pheedo - rss marketing solutions

Ten Ideas to Save Newspapers

January 7, 2009

Dear Mr. Newspaper Editor,

I have been studing the demise of the newspaper for some time. It is more of an interest then anything else. My degree is in Journalism (by the looks of this blog, I could use a refresher course) so it has a soft spot in my heart.

Instead of jumping on the bandwagon and talking about the death of the newspaper, I want to talk about how to save it. I am offering you my passion for good journalism and my experience as an entrepreneur. I worked in newsroom and ran a small paper for a few years so I speak with a bit of knowledge on the subject.

Over the past years, I have been reading the opinions of all the greats - Jeff Jarvis, Alan Mutter, Jay Rosen, etc. They are the experts. They are attempting to make a difference and offer their thoughts on saving the newspaper. You can read their blogs. Too good to paraphrase here.

On to solving the problem of print. First, admit it, the actual print paper is declining in circulation. Nothing wrong with that. We don't drive horse and buggy today. Why? Henry Ford gave us a better way of getting around. Don't look at the decline in your print circulation as a problem. Look at it as an opportunity. The paper isn't going away because your journalism is bad, the paper is going away because we found a better way to consume your content. Let your ego and fears go. Your print addition is a horse and buggy. The car is the future.

I know what you are thinking, "But, Bill, we generate the most revenue from our newspapers." For how long? Is it a dyeing asset or growing one? Your strongest asset is your skilled writers no matter the medium where they write (paper, phone, internet, on a napkin.) Cultivate your strongest asset. Funnel their passions.

Ten ideas to save the newspaper (no particular order)

1. Think locally! If you are local paper, STOP covering World news. This is not your sweet spot. I want to know about the local sports team, 4H, or how the local economy is suffering from the global mess we are in. Your customers of tomorrow know how to find national and World news elsewhere. They are aggregating content from multiple sources.

2. Set your content free. The future is syndication and aggregation. I don't know if the Huffington Post has the right model of the future of the news as Michael Hirschorn points out but I can tell you one thing from my vantage point, content is becoming mobile, untethered from the website. Your future customers are mashing, widgeting, twittering and friendfiending your content.

3. Think like a database marketing company. Your online revenue model should be focused on helping the local merchant generate leads. Are you helping him capture leads? You are not in the advertising business you are in the lead generation business. Create a database of your customers. Mine their attention data. You know what they read. You know what they like. Help your local merchant succeed. You are in the best position to succeed at local advertising. There have been many failed attempts at local advertising online with few success. You have a sales person in every county, city, and town in the US. You have the potential to beat Google in this market. Even they cannot be everywhere. Stake your position before it is too late. Create a place where local merchants can create a profile on your site. Become THE local source for special offers, announcements, coupons from the local community.

4. Outsource, outsource, outsource. You are in the business of creating great content. You are not a technology company. Just because you are on the Internet doesn't mean you are a technology company. Keep your writers writing.

5. Digitize your content. Your future customers are getting their news online. They are blogging, friendfeeding, widgetizing, twittering, feeding your content (if you don't know what the means, learn quickly.) How are you embracing the real-time web? Study the new media landscape and NOW!

6. Embrace your customers. Publishing is in real-time now. It is getting more competitive to break news even in your local market. Now that we all have phones with cameras or video we can shoot, write and post in real-time. You have to think about writing differently. You will need to create a balance between shorter stories published more often and in-depth investigative stories. Be know for quality journalism first and foremost. Engage with your customers too. Create a place for them within your content. Have them submit news under your brand. Yes, this is a risk and they are not trained like a journalist. Use them as a source of real-time news and have your trained professionals follow-up. Hold regular meet-ups at your office with your customers. Ask them what they want, ask them to volunteer, train them for what to look for.

7. Hire the right people. This is a big one. Look across your organization. Are you bringing in young professionals who grew up with texting, Facebook/Myspace, digital music etc? Do you have the right ratio of young and experience based on your future business and revenue status? Is anyone on your editor staff using Twitter? You need to start building products for your future customers. Simple business principle.

8. Aggregate. Aggregate content from bloggers writing about the local market. Find out who they are and embrace them. Most would be delighted to have their content appear under your brand. Ask them to add geo tags to their posts to make it easier to find their content so you can aggregate it.

9. Partner. Do you have business development person in house? Your business is writing and distribution but think like a business that creates a product or service. You are not an island. What is our online distribution model? How are you embracing local merchants? What about coffee shops? People go there everyday to read the news - great place to hold a meet-up. Is there a penny saver in your community? Are you working together. What about online coupon sites? How are you working with them? What about online classified sites? Are you THE resource for them in the local market?

10. Network Spend a hour or two ever week at the local hang-out. You will be surprised what you might learn from the locals talking about the news, the weather or whatever. Are you holding regular networking events at your office with local business people? Why not?

Remove your fear and anxiety. Print is going away. That is ok. The paper is NOT your strongest asset. Your journalist are.

And while we are on the subject, maybe we should drop "paper" from your name. Report on the news no matter what medium carries it.

Let's stop talking about the death of the newspaper. That is so easy. Let's collectively think how we can save a profession. We need great journalism. We need investigating reporting. What are your thoughts?

Searchers looking for Love and RSS

December 17, 2008

If Google were only around when I was younger. It would have saved me a lot of heart-ache. Google could have told me the meaning of love. According to the lastest 2008 Google Zeitgerist report people turned to Google in 2008 to find out what love is.

However, the real excitement in the report is the fifth most searched "what is" question - "What is RSS?"

Top "What Is" questions according to Google.

1. what is love
2. what is life
3. what is java
4. what is sap
5. what is rss
6. what is scientology
7. what is autism
8. what is lupus
9. what is 3g
10. what is art

More people want to know about RSS than scientology? You have to love that if you are an RSS junkie. Think about all the "what is" questions one could ask Google and RSS is number 5!

This does make sense. A Razorfish study revealed RSS grew 153% in the first half of 2008. This also maps well to the subscriber growth our publishers are seeing in their RSS feeds.

Look for continuing growth in the use of RSS in 2009 as more and more consumers turn to content-on-the-go as the way to stay connected to the content they love.

RSS, Now with More Cowbell

December 16, 2008

What do you get if you combine the growing preference of online users for 'content-on-the-go' (RSS) with their appetite for video? Answer: Pheedo's new video RSS syndication service - Video Ads for Feeds.

According to eMarketer video ad spending will rise 45% in 2009 counter to the overall market conditions. The product fulfills the need to cost-effectively access a highly engaged audience that is increasingly spending more of their time consuming content away from websites. Subscribers spend on average 30 minutes per day consuming RSS-enabled content and watch nearly 3.8 hours of video online monthly.

Now marketers can leverage Pheedo's latest enhancement - RSS video content and video ad syndication platform to reach millions of users who choose to consume content via RSS. The video ads are syndicated to premium publishers' feeds including the New York Times, CBS, Huffington Post, PCWorld and hundreds of niche content feeds, communities and news readers. Universal Studios, Fox Searchlight and National Geographic are just some of the advertisers to jump on Video Ads for Feeds to reach their fragmented audience.

We continue to push RSS advertising into new territories and evolve our platform to serve the growing needs of publishers, advertisers and the community. Marketer's thirst for quality inventory to syndicate their videos translates into new revenue opportunities for Pheedo publishers.

The video ad platform integrates with our existing RSS analytics and ad serving tools to provide deep insight into user engagement and ROI. With double-digit engagement rates, advertisers have been pleased with the results.

Benefits of the new service include:

Controlled Syndication
Easily establish rules to effectively syndicate to a variety of distribution points including niche audiences.

Measure Performance and ROI
Analytics provides access to dozens of performance and behavioral reports.

Simple Deployment
Use your current video assets to get started easily.

Viral
Users can engage with the video content by sharing it with friends or bookmarking it for later viewing.

Intelligent
Video player automatically detects the end user's device and adjusts content delivery accordingly.

The chrome of the player can be customized to increase the immediate branding experience. Users can click on the chrome to be immediately directed to a destination page.

RSS had a fever and the only cure was more Cowbell.