It’s all about newspapers today

April 8, 2009 Leave a Comment

 

So they held the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) conference and guess who got all the attention…an online search engine.

And so it goes for the beleaguered industry.  PaidContent.org had the best spin on the events, highlighting among other things Google’s Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt’s word of advice to the masters of ink: you are consumer businesses so don’t piss off consumers.  He was referring to attempts by the industry to clamp down on fair use. 

Speaking of clamping down, they also highlighted that the AP is again poised to get more litigious, and cautioned that the industry should look no further than the music business before heading down the path of suing people for infringement.  Good advice.

For more of their coverage on the NAA, click here.

Filed under Editorial/Content, Search Engines Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Focus on being a niche web site to earn higher eCPMs

March 16, 2009 Leave a Comment

 

Don’t let what happened to AOL happen to you.  AOL’s broad-based content mix including news, weather, sports, music, tv, movies and dozens of other categories meant it was good at one thing in terms of making money:  selling remnant advertising across its network.  That “success” probably helped hasten Randy Falco’s departure as CEO.

Without strong niche brands and content, AOL was never able to aggregate demographically targeted audiences in a way that advertisers were willing to pay a premium to reach.  So their sales people did what sales people do, they took lots of orders for low cost run-of-network ads.  In the last few months AOL’s now deposed CEO had made a push to move the business in the direction of niche content and premium ad-buys, but with little success.  As a result, he’s gone and there is a new sheriff in town – Tim Armstrong of Google.

The double-negative with launching a broad-based content site includes a) being of no interest to advertisers until you have lots of traffic volume, and b) once you get that volume being so mainstream as to be of little strategic value to buyers.

If you already have lots of content covering a variety of categories, consider launching individual destination sites which will have immediate appeal to both niche audiences and advertisers.  Replicating web sites is inexpensive these days, and the premium ad revenue should be worth the extra effort. 

If you are just starting out, think small to earn big.

Filed under advertising, Business, Editorial/Content, Marketing Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Q4 Venture Financings Down, But an Engine for eBusiness is Actually Up

January 20, 2009 Leave a Comment

 

With the economy still in a recession it’s no surprise that venture capital investing in the U.S. fell in the fourth quarter of 2008 to the lowest level in four years, according to VentureSource.  Financings for the quarter fell to 554, down from 620 the prior period and 718 a year ago.  The total number of 2,550 deals was the annual total since 2005.

But eBusinesses can take heart.  Media content and information financings actually increased to 50 in Q4, up from 33 a year earlier.  That’s because in economic downturns investment follows capital-efficient business models like those that deliver online advertising and products to consumers.  Content is central to attracting the eyeballs that information sites, retailers and manufacturers then efficiently monetize.

Filed under Editorial/Content, Finance Tagged with , , , , , ,

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