10 January 2008
Things you should be thinking about doing...
Two angles on the same topic for today's blog post, the topic being "stuff you should be doing".
Yesterday
I came across a standard press release from RH Donnelley about their
roll-out of the DexKnows.com service across all of RH Donnelley's US
markets (DexKnows.com is the online repository for all RH Donnelley's
local directory information). Nothing very exciting except that the
list of features DexKnows.com offers reads like a list of "stuff
classified media publishers could/should be doing to add value to their
sites and make them more interactive". View the full list here.
My
second epiphany was an article on SEO and when/how it should be
integrated into website development. (Confession here: whilst we did
some basic SEO when we developed the ICMA site, the more I learn about
it, the more I realise we've missed; I suspect that I'm not alone.).
Read the article here and promise yourself that the next website iteration that you do, you'll take some of these recommendations into account.
Here endeth today's lesson...
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07 January 2008
Dis-aggregating? Or leveraging?
At the risk of blogging about a blog about a blog (and so on...), there's a very interesting discussion on Online Spin that I came across over the Christmas break which started with "why newspapers had got themselves in such a mess" and has now moved on to "what newspapers need to do to re-invent themselves". (And for "newspapers", feel free to substitute "print classified products").
In short, Dave Morgan, EVP for AOL, argues that newspapers should focus on their several areas of core competence and "break themselves up" into business units which could continue to provide services to their "client", the newspaper, but would also be free to tout for business elsewhere from competing, related or even brand-new sectors to earn money to pay the bills. Morgan's examples are persuasive but the real value can be found in the comments that his blog post attracted. Several contributors were sceptical of the expertise that traditional newspaper companies had in several areas, especially ad sales, news-gathering and distribution, whilst others felt that there wasn't the potential commercial printing to generate sufficient revenue, and many argued that most newspaper companies simply didn't possess the management vision or skills to execute on the plan.
As we develop the programme for the Brussels General Meeting this May, we'll be looking at many of these areas (news-gathering aside), and asking how classified media companies can leverage their assets, develop new and profitable revenue streams, and understand how the myriad aspects of their business (both print and online) can work together to support the strategic objectives.
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04 January 2008
Who owns content anyhow?
I just read about Robert Scoble's attempt to download contact information from his Facebook page using an automated script. This has resulted in Facebook disbaling his account for "violating the terms of service".
Facebook may have picked the wrong example to make. Scoble is a prominent and well-respected tech blogger and has clearly chose to make a point about the rights that users of social networks have (or rather don't have) over their own content. He has already joined www.dataportability.org, an organisation working to develop open standards for porting data between services, and a Facebook group has been formed to protest his expulsion from the service.
This example got me thinking about the "scraping" of classified content by aggregators such as Oodle that many publishers have long deplored. The accusation that the aggregators were "stealing our content" has withered away as publishers have realised that putting up walls and trying to defend their information silos against all comers was counter-productive and if they couldn't beat 'em, they should join 'em. And so whilst there's been no great deluge of content-sharing agreements bar a couple of direct uploads to GoogleBase, it's become clear that content wants to be free, and if we want to serve our advertisers and readers well, we need to release our content onto the world wide web and wish it well.
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09 October 2007
Why location is the problem with local search, and the Yahoo!/newspaper deal
In my 242 Google Alerts over the weekend, I came across two gems from blogs which address completely different issues; but as they're so good, I'm going to include them in the same post.
The first is from Matt McGee on SmallBusinessSEM where he responds to another post about the importance of SEO for local search (sometimes it all rather seems like navel-gazing). Whilst Matt doesn't disagree with the premise of the original post, he argues that the real problem with local search (for search engines) is location. As soon as you start adding a location variable to a search enquiry (e.g. Birmingham TVs), you complicate the enquiry to a much greater degree than if you simply added an extra element (e.g. flat-screen TVs). This because the relative importance of the location versus the item can be different for each user, and also because it depends on a number of value judgements made by the search engines on the definition of location. This is not to say that the big search engines will not eventually crack this puzzle; it just means that there's a real opportunity for other players to address these location issues. Read the full post.
The second is an excellent analysis of the plight of newspapers and their attempts to respond to the onslaught of the internet, particularly with regards to the Yahoo! partnership. Terry Heaton of The Digital Journalist identifies the key issue as the newspapers' refusal to abandon their old business model and simply tinker with minor aspects - the Newspaper Next project is described as "right brain solutions through left brain processes". Terry quotes a recent piece of research which highlights daily newspapers as the primary victims as their news-gathering and immediacy USP has been completely eroded by the internet, but also fingers local media which will get lost in the online big-brand name war.
Analysing the Yahoo! deal, Terry believes that whilst the newspapers have gained some advantages from the relationship, Yahoo! has gained considerably more, being the controller of the network rather than one of the 'nodes'. But even then, Terry concludes that whilst Yahoo! is all about bringing people to the network, Google is much more about bringing itself to the network which will ultimately prove more successful. Terry's full post is here.
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03 October 2007
Some useful tips from a local search start-up
I came across an article from Max Jennings, the founder of Welovelocal.com, a local search start-up based in the UK.
Welovelocal.com is actually more of a cross between a social networking site and a local search site, and is limited to London at the moment but is planning to roll out nationwide very soon.
Max gives seven "lessons" that he's learned from the start-up and roll-out process, and some of these, particularly the last one about people expecting you to be as good as Google, are tough but true. Definitely worth a look and asking yourself if you take account of all seven.
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26 September 2007
US newspapers companies' online activities
US newspaper companies are dead in the water right? Facing with plummeting print circulations, falling stock prices, and rapidly shrinking ad revenues particularly in the key classified categories of autos and property (as the credit-crunch tightens), it's accepted wisdom that these companies are in a lot of trouble.
But if you dig a bit deeper into the latest reported revenues, it's clear that the one bright spot is their online activities which are growing fast, albeit from a small base, and that often these activities comprise a good deal more than just an online version of the newspaper.
I read an interesting and informative post from Sramana Mitra on this topic this morning. He picked Gannett, one of the largest US newspaper companies and analysed their online investments, joint ventures and products, and the list was both long and wide-ranging, including not just their interest in CareerBuilder, but also in Classified Ventures (along with Belo Corporation, The McClatchy Company, Tribune Company and The Washington Post Company) which has as its objective "to collectively capitalize on the revenue growth in the online classified advertising categories of automotive, apartments, and real estate."
In the key verticals, this is where Gannett is present:
So whilst the print operations may be struggling, Gannett has clearly not had its corporate head in the sand about the impact of online on its business and the poitential revenues it represents. They operate some leading brands online, and if they hit upon a winning formula in one particular area, their resources and national presence will enable them to replicate local sites quickly and easily.
But just to prove that online is a very different game, this week the New York Times announced that it would be discontinuing the subscription model that it had implemented for TimesSelect. According to the NYTCo, this was not because the figures for subscribers and the revenue generated was disappointing in any way, but the light had dawned, and they now believe that they can attract more traffic and sell more advertising through a free-access model. Central to this decision was the realisation that search engines accounted for a hefty chunk of traffic and they should ignore this at their peril.
Changing times for newspapers indeed.
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14 August 2007
Is 2007 the year of mobile?
Lots of mobile news around at the moment, starting with the announcement from AdMob, the world’s largest mobile advertising marketplace. They have just announced that the firm has served over five billion targeted ads since the launch of the site in December of 2006.
The fast expansion is attributed to the growing number of mobile web sites, advertisers and the natural increase of mobile internet users.
CEO Omar Hamoui reinforced this in a statement made in a press release, “AdMob’s growth is a testament to the growth of the mobile internet and proof that advertising business models are viable in mobile. Mobile is a unique environment with new challenges and we are proud to work with our publishers and advertisers to unlock the enormous opportunity in mobile marketing.”
AdMob serves targeted banners and text ads for mobile sites using contextual and demographic information that fits into the mobile specific parameters. The top Markets (by ads served) as reported by AdMob are the U.S. (45% of impressions), South Africa, United Kingdom, India, Germany, Australia and Israel.
And MySpace is picking up momentum in Canada with a new mobile portal. It is launching its service in an initially-exclusive deal with Rogers Wireless, the country’s biggest mobile carrier in terms of subscribers. release
But unlike some other social networking sites that offer mobile services for free, Rogers and MySpace will charge a C$5 (EUR 3.45) monthly fee to access the service, although users who sign up before October 31 will get six months of usage free. Additionally the portal will only work on certain handsets. Users of the service will find many of the same features that MySpace’s mobile portals have in other countries, including the ability to post comments or blog entries, search for friends, and read and respond to MySpace email, as well as edit their profiles.
MySpace launched two Canadian portals, one in French and the other in English, in May of this year, and currently has around 4.1 million users in the country, according to Marketnews (MySpace has around 115 million registered users worldwide, according to comScore Media Metrics). It does not provide stats on mobile-only usage but Travis Katz, SVP and GM of MySpace International, claims there has been “incredible uptake worldwide for MySpace Mobile initiatives.”
And finally from traditional media, more moves from traditional media into mobile: Gannett is launching over 100 mobile Internet sites to beef up its presence in the growing local information market. The sites - covering 84 daily newspapers, 19 local broadcast Web sites and USA Today - will feature news, sports, weather and other local information, and will be free to access (provided users have unlimited mobile Internet surfing plans in their contracts). The content will be produced by Gannet’s Information Centers, hubs that generate content used across different Gannet media outlets (from print and television to Internet and mobile).
The company release does not mention 4Info, but Matt Jones, Gannett’s director of mobile strategy and operations, tells us that it will be used in the new local site services. Gannett has had a growing relationship with the SMS-based mobile search company—in June announcing a US$10 (EUR 7.36) million investment and an intention to use 4Info’s mobile search and interactive advertising services for its national flagship title USA Today.
Jones says the local mobile initiative will not be crossing over with the online advertising venture Gannett has been working on with Tribune, which has its own local mobile sites. He says Third Screen Media will be one of the companies serving ads onto the local sites, but he did not confirm whether Google will be involved. Gannett was an early partner of the search giant’s business selling print newspaper inventory to Google advertisers; Google of course has high hopes of taking its advertising services mobile (not to mention getting deeper into local services to help further its advertising reach).
The mobile announcement comes at time of declining revenues in Gannett’s core newspaper print business and broadcasting business. In July, the publisher reported Q2 revenue fell to US$1.93 (EUR 1.42) billion from US$2 (EUR 1.47) billion last year, although profits rose to US$365.7 (EUR 269.4) million, from US$310.5 (EUR 228.8) million, an 18% increase from the same period a year ago.
Gannett has not yet said whether it intends to launch a similar mobile service with its Newsquest titles, the second-largest regional newspaper group in the UK. But, let's not get ahead of ourselves... Hewlett-Packard's worldwide media director, Scott Berg, controls a budget of US$ 829 (EUR 611) million and is a big fan of nontraditional media. HP, for example, is devoting 70% of its back-to-school budget to online and viral messaging.
Yet Mr. Berg is frustrated by the limitations of mobile-web advertising; marketers who push out ads rather than allowing users to opt in; and strategies that overlook the most important consumer need in mobile marketing: search.
"We've had experience with advertising on the deck of some phone carriers -- just didn't work out for us," Mr. Berg said. HP also tested off-deck ads on the mobile web and came to the conclusion that search, at least for the time being, is the way to tackle the new media.
"I would much rather spend the money on the search terms than the advertising because I can track it, I can understand it, I can tweak it based on consumer needs," he said.
The key, he believes, is for marketers to realize people are using their phones for information - and smart advertisers will market around that rather than simply pump out a steady stream of ads.
He said HP's latest mobile strategy, which is set to roll out next year, will be based on the thinking that the mobile phone is a utility for consumers.
"I have a number of concerns about the push technology. One of the big ones is there's going to be a huge backlash by consumers if we start to push text messages or voicemail messages, and that's going to lead immediately - immediately - to legislation against this type of activity," he warned. "Right now you have the do-not-call list. That could possibly get more stringent, in my opinion, if marketers tend to go overboard in push technology in mobile phones."
Instead, Mr. Berg said he is defining a strategy that will tie in with HP distributors, resellers and others so the mobile phone will prove useful to consumers at the point of purchase. Many of those efforts will be related to search, a much different process on the mobile phone than on the PC.
"When you're walking around, you're looking for a place to go, a place to go shop. Perhaps you're trying to check a price within a store and checking to see if there's another better price online," he said. "How can we utilize the natural use of mobilephone technology in the way that search is applied to it in an everyday benefit back to the consumer?"
But Mr. Berg said not all HP mobile-marketing efforts will be limited to search. He said the company's Yahoo March Madness HP Courtside '07 promotion, which provided scores and information during last spring's men's college basketball tournament, drew more than 890,000 unique visitors.
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09 August 2007
Poor Q2 results for the Sun-Times Media Group
Sun-Times Media Group, Inc. today reported an operating loss of US$80.6 (EUR 58.5) million for the second quarter ended June 30, 2007, versus an operating loss of US$13.7 (EUR 9.9) million for the second quarter of 2006. The 2007 second quarter figures take into account the settlement reached with the Canada Revenue Agency regarding tax issues largely related to the disposition of certain Canadian operations in 2000.
Total operating revenues in the second quarter of 2007 were US$94.3 (EUR 68.5) million, versus US$107.4 (EUR 78) million in the year-ago period. Advertising revenues declined 12% to US$73.2 (EUR 53.2) million from US$83.6 (EUR 60.7) million in 2006. Classified advertising fell 18%, while retail and national advertising were lower by 9% and 19%, respectively. These declines were partially offset by a 58% increase in Internet advertising revenue.
Sales and marketing costs rose 12%, primarily related to additional marketing and re-branding efforts as well as enhancements designed to strengthen the link between print content and Internet content on www.suntimes.com.
“We have been clear all along that 2007 would be a tough year. Like all newspapers we continue to face a very uncertain advertising environment. Yet the turnaround plan we announced in May is beginning to show some results,” said Cyrus F. Freidheim, Jr., Chief Executive Officer. “We have a number of initiatives in the pipeline to transform the company. We remain confident that these plans will find their way to the bottom line despite the weak industry.
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08 August 2007
The difference between Yellow Pages and search engines
A fascinating article by Kevin Ryan of the ClickZ Network published on SearchEngineWatch this morning. He argues that the web (and thus search engines) are dominant in researching a purchase but when the user has made the decision to buy, his next port of call is the Yellow Pages in order to find a store to complete the purchase. The added irony is that the Yellow Pages site probably receives 50-90% of its traffic from the search engine itself, its biggest "competitor"
Where it gets really interesting though is when you consider how differently the two information sources expect the user to behave. The search engine is inherently flexible, the user can tailor his request and the search engine keeps 'trying' to give him what he wants. Whereas the Yellow Pages operates by a strict taxonomy which requires a distinct degree of understanding in order for it to yield up the desired results.
So why not twin user-generated content with an old-fashioned listings structure? YellowBot.com does just that as it offers users the ability to 'tag' items to create 'tag clouds' of relevant classifications. This is just the latest manifestation of the importance of the social networking sites and the effect that this phenomenon is having on all of our businesses, particularly when it comes to the "long tail".
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GMG and Apax to bid for Emap?
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The publisher of the UK’s The Guardian newspaper is in talks with private equity firm Apax Partners about launching a joint GBP2 (EUR 2.9) billion bid for Emap, reports The Daily Telegraph. Talks between Apax and Guardian Media Group are at an early stage and no formal agreement has been struck to bid together. Apax and GMG already have a close relationship. Earlier this year the private equity firm paid GBP650 (EUR 956) million for a 49% stake in ICMA member Trader Media Group, the arm of GMG that includes the classified advertising magazine Auto Trader.
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