visit every few weeks or so just to read an article is very annoying.
Granted if you used the extra features NYT provided with user accounts, and read it several times a week, then it is acceptable. - meatbites, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I'm afraid I must lower you down from your high horse, there, Wolfboy.
Your argument is entirely redundant. One only needs to log into Digg when one wishes to create or alter content on the site -- not when reading the stories and comments. - politech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@DumbCommonHerd
Thus all the nicknames ... Dead Tree Media, Lame Stream Media, Drive By Media, Antique Media, etc.
News media won't die. But it's going to be forced to change. And judging by the past efforts of the MPAA and RIAA to save their empires, change in the MSM isn't going to be pretty. - triggerman, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8use this to bypass the stupid nytimes policy
http://www.bugmenot.com/view/www.nytimes.com - inkswamp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4> I was the webmaster for a large newspaper from 1999 to just a
> few months ago. I can say this: the old guard just does not get it
I've done the same kind of work and you are absolutely right. One company that I worked for (a very large media company that will remain nameless) was totally paranoid about the idea of linking to other news sites... or ANY site for that matter. I had brought it up as a possibility, especially as RSS feeds and other article linking methods started to grow in popularity but the idea was always shot down (along with the idea of sending out our own headlines via those same methods.) They had this attitude that you had to keep people in your site which is silly and shows a clear ignorance about how the Web works. I've had many private little told-ya-so moments over the years watching the old ideas about this crumble, and articles like this one prove that I was right despite being told by people above me that it was a bad idea. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I actually love to read hard-copy papers, although it seems that the stories in them interest me less and less. It'd be nice to have some sort of customizable hard-copy newspaper where it drafted stories from various sources and pooped out a paper copy. The problem with internet news is that you cant fold it up and carry it with you unless you want to tote around a relatively heavy and expensive laptop or use a tiny mobile device with a 3" screen. I guess that the problem with custom papers is that the printing costs would be too high.
- zonk3r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4this is interesting because lots of newspapers are getting bitchy about google news doing the same thing.
pot, kettle, settle down you guys. - surfit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3A bit unrelated, but this sort of thing happens with online retailers who run text adverts. They don't seem to realise that the adverts geotarget so they are often advertising their competitors to international customers (which they cannot see within the US). Personally, I think retailers shouldn't be displaying ads since it makes them look like their main business is failing.
- Scourge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You should check out the "Check Spelling" button.
- noGoodNamesLeft, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The question is, would those people from all over the world linking to your paper's website actually generate revenue?
It sounds stupid, but I've visited newspaper websites and received targeted ads for people living in the paper's locality. Now, I live in Scotland, and it's highly unlikely that an ad for (e.g.) a local car dealership in Oklahoma is likely to apply to me. Even if the paper gets paid for merely showing it, irrelevant ads still hurt in the long term, as the advertiser sees the reduced return on investment and is hence willing to pay less for ads in future.
So, for non-local visitors to be worthwhile, they have to be shown targeted, non-local adverts. Is it worth setting up your website to set this up if 99% of your articles are of local interest (and hence local readership) only?
I'm not saying that you're necessarily wrong, just that relying on non-local readership to bring in revenue needs appropriate advertising which may not be worth the hassle for the occasional one-off article. - noGoodNamesLeft, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Shouldn't they be taking care to filter everything out anyway?
Perhaps you were implying that they only filter out the obvious local competitor ads that *they* get to see from their computers... but on the other hand, if they hadn't thought to filter out their international rivals, perhaps that's because they're not rivals (e.g. Buttfsck Illinois Dry Cleaners aren't likely to be deadly rivals with Woolloomooloo Cleaning Services). So they may as well grab the ad revenue...
I see what you're saying about commerce sites displaying ads, but I should point out that Amazon do it :) - DumbCommonHerd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Online revenue? Are you kidding?
Say your newspaper is in Vermont. What does Vermont offer? Skiing, Maple Syrup. Great fishing. Quality place to retire (think real estate).
Now lets say you get 1,000,000 visitors to your website because you have a story about a record lake trout that is linked by websites throughout the world.....rocket science 101. You sell Vermont products and the Vermont mystique.
This is just one example. But local newspapers are still thinking locally. THAT in my opinion is why most newspapers are doing so badly in the internet age. - GarySwager, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'M NOT BITTER
- SJ11, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Yeah, like I dugg this story 4 days ago and got like 3 diggs on it. This is a duplicate and should be buried
- Wolfboy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2It just seems hypocritical on its face. But you gave an excellent answer showing how it would not be.
All this modding down... I guess clicking the thumbs down button is easier than giving a good answer. - shemtovo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0thet inform site is great!
i really liked it
much batter than all the other aggregated news site i have seen
you sould chack it out - Wolfboy, on 10/12/2007, -20/+5Why do you consider the NYTimes registration policy "stupid," yet you have a registration for Digg? Or do you use bugmenot for Digg, too?
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