Exclusives

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Special Reports

  • Apps: The app genie is out of the bottle. Local news organizations have moved past the stage of merely having an app and are moving on to the tricky challenge of monetizing those apps, and to do that, they will have to build on the momentum of local mobile search, unlock the power of geolocation and push for better app metrics.
  • Daily Deals: Local media companies are turning to white-label platform providers so that they can build their own brand in the marketplace and potentially make more money.

Industry Calendar

May 2012
Mo
28
Memorial Day
Holiday
June 2012
Th
Sa
7-9
Association of Alternative Newsmedia
AAN's 35th Annual Convention
Detroit, MI
We
27
BIA/Kelsey
Mobile Local Media San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
July 2012
We
4
Independence Day
Holiday
Fr
Su
27-12
Summer Olympics
Holiday

Net Essentials

Latest News

Thu, May 24, 2012

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Editor on duty: Eric Smith, 908-616-3043
Paywalls and Pay Strategies
McClatchy Starts ‘Robust Test’ Of Pay Model
JimRomenesko.com, May 23, 2012, 3:54 PM EDT
McClatchy VP of news Anders Gyllenhaal told employees in a memo that the company would begin a "robust test" with Press+ of a new pay plan for its newspapers: "The approach will offer readers a new print-digital subscription that will include access to multimedia editions for a relatively small increase of home delivery rates." Link | Add comment
Study: Tablet Shoppers Spend More
MediaPost, May 23, 2012, 1:49 PM EDT
A new study from Shop.org and Forrester Research reports that 49% of retailers say tablet shoppers spend more per order. And tablets now account for 3.2% of Web sales, compared with just 1.5% for smartphone sales. Link | Add comment
FCC Mulls Treating Video Sites Like Cable TV
The New York Times, May 23, 2012, 4:01 PM EDT
The Internet has changed the concept of multichannel video programming distributors so profoundly that the FCC is now rethinking even the definition of the word "channel." Link | Add comment
NAA To Post Office: Reject Valassis Deal
NetNewsCheck, May 23, 2012, 4:30 PM EDT
The Newspaper Association of America Wednesday called for federal postal regulators to reject what it labeled a "sweetheart deal" for one of industry's largest direct-mail competitors. Full Story | Add comment
Qwiki, ABC Roll Out Story-Telling Platform
GigaOM, May 23, 2012, 4:08 PM EDT
Qwiki has launched a new media format that allows publishers, bloggers, Web personalities and others to create 60-second video stories that are embedded with other videos, images, maps and links. ABC News will use the platform to tell news stories online. Link | Add comment
Janet Balis Named Publisher Of HuffPo
Advertising Age, May 23, 2012, 3:31 PM EDT
AOL is making a series of changes that seem designed in part to do that, starting with the appointment of Janet Balis as the Huffington Post Media Group's first publisher. The company also hired Moritz Loew to lead a team of sales specialists on Huffington Post-specific initiatives and named Ned Brody CEO of AOL's Advertising.com Group.
http://adage.com/article/digital/huffington-post-publisher-amid-aol/234923/
Link | Add comment
Advertisement
Short Sellers Line Up To Bet Against FB
Reuters, May 23, 2012, 3:21 PM EDT
Short sellers desperate to bet against Facebook shortly after its debut on public markets are now getting their chance: Facebook shares were up 3.1% to $31.97 on Wednesday, still down 16% from their $38 IPO price. Interest from short-sellers was high, but as more shares became available to borrow, the cost was decreasing. Link | Add comment
Commentary
Facebook Is Just Another Ad-Supported Site
Technology Review, May 23, 2012, 3:13 PM EDT
Michael Wolff predicts that Facebook will collapse and bring the rest of the Web down with it: "In its Herculean efforts to maintain its overall growth, Facebook will continue to lower its per-user revenues, which, given its vast inventory, will force the rest of the ad-driven Web to lower its costs." Link | Add comment
Facebook Faces A Metrics Mess
Digiday, May 23, 2012, 2:13 PM EDT
Jeff Smith: "Facebook’s huge (and very hot) but if it can’t prove that its ad offerings work, using metrics brand advertisers buy into, it will lose business. Period." Link | Add comment
What The Ford Grant Means For The LA Times
Columbia Journalism Review, May 23, 2012, 3:37 PM EDT
The $1 million the Ford Foundation granted the Los Angeles Times last week may represent only a tiny fraction of the newspaper's editorial budget, but the hiring of grant-funded reporters by the country’s fourth largest newspaper has meaning beyond the symbolic. Link | Add comment
Netflix Promotes Two Key Content VPs
PaidContent, May 23, 2012, 3:54 PM EDT
Netflix has named Cindy Holland VP of original content, while Latin America/Canada content acquisitions chief Jason Ropell will replace her as VP of content acquisition, overseeing television content licensing for the U.S. market. Link | Add comment
Updated
AOL's Costly Gamble On Patch Draws Trouble
The Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2012, 7:22 AM EDT
AOL's Patch network of hyperlocal news sites has emerged at the center of a tug of war over the Internet company's future. The high cost of running the sites has fueled a campaign by dissident investor Starboard Value LP against AOL CEO Tim Armstrong's strategy of investing heavily in online content. Link | Add comment
VOSD Uses Knight Grant To Launch Magazine
Voice of San Diego, May 23, 2012, 8:15 AM EDT
Nonprofit news organization Voice of San Diego is using a $186,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to boost its new membership program and publish a print and digital monthly magazine. Link | Add comment
Inside Facebook's Fumbled Stock Offer
The Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2012, 7:22 AM EDT
A decision last week by David Ebersam, Facebook's chief financial officer, to raise the number of shares the company would offer at its IPO by 25% may have doomed any real chance the social-networking company had that its stock would jump on its first day of trading. The social network's shares fell 11% Monday and another 8.9% on Tuesday. Now, the decision by Ebersam and lead underwriter Morgan Stanley is under federal investigation. Wall Street Journal subscribers can read the full report here. | Add comment
Facebook Settles 'Sponsored Stories' Lawsuit
Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2012, 7:39 AM EDT
Facebook has agreed to settle a lawsuit that alleges the social network's so-called Sponsored Stories advertisements benefited from the "Likes" of users without giving them compensation or a chance to opt out. Link | Add comment
ProPublica Makes Nonprofit Model Work
The Atlantic, May 23, 2012, 8:32 AM EDT
Peter Osnos: "ProPublica has shown conclusively that it is possible to build a major news gatherer that the public will reward with donations, recognizing that the return on that support will only be in the amazing array of stories that profoundly affect how our institutions of government and private enterprise function." Link | Add comment
Tribune Prepares To Spin Off Business Units
Crain's Chicago Business, May 23, 2012, 8:15 AM EDT
Tribune Co. recently filed a document with the Delaware court handling the bankruptcy that shows it will collect its units into fewer subsidiaries for the possible sale of publishing and broadcast units after its exit from bankruptcy. Link | Add comment
With New CEO, Yahoo Shifts To Content, Ads
Reuters, May 23, 2012, 8:15 AM EDT
Yahoo hopes its new interim CEO Ross Levinsohn can focus on the biggest challenge of all: turning the company into an entertainment and information destination that wins back the advertising dollars flowing elsewhere. Link | Add comment
How Gawker Wants To Monetize Comments
Reuters, May 23, 2012, 8:15 AM EDT
Gawker’s new commenting system is based around threads, with the default view being the main, most interesting thread so if an advertiser buys a sponsored post, then once the new commenting system is in place, the advertiser will have a reasonably large degree of control of the conversation that most people see in that post. Link | Add comment
New Trend: Online Shopping From Your TV
Daily Deal Media, May 23, 2012, 6:34 AM EDT
A report from Conlumino is suggesting that smart TVs may be the next hot way to make online purchases. The report suggests that up to 25% of UK consumers will make online purchases from interactive TVs before the end of 2014. Link | Add comment

More News

Roku, Dish Partner On Foreign TV Streaming Service
NewTeeVee, May 23, 2012, 3:56 PM EDT
Julian Assange Extradition Verdict Due Next Week
Guardian, May 23, 2012, 3:47 PM EDT
Wash Times Takes de Borchgrave Columns Offline
The Washington Post, May 23, 2012, 3:45 PM EDT
Amex Deepens Social Platform Ties
Digiday, May 23, 2012, 2:04 PM EDT
Apple Holds 63% Share Of Tablet Market
9 to 5 Mac, May 23, 2012, 2:01 PM EDT
How Amazon Is Changing Rules For Books, Movies
CNET, May 23, 2012, 8:25 AM EDT
BuzzFeed To Open D.C. Bureau
Fishbowl DC, May 23, 2012, 8:23 AM EDT
Attorney Plots To Get WashPo’s Wemple Fired
Fishbowl DC, May 23, 2012, 8:19 AM EDT
Roger Ailes Regrets 'Scum' Comment About NYT
The Daily Beast, May 23, 2012, 8:05 AM EDT
Clueful Scans iOS Apps For Privacy Behavior
CNET, May 23, 2012, 7:31 AM EDT
Armstrong: No Social Net In AOL's Future
CNET, May 23, 2012, 7:27 AM EDT

Today's Top Stories

Classifieds

The Market

Symbol Last Change (%)
Nasdaq 2850.12 +11.04 (+0.39%)
NYSE 7540.90 -1.68 (-0.02%)
S&P 500 1318.86 +2.23 (+0.17%)
Updated 05/24 4:33 ET Quotes delayed at least 20 mins.
Source: Financial Content
Opinions
Features
Ideas
  • Mobile And The Media's Imploding Biz Model

    Michael Wolff: "If the news business on the Web is depressing, contributing to the existential angst that has gripped every established news organization, mobile turns the story apocalyptic: there is no foreseeable basis on which the news establishment can support itself. There is no way even a stripped-down, aggregation-based, unpaid citizen-journalist staffed newsroom can support itself in a mobile world."

  • WashPo Ombud's Paywall Analysis Is Faulty

    Ryan Chittum: "You can't compare nine months of circulation-revenue changes to 12 months of ad-revenue changes and then say the former 'didn't even cover the decline in the latter.' That's like giving somebody a 100 meter headstart in the 400 meters and then talking about how the laggard couldn't even compete, even though they ran faster than the rest of the field."

  • The 'Sharing' Mirage

    Frédéric Filloux on the benefits and pitfalls of teaming up with content distributors: "Media should be very careful with their level of reliance on other content distributors such as Facebook, Google, Apple or Amazon. This can be summed up to a simple question: can we trust them?The short answer is no."

  • Paywalls Open Doors For Local News Sites

    Howard Owens: "As a matter of business reality, when an incumbent business moves deeper into sustaining innovation it opens up opportunities for disruptors. In every market where a newspaper puts up a paywall, an opportunity is created for an entrepreneur to start a local online news business."

  • For Future Of News, Killer App Is Credibility

    Robert Hernandez, an assistant professor of professional practice in journalism at USC Annenberg: "With technology empowering everyone with the ability to create and to distribute, I predict — and wish — that in 2012 the new dominating factor will be Credibility. Actually, earned Credibility."

  • Layoffs, Cutbacks Lead To News Deserts

    Tom Stites: "Desertification is on the march, claiming more and more communities as newspapers continue to wither and few Web efforts manage to replace more than a fraction of the original reporting that newspapers have abandoned."

  • Moneyball: Fixing Newspaper Web Sales

    Mel Taylor: "Today's Newspaper industry is like that once great, but now struggling baseball team playing on a new, hyper-competitive field called the Internet. The veteran print team is stuck in a rut using the same, tired strategy that did serve them well for years, but no longer. Today, they get trounced by those with more money and muscle."

  • The Metric For Missed Expectations

    Matthew Shanahan: "Here’s the problem: [Click-through rates don't] take into account audience engagement, not to mention the fact that other advertisers are competing for the click-through on the same page."

  • View More Opinion & Commentary

     

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