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2000
World Electronic Publishing Conference
IFRA/WAN
Beyond The Printed Word
12-13
October, Amsterdam RAI, The Netherlands
 
Newspaper
Business or News Business?
More newspapers are pursuing "multi-channel" strategies
where the unique content of the newspaper appears not
only on paper and on web sites but on web radio, digital
television, portable telephones - everywhere, all the
time.
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Did
you miss it?
The
following are summaries of presentations at the IFRA/WAN
World Electronic Publishing Conference, "Beyond the Printed
Word." These summaries will be posted each day. Please check
back later for the most recent updates.
For
more information -- including the soon-to-be-published Conference
Report -- contact Joanna Jolly, WAN, 25 rue d'Astorg, 75008
Paris France, Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00, Fax +33 1 47 42 49
48. E-mail: joanna@wan.asso.fr
WAN
members will receive the report – and all WAN publications
– for free. Membership information can be found at
www.wan-press.org/membership/index.html
Quotes
from the conference
Presentations,
Friday, 13 October 2000
Posted
at 13:15 GMT
Mastering
Alliances
Tony
Lee, General Manager, Wall Street Journal Interactive, USA
In addition
to running the web's most successful paid subscription site,
the Wall Street Journal's free web sites for careers, travel,
entrepreneurs and other markets are also highly successful.
They rely on alliances to keep them ahead of the competition.
"The
primary goals of alliances are to build traffic to your
site, to attract clients, and the ultimate goal is to build
revenue," said Mr Lee.
He offered
a wide range of practical steps for creating such alliances.
Some key points:
--Alliances
have to be logical. "Don't stretch just to do a deal," he
said.
--Goals
have to be set and met. "There are a lot of unrealistic
goals on the internet," he said.
--Alliances
have to be equitable. "If you get the better of the deal,
the deal won't last," he said. "I don't care how many contracts
you have, they will walk away from it. Be fair."
Protecting
Your Classifieds
Eduard
Ramos, Managing Director, La Vanguardia Digital, Spain
Classified
advertisements are clearly crucial to the economic health
of Barcelona's Vanguardia newspaper: they provide 35 percent
of the revenue.
To protect
that income, the Godo multimedia publishing group built
online classifieds sites that combine two related strategies.
The
first step was creating a user-friendly, personalised classifieds
web site with a large searchable database.
"We
wanted to provide more value to the advertising customer
by giving him more visibility in a new medium without extra
charge," said Mr Ramos.
The
second step was creating alliances with leaders in target
markets for "vertical" portal sites that extends the reach
of the classifieds site. For example, Vanguardia allied
itself with a major saving banks, real estate association
and a developer to create a real estate site, while a major
automobile association in the partner in a motoring site.
Classifieds
Won't Disappear — Nor Will The Internet
Howard
Finberg, former Vice President, CNI Ventures, Central Newspapers
Inc., USA
Classified
advertising in newspapers is not disappearing despite what
some of the doom and gloom merchants have been predicting,
says Mr Finberg.
"My
message is primarily for all of us to keep the faith," said
Mr Finberg. "This is not the end of the world as we know
it. A meteor is not going to come down. I don't agree with
the doomsayers."
But
newspapers will have to change their business models to
compete, and ask themselves what they can offer that their
competitors for classifieds cannot.
"The
challenge for us is to produce trusted service, taking our
brand and leveraging our relationship with consumers. That
is where we will thrive and prosper," said Mr Finberg. "We
know the businesses, we have the relationships, we have
to ask ourselves, 'what can we do to help them find customers,
keep customers, service their customers?'"
Watching
the Horizon
Randy Bennett, Vice
President, Electronic Media and Industry Development, Newspaper
Association of America
In an
effort to help newspapers better plan for the future, the
NAA launched its Horizon Watching Initiative last year to
better understand the strategic forces that will shape the
newspaper industry over the next three to seven years.
"The
Horizon Watching effort views the future of newspapers with
optimism," Mr Bennett says. "While there are clearly major
uncertainties that will influence our business, the next
several years will bring great opportunities to those newspapers
that embrace change and invest to compete in this new environment."
Nobody
can predict the future, but the Horizon Watching Initiative
uses scenario planning to come up with several possibilities.
No matter what the future holds, it recommends six strategic
imperatives for newspaper success:
--Invest
in technology to meet the needs of the market;
--Instill
cost effectiveness;
--Install
marketing and sales capabilities;
--Inspire
a technology-savvy work force;
--Integrate
short-term goals with a long-term vision.
More
information on the NAA initiative can be obtained from Randy
Bennett at bennr@naa.org.
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