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« An FAQ for my semantic journalism essay | Main | 21st century jargon: a list »

Friday, February 25, 2011

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Danny Buelna

There are always anwsers to every puzzle.

Here is the answer.
Create good quality content, print in high volumme, distribute hyber locally and free.
Post it online free, printable and allow websites to link at no charge, allow visitors to email your printable content.
Include coupons with codes and barcodes on all content, One page content per one page of coupons.
Work on the honor system.
Receive commission on each redeemed coupon.
One coupon redeemed equals $1.00.
$1,000,000 coupons redeemed equals One Million dollars.
Allow coupons to be redeemed digitaly, Ipad, Iphone, etc.
Do not charge setup, distribution fees.
Contracts are OK if they only include how much your commission is and when they will send a check.
Clients will keep track of the redeemed coupons, (all discounts and coupons are tracked).
Clients will pay because this is risk free advertising. They also do not have to deal with salepeople and new contracts every year. Everybody wins.

I have been doing this for over 5 years with my company San Diego Metro Publishing and my web site PrintFreeMaps.com. It works, but no one else has had the courage to take this great leap of faith.
If you question my method, please show me any weakness.

Can this work for journalism?
Yes, but the system needs to be torn down in order to rise again.


Wsblive

We get by.

http://westseattleblog.com

Some one pointed out that all we do is provide needed content and advertising to a market that previously had no access to reasonably priced outlets. But that makes us those proto-mammals who hid under the rocks while the dinosaurs had trouble coping. What that means is that we're not the complete future, but we are one aspect of it.

Dan

Your site is one of the success stories in terms of hyperlocal newsblogging and I don't dispute that it can be done, or that the Placeblogging template isn't a valuable part of the new media ecosystem. I admire the hell out of everyone who does local journalism the way y'all do.

What I disagree with is the now-generalized notion in the industry that the future of journalism is going to be limited to endless variations on the theme of low-overhead "getting by." Proto-mammals were adapted to survive in the margins, and thank god for them, but I want to see more attention directed toward adaptations that could lead to more abundant futures.

Dependency on advertising as the sole subsidy for journalism is a short-term reality, but it's a bad policy in the long run. It must change.

patricia

It's completely inaccurate that all for profit media outlets rely on advertising alone. Only online companies do. Most print media hasn't in many decades.

It'd be good to know that when you're analyzing the business.

Jillelswick

I'm intrigued by the idea of data products created from news information. What would they look like? I could imagine one product, for example, being an interpretive bundle of stories about the same topic, perhaps tracing its coverage over time. I can imagine content analysis products, perhaps providing the ability for users to research how often a certain idea, person, or even a phrase has appeared in the press during a particular period of time. I can imagine tools for academics to supplement their research through such content analysis tools. It is going to hinge on better data storage and retrieval solutions for all that transitory news information, so we can mine it for deeper messages. Who would pay for this, however? And would it be enough?

Wsblive

The iPad subscription thing will wobble mightily when MSFT releases their touchpad version of Windows 7. The selling point of "Why pay Jobs when we can get you all the same stuff for free?" will be powerful. So far the only organization ready to figure out what's next is NPR. About a year and a half ago I heard one of their high sheriffs speak at a luncheon where she outlined their idea of finding different ways of offering content and then charging the end user very small sums. There's no telling if it will work, but it beats the hell out of being a GroupOn wannabe, a tschotske peddler, or an events planner or any of the other brain storms that have been going around.

Dan

I've been doing a lot of that kind of imagining, Jill. You can find a directory (with summaries) of my essays on these topics here..

http://www.danconover.com/ideas/new-media

...the ones that are relevant to your questions are listed under "Semantic Journalism."

West Seattle, even though I'm pretty much out there as a paid-content skeptic, I'm not ruling out successful exceptions to the general rule. Tablets are a different user experience, and I don't think Murdoch is insane to experiment with his paid-content tablet newspaper.

NPR has been very forward-leaning in its approach to delivery -- they're the champs at podcasting, and were one of the first to put the format to work. But then they have a special relationship with their listeners (and it isn't a business relationship).

Patricia, I think you may have missed a point somewhere.

PatrickLacroix

Great analysis. Look forwaed to ideas to make information accrue in value.

Pgillin

You're right on the money. Publishers should take advantage of the brand recognition and trust they enjoy in their regions to become diversified suppliers of business services. Here's a detailed proposal I posted last year: http://newspaperdeathwatch.com/how-to-save-local-newspapers/.

Sacramento Press (http://www.sacramentopress.com/)is a new-media publisher that is putting these ideas to work. The company derives only half its revenue from advertising. The rest comes from services, seminars and adjunct marketing programs that help local businesses take advantage of the wide range of media they now have available to them to generate business.

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