re-engineering newspaper.com melinda gipsonadmin.lokus.se/cgforum2008/pres/melinda_gipson... · as...

Re-engineering Newspaper.com

Melinda GipsonInternet Strategy and Business Dev. Dir.

Stockholm April 2008

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Outline

Who/what is GateHouse Media, Inc.?

The mandate: Grow. Don’t just manage decline.

What’s “Web 2.0”?

What is GateHouse Media’s strategy for BEING a Web 2.0 company?

10 rules of the road to building Web 2.0 partnerships to last

What partners offer (Hint: continuous improvement is a hallmark of the Web)

A quick look at a work in progress

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What is GateHouse Media, Inc.?

Built largely by acquisition, GHS now owns more than 480 community newspapers in B

& C markets. Our “sweet spot” is the 20-50K circ range in smaller, but prosperous communities where we feel there’s plenty

of upside and the Web is largely untapped.

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We make ardent use of Google maps… to keep

track of where our newspapers are!

We have 120 newspapers in the

state of Illinois,another 100+ in Mass.In the last year alone,

we’ve relaunched more than 250 Web sites on an open-source CMS

and built dozens more.

In print and online, our publications reach

more than 10 million people in more than 20

states on at least a weekly basis.

(Roughly 1:6 Dailies to weeklies)

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We’re committed to using best-of-breed, open-sourced Internet resources to serve

our current 200,000 business clients, 10 million readers and hundreds of communities to

the best of our ability.

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While we’re building a world-class, Web 2.0CMS platform to leverage the synergies that come from such economies of scale, we’re

not above leveraging other people’s bandwidth as well to host our rapidly

developing network of journalists and citizen contributors. We do this with inexpensive,

point and shoot cameras.

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The latest NAA research shows that, despite Yahoo!’s explicit intent to make linking to newspapers a benefit of its “core services” partnership, GOOGLE drives the largest single block of traffic to newspaper sites (20%!)

Beyond that, clients also value being found by Google, so we’re partnering with Google to be an adwords reseller. It’s not that much of a stretch, because both our CMS from Zope and Google are based on Python, and we already

use Google for Publishers to serve our Web ads.

We also participate in the Google Print program to make it easier for advertisers to buy ads across our broad, national footprint.

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But, we bleed purple too, making up more than 250 of the 525+ Newspapers in Yahoo!’s HotJobs recruitment network.

(We actually trained and launched more than 200 markets in 4 months.)

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Joining with folks like these…

+ +

PipelinePipeline

Conversations with over 30 partners, with 35 million+ in circulation?

Nov. 2006Nov. 2006

7 Members 176 Newspapers

12.5M Sunday Circ

April 2007April 2007

12 Members264 Papers

18.5M Sunday Circ

19 Members397 Papers

21M Sunday Circ

TodayToday

9To offer best of breed solutions to our recruitment advertisers. Still to come: a single ad serving platform.

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More importantly…

Working together forges new partnerships

Newspaper Consortium is partnering on QuadrantOne, a national sales organization that includes Tribune and Gannett

Zillow for Real Estate

Work on mashing “marketplace” and “social networking” elements for advertisers

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What’s at stake? Local Market is Big and Growing

$1,957$3,435

$5,450

$7,606

$9,747

$12,355

$0$2,000$4,000$6,000$8,000

$10,000$12,000$14,000

2005

2006E

2007E

2008E

2009E

2010E

45% CAGR

Source: Bank of America, October 2006.

Online Local Advertising Spend ($M)Local will be the DRIVER of new ad revenue sources on the Internet

More than doubling to $12B+ in 2010

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Local Online Advertising, by Source

$-

$2,500

$5,000

$7,500

$10,000

$12,500

$15,000

2007 2012

Loca

l Onl

ine

Ad

Spen

ding

($ M

Ms)

Online Video

Online Video

Banners & Listings

Banners & Listings

Paid SearchPaid Search

E-Mail Ads

E-Mail Ads

32%85%

Video, Paid Search and E-mailAdvertising Formats are expected

to go from 32% of Local OnlineAdvertising in 2007 to 85% in 2012

Source: Borrell Associates

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Newspapers in the U.S. -- users = $s

52% of large market sites serve 35M+ page views (up from 35% in ‘03).

Median number of page views is 6 (outperformers are at 9)

+50% of our users visit before noon, despite our efforts to push after-hours traffic.

Newspaper sites have grown the number of monthly unique visitors by 19% since 2005.

Media number of unique visitors in 2006 was 291,612 for industry. To be in the top 20%, you’d need to drive 1 million uniques/month.

+50% of sites with 250K-500K users made $1M-$5M

50% of sites with 500K-1M made $5M-$10M

~75% of sites with +1M made >$15M (Haves, have more)

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Newspapers in the U.S. -- LOCAL = $s

Local advertising accounts for 90%+ of total Web revenues

National advertising has grown 25% since 2003

In 2006, national advertising accounted for $7.5B (16%) of PRINT ads, with retail at 47% of that followed by classified at 36% (that’s of NATIONAL revenue)

Online = only 5% of revenues on average, but top 20% have at least 9%. Revenues have increassed 22% since 2005 on average, but mid-sized papers grew the most with 55% increase.

Classifieds = >66% of online ad revenues. 40% of total revenue comes from the employment vertical; 24% from banner/display.

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Newspapers in the U.S.: Online Revenues 5%-12%

Online = only 5% of revenues on average, but top 20% have at least 9%. Revenues have increassed 22% since 2005 on average, but mid-sized papers grew the most with 55% increase. The most successful can achieve 12%.

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QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Beyond the “buzz”: Note that “search” beats video

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Newspapers in the U.S. -- Classifieds = $s

Classifieds = >66% of online ad revenues. 40% of total revenue comes from the employment vertical; 24% from banner/display.

Upsells most common, online-only on the rise.

Most growth in online-only comes in auto, which grew from 27% to 60% in 3 years.

Employment online only is up 37% for larger markets; real estate online-only listings doubled.



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It takes people to sell this

Median support FTE is 5

Larger markets bumped their ad staff form 8 to 12; +50% of newspapers sell with print and online staff together. Smaller markets are slightly more likely (52) to use print staff only.

~75% of ad clients pay by CPM (100% in the largest markets), but 66% also pay by length of stay or flat fee (GHS mixes the two.)

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GateHouse Revenue Strategy: Top 5

HotJobs

Top Ads

Zope Classifieds

Automotive Vertical

Online sales force (includes “Shopping” and IYP)

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HotJobs: — 249 of 272 sites fully launched;

— +$600K in revenue in January,

— Roughly 75% take rate

— $40-$275 for listings, but can also sell “slots,” access to resume database, email access inside of Yahoo! active job seeker network…sky is the limit

— Online only sales through mix of call-center and online-only sales reps, outside recruitment team or dedicated sales

— Video (go live? http://www.totallylocal.com/jobs/rrstar/)

http://www.totallylocal.com/jobs/rrstar/

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TopAds

— Tool being integrated with Zopeclassifieds categories

— $25-$50

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ZClassifieds

— Web-to-print classifieds tool for self-service order entry. 49 of 102 dailies live; not a lot of added revenue given the scale (~$100K over 6 mos.)

— Print-to-Web. 23 of 102 dailies live.

— Single point of entry for Web card processing



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Auto will rollout in May

RE possible in 3rd quarter

Sales Teams

— 10 reps now trained and selling

— As of March, 14 sales visits and three product training visits

— ~$300K in contracts (averaging $20K/visit)

Yokel Confidential

Search Results Page

Yokel Confidential

Retailer Microsite Home Page

Yokel Confidential

Product Detail Page

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High, Targeted, LOCALIZED SEO

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Who’s a “PowerShopper”

With WordPress Multi-User, it could be anyone in any of your local markets. It’s so easy to write a “Deal of the Day” blog, why, even a CEO could do it.

Of course, the real fun comes when users are asked to submit their own “finds.”

CONFIDENTIAL – FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY

Weekly “User Generated Advertising” ads feature the most popularly searched items from the shopping site. (The more

keyword money you spend, the more “popular” you’re likely to be.)

DAILY Deal of the Day featured item from the Web, pointing users

to the shopping site where they can explore PowerShopper’s

other picks

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GateHouse Strategy

Empowering the local BUSINESS to compete fully with any national or regional competitor for consumer share of wallet.

— Self service, yes, but also CUSTOMER service

Working with Yahoo for Recruitment (+?)

Working with Google as an AdWords Reseller (merchants want to be found, but keywords don’t come with a manual many of them understand), and Google Print to make us easier to buy.

— To compete, local businesses must ENGAGE potential customers

Why isn’t IYP more like Business Facebook where you could link to loyal consumers. Collect references, BLOG Ads in real-time, become a resource for your customers and have fun?

Why can’t customers communicate with LOCAL businesses and solve their problems in real-time?

Empowering USERS to interact fully with local merchants and their fellow consumers so they can buy, sell, trade, comment, rate, review and endorse the things that most impact their lives.

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GHS Online “Product” Revenue Breakdown

DisplayClassifiedsRecruitmentAutoREShopping

Shopping as a new start is least likely to hold to this projection, but could outstrip auto and RE combined in its first year. Display is sold as “limited inventory” and is the easiest thing for print

reps to understand.

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GateHouse Strategy

A three-part content strategyfor audience development

Web-first publishing for spot local news— Z4M a single CRM easy enough for ANYONE to do it

— Easily enables 2-way sharing of “news service” submissions

— Construct for instant “syndication” of both categories and site features

Online video

User participation through comments, forums, blogs, photo & video sharing

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What’s Web 2.0?

The first version of the Web (Web 1.0 if you will) was stationary/directional.

Web 2.0 is more a characteristic than a definition; it means that the Web was intended to be collaborative and interactive

— This view of the world envisions online “news” as a conversation, and “editors” more as producers of their own staff content and of community or user generated content (UGC for short.)

— Web 2.0 companies are adherents to both OPEN standards and user empowerment

Web 3.0 -- what we aspire to be -- looks to capture the process of “being interactive” and and make it an integral, self-perpetuating force for all we do, transforming the business as well as our publishing products.

— Those who collaborate create SOLUTIONS.

— You can’t just change the names on the doorplate. You have to mean it.

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http://www.mpnnow.com/multimedia

The ever-popular “pothole” map, complete with video

Users “geo-tag” their pothole finds and mousing over them reveals comments

like “bring your swim trunks”

http://www.mpnnow.com/multimedia

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Rules for forging successful 2.0 partnerships

1. BE a Web 2.0 CompanyBasecamp (“Getting Real”)

Share wisdom/finds/contacts with each other using Web-based tools (Del.icio.us, Listservs, Blogs, Instant Messenger).

Eliminate “turf”

Get OUT there: AlwaysOn Stanford Summit (alwayson.goingon.com), DEMO

Make yourselves available to potential partners (Take vendors’phone calls. Keep them in the loop on project timing.)

Invest in development CAPABILITY (BizDev, programmers, designers). Outside innovators can’t do everything.

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1. Be a Web 2.0 Company

http://www.37signals.com

USE BASECAMP

BUY THE BOOK: “Getting Real”

Eliminate “Process” and BUILD SOMETHING

http://www.37signals.com

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2. Define what business you’re inConnecting users and local merchants to the best of the Web (implies both Yahoo! AND Google for different reasons)

Improving your community and helping others get involved in thatprocess. (cMarket, hyper-local media, Marketplace)

Being the “glue: for transactional behavior in your local marketplace (Anything that improves classifieds; Zope, DMC for video, iqzone: allows you to place, search and alert classified ads from your mobile.)

Interpreting the world; offering best of breed information resources on whatever platform suits users’ lives. (Magnify.net, YouTube, cellsigns, Wireless Nation, grouptivity)

Making community interaction both layered and rewarding. (Minekey)

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3. Revere Open Source StandardsOpen ID (whomever our collaborators, we must know our customers)

WordPress Multi-User (awesome), Drupal, Python, Atom, XML, Firefox, RSS…

One database, many paths to promotion/publication

Atom feeds rock

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4. Be Willing to Do the Dirty Work (Yes, this means you…)

The vendor who thinks his/her application can’t stand any improvement is right… and we wish him well. “We can do that” is what you want to hear, not “That’s included in our next release.”

Newspapers often expect their partners to read our minds; be prepared to spec out in excruciating detail the subject of your collaboration.

Common ratecards + standard product descriptions = modular marketing. Anything less is chaos. (WickedLocal/TotallyLocal to get 500 newspapers on the same page.)

Train person to person, answer questions, be accessible. Advanceinnovation by involving the people who have to sell it from the planning stage. (Cuts down on the whining later too…)

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5. Commit to the Success of the PROJECT and your Partner. It’s a small world…Committed “like the pig, not the chicken” in an English breakfast. This means equal risk AND equal reward. (“Revenue share” isn’t a dirty word, but an application without an audience isn’t a 50/50 proposition.)

To know us is to love us… riiight?

Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg. “Exit strategy”connotes financial discipline, the buy-in of smart investors, and lots of sweat in view of the goal. Conquer your fear of abandonment.

Stop trying to BUY innovation. More can be gained by sharing than sequestering and most newspapers who buy companies break them.

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6. Understand “Local”

Exploit your knowledge with the big guys— Google: “Local? Oh, you mean like Yelp.com…” (National

“reviews” site)

— GHS represents nearly half of Yahoo! Hot Jobs’ partner papers by titles, if not circulation.

But don’t waste your time with partners who don’t value it, and can’t adapt to geotargeting.

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7. Leverage the “Network Effect”

This applies to Yahoo, to be sure, but it’s also extremely valuable to partner with smaller innovators who have laid the groundwork for going “direct to consumer.” If they don’t understand how to do this, no abount of newspaper partnering will offer the viral growth we need to replace our declining businesses.

Savvy investors can be your best resource. They keep you in the loop on new trends and players, and provide a rational check against “Founder’s Syndrome.” (See http://www.alwayson.goingon.com/.)

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8. Pick something hard

Maximizes the upside because you’re trying to solve a real problem (by implication, others have tried and failed because they had to take it on.) When you succeed, you’ll have a built-in fan base.

Innovation/development is taxing. Don’t waste it on something trivial.

The good will that your effort to tackle the “tough problems” elicits from your customers is nearly as important an outcome as their one-time support for your latest application. (GHS motto: “Grow with us.”)

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9. Don’t fear failure

If you do, defensiveness kicks in and you’ll hang on way too long.

If you’ve done the risk/rewards thing right -- and are willing to promote your partners to others who may succeed -- the second or even third time may be the charm. People who love what they do will be back.

What you learn this time will help you next time.

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The Revolution will be Uploaded

Our reliance on storing all our news content as well-structured data separated from presentation in any medium allows us to deliver the news and information readers want, in the manner they want it, when they want it: on the Web, via automatic section e-mail editions, via RSS, or on our mobile edition. For our 2006 election coverage, the very same information powering our Flash election results feature scrolled across the screen of our TV news channel…LJWorld.com is committed to exploring the possibilities of re-imagining journalism in the context of an interactive online medium. Reader comments often drive our coverage of a topic by providing news sources and community perspectives. Lawrence Journal World Edgie Entry Form

Alberto Ibarguen, president of the Knight Foundation, in announcing 30 new global fellowships to fuel community journalism, said he hopes to fulfill the social-bonding role newspapers played in the 1960s and 1970s. “The revolution may not be televised, but it will be uploaded,” Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus said at the same event.

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10. Share your success Our reliance on storing all our news content as well-structured data separated from presentation in any medium allows us to deliver the news and information readers want, in the manner they want it, when they want it: on the Web, via automatic section e-mail editions, via RSS, or on our mobile edition. For our 2006 election coverage, the very same information powering our Flash election results feature scrolled across the screen of our TV news channel… LJWorld.com is committed to exploring the possibilities of re-imagining journalism in the context of an interactive online medium. Reader comments often drive our coverage of a topic by providing news sources and community perspectives. Lawrence Journal World Edgie Entry Form

Alberto Ibarguen, president of the Knight Foundation, in announcing 30 new global fellowships to fuel community journalism, said he hopes to fulfill the social-bonding role newspapers played in the 1960s and 1970s. “The revolution may not be televised, but it will be uploaded,” Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus said at the same event.

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TTFN

[email protected]

www.newzmaven.com

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.newzmaven.com

re-engineering newspaper.com melinda gipsonadmin.lokus.se/cgforum2008/pres/melinda_gipson... · as...

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