Forum Moderators: martinibuster
For years most of the larger and many of the smaller papers have leaned in one politicial/idealogical direction, effectively alienating about 40% of the population.
Craigslist, eBay, etc. have taken a bite out of the classified section that is a cash cow for newspapers.
But online advertising is further hurting the industry.
Many newspapers are cutting back, making smaller papers, consolidating efforts, etc. I read this week that just 2 years ago the McClatchy chain of newspapers was worth in the neighborhood of $5 billion and now it's around $500 million.
The readers, or former readers, of these papers will be looking elsewhere for news and information. This is an excellent opportunity for AdSense publishers to provide what they are looking for and earn a nice income at the same time.
It will probably take more than articles written by $10 freelance writers, consolidated feeds, etc., but a huge opportunity exists to those who take advantage wisely. Isn't focusing on that opportunity a lot more productive than worrying over stuck stats, "advertisers cutting back", long holiday weekends, etc?
FarmBoy
We are in a period of transition and therefore experimentation. Farmboy is right that there is opportunity but the risk is quite high because the cost of entry for a quality news product is very high. Start small and your risk is extremely high and all your work will probably go for nothing. In hindsight many failed businesses wish they had listened better to the negativity.
If I see an opportunity I'll go after it full bore and I won't be discussing it much on public forums lest I create my own competition.
[edited by: OnlyToday at 4:09 pm (utc) on July 3, 2008]
I've tried (for several years) to make money on an AdSense-monetized site that was based on original content. When I say original, I mean everything was made in-house, from photos to research to writing.
What did I get from AdSense? About $2.00 eCPM. It started off a little higher, but settled at around that number.
So, imagine I write an article. Let's even suppose all illustrations are free (which they are not), and the only thing that matters is my time. I value my time at $30/hour. A good article can be written in about 2-3 hours. Add an hour or two for research if you're not doing reporting (then it's more). So, 4 hours minimum. Forget publishing costs - let's assume they are minimal, for simplicity's sake.
So, you're looking at about $120 per article. AdSense will pay you $2 eCPM. You need 60,000 people to read your article *just to break even* on your investment. Ditto for every single piece you write. Those of you who write original articles will agree this is unrealistic.
And we're talking only the bare minimum for a high-quality piece of content here. If you add reporting, photos, illustrations, quotes, detailed research, investigative reporting, you're talking hundreds if not thousands of dollars in costs. Sorry, but I don't see the "opportunity" the original poster is talking about. It seems to me that the only "opportunity" here is to lose your time and money. And help Google make money along the way.
Am I missing something?
So, you're looking at about $120 per article. AdSense will pay you $2 eCPM. You need 60,000 people to read your article *just to break even* on your investment. Ditto for every single piece you write. Those of you who write original articles will agree this is unrealistic.And we're talking only the bare minimum for a high-quality piece of content here. If you add reporting, photos, illustrations, quotes, detailed research, investigative reporting, you're talking hundreds if not thousands of dollars in costs. Sorry, but I don't see the "opportunity" the original poster is talking about. It seems to me that the only "opportunity" here is to lose your time and money. And help Google make money along the way.
Am I missing something?
What you're missing is your premise doesn't work for everyone else and certainly not me. Yeah if I was you , I probably would bother. Not being a wise guy - just honest. The business model of YOUR business has to support the process.
I can write articles in an hour or less (not 3), most of my earnings are 10-15 times per click what your example is. A highly optimized article that I post earns me money for years. It's one of the best things I can do with my time. My problem is I don't always feel that creative and I need my creativity and sharpness to write good pieces.
Sorry, but I don't see the "opportunity" the original poster is talking about.
The original poster didn't indicate the opportunity was in writing articles (although it may be for some people).
FarmBoy
I can write articles in an hour or less (not 3), most of my earnings are 10-15 times per click what your example is.
Sorry, Huntster, no disrespect, but you're not writing articles. What you're writing seems to be SE-optimized e-commerce-oriented content pages (not that there's anything wrong with that!). You're not reporting any news. You're not interviewing any people. You're not digging through public records to uncover corruption in city hall. You're not on the scene of an accident to take photos. In one hour, you can not possibly analyze even the most trivial economic issue and write on it. So, let's not mix the two. Your business is perfectly viable, but it's NOT the same business as newspapers are in.
FarmBoy wrote:
The original poster didn't indicate the opportunity was in writing articles (although it may be for some people).
FarmBoy - here's a quote from the original post I was referring to:
The readers, or former readers, of these papers will be looking elsewhere for news and information. This is an excellent opportunity for AdSense publishers to provide what they are looking for and earn a nice income at the same time.
I tried to explain my view on how the model for "news and information" would work on the web. (It wouldn't.) May be you can explain how you think the above would hold without anybody writing any articles.
May be you can explain how you think the above would hold without anybody writing any articles.
1. I recognized an opportunity.
2. I developed a business model for taking advantage of the opportunity
3. I shared the opportunity/idea, but not my particular business model, with this forum.
4. I regret number 3
FarmBoy
In other words, most of us who do well with content sites (and with AdSense) are more like publishers of enthusiast magazines or trade publications than newspaper publishers.
They are only trained to fill up the newspaper with something to fill the place beside the ads. (MFA made for advertising)They have no idea how to get all the readers necessary.
But many popular blogs like boingboing are started by experienced journalists. They should generally have more knowledge about how to reach readers and what they need, but starting a whole new website needs too many efforts and ambition. And the effort is much lesser promising than getting a secured salary.
If newspaper, especially the value ones, stopped offering free contents, would we go back to paper?
That's a meaningless question, because online news sites like the New York Times, BBC, etc. won't go away and won't stop offering free content. Indeed, the New York Times eliminated its online subscription for columns and other "high-value" content a few months ago because it figured that it could make more from advertising than from subscriptions.
What will happen is a continued decline in the number of daily newspapers and their Web sites. That trend toward fewer newspapers was underway long before the Web was invented. Strong news organizations will survive; me-too Web editions of second- or third-tier newspapers or news sites that rely on a combination of recyceled wire-service stories, local news, sports, and feature fluff will disappear or evolve into weaker, smaller, lower-budget versions of their former selves.
None of this evolution will have much financial impact on the typical AdSense Web publisher. The notion that "AdSense publishers should take advantage" of the challenges facing news organizations is wishful thinking.
I would not regret posting your idea. I mean one of the points of a forum is to share ideas and discuss/argue their merits or otherwise...just because some people are not positive about it is not a bad thing...imho.
You know my thoughts on hard news and Adsense, but people might also figure I have a vested interest in discouraging people from setting up in that topic since just more competition.
But I have been candid, for example we launched a Tech site just a couple of months ago and have some other niche sites coming soon. Why...far easier to turn a profit on original content than with news and no nasty overheads like breaking photos.
However, others might go ahead and launch a new world news site off the back of your suggestion.
At least you creating the thread has brought it up and allowed it to be discussed.
While this certainly creates many opportunities they are not without risk. You could spend money and effort for nothing. That's our system, I love it except when it bites me.
What has happened is a simple drop in the barriers to entry and the market is killing everyone because there is too much competition.
If "the market is killing everyone because there is too much competition," it isn't because barriers to entry have dropped. It's because readers now have immediate, free access to bigger media brands. The reader in Boise can now read The New York Times or The Guardian as quickly and easily as he used to read The Idaho Statesman.
I also love being able to read some other more local news from areas far away that does not really affect me but is interesting all the same.
But I still love to read a newsspaper when I have a tea or coffee.
I have found the ability to read multiple sources of the same story extremely positive.
Plus I find I am reading some online publications which I would never have read the offline version before like The Sun, quite entertaining.
I also do not believe that enough of the major advertisers are web-advertising savvy enough yet to have dented major offline news producers bottom line too much.
[edited by: Visit_Thailand at 11:20 am (utc) on July 5, 2008]
I also do not believe that enough of the major advertisers are web-advertising savvy enough yet to have dented major offline news producers bottom line too much.
The New York Times recently ran an article [nytimes.com] titled "Papers Facing Worst Year for Ad Revenue" that may change your mind.
The simple fact is they can't target their ads in the same way as the internet can. Come to my page on widgets and it's likely you have an interest in widgets. Read the New York Times and who knows what your interests are. The harder this recession hits, and it will get a whole pile worse before it gets better, the harder the newspapers will be hit. If I'm a widget manufacturer I want my audience from advertisisng to be interested in buying widgets. The widget manufacturers are absolutely savvy enough to have worked out where to spend their money.
The property market in the UK is tanking it on a massive downward spiral but I see the two major players in this market advertising on one of my sites on a scale that beggars belief. I don't see them advertising in the newspapers. This recession may just be the best thing for internet advertising both in the short and long term. Those companies who don't have the savvy to understand where they get the best return on their hard-earned cash will go under. The savvy will survive.
That's a meaningless question, because online news sites like the New York Times, BBC, etc. won't go away and won't stop offering free content.
It's too optimistic. The existing model of offering content is the result of traditional advertising. It's very labor intensive, and relies heavily on ad revenue to support it. While ads move online, ad news of newspapers haven't moved to their online news site smoothly.
The change in the ad not only lead to a change in advertising itself, but also have an impact on the content. These contents are not a blog, it's a resource-intensive news and features written by an expensive editorial team. Most of valuable online contents actually
come from these sources.
Would a strong content player survive? Yes, may be less than 1%. The strongest players (BBC or NYTimes) aren't even supported by readers in a single country but by a vast base of global readers. What about newspaper in other countries that speak a language with less user base? Their contents also contributes a lot to NYTimes and BBC too.
While ads move online, ad news of newspapers haven't moved to their online news site smoothly
Local ads haven't, although it's early days yet. Another problem for newspapers is that online CPMs aren't as high as equivalent print CPMs, for the most part (but then again, neither are production and distribution costs).
The strongest players (BBC or NYTimes) aren't even supported by readers in a single country but by a vast base of global readers.
Yes, and that's why geotargeting was invented.
But the real topic of this thread is how or whether "AdSense publishers should take advantage" of the problems that newspapers face. Again, there are opportunities in certain niches, butfor the most part, AdSense publishers have neither the skills nor the resources to compete head on with newspapers (even if the time comes when AdSense becomes more of an all-purpose ad network than it is now).
Those barriers do not exist in the same form online. Other barriers do exist, of course, but they are mostly technical, marketing, and talent related.
Many in the old-line print news media are ill-prepared to rise to this challenge. The upstarts have the know-how and technical savvy, even if they don't have the "reporting skills" to produce comparable content. (And who says that everyone cares about award-winning journalism? I recommend a re-read of the Cluetrain Manifesto.)
Why would anyone spend serious money today to get yesterdays news?
We switched from full-week delivery of our local newspaper (Mon-Sat) to "weekend only" (Fri/Sat) and are now considering to stop the subscription completely. There is just too little in there to justify the subscription fees.
Something that I think should be mentioned in this discussion is the fact that many newspapers are trying to adopt our (online) business model to salvage what they have left. Last year there was an excellent article in Wired magazine about the Gannett News Service adding web sites to report on local news events and paying stay-at-home-mom-types $150 a month for writing. The article mentioned that they expected to have revenue of $400,000 the first year, but had topped that in the first 4 months. Their first full year must have been in the millions. Even my local paper in Houston which is owned by the Hearst Corp. is doing the same type of local web sites serving narrow niches of every demographic I can think of.
They seem to be taking the best of our online business models and adapting it to work with their years of tried and true methods, and doing a good job of it. What I'd like to hear is how we can take the best of their business models and adapt it to work for us.
I have found that it's nearly impossible for one man to be a writer, a marketing director, and a programmer, and be successful at it. I don't think we can compete with the big news organizations without having specialists in at least these 3 areas. That's my 2 cents.
it's nearly impossible for one man to be a writer, a marketing director, and a programmer, and be successful at it.
I used to own, in the 1980s, a citywide weekly (free) newspaper and 4 rural paid subscription newspapers.
I spent most of the 90s in the media business, but out of newpapers, per se.
In 1999, I tried to publish an online version of my free weekly. Total failure. I tried again in 2007. Same dismal result. The problem, for the established newspapers and me, is that selling online advertising to local merchants is akin to pulling teeth or herding cats. In my experience, it was nearly impossible.
Add to that the costs of reporters, photogs and the occasional secretary, and the difiiculty of gaining readership without resorting to PRINT, and there's the crux of the problem. You cannot generate sufficient numbers online without some offline presence or ad expense.
The downshoot of all of this is that local merchants will have nowhere to advertise without newspapers. Shoppers and Pennysavers (ad only vehicles) are thriving in this environment. The local journalist/webmaster is odd man out.
BTW, while I've enjoyed most of this discussion, I found the following to be just plain wrong.
The cover price covers the paper, the print and the distibution.
Maybe that used to be the formula, but check prices for newsprint (ridiculous), ink, presses and, oh, yeah, gas, and you're never going to cover it for 50 cents a copy.
Journalism has a lot to learn on the web. The person who can master the local news site with local advertising will be wealthy. Many have tried and failed, including me, and I was very successful in the original print news business.
Fortunately, I've found a niche in adsense that makes a little dough. A lot of it is more-or-less evergreen type content.
That's another thing. News content is here today, gone tomorrow, down the memory hole of the internet. CPC or CPM rates are too low right now to make a buck. That may change. And none too soon.
Carry on...
Thanks for a thoughtful post.
In 1999, I tried to publish an online version of my free weekly. Total failure. I tried again in 2007. Same dismal result. The problem, for the established newspapers and me, is that selling online advertising to local merchants is akin to pulling teeth or herding cats. In my experience, it was nearly impossible.
Do you think this might change with better audience-tracking tools - may be something like Quantcast will make them change their minds? I mean, if they can see that the demographics of your web site are local, how is it different from accepting the promises of an (off-line) media kit?
Of course, some are better than others. Some have web sites, most have internet access, but most of them don't see the point of advertising, even the ones with web sites. They think that the site is all they need, that an additional link to that site is unnecessary.
It's an old-school mindset that will likely take a generation to overcome. In 1999, prospective advertisers would ask me, "what's the internet?" In 2007, they asked me, "why do I need it?"
No doubt, the Gannetts and Hearsts and Murdoch's of the world are getting much the same response and scratching their collective heads. The difference is that they have millions riding on finding an answer, whereas smaller operations have the advantages of trial and error, time and comparatively small expenses.
Bottom line: newspapers are as dead as horse-drawn buggies when the automobile came around. They just are dying slowly. Webmasters will eventually figure it out and take over as primary local news sources. It's just a matter of time.
The danger is that big money operations, like TV networks or even Google, figure it out first. But, I suspect it will be a lot like the newspaper boom in the early 20th century: lots of publishers, lots of choices, but only a small percentage will survive.
Also, to address some earlier objections, local advertisers will not object to having their ad next to a crime story, or high school baseball box score, as long as the audience is LOCAL.
It's hard to believe that a 30 minute local news program on TV is going to fill the bill.
Beyond that, those folks without internet access are still shopping, and always will be.
Is their only access to local ads and coupons going to be the free coupon shopper style print publication.
Papers are changing, and struggling, but dying? Maybe their will only be one in a small or medium size market, but I think there will be at least one for a long time to come.
If newspapers are dying, how will the folks without internet access get their local news?
Do those people matter to advertisers? That's the more important question.
It's hard to believe that a 30 minute local news program on TV is going to fill the bill.
There's always talk radio. :-)
Beyond that, those folks without internet access are still shopping, and always will be.
Yes, but who are they, are they currently reading newspapers, and will they be replaced by other newspaper readers when they die? (In the U.S., newspaper readership is down among all age groups, including middle-aged and elderly people who grew up with the newspaper habit.)
Is their only access to local ads and coupons going to be the free coupon shopper style print publication.
Don't forget direct mail, handbills stuck in screen doors or under windshield wipers, billboards, and subway posters or bus benches.
Papers are changing, and struggling, but dying? Maybe their will only be one in a small or medium size market, but I think there will be at least one for a long time to come.
Possibly, but we're likely to see increased consolidation of daily newspapers and even more alternative media (such as weeklies targeted to certain demographics and audiences) than we see now. In my large metropolitan area, for example, the leading daily newspaper (which is having trouble paying its bills) is itself getting into the "alternative newspaper" business with a free weekly aimed at younger people.
In any case, the real question (in the context of this forum) is what changes in the newspaper industry mean to rank-and-file AdSense publishers. My guess: Not much, unless the publisher is in a market niche such as cars, travel, food, or finance as opposed to general news and editorials.
most of them don't see the point of advertising, even the ones with web sites. They think that the site is all they need, that an additional link to that site is unnecessary.
Very true. I did a favor for someone and created a simple two page site for his bar (which featured live music) and the first thing he said to me was "Now I can cancel my weekly ad in the newspaper, right?" Uh, no.
If newspapers are dying, how will the folks without internet access get their local news?
It may be a factor of where I live (or live near) but I think the people who really care about the news, local or beyond, are more likely to have internet connections. A lot of the people without internet connections aren't necessarily buying or reading newspapers anyway. Whatever news they want, they get from TV.
Read "The Paperless Office" to understand the physical attractiveness of printed media to a human being. Electronic media has many benefits, but there are physical attributes of holding and reading a paper that are unlikely to disappear in our lifetimes.
