My co-worker Melinda Gipson is guest blogging for the NAA at the Stanford AlwaysOn conference.

Melinda is smart and savvy, so this should be interesting.

Audience Size/Growth

• Nearly 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched an average of 158 minutes of online video per user during the month. (July 17, 2007 ComScore)
• The research found that online video viewing is a common activity for many Internet users. More than half of those surveyed (51%) indicated that they watch video online at least once a month, 27% watch at least once a week and five percent watch video online daily. (Feb. 8, 2005 OPA)
• A recent report from technology research firm In-Stat indicates that the potential market for online video content worldwide will grow from 13 million households in 2005 to 131 million households in 2010. (August 11, 2006, eMarketer)
• Young adults (those ages 18-29) are among the most voracious video viewers. Three-in-four young adult internet users (76%) report online consumption of video, compared with 57% of online adults ages 30-49. Less than half (46%) of internet users ages 50-64 watch or download video. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• 44% of the overall US population age 12 or older having ever streamed a digital video file off of the Internet – or approximately 100 million Americans. (April 2, 2007 IPSOS)
• Three in four of all teens age 12-17 and young adults age 18-24 in the US have streamed digital video content online. (April 2, 2007 IPSOS)

Broadband Penetration

• Three-quarters of broadband users (74%) who enjoy high-speed connections at both home and work watch or download video online. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• An estimated 81 million people, or 63% of the 129 million people who access the Internet over broadband in the U.S., watch broadband video at home or at work. (July 17, 2007 Nielsen)
• 47% of adults have high-speed internet connections at home as of early March 2007, up five percentage points from a year earlier. (July 3, 2007 Pew)
• Among individuals who use the internet at home, 70% have a broadband connection while 23% use dialup. (July 3, 2007 Pew)
• In-stat predicts that by 2010 there will be 413 million broadband households worldwide, up from 194 million in 2005. (August 11, 2006 eMarketer)

Audience Interests

• News content captures the attention of users across all generations, and is the most popular genre with every age group except for those ages 18-29. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• News clips, viewed by 66% of those surveyed, are the most commonly watched type of online video, followed by movie clips and trailers at 49%. However, sports highlights are watched most frequently, with 48% watching at least once a week, and 11% watching daily. (Feb. 8, 2005 OPA)
• Those with higher levels of income and education are more likely to report news video viewing. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• What are people watching? Short content pieces, according to the study. 77% watch movie trailers or clips, 75% watch clips of news, sports or commentary and 67% view user-generated clips/home movies. About 48% also click to view commercials that sponsor the clips. (April 16, 2007 BizReport)
• Three quarters of all digital video users have streamed short news or sports clips, (April 2, 2007 IPSOS)
• Overall, 62% of online video viewers say that their favorite videos are those that are “professionally produced,” while 19% of online video viewers express a preference for content “produced by amateurs.” (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• Two thirds have downloaded amateur or homemade video clips. (April 2, 2007 IPSOS)
• Users who post video are a much smaller group than those who watch; about one in twelve (8%) adult users say they have uploaded a video file online where others can watch it. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• Young adults also trump older users in their experience with posting video content; 15% of users ages 18-29 have uploaded videos, compared with 8% of those 30-49 and roughly 5% of users age 50 and older who have posted video for others to watch. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• Young adults are almost twice as likely to point to YouTube as a source for online video; 49% of video viewers ages 18-29 say they watch YouTube videos. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• Young adults are the most “contagious carriers” in the viral spread of online video. Two-in-three (67%) video viewers ages 18-29 send others links to videos they find online, compared with just half of video viewers ages 30 and older. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• Fully 57% of online video viewers share links to the videos they find online with others. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• Overall, 10% of video viewers say they share links with others by posting them to a website or blog. Again, younger users have a greater tendency to share what they find; while 22% of video viewers ages 18-29 post links to video online, just 7% of those ages 30-49 do so. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• 75% of video viewers say they have received links to online video content. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• Fully 57% of online video viewers share links to the videos they find online with others. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• 45 percent of people only view videos when they are recommended by a friend or colleague. (July 11, 2007 Kelton Research)
• 60 percent of Americans feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of online videos and 46 percent of these people do not watch more online videos because they dread the task of weeding through too many search results. (July 11, 2007 Kelton Research)
• 43% of all digital video downloaders express some level of interest in downloading full length movies in the near future, while 38% express interest in full length TV show downloads. (April 2, 2007 IPSOS)
• Based on respondent feedback, widespread consumer use of broadband video seems to be contingent on Internet platform video content becoming more easily accessible via home television sets. (July 17, 2007 Nielsen)
• Yet another sign of young adults’ mobile tech lifestyle, those ages 18-29 are more than twice as likely when compared with any other age group to watch online video from someplace other than home or work. (July 25, 2007 Pew)

Revenue/Advertising

• At the moment, few online video viewers are paying for any of the video they watch; just 7% say they have paid to access or download video online. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• The most common barriers to downloading (longer form video) are users’ unwillingness to pay for this content, as well as a perceived difficulty or inability to burn these files onto DVD (April 2, 2007 IPSOS)
• When asked if they ever use the internet to watch or download commercials or advertisements, 13% of internet users say “yes.” (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• Young adults are twice as likely as users age 50 and older to say they watch or download commercial videos online; 22% of those 18-29, 13% of users ages 30-49, 7% of users age 50-64 and 8% of those ages 65 and older say they consume commercial video content online. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
• More than half (56.3%) of online video viewers recall seeing advertisem content they have watched. Among respondents, one out of two (52.7%) say they typically continue watching video content once they encounter an advertising unit; 40.4% say they typically stop watching. Interestingly, one-quarter (27.9%) of respondents who stop watching video content once they encounter an advertisement also say they immediately leave the website (Dec. 1, 2006 BurstMedia)
• The data revealed that consumers have a strong positive reaction to online video ads. Seventy percent of respondents said they had seen a video advertisement online, and 44% said they had taken some action as a result of seeing that ad. Specifically, 34% checked out a Web site, 15% requested information and 14% went to a store to check out a product. Most significantly, 9% said they made a purchase and 3% said they bought a subscription as a result of viewing an online video ad. (Feb. 8, 2005 OPA)
• At 0.32 percent, consumers are roughly twice as likely to play (or replay if a video starts automatically) an online video ad unit, as they are to click through on a standard JPG or GIF ad (March 20, 2007 DoubleClick)
• Online video ads experience click-through rates ranging from 0.4 percent to 0.74 percent depending on the online video format. By comparison, the click-through rate for plain GIF or JPG image ads ranges between 0.1 and 0.2 percent, based on DoubleClick data. (March 20, 2007 DoubleClick)
• Last year rich media and video advertising accounted for roughly $1.5 billion in spending, for 9 percent of total online ad spending. It’s projected to grow to $6.2 billion, or 17 percent of online advertising spending, by 2011. In other words, online video advertising will quadruple in five years. (March 29, 2007 ClickZ)
• Online video advertising outperforms other online formats for branding. Based on 106 campaigns, Dynamic Logic’s Q3 2006 MarketNorms data shows online video ads delivered a 6.1 percentage point improvement in aided brand awareness; a 18.1 percentage point improvement in online ad awareness; and a 9.3 percentage point improvement in message association. (March 29, 2007 ClickZ)
• About 8 percent of the video ads, on average, generated some form of user interaction with the ad unit, including expansion, video control buttons, custom interactions, and clicks. The most frequent action was ad replay (0.32 percent), which occurred more often than clicking through a standard JPG or GIF ad (0.10 percent). (March 29, 2007 ClickZ)
• Online video ads had higher CTRs (define) (0.40-0.74 percent), about four times the rate for image ads (0.10-0.15 percent). (March 29, 2007 ClickZ)
• Pre-roll advertising is annoying to users, according to Forrester Research (Forrester Research)
• Borrell Associates is releasing a new report today that reveals that newspaper sites grossed $81 million in local video advertising in 2006, compared to $32 million for local TV sites. (Feb. 12, 2007 Lost Remote)
• The value of the total online-video market — both pay and ad supported — will be worth $15.6 billion by 2012. (July 12, 2007 Direct Marketing News)

Scott Karp said a major publication would go online only in 2007. Wired said a newspaper would stop publishing in print in 2007.

I was skeptical. Jeff Javis backed me up.

Jeff and I were wrong. The Weekly World News is going online only.

International Bat Boy coverage will never be the same.

We fight a lot over the meaning of words. Often.

What is a journalist?

Must you ascribe to certain standards, have been trained in a particular fashion, receive a specific level of pay to be called a journalist?

Does it matter?

I’ve always liked the word “reporter.” To me, it means a person who obtains facts either through research, interviews or observation and reports back to another group of people. The report is generally organized and may or may not contain a point of view (or opinion). But it always has meaning and is informative to its intended audience.

It seems to me absurd to suggest that any person who finds stuff out and tells other people about it isn’t a reporter.

I’ve always considered the best bloggers reporters. Good bloggers gather a bunch of different links, do a little related research and then suffuse their blog posts (reports) with knowledge and experience. That’s reporting to me.

To me, “Reporter” is a noble word, but you don’t need a paycheck or a press pass to be a good and noble reporter.

There’s always been a good deal of conversation in reporting, especially professional reporting. As any beat reporter knows, it’s never about just the one story or the one meeting. It’s about relationships and shared history between subjects, sources, reporter and the interested news organizations (the reporter’s own and the competition).

They only thing new these days is that there are lot more people involved in the conversation.

I would like to associate myself with the following remarks from Scott Karp:

Many people in the news business seem to have a vested interest in separating journalism as it has traditionally been practiced, by employees of news organizations that controlled monopoly distribution channels, from “citizen journalism” or “crowdsourcing” or anything else that represents the evolution of journalism in a networked media world.

So we have “serious, traditional” journalism over HERE, and all this experimenting with “citizens” and “crowds” and whatnot over THERE.

Well, it’s time to call foul on this.

For a couple of years I’ve been saying it’s about the conversation, not us and them.

The future of journalism depends on collaboration, not silos and fiefdoms. Journalism with a capital J needs to maintain standards but it also, desperately, needs to evolve in order to thrive as in a networked media age.

Exactly.

In OJR, Robin Miller has posted the recipe to save newspapers online.

Of course, I think it’s brilliant stuff. There isn’t a suggestion there I haven’t made myself. I love the confirmation of the ideas.
A few highlights:

A website that can tell me about every upcoming meeting of the Bradenton City Council and every upcoming appearance of my favorite local bands and alert me to the next meeting of the Tamiami Trail Business Association is going to get a lot of visits from me — and from a lot of other people, too.

It is now possible to outfit a reporter with a “backpack video” newsgathering rig, including a high-definition digital camcorder, all necessary sound equipment, and a compact tripod, for less than $3000. This equipment is nearly 100% “point and shoot,” too. It doesn’t take any great technical skill to operate.

Hell, you can do it for a lot less than $3,000 and not lose a damn thing in quality. (NOTE: I just notice in comments that Miller is including a laptop in his rig, in which case $3K is more like it, especially if you’re going for the Canon HV20.)

Newspapers should be out scouting for successful local bloggers — not the ones who do two-sentence links to stories published elsewhere, but those who do original reporting — and offering them a chance to put their material on the newspapers’ sites instead of their own. For pay.

Well, there’s lots of ways to work with local bloggers better, and at this point, pay is optional. Let’s get some revenue in first.

Coupons can make great ads on a newspaper website’s pages, but a whole section devoted to coupons (possibly with an accompanying stringer-generated blog pointing to special deals noticed by readers) could become a reader draw on its own, not to mention a decent income-generator.

I haven’t blogged about coupons before, but I’ve talked about it a lot. I think coupons are the under exploited print ad for the web. I’m not aware of a newspaper site that is doing coupons right, though for a short while many years ago, the Ventura County Star was close.

And Miller is right here, too:

The real question is not whether we will see the development of dominant local online news operations run by Web-hip publishers and editors, but whether those Web-hip publishers and editors will work for existing local newspapers or for new, Web-only publications that eventually replace newspapers as the dominant source of local news.

Cory Bergman pulls this quote from an interview with Len Brody, CEO of NowPublic.com:

“I’m not a believer in local anymore,” he said. “I used to think that hyperlocal was what mattered to people, but for 35 and under especially, the concept of local is very different. Like Facebook publishing the news feed — it’s changed from hyperlocal to hyperpersonal.” Brody said weather, traffic and crime are becoming commodities, and while local politics may have some differentiation, nobody cares about it anymore.

Now we can fight over what hyperlocal means.

(Reminds me of a panel I did for Kelsey with Greg Sterling a few months back. I uttered “hyperlocal” and Sterling said, “Please stop using that word.” I said, “No.” For the moment, it’s a useful term because it describes a certain strategic philosophy that has been hot recently; however, I agree, it is ultimately meaningless — the whole idea of hyperlocal is just what good community newspapers should be doing anyway. Hyperlocal only means anything if you’ve been falling down on your community news job.)

Brody is only right if you accept that hyperlocal has only two facets: Weather/traffic and politics.

To me, hyperlocal has never been about politics. In fact, politics is the antithesis of hyperlocal. Hyperlocal is about people. It’s what people do, have done or can do (think, event calendars) where they live. Planning boards and city commissions have very little to do with it.

In fact, where newspapers have lost their way is in getting too wrapped up in the local political game. Too often, the local city hall becomes its own mini-beltway and all the players (including beat reporters) think their actions and their gossip is far more important than anything else in the community.

I’m not concerned that “hyperlocal” is the wrong strategy. I’m more worried about whether we can actually execute on it. Will our editors and reporters ever willingly forsake a few meetings at city hall in favor of a Eagle Scout promotion or volunteer fire department carnival? (And to reach younger readers, those are probably the wrong subjects of coverage, too.)

The other part of a hyperlocal strategy, which includes the hyperpersonal Brody mentions, is part technique and part programming. There’s no reason we can’t do that.

Be sure to read the rest of Brody’s interview. It’s otherwise worthwhile and pretty on track.

Apropos of nothing, I want to hit on the paid content debate one more time.

In many post, but particularly this one, I’ve listed a number of reasons why paid content for news is a bad idea.

Here is more of the same, but restated: People won’t pay for information. Entertainment, yes; information, no.

If you accept the the premise that there are two types of content, informational content and entertainment content, it’s clear that paid informational content — such as news — is facing a much harder go of it than paid entertainment content.

People will pay to subscribe to HBO, but let’s see CNN try that model. You and I both know, that if CNN wasn’t bundled in with other channels, people wouldn’t pay for it (not in significant numbers). People still pay to see movies in theaters (one of the top activities of young people), and games, of course, are a big deal. but every type of paid news service is suffering (though there are exceptions, such as the New York Daily News).

I’ve wondered how high-priced paid newsletters are doing this days. There was a time when I subscribed to the Kiplinger California Newsletter, but with blogs out there like Rough and Tumble, why would I need it now (not to mention that I no longer live in California!)?

Such premium newsletters used to be a big business, but I would like to know how they’re doing now.

For example, within my own industry, with my corporate position, I would be the exact target audience for a $1,200-per-year newsletter subscription. But in a blog-driven, RSS-fed information world, why would I pay for media news and information? I get more for free (and high quality) than I have time to read now, so why pay for something that isn’t likely to tell me anything I don’t already know? I can tap into some of the smartest, best informed minds in the industry any time I want, and all for free.

The mixed bag in paid content trends: music, where CD sales fall and there is more free music than ever, but music still sells; and books, where informational books continue to sell.

With music, the greater diversity of choices and distribution outlets favor the consumer, driving down prices.

With books, we’re still seeing ways in which digital distribution is disrupting traditional informational book channels, whether it be encyclopedias or computer programming reference books.

The only time I buy an information book now is either the author has struck on a great premise (exhibit A, The Long Tail by Chris Anderson); or online resources haven’t yet caught up to the specialized interest I need. Here, my example would be a book on New York gardening I bought recently. I can find lots of online information about gardening, but more general that what I needed to start out my New York gardening experience.

Even with these variants and exceptions, the paid model for information content is on the wane.

Advocates of paid content can’t be happy to know that the two big “success stories” of paid news are in jeopardy. If Murdoch succeeds in acquiring WSJ, expect the paid walls to come down. And rumors are the NYT is about to drop TimesSelect (which as we’ve discussed before isn’t really working).

When I hear or read of newsroom types advocating paid content, it’s clear that the main impetus isn’t research or careful thought, but more, “we should force people to pay, damn it, because what we do is important and special”

But in looking at digital distribution trends, it’s clear that the power to force people to do anything, especially with their money, is a pretty dumb business plan.

We need a well informed society. If we are going to continue in that mission its going to mean: Free content. It’s going to mean free content that is easy to obtain through multiple platforms and channels (not just our own) and often in segments that are shorter, more digestible and linked to alternative view points than what newspapers have traditionally offered.
The future is free. It is distributed. Now we just need to figure out how to pay for it.

The next three years could be critical for the online news game. The timeline may be five years, but more likely, I think, we’ll have a pretty good idea as to our fate (speaking of newspapers and their online properties) within three years.
By mid-2010, we won’t necessarily be saying, “whew, we made it through that one,” but we will be able to say whether our long-term prospects are good or poor.

I know there are those who would say the prospects are bleak now. I disagree. I remain hopeful. But I would say the trends now are neutral. Our fate hangs in the balance.

Within three years, we’ll know:

• Whether CPM rates can be pushed much, much higher;
• Whether newspaper sites can band together to create a useful national advertising network;
• Whether there is any there there in behavioral advertising (this point independent of the first two items, but also related);
• Whether returns on contextual, CPC advertising can become a significant revenue stream for local news publishers;
• We will know if we can figure out a sustainable, significant video advertising model;
• We will know if we’ve figured out a way to not only protect, but expand our classified and vertical advertising revenue;
• We will know if we can really turn internet yellow pages into a strong, new revenue source;
• We will know if we’ve figured out how to grow audience significantly enough to better under gird all of these advertising models.

If we’ve succeed in all or most of these areas, I think we will have reason to celebrate our success. If we’re still just treading water, or worse, falling behind, we will be justified in feeling quite panicked.

My prediction: Within three years, we will see a number of online news sites associated with newspapers that take in more than 30 percent of the revenue of the total media company operations — all of the trends above will be robustly positive for those companies. And we’ll see some newspapers failing miserably and on their way out of business.

Interesting new report out from Pew on online video.

It confirms what we already know: Video is hot and getting hotter.

It also confirms that sharing is a big part of the online video experience.

Good news for us: News video is important to many people.

I suspect a lot of people are going to key on on this finding:

Overall, 62% of online video viewers say that their favorite videos are those that are “professionally produced,” while 19% of online video viewers express a preference for content “produced by amateurs.” Another 11% say they enjoy both professionally-produced video and amateur online video equally.

I wonder how “professionally produced” is defined in the minds of Pew or the respondents? Is LonelyGirl15 or the OK Go treadmill video “professionally produced” even though the production quality of these videos would not meet the standards of many video professionals?

Does professionally produced mean using all the best equipment and meeting some pre-defined production value standards? Or does it mean somebody was paid to produce it?

There are some vloggers who do very good work and I don’t think are making their living off their video. And their are vloggers who do make their living from video, but I bet the audience doesn’t see them as professionals.

I just don’t see how this question and response helps us understand: What type of video production actually appeals to an online audience?

The available evidence from what people are actually watching is very different from what the surface takeaway would be from this poll.

The other aspect of online video this poll did not address is: Advertising. I guess Pew might argue that they were focused on video as content, but advertising, especially in online video, is content. Melissa Worden points out in the comments that I missed the bit on advertising.

I just watched a Wallstrip interview with MyTrade.com CEO Andy Swan.

Near the end, Swan says he’s short MySpace, long Facebook, because Facebook listens to users.

I completely endorse listening to users. It’s something newspapers and newspaper.coms have not traditionally done well.

But here’s the thing for newspaper web sites: Which users do you listen to?

If you listen too much to your current users, what sort of false feedback might you ingest?

I mean, your current users are predominately core newspaper users. Their expectations for how a newspaper.com should behave may be mired in the same Packaged Goods Media think that holds back many newsrooms. It’s something less than a virtuous circle.

Whereas the users who can best help you envision the future may not be among your core users.

When you’re Facebook or MyTrade.com, you’re creating new users with new ways of thinking. But when you’re legacy media, you’re dealing with more legacy users.

So how do you know when you’re getting the kind of feedback that will help you grow and build a great business?

One of the traps far too many newspaper.com sites fall into when redesigning is viewing the site as a newspaper.com site and not a news/community.com site.

Not so, mainetoday.com.

Clean and not overloaded with links. Joe Michaud and his team have put together a site that resists the temptation to put EVERYTHING on the home page. Compare it, for example. with Chron.com.

It’s a tough call for most news sites, because there is just so much important information to point people towards. As wonderful as the new CNN.com is, it’s still a pretty long home page.

The first thing a newspaper.com can do is drop all the section boxes on the home page — those long lists of headlines by sections. You’ve got your section nav. That’s good enough. Next, just be really disciplined about what you allow on the home page. This is more of a internal political issue than anything. Everybody in the organization thinks he deserves some representation on the home page. That’s just not good design or usability. Site managers need to enforce some clear guidelines. Finally, dump some ad positions. Besides text ads, more than two ad positions is way too much. One is ideal. Your advertising will be more valuable on an uncluttered page. (Yes, MainToday.com has three ad positions. Oh, well.)

This is what we’re after at GateHouse Media with our first round of templates. We’ll fill out this look with some more content modules next month. We also have two new sets of templates we’ll unveil in five or six weeks. Again, we’re going after a cleaner look.

Of course, it was also the design style I championed in Bakersfield. That was nearly two years ago, and it’s still an uncommon approach, which is why I find MainToday.com’s redesign noteworthy.

Another thing Michaud is doing that I think is smart is they’re rolling out the redesign over a period of time. Today is the home page. Subsequent sections will follow. A complete site relaunch is a bear and bound to lead to headaches. A slow roll out makes it less stressful to uncover unforeseen issues. Unfortunately, with the site launches we have coming up in August, we have no choice but to do a complete makeover. I envy Joe his more leisurely pace.

UPDATE: So I dashed this off quickly this morning after a first-blush take on the new site, seeing instantly that this wasn’t your typical newspaper site. On closer look, the site is even more of a portal site. It’s very much a community site. There is plenty of good stuff going on here with UGC, blogs and calendar. Mouse over the horizontal navigation. I’m not usually a fan of roll-over navigation, but this is an very interesting take on the concept. It strikes me as a pretty original concept. Given its context-driven nature, I can actually see it working.

Back in 2004, I would do a blog post about IPTV (or TVIP), by which I meant video delivered over IP. I said someday TV over IP would radically change television. People would watch all kinds of programs that weren’t available from networks, and a lot of traditional TV and movies would be available, too. A critic said I was crazy. The pipe would never be big enough. I said the pipe didn’t matter because everything would be time-shifted. We’re not talking about watching streaming TV the way cable delivers it (and what Microsoft and PacBell meant by IPTV), but downloads for later viewing.
And now we have the likes of Joost and AppleTV and Netflix and gobs of quality vlogs along with plenty of other IP video offerings. It’s still early in the revolution, but things are changing fast.

Also in 2004, I spoke at an API conference on mobile and said “someday you’ll get broadband to your mobile device — anywhere, anytime.” I didn’t know how this would happen, but it only seemed logical that it would. And it would radically change the way people consume news and entertainment. People in the room far smarter than me about technology said it would never happen. It was an awkward moment, because I only had my belief and a few examples of radical experiments to make it happen (like big balloons beaming down IP signals to the ground).
Well, the FCC is getting ready to license 700 MHz spectrum, and if it is a truly open system, I think John Battelle is right: “This could mean we get the Internet in the air. I mean, the real Internet. Wow.”

Wow, indeed.

It’s hard to imagine, fully, how that will change things.

But video will be a big part of the mobile broadband future.

The iPhone is already a pretty incredible mobile video device.

Somebody recently reminded me about this post on change.

Here’s a competitive advantage, if you can harness it: Be ready for change.

…

By change, I don’t just mean things will be different. I mean change as a constant state.

Are you ready for change?

Speaking of trips down memory lane, check out this Digital video about the internet in 1994. It’s exceptionally prescient about how things will change.

The other day I listed eight mistakes newspapers made in the past. I tried to sound a hopeful note even while bemoaning the lost opportunities because I’m not a pessimist at all about the state of our industry.

Maybe we’ve made mistakes, but as I said, the game is not lost … yet.

• Advertising revenue will improve. Advertising models will become refined. Advertisers will increasingly see the value of the local newspaper.com reach, and we’ll figure out how better to apply the network effect to appeal to national advertisers, and just like the early days of cable TV, our rates will only go up.
• People still want and need reliable news sources. And by reliable, I don’t mean that only professional reporters can get the right information (professionals, as we well know by now, hold no special dispensation here); by reliable I mean, the day-in-day-out information gathering and dissemination that seems to go hand –in-hand with a steady paycheck. Volunteers are great, but volunteers have lives and few can afford to devote the kind of sustained dedication to a topic area that communities need. Volunteers are hard to replace. There are lots of people in need of a regular paycheck.
• We know community. I’ve said it many times, community is in our DNA. So when it comes to creating online communities – web 2.0, virtual communities, platforms for participation – we know how to do this. It’s a natural fit for what we’ve always done. We just need to build better tools and a more web-native infrastructure. I believe we’ll get there. Social networks and newspaper organizations are a natural fit. Long term, I have more hope for newspaper networks than Facebook and MySpace. Frankly. And I think we can learn from their mistakes as well as their successes.
• Classifieds. I still believe we can get classifieds right. There may be lots of free classified sites now, but free classifieds won’t be around forever. Whether free or paid, in order for classifieds to succeed for a publisher, you need mass. In most communities, even in many where craigslist is strong, newspapers retain and maintain mass dominance. Classifieds are a natural fit for the web and I believe classified revenue will start to grow again, and dramatically. Just give it some time.
• Resources. Even after cut backs, most newspapers have good-sized news staffs. Newspaper staffs are never as big as in-newsroom personnel believe they should be (we always want to do more than we can, being the kind of people we are), but we can still gather, sort and disseminate a boat load of information in a amazingly short amount of time. That is and will remain a competitive advantage, especially against other media trying to transition to the web (think, TV).
• Reach. Almost every local newspaper in the country is by far the #1 medium in its DMA. In most markets, it usually takes all three of the top TV stations combined to reach as many people as the newspaper reaches, even after all recent readership declines. That’s incredible marketing power for the newspaper.com. Most newspapers are not yet fully exploiting that power, but they should.
• Video. I’ve long believed that video presents a substantial audience and revenue opportunity for newspaper sites. When you combine our reach, resources and our fresh outlook on video, you have an opportunity to dominate local web video in a way TV will struggle to match. Here is our chance to be the disruptor rather than the disruptee.
• Trust and brand equity. In most communities, newspapers are seen not just as big media, but as part of the community. This is especially true in smaller communities, but even in large metros, the love/hate relationship that is sometimes displayed by readers for the local rag is still brand equity. So long as we are around, large segments of our communities well need what we do, and turn to us first for not just the big stories, but the small stories other media ignores. We don’t need to reach everybody, just enough (and we can always develop other products to reach the people not interested in general purpose news).

And the bonus ninth reason: I believe the sleeping giant is awake. For the past year or more, we’ve seen newspaper companies giving the web more attention and more money. A concentrated effort by lots of smart people working the same problems, and with some money to make things happen, is bound to pay dividends.

Interesting think piece from Matt McAlister on media as a platform. A theme we’ve touched on before.

It’s not about stopping bad behavior or even embracing good behavior. It’s about investing in an architecture that promotes growth for an entire ecosystem. If you do it right, you will watch network effects take hold naturally. And then everyone wins.

Like Matt, my thinking along these lines goes back a long way, but I have yet to perfect the language for designing what I see. I remember one of the first things I read (probably in 1995) about the value of links, and how linking in and linking out “raises all boats.” Time and time again, I think we’ve seen how that works in a networked world.

I like what Matt says about investing in an architecture that promotes growth for the entire ecosystem.

And while we work toward implementing something like that for the newspaper.com, I’m not sure the vision has been perfected yet — not for the newspaper.com, because there is some intrinsic value of a newspaper.com brand, resources and position in the community that can probably be leveraged in unique ways.

For me, in my present job, there is so much to do just to establish a baseline. Building and nourishing an entire ecosystem is a longer-term project.

Nielsen/NetRatings needs you to care about audited metrics. That’s how they make their money.

I’ve just never been convinced online advertisers care about audited metrics. In more than a decade of doing online publishing, I’ve never had an advertiser ask me or one of my reps for audited traffic numbers. I’ve only heard tall tales of national advertisers asking for such numbers.

Online advertising — and maybe all advertising — is about performance. Whether you’re selling CPC or CPM-based advertising, if you can’t deliver results commensurate to your characterization of your site’s performance, you won’t retain advertisers.

The trend in online advertising is more toward performance metrics every day.

That’s why Nielsen swamping out the imprecise page view measurement for the equally imprecise time-spent metric seems so very unimportant.

For Nielsen, it’s all about revenue — their revenue, not yours.

UPDATE: BTW, how meaningful is “time spent” in the age of tabbed browsing? I might leave a tab open for hours before going back to a page and re-engaging in whatever I was doing earlier.

The Sacrament Bee now requires commenters to comment with real names.

Look for this to become the norm MSM news sites.

For the past few years, I’ve advocated a position that basically allowed public anonimity so long as the newspaper.com was collecting real names and contact information.

My position now is: Require real names and take reasonable measures to enforce it (absolute compliance is impossible).
It’s just the right thing to do.

The wild-web 2.0 has advantages, and normally I advocate be as much like the unfettered web as possible, and even though it contradicts my “stop thinking like big media” advocacy, there are some journalistic standards worth maintaining. One of them is truthfulness and transparancy. People should stand behind their opinons and assertions with their real identity.

There are trade offs. Some people won’t participate. Some people will lie (hopefully we can catch most of them eventually). The nature of participation will change in subtle, unknown ways. Some people who might be willing to offer up anonymous news tips or useful background information will be afraid to participate.

The trade offs, in the interest, of a more civil civic discussion and maintaining some journalistic integrity in this regard, are negligible, imho.

Facebook has demonstrated that anonymity is not a web 2.0 requirement.

I just hope the Bee doesn’t think that requiring names (while ending moderation) will end their “rudeness and crudeness” problem. There is still no substitute for staff involvement in the conversation.

Jeff Jarvis appeared on Reliable Sources and posted the segment on Facebook.  The topic? Facebook.

It’s a good discussion.

Items that stand out:

• The mini-feed isn’t a news feed, which for some makes it less interesting, but Jarvis sees it as a wisdom-of-the-crowds way of endorsing what’s good in Facebook.
• Ana-Marie Cox struggles through an explanation of the “elitist” background of Facebook, but her underlying point is good. Facebook started as a social network for a limited number of people, so it’s always maintained an “in-the-know” sort of vibe. Meanwhile, MySpace has been completely open, which encourages people who are more open to experimenting with their persona.
• Age and status, according to Jarvis, define how you use Facebook. If you’re in high school and college, you accept all friends requests, but old folks, like us, are more selective, because our friends are people we “endorse” and will respect their online opinions.

Speaking of web 2.0 stuff (this is a real tangent, but I don’t want to take time for a separate post on this): Check out ABC’s new iCaught.  It’s an interesting spin on UGC. Or you could see it as an other example of how packaged goods media wants to turn distributed media into PGM.

Every once in a while, I think — if only newspapers had done things differently way back when.

The race isn’t over yet, but there are mistakes newspapers have made that I think will have lasting consequences. We need to think through the impact of these mistakes and what we’ll do about them. There are plentiful opportunities, but we’ll pay for these mistakes for a long time.

My list of mistakes are things, I think, that are beyond hindsight. These are things we knew, or should have known. Obvious things that were obvious years ago.

• Newspapers were slow to embrace blogging. Newsrooms dismissed blogging as a fad, and unprofessional and ladened with rumor and misinformation. Meanwhile, audience flocked to blogs. Isn’t it logical that what is arguably the first web-native publishing model would provide the template for how its done? I fear now that too many newsrooms are looking at online video through the same big-media view finder instead of seeing online video the way web natives see video. (Solution: Embrace blogging. Encourage large swaths of newsroom bloggers and hire (meaning, pay) experts in the community to blog for you. Make blogging a central feature of your content strategy.)
• The failure to develop a web-centric classified model before the advent of Craigslist. Newspapers were slow to put classifieds online, and when they did, they were hard to search, didn’t include e-mail addresses, didn’t have web enhancements and you couldn’t easily place an ad online (or even online only). Today’s classified struggles have less to do with Craig’s free model, and more to do with the fact that newspapers didn’t act aggressively to establish market dominance online before the disruptors came along. (Solution: Fix your classifieds. Make online free, with pay-for-print up sells and enhanced classifieds; make classifieds a social networking opportunity; promote the hell out of the fact that your classifieds still reach more people than any other local alternative.)
• Failure to protect vertical categories, especially auto and real estate, by building robust, content-centric, user-centric vertical sites. A lot of newspaper sites really struggle with one or both vertical, and few newspaper sites have established a strong enough position to guarantee the retention of auto and real estate advertisers, who find it easy to go their own way online. (Solution: Invest in your verticals. Use the best-of-breed solutions and create original content and utility.)
• The failure to invest in search. Right from the beginning, when Yahoo! was still an HTML 1.0 site, it was clear that people needed help finding stuff. Newspapers have been slow to build robust search engines on their own sites, but more importantly, the best thing to come out of the New Century Network was NCN’s Topix-like (only better) newspaper content search engine. If NCN could have done nothing else but keep that search engine going, we would all be better off. (Solution: Put a great universal search engine on your site, and crawl all content (not just your own site) related to your coverage area.)
• It was a mistake to view content as something we do and audiences read, take it or leave it. Fear kept newsrooms from allowing comments on stories for years — fear of the “graffiti on the bathroom wall” effect. Newspapers tried forums, found they quickly devolved into ghettos of banality, spam and hate, so they shut them down. But forum failure wasn’t the fault of the community or the software. It was the fault of management for its lack of management. Before there was a web 2.0, we called participation “virtual communities.” That’s a term that pre-dates the web and it was clear more than a decade ago that audience engagement was tied to participation. (Solution: Create a robust UGC community for your newspaper.com. Engage local bloggers as part of the local civics discussion. Be the platform, not the media package.)
• The newspaper web operations that did discover how to get five percent or more of newspaper revenue from up sells and forced buys should have been reinvesting that money in online operations, instead of trying to juice the bottom line. That money could have been used to pay community bloggers, create community and develop software that would be helping us today. (Solution: Invest more of your online revenue in content operations and application development.)
• Newspapers did not want to believe that the web was pull rather than push, so simply dumping each days edition of the newspaper online seemed like a good idea. But with pull publishing, you need to give a reason for people to remember to visit frequently, and the same old content isn’t going to do that. You need frequent updates and you need to barter in links. You need to be as engaged in your community as it is in you. (Solution: Be the platform. Update frequently, encourage participation, add more and broader levels of content, converse with your site visitors.)
• Newspaper sites have long suffered from a lack of utility. Community calendars, if they exist at all, are too often incomplete and hard to navigate. There is also a lack of broad and rich community data. We don’t do a good enough job, even today, of turning our web sites into an information resource for our communities. About 8 years ago, newspaper companies got hot on the portal idea, but that fizzled out when it turned out it cost money. Newspaper sites should be the community information hub. (Solution: Add robust calendars, get into community database publishing, and gather all the community content you can and publish it (or link to it). Make all kinds of community content easy to find through your site.)

The good news is that in none of these eight points is the game completely lost yet. There is still time and opportunity, and newspapers still have tremendous advantages in content resources and community brand and good will. But these are eight things that need fixed in a hurry.

The flip side of this last bit of tempered optimism is that technology is moving fast. The release of the iPhone is a big leap forward for mobile content and most newspapers haven’t really even contemplated mobile-native content strategies.

Since becoming online director in Ventura in 2004, I’ve included a slide in all my presentations on web content strategy called, “What We’ve Learned From Blogs.”

Typical bullet points:

• Post often
• Post irregularly
• Stay on topic
• Post chronologically
• Engage in conversation

These are things that the most popular blogs do.

Frequent updates, unfettered by deadlines, and coming in reverse chronological order are proven traffic drivers.

Blogs are also about conversation — even bloggers who don’t allow comments on their sites, still engage in conversation by linking to and commenting on posts from other bloggers, or MSM articles.

Most popular bloggers also focus on a particular theme, be it politics or culture or sports, etc.

Blogs are arguably the first web-native publishing model, so it only makes sense that blogs would provide a template for how to publish online.

Howard Kurtz writes this week about the breakout success of HuffingtonPost.

Is it any surprise that one of the fastest growing online publishing operations is powered by frequent updates, lots of content and lots of links?

This is a formula that works. I’ve seen it work first hand, and continue to see it work.

The significant variation for HuffPost is the broad range of topics the site covers.
Too many newspaper web sites are still focused on being the newspaper online. That’s a mistake. Newsrooms should focus on making their sites a community news platform. That’s how you grow traffic.

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