Fernando Samaniego - International New Media Consulting

My Interview by the International Press Institute

As a permanent new Member to the Advisory Board of the International Press Institute, I was recently interviewed on their website.  Here is a copy of it, and a link.

Why should traditional media invest in innovation? 

Let me start by stressing an old truth: good storytelling is the key to our success.  Good storytellers are the protagonists in our own future success, the protagonists who unfortunately have too often been sidelined by the antagonists (‘bad guys’):  bad journalists and unprepared bosses in the newsroom. 

The newsroom needs to be reinvented: it needs to become dynamic, to become the platform where content merges from multiple sources, including external contributors, professional and amateurs.   For this to work, contributors need to be compensated for their work in new ways because the some of the previous models are unsustainable.  And our content platform absolutely needs to produce original content - paywalls are not possible without it.

We old dogs need to learn new tricks to engage audiences. For media companies to interact more closely with readers, they need to further explore the relationships between content and users; and between content and content, uncovering patterns which will allow us to automatically anticipate the intentions of users and create related services and functions.

In short, innovation is key to the future of the news – from the technology, content and business perspectives. 


How can an innovative online media project become economically sustainable? 

1. Leverage our key assets and branch out into adjacent businesses 
News sites are heavily trafficked, but they are costly and unprofitable if we fully allocate real costs.  While we need to grow and master that business, we also need to discover other activities we should explore for potential profitability.  If we grab a newspaper printed 20 years ago, its index will show some of the businesses it aggregated: obituaries, cinema, economy, classifieds, professional ads...etc. Hard news was one part of the picture, albeit, the main one.  In our digital papers, it should be the same; we should explore adjacent territories in order for us to become the local connector. Our advantages are our brand, our editorial and commercial teams. Thanks to them we can continue grabbing audiences and smartly creating new activities in the hope of creating new businesses.

2.  Don’t be precious about our homepages - take our content to where the readers are
Too often our guests don’t go beyond the hall of our costly hotels – the homepage. Users peep at the breaking news and leave. Some players are exploring means to present the user with related content or tailor made proposals, but in fact more and more of our readers’ activity takes place outside our properties. Of course we have to follow them wherever they go, but we need to continue engaging users in our properties.  We should think of ourselves as the owners of a network of FREE heavy trafficked highways who need to recoup our investment. Since drivers do not pay a toll, we have to be smart at populating our highways with billboards and road signs to direct vehicles to the new stores we need to create in the infinite land along our roads.

3. Be agile & flexible in embracing technology 
Media companies need to avoid the “asphyxia by technology” syndrome.  Too many companies fight daily with their existing vendors and platforms, which often walk at different speeds and with divergent goals.  I use the “energy”¨comparison to describe the use of technology in the newsroom: you can depend on foreign oil and “export”  lots of money, or you can increasingly rely on new sources of energy, invest in research, create jobs, manufacture locally...etc.  An approach based on reducing costs, risks and rigidity while keeping inside a series of core competencies will facilitate our playing with content as if it were dough.
We need them to take strides in our understanding of the relationships of content with other content and with users, (semantic web), to second guess behaviors or to ascertain the desired content to be consumed at each precise moment, including categories of data or services the user is in need or in the mood to consume.  Nowadays content is technology dependent and good journalism needs good platforms to thrive.

4. Understand that data is the new oil  
If we could gather and harness data left voluntarily by the user on our sites (think gamification techniques) and if we could add to all of that some of the personal information available via other channels (e.g. Twitter or Facebook, including past “likes”, friends, groups), we could offer readers a much richer experience. 
For example, we could surprise them with the best Groupon-type offers or services or a Daily Me for non- hard news. In a hypothetical ‘personal control board’ where the user could see its own ‘shadow’, any affinity proposal would be possible (better targeting of ads is just the obvious benefit coming to our minds).  If media companies are able to achieve such goals, their role in the community would be assured. 

5. Change the culture: 
As is the case in industries in which innovation is key, media companies need to be better at understanding the rhythm of change in society and at using the latest technologies to keep pace with it.  We tend to go slowly and timidly about it.  Often, the best technical people do not want to work for us because we have not created the right environments for them to bloom.  Often we force those tech people to adapt to our corporate culture and we show our surprise when they suffocate or lose their initial enthusiasm.   
This all said, let’s not lose track of what is really important: our future requires original, real story telling. Without that, no competitive advantage will be left for us.

In your opinion, how do initiatives like the IPI News Innovation Contest promote the development of new media and strengthening of journalism?

IPI plays an important role in making innovation happen by funding a number of interesting projects.  This year we were forced to choose among a vast array of proposals from many countries.  In some cases, the projects were presented by people not coming from media and I’m sure they will shine new light onto our old problems.  In the case of developing countries, IPI’s funding will undoubtedly help strengthening those new democracies. By putting money behind good intentions, IPI fosters innovation and good journalism.

You are free to use this article in your publication as long as you credit the author Fernando Samaniego

The Future of Media; Part 4, Revenues

The fourth and last post of the presentation The Future of Media Companies focuses on the generation of revenues.  The revenue model a media company envisages is intimately related to the vision of its role in the market.

Banners and similar formats have a serious growth limitation and a project based on them will see revenues dip. Unless a media company adopts a more updated vision of content, brand and portfolio the sales department will not succeed in bringing home the necessary resources to keep the project humming. While it is true that we will lose analog dollars to digital pennies, there are other activities as well as other revenue and advertising formats which can start bringing money from different sources in a rather immediate way.

 

You can click Download Part 4 Future of Media to gain access to the Power Point presentation.  Alternatively, you can click here to see it here, in Slideshare.

You are free to use this article in your publication as long as you credit the author Fernando Samaniego

 

The Future of Media; Part 3, Brand and Portfolio

This third post on The Future of Media Companies deals with Brand and Portfolio. Content and brand are the only two things that really matter when looking at the future of media companies.  All other things, important as they are, are just means.  Marketing will have to ask many questions and offer many answers before the media company can seriously embark on its transformation.The new media company, especially if addressing a local market, will compensate for the shrinking of its flagship, the newspaper, with the generation of new businesses.  A larger portfolio of activities around core competencies will ensure relevancy for audiences and advertisers.

 

You can click  Download Part 3 Future of Media to gain access to the Power Point presentation.  Alternatively, you can click here to see it here, in Slideshare.

You are free to use this article in your publication as long as you credit the author Fernando Samaniego

 

 

The Future of Media; Part 2, Content

The second part of my presentation The Future of Media Groups deals with Content in media.

Again, very few slides in which I try to offer basic references when looking into the future, in this case into content.  My objective, as one would expect from somebody who has been actually managing media companies for the last 20 years, is to suggest practical guidelines being followed by media companies, regardless of their size, when trying to build the news content they need.

 

You can click Download Part 2 Future of Media to gain access to the Power Point presentation.  Alternatively, you can click here to see it here, in Slideshare.

You are free to use this article in your publication as long as you credit the author Fernando Samaniego

 

The Future of Media; Part 1, New Paradigm

An important function of the top management of media companies is to try to ascertain the direction in which their companies should move. Some owners and managers believe that the fog has to clear before they can take any steps forward; they argue that there is so much confusion that they risk taking their company off a cliff if they act too early.  They add that we risk embarking into cul-de-sac projects which will deprive us of the cash we will need later on.

From my own experience, that is just a poor excuse for inaction and avoiding necessary risk-taking.  Reality is more similar to a ladder: if we are in step 2 and later on we realize that our company needs to operate from level 17 to remain relevant to audiences and to continue squeezing revenues from our market…we will be game.  No time to react, no internal skills, no culture…etc.  Although everything may not be clear, one thing is: companies will be different, less corporate, more entrepreneurial and digital.  They will be better at capturing and packaging news from their markets and they will rely more on local external sources and users.

Good content will remain key but devices and formats will evolve as also should our ability to squeeze more digital pennies. The sooner we start the learning process, the more chances we will have. There is no option but to use good judgment and start the walking.

This post has been divided into four sections to make it easier to visit or download.  I’d feel rewarded if any, or all, of these slides would be used by media companies to facilitate the internal debate which is going on within many of them.The first part is a brief general introduction which presents what in my opinion is really relevant in a media company.  

You can click Download Post 1 Future of Media to gain access to the Power Point presentation.  Alternatively you can click here to see it here, in Slideshare.

You are free to use this article in your publication as long as you credit the author Fernando Samaniego

The Chronology of News Creation & Distribution

One of the hardest nuts to crack when dealing with newspapers is the general mistrust of chief editors to share their stories with other media within the same company.  Convincing them to do so or asking the newsroom to get involved in the online work is a conversation that doesn’t belong to 2010.  I refuse to reopen it.  We shouldn’t talk anymore about sharing and repackaging content.  That’s not the way to solve our ills.

It was almost a decade ago that I covered those topics with the chief editors whom I had the privilege to work with.  All of them were proactive and some of them, let me pay homage to Carlos Jornet, have had the intellectual ability and charisma to convince their troops, as well as the organizational skills to do it.  But I know other chief editors who are quite different, and this short post (compared to my usual long ones) is addressed to them.

Printing is not the center of our activity.  Actually it should be the last step of the process. Yes, I said the “last” step.  The very nature of the product means that a newspaper has to include complete information and analysis, which can only happen after the fact (i.e. after the news has occurred).  Instead, our users/readers frequently want the information ASAP, even if still incomplete.

Satisfying that need requires a strategy beyond sharing and good will from journalists.  It goes further than the convergent or multimedia newsroom.  It focuses on our vision of how things happen and how readers find out about them in the real world.  Then, we just act accordingly and repurposing and repackaging will come naturally.

One important way of doing it right is understanding the time sequence of news.  At the end of July I’ll be in North America talking to a proactive media player about, among other things, this topic.  I have prepared for the occasion a slide that I want to share with my readers. 

 View this photo 

I hope it can convey in a synoptic way the importance of having the time sequence right for media groups.  I will not dwell on it since it is self explanatory.  The reality cannot be apprehended in one slide and the casuistic nature of content formats and timing can be infinite.  Still, it tries to offer in a simplified and visual way the importance of delivering news in the right media order.  Band aids, as I mentioned in my first paragraph will not make it.  Play by the customers’ rules.

Facebook's Future

Yes, Facebook is an amazing phenomenon that has shown a remarkable ability to manage its growth up to date.  Developments taking place in the online world have been adopted and adapted by this social site, and over a million developers responsible for churning out over half a million applications are a tremendous force ready to take on new challenges. Which challenges are there in Facebook’s future?  This is a question I intend to answer, albeit in a partial way in this post.

When you blend together over 400 million very active users (each with 130 friends and creating 70 pieces of content per month) plus 1 million eager developers, plus the market pressure to move forward or to the sidelines, I believe we are bound to see big changes in Facebook.  Let me elaborate, or fantasize.

The experience of Second Life and Facebook

Users are meeting in Facebook in the old way (rendered just a little more attractive).  Although communicating using black characters on white background (and many variables) is not very innovative, Facebook’s innovation doesn’t lie there but in other aspects which are explained in many posts and articles.  Although the current user experience when interacting with friends is a great one, in our modern world everything has a tendency to wear out fast and become monotonous, even boring.  Perhaps Facebook could adopt other formulas of interaction already being used on the Internet in order to offer users a new setting to mingle, while maintaining the existing one. I am referring to the possibility of Facebook to put people together, almost physically together, no matter how far apart they really are via virtual worlds.

Second Life was launched by Linden Lab in 2003, when the processing speed of servers and PCs was barely enough and when broadband was slower and less extended.  It gained notoriety fast but at some moment it began to lose traction.  Some people say that moving around in Second Life was a little too complicated and that Linden Lab failed to benefit from legions of third party developers by keeping its software proprietary & failing to open it up to external parties always willing to make a buck in exchange for their input, creativity, freshness and multiplying effect. In my opinion, besides the above arguments, Second Life lacked some indispensable ingredients for an adult virtual world to work.  First, there was not much to do.  I mean, the environment was not engaging.  Flying and watching things was fine for a while.  Just for a while.  In addition, the environment was not really meant for users to interact with friends from the real world, as it happens in Facebook.  You could not bring your old world to the new one: too many new things at once while lacking personal references and simple interaction abilities.

If your question is “Whatever happened to Second Life?” you can read this article by Barry Collins on PC PRO and find out.  Just a paragraph: “Three years on, and Second Life seems no closer to finding a respectable reason for being than it did in 2006. It might try and shuffle sex into a corner, and pretend that it’s a melting pot of creativity, business and academia, but it ultimately serves no purpose.”  Sex has been limited to Zindra, a Second Life’s island, which is the most visited piece of real estate.

Strong Growth of Virtual Worlds

The virtual world craze did not stop with the fading of Second Life into quasi oblivion since other virtual worlds have prospered during these years.  Perhaps the most successful one is World of Warcraft, but The Sims 3, IMVU, with customizable 3D chat rooms and avatars are other examples. Click here for a time-line chart on virtual worlds. The Association of Virtual Worlds published a downloadable book on 2008 containing references to 250 examples.

Undoubtedly, the use of virtual worlds will extend into other areas of society and some years from now they will be part of our regular experience as citizens, even if we are not advanced computer users.  The education industry is looking into it since the virtual environment is well suited to immerse learners into a discipline.  In the meantime, naïve examples are coming to surface.  Whyville is a virtual world “geared for teen and pre-teen girls and boys. Its millions of registered "citizens" come from all over to learn, create, and have fun together. Whyville has places to go, things to do, and of course, people to see. Whyville has its own newspaper, its own Senators…its own suburbia, and even its own economy - citizens earn "clams" by playing educational games.“ 

Is there money for Facebook to go that way?

Are virtual worlds completely foreign to Facebook?  If we consider a virtual world to be a type of online community operating in a computer-simulated environment in which users take the form of avatars to be graphically visible to others, the answer is that: (1) Facebook is already offering some (minor) degree of virtual world experience, (2) users are showing good response, (3) there seems to be some money there or developers would stop writing code.  Farmville boasts over 80M users which are given virtual land to grow crops on. Then, in Restaurant City they can “decorate the facilities with an ever increasing inventory of items which expands as the user levels increase. Avatar creation is minimal, but the user can hire his/her friends to staff the restaurant, with the ability to give the staff uniforms. Money and experience are earned by serving customers”.  Other examples are Yoville, MiniPlanet, SmallWorlds, Café World…etc. So far, these worlds are just simple applications developed by external developers to make some money but they do not play a core role in the Facebook experience, since they are just “games” for distraction which could one day disappear without having a significant effect on the ability of Facebook to engage its users.

Developing a virtual world as one would expect from Facebook would cost a lot of money, since before it can open ‘construction to external contractors’ it would have to do a lot of ground work. Where would the money come from? If only from users, the current goodwill may be put at stake since users may resent that the Facebook environment is becoming too commercial and may start looking for alternatives. Money would have to come, at least at the beginning, from other constituents.

Any business owner willing to show their real facilities would be more than happy to “build” a virtual replica where virtual products could be sold. For that to work in a social medium, the business would have to create virtual events to be visible.  In their desire to attract more real tourists, some cities may decide to create environments where users may interact, play, have fun, gain prizes…etc, while getting acquainted with the highlights of the touristic offer. Do you want to have a chat with your friend in a nice place?  Take her to the observatory of the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai (tallest building in the world).  You want to show your friend the highlights of your last trip to Tibet?  Take her to the Potala Palace.  Moving and looking for a kindergarten for your 2 year old?  Visit it online first before you talk to them.  Experience it. Or perhaps you are hesitating between two restaurants for your anniversary?  Visit them both.  Go through the menus, see comments from other users… and make up your mind (any reference to Yelp.com type of products is not accidental since Facebook will have to find ways to host existing online properties to become the world of worlds).

I believe there will be several forces pushing for this digital world to happen in Facebook.  First and most important, users have shown interest in exploring these digital new worlds when some basic conditions are met.  Second, private businesses and professionals are keen on the development of social media since it allows the savviest of them to, at least partially, bypass the need of traditional advertising, and to create closer interaction and engagement with their clients.  Third, millions of smart programmers (the first million is there!) would be ready to put their talents to work as the ‘construction workers’.  Last, I’d think that Facebook shareholders would be very happy to build this new “Matrix” layer on their existing platform given the vast array of potential types of revenue. 

Yes, there is money to be made in the virtual worlds.  The newspaper USA Today mentions a study by Frank N. Magid Associates which shows a fast growth in virtual products acquisition. “Biggest spenders?  iPhone owners, with 43% of them saying they made virtual goods purchases (up from 28% last year). Next came virtual worlds visitors, 41% of whom say they have bought digital goods."

The real and the digital world have been getting closer

I first had the impression the real and the digital world were getting closer three years ago when I was giving a ride to my youngest son, 11 at the time, and his friend.  During the 30 minutes trip they had been talking about digital characters and situations as if they were real. Real names and fictional characters were intertwined.

First it was our music.  Then, almost everything became digital. We increasingly interact with our governments in a digital way, as if they were a digital entity. Some people have fallen in love with digital representations of real persons and had real world babies, while others make digital money which they later exchange for real cash.  Recently, thieves have stolen digital furniture to obtain real money and the real Finnish police have entered the digital case to find the real life thieves.

Real and virtual worlds have been getting closer and as users and online companies get more acquainted with the possibilities, the convergence of the two worlds will accelerate.  On top of the real world Google Earth has built a digital interface to relate to it.  Similarly, on top of the real world a layer of digital places will be built to interact with it.  Those digital places can be exact replicas when the objective is to show the real world place. In other cases, they will be adaptations or absolutely new realities. Brand new cities like Brasilia, have been at some moment ghost towns waiting to be populated.  Similarly, virtual worlds will need to be populated by millions of avatars.  Whether for leisure, commercial use, educational purposes, training, pre visualization of real places…etc, they will continue growing until a full blown explosion will come.   

Some brands have already created their own worlds, although in a very simplistic way.  One can see commercial embryos like MTV’s which have a tendency to languish unable to gain visibility in the real world, the great asset of Facebook.  It’s very much like when newspapers only advertise their products in their pages and they only impact their existing readers; the effect is limited.  Instead, Facebook’s millions of users could be given the opportunity to interact where they choose, with text, voice and movement. One can only start to imagine the e-commerce possibilities of such a world!

Is the technology ready?

The technology is quite ready to start a new phase of virtual worlds; rather, it is a proper understanding of the users which is needed for the massive development and colonization of these new worlds. A video presented by Blaise Aguera y Arcas in 2007 shows how Seadragon, a company acquired by Microsoft, produces digital renderings based on photos.  “Photosynth [the product] itself is a vastly powerful piece of software capable of taking a wide variety of images, analyzing them for similarities, and grafting them together into an interactive three-dimensional space. This seamless patchwork of images can be viewed via multiple angles and magnifications, allowing us to look around corners or "fly" in for a (much) closer look.” I recommend that you see this video to see how ready the technology ‘was’ even three years ago.  

Some companies like EveryScape (see image) have been trying to build “engaging, immersive relationships with consumers through three-dimensional, photo-realistic experiences of cities & towns, streets & sidewalks, and building exteriors & interiors…gathering and sharing information on businesses and attractions, entering a store and shopping, checking the menu and reviews of a restaurant”.  These types of projects usually represent the courageous input of a visionary founder and the money of the angel investors he convinced, but they lack the serious investment and marketing requirements to create a world.  These digital replicas are impressive but once you’ve wandered around and see them, what else is there to do? 

For technological prowess one can also mention Google’s Streetview.   You can merge it with Google Maps to walk along any of the multiple cities offered in North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia…etc.  In short, there are many pieces of technology ready to be used (I am purposely ignoring the issue of patents) with a Social Media-Commercial purpose.  Actually, the different technologies have been ready for some time but no single relevant project has  been the catalyst for them to start building a new world.  Yes, the technology is there waiting to recreate the experience.

Will Facebook go Virtual or we will see Virtual Worlds Going Social?

It is possible that Facebook will not be the player to create this new world and that another company will do it.  There is a history of corporations being well positioned to achieve something important yet failing to do so.  Microsoft has failed at creating a relevant online presence, or a leading mobile platform.  Google seems to have some difficulty in generating serious revenues beyond search.  YouTube is taking too long to become the movie platform of the world…etc.

Still, Facebook’s core business lies in facilitating interaction among users and the virtual worlds’ objective is somehow aligned with that.  Also on the positive side, Facebook is still looking around for real monetization which probably implies that its culture is more flexible and eager than, say, Google’s (Google started an experiment called Lively which had to close when the current financial crisis started). 

My Advice to Facebook on Virtual Worlds

From all the past failures, we can extract some initial takeaways:

1. First, and this is now very obvious, virtual worlds have to focus less on the technical issues and more on the needs of the users.  Technology is relevant and should offer a seamless experience, but it is only second to the user experience.  Technical people should not be in the driving seat.
2. People want to communicate and early virtual environments introduced complexity to achieve that basic need. The world became more important than the person, and it somehow interfered with the act of interacting. The next generation of virtual worlds should study every single aspect of the user experience to greatly simplify it.  Unless the right interactive experience and tools are supplied, a massive virtual world will not be possible. It has to be made simple, even if the solutions are not very ‘virtual-worldish’.  At times a task can be done faster by offering a list than by sending the avatar to look for something in a drawer.
3. The virtual reality experience in Facebook should include elements of Augmented Reality to get a faster grasp of a situation or a place. AR will become very important for Facebook when trying to facilitate access to all sources of information and data  in the virtual world.  Because, let’s be honest, a virtual world can be very boring.  Our current real world involves interaction with the physical environment as well as digital experiences.  A virtual world should go beyond that, and AR is key to enhancing the virtual experience and infusing it with dynamism.
4. For a wide user base, anonymity may not be the way to go. Extreme anonymity seems to only attract limited subsets of people.  Users want to interact with their online contacts, their existing “friends” on the Net.  Otherwise, the experience of entering a new world plus having to do it on your own may be not very compelling; too many unknowns in the equation, at least for the average individual.  That said, Facebook may also have to find ways for people to play in an anonymous way. A user may want to be somewhere or to play a game without being seen by others.
5. It seems that socialization alone may not be enough reason for people to come again and again to a virtual world.  Those new citizens have to be kept busy. Boredom is not allowed since killing boredom is one of the reasons to log on to Facebook.  The platform not only has to facilitate interaction, but to create new formulas to foster personal exchanges in the new environment.
6. As a development of the previous point, and as opposed to the current Facebook platform, the role of gaming in a virtual world seems to play a more important role.  In fact, Facebook is behaving as if they agree  with this point since the only virtual worlds they offer are exclusively for gaming. 
7. Money’s role seems to become more relevant as virtual worlds evolve and increase in complexity.  Human interaction involves exchanges and some kind of currency comes in handy at first, and becomes indispensable later. Money will develop a full economy with all its complexities and for it to prosper, Facebook should allow the prices of in-game items to be established according to supply and demand and not based on educated estimates. Money will also add depth and real-ness to the virtual experience, because when digital money is exchanged for real cash and the user can buy a real sandwich, both our physical world and the virtual merge.
8. Needless to say, users should continue living in a world where living and going about their basic tasks is as free as today.
9. Seamless integration between the current user experience and a virtual world is a must. Users should feel the experience is not radically different. For instance, the “I like” endorsement should exist in all cases, offering great feedback to businesses. A single landing point would offer friends’ updates in both the traditional and the virtual world.  Finding and “teleporting” to meet friends should be made simple.

Creating a new world is a godlike task, a herculean job full of complexities, which should be approached slowly, with a pragmatic spirit. The difficult thing was to create the platform of almost 500-million users. Now there are many interests in our world for Facebook to start creating a new virtual layer.  As opposed to other experiences, it has to be very open, facilitating integration with other platforms which will push Facebook forward.  As in our real world, there are thousands of ways to create businesses and generate revenue.  Facebook should not be too greedy but allow workers and businesses to make a living, because taxes of any kind tend to slow growth.

I have had this desire of imagining the future of Facebook for some time.  There are many aspects I have not cove red, but the main body of thought is here.  I’d be very pleased if Facebook called me to elaborate a little more on it. 

Are Arab Newspapers Doing Enough to Push Their Online Offerings?

To answer that question, let us start by saying that not all Arab newspapers exploit an online platform.  Some 15% of them just don’t.  If we take the Arab countries as a whole, the percentage of revenue coming from online is about 2% (source: Arab Media Outlook, by Dubai Press Club) as opposed to some 13% for US papers and even more for UK papers.  The bravest companies in the West have gone even further, like the Scandinavian group Schibsted which claims to have crossed the 50% threshold, mostly due to online classifieds.  McClatchy has gone from 11.6% to 16.2% in just one year and the most innovative groups will be approaching the 20% mark in 2010 and 2011.

One could argue that the lack of broadband explains the very low percentage of digital revenues generated by Arab newspapers.  In fact, given that domestic broadband penetration in Western Europe and the USA is in the  60-70% range  (with the States ranking highest), whilst in Arab countries it is 12% (according to Informa TM), perhaps the 2% share of digital revenues is acceptable.  The surprising part is that Qatar, UAE and Bahrain can boast broadband penetration rates above USA and the EU yet still a meager 2% of advertising revenues come from online.

Is it because people in the Arab countries are accustomed to getting news from newspapers and online is just an option for social purposes and entertainment?  Not really, since users in Egypt, Lebanon, KSA and UAE use the Internet as much as newspapers as their news source.  The reason is probably more complex.  First, it has to do with the inertia of advertisers and agencies.  Beyond that, the situation is also conditioned by the very products being delivered by editors.

In my conversations with different players in the Arab world, some individuals seem too relaxed because the language barrier plays in their favor and therefore “we have more time”.  I have worked in mature and in developing markets with different languages and I am convinced that that reasoning has a certain degree of wishful thinking.  The average Arab user has shown during the last few years an incredible ability to surf as the Western one. Many Arab users are constantly exposed to quality products and they expect the same from local brands. 

As for the language barrier, in my opinion it provides less protection than generally thought.  Some 65% of Arabic speakers prefer to read in Arabic and the figure goes down slightly to 62% in the case of Internet browsing (Nielsen).  This means that users feel more and more comfortable surfing in English.  Local news brands have to take note and be decisive in pushing their online projects since users may be already getting part of the newspaper content elsewhere.

Newspapers, in any physical form, have a role to fulfill in our societies.  The community needs (the best of) them. We all share a responsibility in making sure that they build bridges to their future, and the digital world is part of it.  For newspapers to make a successful transition, digital revenues have to increase fast. Moving from 2% to 5% is feasible, because broadband penetration will grow at 38% for the next few years (Value Partners).  Reaching 10% and beyond gets harder and requires innovation to reach users who are becoming banner blind. Other formulas have to be used, but that is another topic I will cover in the future.

You are free to use this article in your publication as long as you credit the author Fernando Samaniego

Studios and Cable Operators Launch Joint Project

 "The Video Store Just Moved In," according to an advertising campaign launched in March by some 15 media companies, including studios and cable operators who are putting $30 million on the table as initial marketing investment. This is one of those pieces of news one can easily downplay, but the fact is that it constitutes a reference for content industries in general. To get there, many players had to agree on many issues in order to offer consumers a simple aggregated offer to watch videos from the comfort of their own living rooms.   

For several years, studios had expanded video on demand (VOD) offerings without risking initiatives which could impact solid DVD retail partners like Best Buy and Wal-Mart, but the growth of VOD seemed unstoppable.  The studios have learned from the music industry: as if to reinforce the new project, the same week Blockbuster announced that a “fall into bankruptcy could be inevitable”. 

Learning from Music 

Studios seem to have noticed what has happened to the music industry, plagued by piracy and one in which digital companies are imposing the rules, perhaps due to the larger, and increasing, fragmentation on the part of the music right owners. 

Just as consumers of music display brand loyalty for their favorite artists, and not the music label, so it is for video: studios know that customers care about the films as opposed to the studios behind them.  Brand, in this case, has to do more with the movies than with studios, which has facilitated the integration of rival players in one project.  No less important, each movie is a differentiated entity, it’s unique, even if it’s a remake.  

Mutatus mutandis, the Movies On Demand project highlights the current situation of the music industry where hundreds of digital stores and hundreds of song owners have been unable to offer a simple, aggregated offer to their customers.  In this case it has been an outsider who has put all the pieces together and is now writing the rules: Apple through iTunes.

Lessons for Newspapers 

Movies and cable operators have joined ranks while music right owners still have a long way to go to offer a comprehensive platform to customers, (the exception being Sony and Universal partnering with YouTube in Vevo, a project which still needs to take off).  In the case of newspapers an aggregation a la Movies On Demand is unthinkable because of their territorial characteristics. Still, as almost any time something good happens in the content industries, some lessons can be learned.

News companies have to strive to create unique content, since it’s that uniqueness which best reinforces their differential market position. Agencies, press conferences, official communiqués add little or no value to the brand of a newspaper.  Illustrating, explaining, relating events and data, charting, digesting the flows of agency information…etc, do add value.  As JasonFried and David Heinemeier Hansson say in their book Rework, “decommoditize your product”.

Hiring good writers, planning the day and the week, filtering the flow of attention as expressed in social media, paying attention to technology but not getting distracted by it, focusing on the readers, excelling at using marketing tools to best reach audiences, deciding how to best express your community watchdog vocation, relating in your media to your audiences, keeping the whole operation fresh...is the only way to build a long lasting brand for the benefit of the audience, the shareholders, the workers and the advertisers.

You are free to use this article in your publication as long as you credit the author Fernando Samaniego

Newspapers and TVs Could Learn from the Music and Movie Industries (and Part 2)

On free content

 There is a similarity between the music industry and newspapers in regard to their content. Songs in their basic form are considered by many individuals as free merchandise, the purpose of which is to attract attention to the artist. This belief is reinforced by the artists themselves, by those who are generally less traditional and more innovative in their approach. Take Lil Wayne, ho received the Grammy’s Best Rap Album, for example.  He built his fan base by freely giving hours and hours of his music away.  The surprise is that, in spite of that, his ‘Tha Carter III’ album was the top-selling album of 2008.  In this case, giving away content and being the top seller were not alternative strategies.  I am sure his success will inspire others.

Similarly, I believe newspapers will have to attract their readers/users by giving away ‘good’ content while charging for other content that the audience perceives both costs the company and is useful for their lives or their small businesses.  Basic news (at least the commodity part of it) will remain free despite all the buzz, while special reports and differential content/services will follow a different track.  Fighting the perception of the users is always a risky mission.   After all, as Tony Wadsworth, former head of EMI for a decade, says ‘The development of technology has meant music” (you can substitute by ‘news’)  “is consumed in more places in more ways than ever before – that is a great thing...; the future business model of this industry might not be based on transactional music sales for much longer. In the space of a year, the proportion of income derived from other sources – live gigs, merchandising, advertising, digital licensing, broadcast – has grown from 11.4% of total revenues in 2007 to 18% in 2008”.  To continue with the parallelism, newspapers may have to obtain new sources of income by fulfilling new tasks in their communities.

Cherry Picking

Another similarity between music and news lies in the fact that in the past you had to purchase the whole product even if you just wanted a single song in the CD or just the classifieds section of the newspaper.  In the digital world you can choose to acquire a single song and not pay for the unsolicited merchandise.  One study says that iTunes-like platforms have cost the music industry more than piracy!  We may not like it, we can even say that the user is losing the opportunity to discover unexpected jewels in the package…but the fact is that unbundling is the increasingly preferred option and fighting it is useless.  As music is consumed digitally, mixed bundles may be losing their appeal.

Likewise, newspapers may end up charging for specific pieces of content when it’s clearly justified in the eyes of the user.  Deciding when to charge or not requires a lot of trial and error as well as sufficient internal expertise in analyzing that information.

“Publishers for the most part have already begun preparing as if this process [unbundling] is irreversible. They are implementing new ways to replace revenues that are lost when customers no longer buy the whole ‘package’. This new repackaging can take many forms. Subscriptions to popular online journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, increasingly offer unique features, including email alerts, user communities, access to unique data sets, and multimedia content designed to make the value proposition of buying the “whole package” greater than the sum of the parts.” Nothing to add.

Conclusion

The music industry has taken too long to learn new tricks and has lost big revenues in the process.  Newspapers can learn from the ability of the most adapted labels how to diversify revenues, to relate differently with their environment and how to reach audiences less with recorded content and more with live gigs. Faced with a transformation of this magnitude, change has to affect all and every single area of the company (yes, even accounting) and the profile of the professionals has to evolve.  Changes should not be done in one day, but on the other hand, wasting time with excuses is not an option.  As I said in a previous blog, save money in legacy activities and invest in exploring new avenues of income.

From the movie studios, newspapers and conventional TV channels should imitate their ability to move (relatively) fast while not discarding any possible way of reaching clients.  After all, all legacy content industries share the same basic challenges and the logic of any responses to them.  

You are free to use this article in your publication as long as you credit the author Fernando Samaniego

Newspapers and TVs Could Learn from the Music and Movie Industries (Part 1)

One decade at a time

One could argue that the perfect storm now affecting the Media and Entertainment industries started around 1982, when the first music CD was sold.  But it was in 1985 that CD began to gain popularity in the larger popular and rock music markets (Dire Straits’ album Brothers in Arms was the first one to sell a million copies).  At that moment, consumer content became digital. Later on, the compressing capabilities of MP3 and the extension of the internet greatly facilitated file sharing.  

As I wrote in a previous post, it was some 10 years later that another digital birth took place that would soon affect the placid businesses of established newspapers.  It was Craigslist and its ability to volatize classifieds’ revenue. Lastly, 10 years later, a pre Google YouTube was launched and the lives of incumbent TV channels first, and the film industry later, began simmering.  For the last 20-30 years, usually during the middle of each new decade, a new phenomenon has been born, destined to uproot the functioning of complete industries. As a matter of curiosity, does anybody have an idea of what 2015 may bring to us?

First the music industry, then newspapers and magazines, and then finally TVs and movies, they all are struggling to cope with the radical changes.  The slowest one to react was the music industry, perhaps because it was the first casualty (forgive me for using the incumbent’s terminology, not the customers’) and there were no examples of how deep, and redefining for the whole industry, the changes brought about by the new digital innovations would be.  That the music industry has lost a full decade is evident since its response to these digital challenges has coincided in time with the newspapers’.  TV and film industries, casualties of the third wave, may be reacting a little faster.

The Film Industry, the Last to Feel the Pinch

From observing the film industry, newspapers can learn the determination to reach audiences however the consumer wants it, in almost any possible format...  Even though things are just starting, we can legally get films online, - rented, purchased or free with advertising, - via multiple devices.  Hundreds of web sites offer movies (Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, Babelgum, Joost, The Auteurs…and long etc).  Other established players in the digital arena have also become digital retailers: Xbox Live and PlayStation Store, Amazon Video on Demand...etc.  You can even watch a movie on your smart phone.  Of course, you can still buy or rent DVDs and watch films thanks to the growing VOD offer of cable and digital platform operators.  Lastly, you can enjoy a film in the most traditional outlet of the business, movie theaters.   

Digital delivery has been growing SO FAST that film studios have identified 250 digital formats. Yes, two hundred and fifty! And now they are trying to reduce costs by agreeing on an interoperable digital master format (IMF) which will also help promote their digital business.  Are studios moving fast enough?  Perhaps the answer is no, but in any case they are moving faster than the music industry and newspapers did.  Now, in how many formats are papers reaching their readers and delivering their content?  Are they expanding their new media reach at a proper speed?  Whatever the answer, newsrooms have to develop their own open technical architecture and be ready to deliver in more vehicles (unfortunately, sales departments are frequently the laggards and end up delaying the whole experiment, but this is another topic).

Lessons from the music industry

On one hand, any internet novice can download songs and bypass the incumbents’ structure to collect royalties. To add insult to injury, the record industry has had to face the stampede of brand-name artists moving away from them (remember Madonna leaving the Warner for Live Nation, a live-events and concert promotion company?) Many others have followed.  In their quest for a proper set of business answers, labels are gathering experience with paid downloads, ad-supported streaming, subscription services, ad-supported and ad-integrated P2P download services…etc. But perhaps most relevant is the music industry’s fierce determination to redefine its role and its artists while at the same time creating links with audiences.

In the past, the record industry was strategically placed in between audiences and artists and supposedly had the talent and experience to decide in the name of the audience which songs/artists had the quality to be recorded.  That paradigm has changed.  Many artists are flying solo.  Instead of focusing on getting the attention of the labels’ execs in order to be chosen to record songs and sell CDs, artists are now getting more focused on getting the attention of their potential fans in order to be able to sell tickets to their shows, to license songs…etc.   Multiple companies and web sites have started to “provide online music business lessons, exclusive video interviews and advice, career and business planning tools and thousands of hand-picked resources designed to help you achieve success in the new music industry” (about us, Music Power Network).

Closer to the audience

The incumbents have understood that revenue from recorded music will continue decreasing and that their activity cannot be limited to seeking out the best singers and bands to sign. Instead, they have to learn new skills, such as mentoring artists to develop their performing style, and hone their public skills to better connect with their potential audiences.  They are becoming business advisors, career planners as well as permanent managers of organized tours and all kinds of live performances, which represent the fastest growing source of income in the industry.

The exhibitionist and theatrical Lady Gaga has learned to be closer to her fan base and be coherent in all her public appearances. Her dominance in the charts has proven her right.  When she received five Grammy Nominations she did not thank anyone other than her “Little Monsters”, aka her fan base. On the scenario, as in any digital format, she has established a solid link with her audience.  To them, she offered her own DNA (some follicles) in her GaGa Fame Monster Bundle, as well as a collectible puzzle, pullout posters, a paper doll collection and a personal note for USD115.

Other artists are finding their own unorthodox methods of reaching audiences’ attention and pockets.

Newspapers need to address new ways of getting to their audiences and interacting with them. From the early formula of posting a comment to a piece of news, to the way the most advanced players are trying to harness the traffic and commercial potential of local bloggers, there is an array of possibilities.

As I have written before, the main strategic areas in a newspaper or a TV are brand/image and content.  From each one of those two areas they have to persevere in reading the consumer’s interest.  The old journalism days of waiting for agencies’ content is (partially) over.  Now, the journalist’s network, his/her roots in the community and ability to scan what the community is interested in, are required skills to add value and differentiate the final product from other local players. Following readers’ interest, via marketing tools, as well as discovering what interests them via social web sites, is a new skill media companies have to turn into a habit.  (End of Part 1)

You are free to use this article in your publication as long as you credit the author Fernando Samaniego

Newspapers and Televisions should go the Low Cost Way

One shouldn’t deceive oneself into thinking that we are simply in the middle of a crisis caused by the irrational behavior of our financial institutions since there may be other causes. Even though Asia has been bringing costs down for decades, many countries and industries have ignored the potential threat of these lower costs and have chose instead to maintain their cost structures.  The generalizations of internet and broadband have extended the competitiveness of the new players (“the world is flat,” according to Thomas Friedman).  Not to be mistaken, this financial crisis is a cause as well as a catalyst of the current turmoil brought about by this ‘Asian price’ and this new local and world competition facilitated by broadband.  

Many companies have understood this new scenario.  Airlines, for one, may offer extremely low ticket prices and absolutely no-frills, but at the same time they may charge for extras like food and drink, seat allocation, baggage...etc. The increasing penetration of low cost and no-frills products and services has carved a position in the mind of consumers and now marketers know very well that people frequently trade up and trade down; they can go for rock bottom prices (below the consumer’s standard of income and living) in order to afford small luxuries, which may appear beyond their reach. By shopping in discount supermarkets, a couple may afford a long haul vacation, no frills, in their dream destination. 

One cannot downplay the significant effect that these economic and societal changes are having on our audiences (readers, spectators, users).  The bad news is that they now expect basic merchandise to be free, but at the same time they are learning to pay, albeit minimally, for new content. Changes like these have permanent effects in our businesses.

Many newspapers and TV stations are taking too long to adapt their legacy cost structure to the new reality and to get rid of the unnecessary dead weight and the internal obstacles which prevent them from making their companies more nimble.  The basic operation has to be a very lean one, enough to put forward the basic offer to the audience. Too many examples are showing us that if that effort is not made constantly and in an orderly way it will have to be done traumatically.  Media incumbents should save lots of money on the repetitive tasks of their current operation in order to achieve three basic purposes: 

First, to maintain profitability and operations while the company moves forward.  Second, these legacy media need those savings to project themselves into the future, in order to explore and develop new media opportunities to further increase their reach.  Lastly, parts of those savings have to be addressed at investing in those activities which create brand and differentiate them from the rest.  I am referring to investigative journalism, special reports, event creation, exploiting local databases…etc.  That is, developing their own content which equals the frills the airlines are able to charge and which makes the difference for audiences and advertisers.  It also may open new avenues of profitability. After all, is there anything as vital for a medium as (differential) content and marketing (brand)?

There is no way to cross successfully into the future if cost cutting in legacy activities is not an active policy implemented constantly by newspapers and television companies.   Proper cost cutting is not a reactive decision; it’s a fundamental part of our future building strategy.  Do not be apologetic about it. (Just don’t cut corners in brand image and differential content creation).

Newspapers and TV stations are taking a long time to adapt to this new situation, as if time wasn’t an issue.”

You are free to use this article in your publication as long as you credit the author Fernando Samaniego.

Newspapers's Potential in Local Database Management (and 2)

Following Rob Curley’s Trail

When offering communities results based on databases from the local market, I have always thought Rob Curley has led the way and has often been imitated by others.  The following examples, taken from newspapers where he has worked, may have not been developed by him or his team directly, but I’m sure his vision has had a strong influence.

While working in Kansas for the Lawrence Journal he developed the Kusports site and reinforced the use of statistics as content but also as a complement to regular information. He always found the right way to place unexpected data in the middle of information, be it driving tickets, weather…etc.  And the audience rewarded him with a big increase in traffic, and revenues. No local database was foreign to him: births, weddings, deaths, schedules of anything…etc.  Sports and Arts and Entertainment info was always stored as elements of an ever growing local database to be permanently reused.  Even though some years went by, the Ljworld.com site still retains some of that philosophy.

Later in Naples, Florida Rob addressed a more mature and affluent audience in the site Naplesnews by offering any info relevant to a community frequently interested in the weather and the water (Naples is on the West Florida coast): rainfall, air and water temperature, tides…etc.  Current as well as historical data were offered directly by the site or by linking to the sources.  Presented in a user friendly way, boating, golfing, fishing or just walking became a little easier. Naplesnews received an Eppy Award for Best Internet News Service in 2006.  In that same year his new vision on covering high school sports in Bonitanews received a NAA Digital Edge award for "Most Innovative Multimedia Storytelling". 

From Naples, Rob moved to a much larger organization, The Washington Post, and left two years later probably “because I wasn't the best fit with the organization”.  I am sure his vision on local matters had an influence beyond the specific projects he managed.  

The national and international roles of the Post may hide to many its local flavor.  On one hand there is the local section of the paper which includes a plethora of information and some resources such as dog parks, farmers market… as well as links to full-fledged projects like the Going Out Guide which features an Events Calendar in which all the information, including text for reviews, has been databased for easier repurposing.  
On the other hand, the Local Explorer is more than just a map. It also includes facts and figures, local news, classifieds and upcoming events that will help take the user further inside the community. In fact it’s one of those blueprint projects one should follow when dealing with local communities. A complete array of information is arranged in four categories (Places in the Area, Recent Home Sales, Schools, Crime) welcomes the users upon giving their exact location.  As a complementary new way of exploiting its arsenal of data the Post has created products like this which organize business information in many different ways (e.g. revenues by sector, largest employers, new companies…frequently mapped for easier usability).  

I guess the Post wants to take a definitive step in the local-hyperlocal direction and in spite of all the difficulties for a newspaper of its category, we may see new developments happening.  Perhaps the final result will/should include more user participation.  For comparative purposes I recommend the Cincinavigator by Cincinnati.com.  

Databases, geocoded information, all enhanced with content from the editor and from the users seems to be the four legged formula some editors are finding appropriate to address their local challenges.  I foresee that we will see more sophisticated developments within this same content architecture.

EveryBlock.com, Yelp, Google (yes, always Google)

“In dense, bustling cities like Chicago, New York and San Francisco, the number of daily media reports, government proceedings and local Internet conversations is staggering. Every day, a wealth of local information is created — officials inspect restaurants, journalists cover fires and Web users post photographs — but who has time to sort through all of that?”  This is the spirit of local database management, and that sentence doesn’t belong to me but to EveryBlock, that aims at solving that problem.  “We aim to collect all of the news and civic goings-on that have happened recently in your city, and make it simple for you to keep track of news in particular areas. We’re a geographic filter — a 'news feed' for your neighborhood, or, yes, even your block”.

I should add that they are only a team of six people working from Chicago led by Adrian Holovaty, a journalist and Web developer who worked previously as editor of editorial innovations at the Post and developed chicagocrime.org.  Given the small size of the team and the tremendous task of covering 15 cities, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the info is a little “dry” or lacks the relevancy that a newspaper could add.  But it’s a matter of time before the project gets sufficient funds (MSNBC has bought EveryBlock and additional funding and resources will be provided). Lastly, I find useful their definition of local data: “Civic information — building permits, crimes, restaurant inspections and more; News articles and blog entries — major newspapers, community weeklies, TV and radio news stations, local specialty publications and local blogs; Fun from across the Web — local photos posted to the Flickr photo-sharing site, user reviews of local businesses on Yelp, lost and found postings from Craigslist and more”.

The more a database is complemented and enhanced by users the better it is.  In the case of Yelp (a contraction of Yellow Pages) the extensive database has been supposedly fully created by the users, which makes it a different animal to the former examples.  What is relevant, though, is that that a business supported exclusively by local advertising was recently the acquisition object of Google at a price north of half a billion dollars.  The local editors can breathe at ease because Yelp has rejected the offer, but the sole idea of giant Google having access to the local markets with a local platform like Yelp seems scary to me. By the way, The Weekly Yelp is available in 28 cities with the latest business openings & other happenings and constitutes a first (minor) step to creating a media on local events.

As a summary, in their alternatives for growth the most advanced local editors are learning to use databases to uncover local stories, to enhance news, to relate to their users, to attract new audiences and, not least, to have access to new sources of revenues.

You are free to use this article in your publication as long as you credit the author Fernando Samaniego.

Reorganization of Media Groups

During the last decade most Media Groups have organized themselves around their type of media properties, around their channels.  That is, papers, TV, radio…were independent divisions responsible for that channel and its production and sales functions.  Each division being very autonomous they were often located in separate buildings and also competed against each other.

There were numerous reasons for that: different types of expertise and skills were needed in each case, the strong medium was afraid of piggybacking the weaker ones…etc.  Most important, the consideration went, each medium had to follow the internal rules and logic specific to it and being apart was the right thing to do.  In the case of internet the real fear was that the more traditional and not very dynamic culture of newspapers would slow down the new medium.  Indeed, all those considerations were correct and “life apart” has probably helped many online players to develop fast and be successful.

During that last half a dozen years numerous dailies have shown a remarkable ability to reinvent themselves.  In parallel, online projects have shown a great ability to embed all other media and the leading media executives have discovered that the “living apart” solution had to evolve into a “back to living together” but in a radically different way.

The reorganization issue just reflects other strategic topics being debated.  As our societies become richer and more sophisticated and as advertisers and agencies try to reach increasingly differentiated consumers, shouldn´t media groups facilitate their job by offering target groups across all media?  On the content side, how come audiences are discovering multitasking and media groups are not doing anything about it?  Those and many more questions are advising media companies to abandon production considerations in favor of concentrating their efforts on audiences.

Once top management begins to travel this road the way forward is not a simple one and any reference to the solutions other players are using becomes important.  The consulting firm Innovation has either visited or led these experiments around the world and offers some advice on things to do and pitfalls to avoid.  This article by Chris O´Brien and Juan Señor from Innovation sheds some light on how to organize a multimedia group and offers many examples around the world. It´s worth reading!

In my experience, only companies with a certain degree of performance in each of those media should try to move as far as it is mentioned in the article.  For less developed companies, they first should prove themselves as adequate independent operators in each  medium since bringing the online operations next to the offline ones should only happen when the internet people have been able to develop their own culture and rhythm.

Chart copyright Innovation Media Consulting Group

20 Tips For Newspapers During Recessions

Even though I usually concentrate on the newer media forms, lately I’ve been in touch with some newspaper editors and I believe I should answer a question I’ve been asked several times: “What should be done in these times of crisis?”

Through my work with the press in Western and Eastern Europe as well as in the Americas and occasional forays into other emerging markets, I’ve come up with these 20 pieces of advice especially suited to the current situation. They do not mean to be comprehensive. Instead they intend to cover actions that, in my opinion, are usually overlooked.

When facing such a challenging economic situation it’s in one’s interest to keep some fundamental concepts in perspective to avoid guesswork and to not waste the opportunities that all crises can afford us. As I concluded in a previous post ”crises serve a function in the life of corporations and markets. It’s clear that among other things they prompt us to rethink projects and strategies, while making cost cuts, but also to kick start new tactics that will be very beneficial once the sun shines again. And a crisis is too expensive and scarce to be squandered.“

20 consejos para los periódicos...(Parte II)

11. Utilice colaboradores externos
A la hora de interpretar la realidad, sobre todo la más próxima, nuestros periodistas han sido la única clave. El mundo cambia rápido y cada vez hay más gente ahí afuera dispuesta a colaborar. Abra la ventana al mundo, hay muchos ejemplos de otros sectores que utilizan recursos externos para innovar. Muchas personas con talento estarían dispuestas a colaborar con el diario, y en muchos casos por poco más que algunas muestras de “cariño”. Mi caso es un ejemplo. En España colaboro con finanzas.com en el análisis de internet y los medios de comunicación sin pedir nada a cambio, como un subproducto de mis trabajos de consultoría. Construir una red de colaboradores externos es una hermosa labor que los diarios debieran abordar, no sólo por la reducción de costes que pueda entrañar, sino por mejorar el producto y pegarlo más al terreno. Después de todo, entre el 87% y el 60% (según edades) de las personas considera que los blogueros (léase colaboradores externos) aportan valor y criterio en la creación de opinión.

Publicidad online y factor tiempo

Para que la publicidad en internet pueda efectivamente erosionar los ingresos que se dan en los medios más tradicionales, debe no sólo explorar nuevos formatos, sino sobre todo internalizar el factor tiempo como el elemento auténticamente clave y diferencial para conseguir el éxito de una buena parte de sus anunciantes y, por ende, el suyo propio.

¿Por qué la prensa francesa es tan diferente?

Muchos se han preguntado qué hace a los diarios franceses tan singulares, por qué han evolucionado durante las últimas décadas de forma tan diferente al resto de diarios en otros países. Pues bien, su historia reciente lo explica en buena medida.

Antes de la Segunda Guerra Mundial los propietarios eran hombres políticos con una ideología a la que en buena medida servían los diarios que, recordemos, en aquellos años constituían la principal fuerte de información. Por ese mismo carácter instrumental, la prensa no resistió muy bien la invasión alemana y rápidamente “se acostó con el enemigo” (términos recientemente mencionados por el presidente de un diario francés) de 1940 a 1945, con diferentes matices en cada zona y cada medio. Con el florecer posterior de las redes de resistencia, los periódicos operaron en posiciones ideológicas más ambiguas. Aún antes de la liberación algunos diarios fueron tomados por las armas y pasaron a manos de hombres políticos o jefes de la resistencia que albergaban unos objetivos políticos que transmitían a sus medios.

Oportunidad en la búsqueda local (Local Search)

Article Summary: money is growing fastest in both local search and video.  Local and news sites are well positioned to reap this growth, but other players such as iYP (internet yellow pages), are claiming their piece of this fast growing pie.

Cualquier experto en medios de comunicación escritos sabe que a corto plazo es impensable sustituir los ingresos y beneficios que los diarios han venido teniendo por la simple migración de sus noticias a internet, o incluso por desarrollar un portal de noticias con algunos servicios locales.  Hace unos tres años se decía que para sustituir a un solo comprador fiel de prensa hacían falta 100 usuarios de internet.  Aunque seguro que ahora el ratio es más favorable, el portal de noticias es condición necesaria pero no suficiente. La cuestión no es baladí, porque según Borrell Associates, en EEUU los ingresos locales online crecerán un 48% en 2008.

Innovaciones Disruptivas y Periódicos

Article Summary: Disruptive innovations and technologies provide us with a conceptual framework to better understand the complex challenges newspapers and the press are facing today.

Es de todos conocido que los diarios se enfrentan a dificultades crecientes que desde hace tres años se han intensificado. Sería fácil, pero de mal gusto, recordar una vez más los despidos que se están produciendo en los diarios del mundo occidental o mencionar las disminuciones de beneficio experimentadas por casi todos ellos.

Para resumir la situación, acudo al poco sospechoso Timothy Balding, Chief Executive Officer de la World Association of Newspapers, durante su última presentación en la Publishing Expo 2008 celebrada en Moscú en junio. Según él, las ventas en los países desarrollados disminuyeron un 6,1% durante los últimos cinco años. La caída hubiese sido mayor de no incluir el crecimiento del 16% experimentado por Singapore.

¿Qué está pasando con los diarios? No faltan artículos sobre el asunto que abunden en lugares comunes o ahonden en reducciones fenomenológicas y ofrecen soluciones tangenciales, pero echo de menos un análisis más estructuralista, más heurístico. No pretendo abordar hoy esa tarea, pero sí deseo ofrecer un concepto interesante para que el lector lo aplique mentalmente.