Newspapers have struggled in the past decade in the transition from print to digital media. A New York Times article this week examined The Washington Post’s effort to protect its reputation for high-quality journalism while drawing readers to its website.
For The Post, its highly profitable Kaplan college and test-preparation business somewhat insulated the newspaper from a shrinking print advertising market. Now, however, Kaplan also is struggling after the federal government restricted the ability of for-profit colleges to sign up students, who often took out burdensome student loans to pay their tuition. At The Post, executive editor Marcus Brauchli and publisher Katharine Weymouth have integrated the online operation — which actually had been based in an office across the Potomac River — into the main newsroom. Attracting online readers is the newsroom’s main priority. Although The Post brings in many page views with features such as celebrity news, it also offers popular political features such as Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog. Ultimately, The Post has realized it will be most successful if it serves its core audience — which it can identify as readers with “.gov” and other government email suffixes— with highly relevant stories. In that sense, The Post is sticking to its main mission while adapting to a digital future.
One of the strengths of newspapers has been their ability to display high-impact advertising, but publishers have had less success with online ads. Many news Web pages are dominated by numerous small ads that only add to the clutter. Tablets such as the iPad, on the other hand, allow publishers to include engaging, interactive multimedia ads on their news apps, according to a Nieman Journalism Lab article by Ken Doctor. The Wall Street Journal, for example, includes interactive ads from customers such as Charles Schwab Corp. and Putnam Investments on its app for Apple’s iPad. These high-impact ads are targeted directly to the Journal’s core readership.
A little more than a year after its initial public offering, Demand Media this week reported a $6.4 million loss for its most recent quarter, according to a Los Angeles Times article. Demand Media, which operates the eHow website, built a business model on producing inexpensive content based on what people were searching for on Google. However, after Google changed its search algorithm to put less emphasis on what it considered lower-quality content, Demand Media’s articles disappeared from the top of Google’s rankings. “The business model they had for producing content no longer works,” JMP Securities analyst Patrick Walravens told the newspaper. Demand Media now is trying to shift to photos, videos and humorous content designed to be shared on Facebook and other social networks.
Sources:
Doctor, K. (2012). The newsonomics of ads that go bump in the night. Nieman Journalism Lab. Retrieved from http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/02/the-newsonomics-of-ads-that-go-bump-in-the-night/
Peters, J. (2012, February 11). A newspaper, and a legacy, reordered. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/business/media/the-washington-post-recast-for-a-digital-future.html
Pham, A. (2012, February 17). Demand Media post $6.4-million loss in fourth quarter. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0217-ct-demand-media-20120217,0,2872004.story
One of the strengths of newspapers has been their ability to display high-impact advertising, but publishers have had less success with online ads. Many news Web pages are dominated by numerous small ads that only add to the clutter. Tablets such as the iPad, on the other hand, allow publishers to include engaging, interactive multimedia ads on their news apps, according to a Nieman Journalism Lab article by Ken Doctor. The Wall Street Journal, for example, includes interactive ads from customers such as Charles Schwab Corp. and Putnam Investments on its app for Apple’s iPad. These high-impact ads are targeted directly to the Journal’s core readership.
A little more than a year after its initial public offering, Demand Media this week reported a $6.4 million loss for its most recent quarter, according to a Los Angeles Times article. Demand Media, which operates the eHow website, built a business model on producing inexpensive content based on what people were searching for on Google. However, after Google changed its search algorithm to put less emphasis on what it considered lower-quality content, Demand Media’s articles disappeared from the top of Google’s rankings. “The business model they had for producing content no longer works,” JMP Securities analyst Patrick Walravens told the newspaper. Demand Media now is trying to shift to photos, videos and humorous content designed to be shared on Facebook and other social networks.
Sources:
Doctor, K. (2012). The newsonomics of ads that go bump in the night. Nieman Journalism Lab. Retrieved from http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/02/the-newsonomics-of-ads-that-go-bump-in-the-night/
Peters, J. (2012, February 11). A newspaper, and a legacy, reordered. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/business/media/the-washington-post-recast-for-a-digital-future.html
Pham, A. (2012, February 17). Demand Media post $6.4-million loss in fourth quarter. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0217-ct-demand-media-20120217,0,2872004.story
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