Beyond the Printed Word

The 2004 Ifra/WAN/FIPP World Electronic Publishing Conference

Crowne Plaza International Hotel, Prague, Czech Republic
Wednesday 3 and Thursday 4 November 2004

250 participants from 33 countries

Daily News

Here are the summaries of presentations from Beyond the Printed Word. Check back during the conference for updates.

Members of WAN and subscribers to the Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project receive expanded summaries directly by e-mail. If you wish to receive the detailed full summaries from conferences and many other benefits, click here for information about WAN membership and here for information about SFN benefits.

For Quotes from the Conference, click here.

More from the conference at Ifra’s moblog, here.

Getting to Kids with Games

Stanislav Holec, Director of Multimedia, MAFRA, Czech Republic

When the Czech quality newspaper DNES expanded its web site in 2000 by buying a technology website, it found itself owning a computer gaming site that was thrown in with the deal.

That site, Bonus Web, attracted a lot of traffic but not much revenue. But the site had another purpose: "we consider it as good strategic goal to address young people and to familiarize them with both iDNES and DNES."

And, because revenue was low, it also allowed the group to experiment with new projects; Bonus Web became the first paid-for site in the Czech Republic and was earning 1,000 euros a month through several hundred subscribers.

But it failed to grow and most of the content was returned to the free website. However, the paid section, which now only contains fast downloading, maintained its subscriber base and income. And when the MAFRA group began selling an internet connecting service, it offered free access to the paid site for people coming through the new access service.

"We consider our internet connection a very profitable project which earns, for example, twice the income of our games portal. The marketing support from game portal was just one of the several highly successful campaigns targeted at a wide audience. "

Don’t Get Burned Twice

Thanita Khomphatraporn, Executive Vice President, Business Development & Investor Relations, The Nation Group, Thailand

Like a lot of media companies, The Nation has bad memories of the dot-com bust. But it is now using that experience to drive its development in the mobile world.

Why now for mobile? In markets where everyone has a mobile telephone, future growth will come from providing non-voice content for those devices. "It’s not just a telephone, it’s a personal terminal", said Ms Khomphatraporn. "The content application is getting more and more critical."

Ms Khomphatraporn offered advice to avoid the dot-com excesses when developing mobile services. Here are two suggestions:

  Find partners and find synergy rather than doing it on your own.

  Instead of "go big", make sure the projects are prudent -- and self-funding.

Getting the Most from SMS

Morris Packer and Josefine Granding Larsson, Bonnier Group, Sweden

SMS, or text messaging, has benefits for both newspapers and their customers. For readers, it is easy to use, offers immediate gratification, and it is relatively inexpensive. For newspapers, SMS provides easier administration (no paper to sort for contests and subscriptions, for example), and it provides a new revenue stream (the reader pays a premium fee to send their message).

"SMS is a brilliant return channel for print, radio and TV, says Ms Larsson. "Print is strengthened by SMS, and SMS is strengthened by print. SMS is an untapped source of administrative possibilities. And usage statistics are gold -- knowing who is using services, when and how."

Here are two examples of how Bonnier Group is using SMS:

  A crossword contest in which a successful solution produces a code which the reader then sends by text message to the paper, where the results are sorted by computer. The message costs the sender 50 Euro cents per message. "Even in half a Euro, there are small profits," says Ms Larsson.

  Sydsvenskan, the leading regional newspaper in southern Sweden, inserts an SMS code in stories that won’t be resolved before deadline -- court cases that will be held later in the day, for example. Readers who want to know the outcome send the code to the paper and receive the update by SMS. "The reader subscribes to a specific piece of news, not to breaking news in general," says Mr Packer.

Creating a Better Mobile Newsstand

Peter Kropsch, Austria Presse Agentur, Austria

Why is there no comprehensive mobile newsstand on the European market today?

To answer the question, a group of German-language news agencies, along with Ifra and others, created a consortium called MIND -- the Mobile Information & News Data Services for 3G. MIND is funded by the European Commission to support production, use and distribution of European digital content. ` MIND, created in January to run for 18 months, is seeking to develop common technical standards, joint technical platforms, and best practice business concepts to make it easier for content providers to reach their readers through mobile services.

"We are trying to make the mobile news kiosk more colourful in the future and to improve the position of the content providers," says Mr Kropsch.

Digital TV: Friend or Foe for Newspapers?

Gunnar Stavrum, CEO, TV 2 Nettavisen/ TV2 Interaktiv, Norway

Mr Stavrum says the development of digital TV is probably not a good thing for newspapers, but he tells publishers not to worry.

"Digital TV is a foe for other channels, but it isn’t the end of the world," he says. "It is easy to overestimate what digitalization means. I think it is more of a challenge to the big TV channels because you will have a lot more channels."

Digital TV is a threat to newspapers only in that is will compete with all other media for people’s time. "`

"People are sleeping less, working less, they have more free time. But media has stolen almost all of it. People aren’t taking long walks in the mountains. A lot of people’s time is used on books, newspapers, films, TV, internet, whatever."

E-ink and E-paper: A New Mobile Device?

Harry Bouwman, Manager New Media Strategy, De Telegraaf, the Netherlands, Stig Nordqvist, Ifra Nordic Representative, Sweden, Rudy Raymaekers, Director, Concentra, Belgium, and Gunnar Springfeldt, Development Director, Göteborgs-Posten, Sweden

All of the panellists believe that a reading device using e-ink, now in development, has tremendous potential in the future.

E-ink is an electronic “ink” that can be electronically manipulated on a plastic page that can be used over and over again. The panellists envisage a day when readers will download newspapers, magazines and books into their devices, reducing the need for costly distribution of paper products. Unlike LCD screens, e-ink provides good resolution and can be read in bright sunlight.

Here are a couple of their comments:

  "E-ink is a promising technology because it makes reading a nice experience," says Mr Bouwman. "I don’t like reading on a PC or a laptop. With E-ink, seeing is believing. It is as easy as reading from the paper and that is why I think we have to follow this technology."

  "We think there will be a huge delivery opportunity, to deliver news to the reader when they want it. They could have a newspaper not only in the morning, but at lunchtime, in the evening. Sundays. Special editions, like for the Tour de France. We will have another way to bring content to mobile readers," says Mr Raymaekers.

New York, New York: Trends from the Times

Catherine Levene, Vice President, Product and Business Development Strategy, The New York Times Digital, USA

The New York Times has the world’s largest newspaper website in terms of unique users (14 million in September). So when Ms Levene discusses the internet trends the paper is pursuing, it pays to listen.

Online advertising growth will continue. Search and pay-for-performance revenues are important. Broadband is reaching significant penetration. Consumer-generated content is rising in quality and value. The "distributed internet" (RSS feeds and aggregators) are creating new opportunities as well as threats. Mobility and control and becoming increasingly important to users.

Here’s what Ms Levene had to say about a few of these developments:

  Brand advertising is on the rise. "The key here to recognize is that online advertising is here to stay, and it is in a high growth mode" (at The Times, 43 percent of online revenue comes from display ads, and 30 percent from classifieds).

  Sponsored links and ’cost per click’ ads that appear on the side of search results pages are also a growing revenue source. The Times will launch enhanced search features in early 2005 to take advantage of this market.

  Audiences and advertisers now expect a "broadband" experience, which means more multimedia journalism and growth in online video advertising expenditures.

"Search Me! New Competitors for Online Newspapers"

Melinda Gipson, Director, Electronic Media, Newspaper Association of America

On average, 29 million people visit newspaper web sites in the top 100 US markets every month.

"It is a lot of people, but not as many as go to a search engine," says Ms Gipson, adding that 57.4 million people conducted a Google search in the same period.

Google and other search engines are making huge profits by selling "paid placement" of search results -- advertisers buy the right to certain keywords and have their links appear first on search results on those words or have their ads appear on search results pages where the words are found.

Ms Gipson offered some strategies for publishers who want to compete with the search engines and take some of the revenue generated by what she called "creating contextual relevance for advertisers" (such as placing their ads on search results pages for related products). Case studies can be found at www.adconnections.org.

She offered this advice: "Mold your products into your readers’ lifestyles, not the other way around."

Multimedia Street Fighting

Mike Blinder, President, The Blinder Group, USA

Mr Blinder describes himself as a multimedia street fighter, or someone who knows what it takes to convince newspaper ad salesmen and advertisers alike what it means to place a multimedia advertisement.

"We understand the street -- what it takes to make money today, whether or not you agree with the technology and the platforms," he says.

Mr Blinder, a multimedia sales specialist who trains newspaper ad representatives in the ways of the web, presented models and methods for selling multimedia to advertisers.

Many traditional newspaper reps resent online as a medium and often see it as a competitor. And they don’t have a clear understanding of the value online brings to advertisers.

Mr Blinder trains them to look beyond the technology and focus on the audience, which is "younger, affluent educated -- that’s what we keep telling the sales rep." As many of these web users don’t read the traditional newspaper, using the web extends the newspaper’s reach. And the sales reps are taught the benefit of the repetitive nature of advertising on the web, which is the true meaning of page impressions.

What’s Wrong With Print?

Bill Murray, Managing Director, Group Business Information Strategy, Haymarket Publishing Group, UK

When it comes to classified advertising, what is wrong with print?

"Not a great deal," says Mr Murray, answering his own rhetorical question.

He points to the Sunday Times as an example -- 280 pages, a full quarter of which are full of classified advertisements -- 12 for recruitment, 20 for autos, 29 for property, eight for travel.

"Arguably, I wonder if, as print publishers, we got better by learning what online taught us, and brought it back to our print product," he says.

But while paper is great, publishers can do more to meet consumers and advertisers expectations on the web, he says.

Mr Murray’s presentation focused on how to use the power of the internet to meet those expectations, and he offered specifics on how to go about these things and more, for both consumers and advertisers.

"Publishing is about a simple thing: understanding your audience and making sure you communicate what they want, how they want it," he said. "And if you do that, you are successful."

Exploiting Local Strengths for Internet Auctions

Steve Anderson Dixon, Group Advertising Director, Northcliffe Newspapers Group, United Kingdom

Newspapers can use their unique relationship with local advertisers to develop new revenue and attract new advertising by establishing online auction services that compete with the E-Bays, says Mr Anderson Dixon.

The Northcliffe Newspapers Group has done exactly that.

There really isn’t any choice, says Mr Anderson Dixon. New competitors such as E-Bay, new online classified sites and others are causing a "radical" shift in retail and private sales and services advertising from print to online.

So, if you can’t beat them -- join them. Northcliffe, which includes more than 120 daily and weekly titles across the UK, teamed up with the Canadian firm CityXpress, which has pioneered short-term "events" auctions for nearly 200 newspapers, generating more than US$50 million in advertising revenue.

Northcliffe and CityXpress created the Bid 4 It auction service. Advertisers "give" items to the newspaper group to auction, which in return "gives" the advertiser an advertising credit equivalent to the retail selling price of the item. When the item is sold, the newspaper retains the revenue generated from the sale.

But, if the item doesn’t meet the reserve price, the advertiser cannot take the advertising credit. "The advertiser has lost nothing, he’s had the benefit of exposure in the Bid 4 It print supplement and online, and increased store traffic at a time of heightened awareness as a consequence of the promotional activity."

Raising Revenues by Losing Weight

Kalle Jungkvist, Editor in Chief and Head of New Media, Aftonbladet, Sweden

Aftonbladet is the biggest daily in Scandinavia and the leading news portal in northern Europe, but the end of the technology boom in 2000 caused a crisis.

Half of web advertising revenue disappeared. And the paper relied on advertising for 94 percent of its web income.

Searching for a new business plan, Aftonbladet turned toward classified ads and paid-for, premium content for its future.

Classified advertising was relatively easy. "The hardest problem was to teach our readers to pay for some journalistic content,," said Mr Jungkvist.

And so the "Weight Club" was born, supplying members with interactive, individually tailored weight loss programmes based on exercise and eating right. Membership costs 30 euros for 3 months.

The service has 120,000 subscribers and now represents nearly half of the 250,000 paying customers of Aftonbladet’s premium content, which generates 2.7 million euros in annual revenue.

Why are News Sites so Weak At Night?

Mike Coleman, Senior Manager, Digital Media, azcentral.com, USA

The overall growth of the internet won’t last forever. Newspapers should look for future growth from untapped "dayparts" -- attracting visitors by offering different content at different times of day, says Mr Coleman.

That’s why azcentral.com, the web operation of the Arizona Republic, has been experimenting with new content offerings when traffic for news site is traditionally weakest -- after work.

So what do people want from a news site at night?

Mr Coleman and his team believe they still want breaking news, but they also want offbeat news, entertainment, sports, classifieds, shopping, photos and multimedia. This differs quite a bit from day hours, when the emphasis is more on hard news and utility features like traffic, maps and calendars.

The differences led to the creation, 18 months ago, of azcentral@night -- a redesigned home page on weekday evenings, with lighter content that takes more chances. Mr Coleman described the content, and the results: evening page views are up 30 percent, evening visits are up 25 percent, there have been small traffic boosts in key sections, and it has offered the opportunity to showcase non-news content.

Creating the Online "Daily Me"

Al Lieb, Founder, Innovive Technologies, USA

Imagine if every visitor to your newspaper web site received a different version of your paper, tailored to their interest and needs.

That’s the vision behind Gixo.com, an aggregator that offers visitors a list of stories that reflects their interests, based on the stories they viewed during previous visits to the site.

Mr Lieb says Gixo makes it easy for readers to find and track unique news stories that interest them. The system determines the topics that each reader is interested in, so it can instantly recommend current news based on those interests. It also contains tools that allow users to completely customize their own newspaper.

Gixo works by calculating which keywords are most relevant to the topic of each article. Then, when readers click on articles, Gixo creates a list of keywords based on the articles they read.

When the reader returns to the site, Gixo cross-compares their profile to all of the day’s current news, and recommends a list of articles.

"The result is a truly personalised news source, where the article selection and order gets more personalised every time the reader comes back to the site," says Mr Lieb.