Online ads are largely suffering from the fact they were undervalued, deliberately, by old media that didn’t foresee the day they would need to rely on that revenue – there was a notable Seattle Channel-recorded dialogue on this, in which one local publisher (I can’t recall the Times participant or stance) acknowledged the fact. Sure, newspapers aren’t going entirely away, but they are going MORE away than their owners want to admit.

So rather than clinging to that revenue and thinking it’ll be there for a long time to come, why not figure out (if this isn’t happening already, and I sure hope it is) how to further educate advertisers that online IS their future, and they need to move their money and messages there?

Education seems extremely important right now. As I commented at the forum, some businesses are mistakenly believing that free social media is the free solution to connecting them with customers – I see businesses fire up Twitter accounts, score a couple dozen followers, and put enormous amounts of time and energy into coming up with daily offers and other messaging seen ultimately by very few (yes, the OCCASIONAL offer will go viral, but there’s so much noise out there now, it’s hard to count on that) while ignoring the fact that mass media large and small could be helping them get those messages out to far more people, for a not-so-exorbitant sum.

As interactive and social-media-interwoven a service as ours is, for example, we are still on a very basic level a form of mass media, and while I believe that non-digital delivery systems are going away faster than most will admit, the reality of media outlets, interactive and otherwise, reaching a large audience, is NOT going away as fast, and that’s what businesses looking to connect with customers need help understanding.

The distinctions between the business models of MSNBC.com, West Seattle Blog and The Seattle Times was something I thought the audience at the dinner would have benefited from hearing a more depth on.

In fact, it might have been interesting to play a little role reversal and have you chime in with suggestions on their operations and vice versa. Todd tried to get Charlie to make suggestions about your operation but I don’t remember much substance to his response (because Todd finished the question by asking if he’d shut the presses down.)

- Mark

Agreed; Mark Ippolito and his team did an incredible job putting together this event.

Thanks for your reflections on my presentation. I’m glad I got at least one aspect of my point across. However, I’d like to provide the context that I offered at the forum.

My comment about the revenue/readership issue was framed with regard to major metropolitan newspaper websites, not specifically seattletimes.com.

The full context:
- It’s fallacy that newspapers are losing ground because no one reads them any longer. Major metropolitan newspapers do not have a readership problem:
o 70% of people in the US read a newspaper at least once a week (Scarborough)
- Newspapers have a revenue problem:
o In 2000 print newspaper revenue was it was $48.6Billion.
2008 total print and online newspaper revenue was $37.8 Billion dollars
A loss of $11Billion dollars, or 22%. Nearly all of it in print classifieds. (NAA)
- In-depth journalism, the kind that newsrooms such as The Seattle Times provide in “Coaches Who Prey” does not come cheaply. I sincerely doubt any major metropolitan online newspaper is funding a newsroom of this caliber solely through their online operation.

There is little validity in comparing the business models of MSNBC, West Seattle Blog and The Seattle Times. The three properties serve different markets, draw, generally, from a different advertiser bases, and the scale of their operations are entirely different.

Nearly every major metropolitan online newspaper is reporting their total online revenue down compared to 2008. This is because, unlike local blogs and msnbc.com, a significant portion of major metro newspapers’ online revenue comes from the recruitment, automotive, and homes verticals. It should surprise no one that each of the three categories have taken deep hits in the recession. This is not a problem exclusive to online metro newspapers. In October 09 Monster reported a 35% YOY drop in revenue. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091029-711518.html

The remainder of major metro newspaper revenue comes from national and local display. Many of us are indeed seeing growth in local display revenue. But it’s not enough to overcome the temporary, cyclical losses in the other categories. And it alone is not enough to support a newsroom of the caliber of The Seattle Times. At least not today.

My main point in distinguishing readership from revenue: The internet has been around far too long for entrepreneurs to continue to cling to the fallacy that a flood of traffic equates to a viable business plan. Traffic-bloated, low-value websites are feeding fragile advertising models, such as remnant networks riddled with click-fraud. We must build valuable services that support consumers’ intent and effectively connect them with advertisers. This will serve consumers, advertisers and, ideally, it will fund the kind of quality journalism we need to protect.

PLee

Great recap of the event last Wednesday!

Glad you could attend. It’s funny you mention the unasked question about msnbc.com and the seattle times. I thought the same thing!

I also was hoping someone would have brought up Serra Media when Patricia said she was having a technology problem. In many ways, you guys solve a lot of her supposed problems.

Thanks again,
Jeremy

PS: I was part of the MIT planning team, and we appreciate the kudos … we definitely did our homework.