Sunshine Week approaching

In just a few weeks, news media and concerned citizens around the country will be celebrating a week dedicated to the importance of government transparency and openness. A print ad is available right now at sunshine.org.

You might also want to consider putting a link on your Web site to a 30-second video produced by the Radio-Television News Directors Foundation for Sunshine Week 2009. Of course, you may also view it below:

What money-making sites have in common

First, yes we realize it has been a while since the last post here. The NCPA Winter Institute had us extremely busy lately. That's not an excuse, just an explanation.

So to get back on the horse, let's talk about the latest buzz on charging people for online content. The topic is either the 300-pound gorilla, the elephant in the room, the road to the promised land or the end of time. You pick the cliche that works best for you.

Like it or not, expect the discussion to continue on this issue. The topic was even broached last week during the roundtables part of the NCPA annual meeting. Editors and publishers were curious as to what their counterparts were thinking about this.

Might I suggest that before you spend too much time on this, first read the recent article by Jack Shafer in Slate.

Shafer makes the point that success in getting people to pay for content is not easy, but he did find common elements in the sites that are working. He writes that those sites have at least one of three things going for them:

1. They are so amazing as to be irreplaceable.
2. They are beautifully designed and executed and extremely easy to use.
3. They are stupendously authoritative.

A site such as ConsumerReports.org would represent that third category.

But perhaps his most interesting comments are about iTunes. Despite the recording industry's best (or is that worst?) efforts, there are still plenty of places to locate free music on the Internet. Yet, iTunes makes money for Apple. Shafer speculates that part of the success comes from iTunes being an application not tied to traditional Web browsers.

Can a leap be made from iTunes to newspapers? Quite possibly, but it will take some money and plenty of geeks (sorry if that term offends).

At any rate, be sure to read the Slate column.

Does video + video = money?

Our thanks to Steve Gunn of The Charlotte Observer for making us aware of this item. Steve writes:

A couple of students at Stanford are looking at ways to put videos within videos, which the newspaper industry could adapt to put ads into videos online -- even those not on their own website. Whether this particular thing is the answer or not, this is a very interesting idea and raises others, including simply embedding advertising text on the bottom of a video put up by a newspaper -- even when its not on their site. It seems to me a small paper might find this really something to think about trying.

Here is a video from Stanford University about the process.



The technology is indeed cool, but I can foresee a huge ethics debate on this for newspaper Web sites. Most every newsroom would agree that adding elements such as those shown in the video into still photography is a huge taboo. What about when it's video?

I'm thinking papers could find a way of incorporating this technology into videos while making it clear that what you are seeing is a paid advertisement, not a part of the news video itself. Confining the ads to a space that is consistent on every video, such as across the bottom, might be one way to do that.

Certainly newspapers should be interested in beginning the discussion and finding a way of marrying the advertising with the news content without sacrificing our reputation and trust.

Thanks again, Steve!

A mother lode of ideas!

Here we are at the end of one year and the beginning of another one. We know how difficult it can be during this period to think up ideas that haven't been already done to death.

But we've got a great gift for you (if you don't already have one).

APME recently published its book of ideas from its members. "Great Ideas" came from editor submissions for the 2008 AMPE conference.

Now, lest you think there couldn't be any ideas in here for your newspaper, guess again. There are 70 pages of ideas with two to three ideas per page. We didn't count them up, but that's close to 200 ideas.

The book is divided into 12 topics including Projects, Sports, Business & Finance, Building Readership, Multimedia Storytelling and Change. Each entry includes a short description and contact information for the submitting paper.

You can get your own copy of the report by clicking here.

And please don't forget we're always looking for new ideas from our own NCPA members. Just send us an e-mail and share with your colleagues.

MediaShift offers some ideas

On the PBS Website is a section titled MediaShift. It is described as:

MediaShift tracks how new media -- from weblogs to podcasts to citizen journalism -- are changing society and culture.

In a posting Thursday, the column's author, Mark Glaser, offered up some interesting advice on new business models for newspapers. With all the gnashing of teeth lately about the future of newspapers, the comment of "we're still looking for a new business model" has been uttered more than a few times. Well, Glaser offers up some thoughts on new models.

You'll want to read the entire piece by clicking here. His ideas include creating blog networks, classified networks and personalized papers.

Also interesting in this column, Glaser provides a prognosis on each of his points -- how the industry is currently faring in those areas and what the future might hold.

One of the areas he talks about is niche Web sites. We'd be interested in knowing about niche sites of our North Carolina newspapers. Please let us know what you are doing so we can share your ideas.

Making use of your e-mail lists

An e-mail subscriber for The News & Observer's online service alerted us to this one. This person received an e-mail today from the Raleigh newspaper that was an advertisement... not a news update or a breaking news alert.

Many newspapers are doing newsroom generated e-mail alerts with varying degrees of success.

Could your newspaper take that same e-mail list and use it for sending advertising? My guess is that advertisers would love that capability as long as it didn't annoy the heck out of those receiving the messages. It might be worth limiting the number of e-mail advertisements sent each day and charge a real premium for the service.

Anyone else out there doing something similar?

Tickle their tastebuds

Rachel Hoskins, who is the regional publisher at The Franklin Press offered this idea:

Tie in print advertising with online advertising so our advertisers can have the best of both worlds.

Add an online, value-added version to print products, such as dining guides, and include a link to the restaurant's Web site or a static menu.

Check out The Franklin Press' Web site to see how they are doing the menu guide.