| What do the established media companies have that | | | | topics of special interest to collectors (like WWII, John |
| upstart online companies and bloggers don't? Massive | | | | Lennon, JFK, Marilyn Monroe). Books of photos, stories, |
| archives of content - decades of material. How can | | | | covers, etc. |
| this be leveraged to make more money and fund the | | | | I'm sure a few such thing already exist, but it seems |
| newsrooms producing new content? | | | | there could be quite a market for such products. |
| The other thing established newspapers and | | | | When Time published their archives my friend and |
| magazines have is a recognizable brand. More on that | | | | Buckminster Fuller historian Trevor Blake went through |
| later. | | | | their archives to read everything they had ever |
| Idea # 1: Provide business information services - | | | | published about Bucky. I don't know if there would be a |
| compete with LexisNexis | | | | huge market for, say, a Harper's Buckminster Fuller |
| I don't know exactly how LexisNexis works. I assume | | | | Archive but it gives me another idea: media companies |
| they license archives from the New York Times and | | | | could partner with print on demand services like Lulu to |
| others. So this is already a revenue stream for the | | | | sell special customized archives of material from their |
| papers who sell content to Nexis. | | | | archives. Build a simple interface to let people drag and |
| But what if they fired the middleman and expanded | | | | drop text and pictures into a template and charge |
| their offerings? Gannet, AP, Reuters, the New York | | | | them a premium for a nice hardbound collection of |
| Times, the Washington Post Company, and a few | | | | material. Maybe even let them make their customized |
| other companies could find ways to offer a lot of | | | | books available for sale and cut them in on the profit. |
| value. The Time's open search API is interesting, and | | | | Idea 3: re-invent the online classified |
| the possible start of "newspapers as platforms." | | | | There's only so much leverage a small local paper or |
| They'd have to compete head-on with Google (I | | | | alt-weekly can get out of its archives. But they do still |
| assume Nexis already is) to provide premium business | | | | have their brand names. So whatever online offerings |
| with premium access programs and meaningful search | | | | they may have will probably draw a lot of attention - |
| systems. Business intelligence companies might be | | | | the trick is to monetize it. |
| good acquisition targets. The key to success here will | | | | Papers have been complaining that Craig's List killed |
| be not in just dumping tons of raw data on companies, | | | | their classifieds, and are therefore killing their papers. |
| but finding unique and useful ways to sort it and find | | | | I've got news for them: Craig's List is far from perfect. |
| value in it. Which is exactly what newspapers are | | | | It's ugly. It's been years since there's been any |
| supposed to be doing for the public. | | | | significant improvement (since the addition of RSS |
| There's a conflict of interest potential here, but I'm not | | | | feeds I'd say). |
| sure having a few big "business information service" | | | | There's plenty of room for local papers to compete |
| clients is any worse a conflict than having a few big | | | | with Craig's List. They just don't want to have to give |
| advertisers. | | | | the bulk of their classifieds out for free. Why not? |
| Idea # 2: Offer archival material - maybe personalized | | | | Craig's List changed the game (actually, eBay did even |
| Time has a publicly accessible online archive of all their | | | | before that), so it's time for papers to start playing it. |
| articles all the way back to their beginnings in 1923, | | | | Simply Hired and Indeed compete with CL for job |
| including covers. This seems really smart since they | | | | listings. OK Cupid competes with them for personals. |
| can run ads on all these millions of pages (I don't know | | | | competes with them for auto listings. Get in the game. |
| if they make more than way than by selling to Nexis | | | | Select Alternatives is making some headway here, |
| and similar databases, or if offering everything up for | | | | offering online personal sites for alt. weeklies. The |
| free like that prohibits them from also selling to | | | | Portland Mercury uses 'em and I've heard very good |
| databases). They also have special collections based | | | | things. |
| around particular themes or people, like World War II | | | | Hint: there are major opportunities in geolocative |
| and Johnn Lennon. | | | | services. |
| The New Yorker sells a DVD of their complete | | | | Conclusion |
| archives. I don't know if there's any sort of topical | | | | In short: papers should be acquiring and partnering with |
| sorting features on the DVD to help you find stuff | | | | tech companies, and hiring innovative software |
| based around a theme. | | | | developers. There are plenty of untapped markets |
| But here's an idea: Couldn't Time,The New Yorker, and | | | | that newspapers are in a unique position to take |
| any other magazine or newspaper with sufficiently | | | | advantage of if they're willing to experiment and |
| deep and archives and quality content sell hard cover | | | | innovate before it's too late. |
| commemorative books and/or slipcase editions on | | | | |