Tag: The News Business
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Dealing with the elephant: Build the software you need, then sell it.
This is the fourth post in a short series I’m pretty much done with about the business model for online news before I go back to my usual routine of pointing out the obvious to people wearing dark glasses. The starting point, the givens in the equation, are listed here. Suggest which windmill I should…
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Dealing with the elephant: Hire Web-native salespeople
This is the third post in a short series I’m going to write about the business model for online news before I go back to my usual habit of banging my head up against walls made out of giant rolls of newsprint. The starting point, the givens in the equation, are listed here. Suggest what…
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Dealing with the elephant: Incremental change
This is the second post in a short series I’m going to write about the business model for online news before I go back to my usual divisive blathering about how to avoid bureaucracy and feed trolls. The starting point, the givens in the equation, are listed here. Suggest what I should tackle next using…
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Dealing with the elephant: Build a better business directory
This is the first in a short series I’m going to write about the business model for online news before I go back to my usual harangues at editors and rants at reporters, among others. The starting point, the givens in the equation, are listed here. Suggest what I should tackle next using the Skribit…
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The business model is still the elephant in the room
As much fun as it is for me to make clever lists and shout from the hilltops about what I think your news organization should be doing, how they should be doing it, and why they should be doing it, no matter what argument I (or anyone else) has in favor of a certain technology…
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It’s not the economy, stupid – Part 2
Mark Hamilton on why the “current crisis” in the news business might pay off on the other side of the chasm: “Even if the American economy turns around in a big way, newspaper health won’t magically improve, because of the internet, demographic and societal changes, etc. But newspaper companies are likely to find that their…
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Transatlantic passenger ships
Mindy McAdams offers 10 simple facts about the survival of journalism. Number 5: “Newspapers were a nice business. Publishers could make the product insanely cheap (remember the penny press), and the advertising would cover the expenses, plus generate fantastic profits. However, this is clearly over. It’s done. It worked for a long time, but now,…
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It’s not the economy, stupid
I’m sorry, but every time a newspaper executive discussing layoffs and buyouts blames things like “a drastic economic slump and the meltdown of the Bay Area housing market” I laugh. Are you kidding? Is that a joke? Your profits are shrinking because The World Has Passed You By. For more than ten years newspaper companies…
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Debunking the coulda-shoulda-woulda myth of online news
I’m trying quite hard to stay out of the business of chasing after curmudgeons with a laptop in my hand, shouting “But you got it all wrong!” Trying. Quite. Hard. So let this be just a generic blanket response to a common misconception about the business of online news. The premise, as laid out in…
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Smart single-copy sales
In the IHT, via Romenesko: “Now The Standard is fighting back, using a new, cashless payment system to try to make it easier for Londoners to buy the paper, even if they do not have the necessary 50 pence, or $1, in their pockets. Instead of handing over a coin or two, readers touch a…