This just in: People like the Internet. Yup.
The latest evidence comes from a few places. In the news category we find that newspapers are reporting a 12% growth in online readership, amounting to a truly stunning 40% of all Interweb users. In the entertainment realm, a new survey claims that 20% of "TV" viewers are now watching shows online. The last number is certainly surprising, but what would be more interesting to see is whether people watch more TV than they did previously because they're watching online. DVRs have caused people to watch more, and overall media consumption keeps going up. The article alludes to some of that, but it doesn't address it head on. I would be shocked to find that people are replacing TV with online viewing and not just adding to their existing viewing habits.
This article actually brings up a larger issue. I searched for the survey results or some article not written by a wire service. Impossible. I got to the website for IMMI, the survey company, and everything they give for free (the deeper dive will cost you) was included in the wire service story. Is anyone actually reading/ordering the survey or are we content to read the executive summary and just post it everywhere? I don't even know if there are TV reporters working at newspapers anymore. If there are, they're either busy packing their belongings into a cardboard box or they have no idea how to use the Internet and they're still using AOL mail.
The problem in journalism these days is that there is no money or time to bring someone in to do analysis. Seemingly, it's the one industry where the amount of analysis and deep thinking has decreased over the last decade. Hopefully, some reporter out there will get ahold of the survey and educate the rest of us. No offense to the folks at wire services -- they do great work -- but their system is not built for enterprise work.
We Like the Web, But That May Not Be a Good Thing
Somehow MSNBC Ranks at Top of News Sites
Nielsen is out with data on the top news sites on the web. A lot of what you would expect: The Huffington Post had the biggest gains since last year percentage-wise, Google and Yahoo are near the top of the list, etc. One of the most surprising revelations, though, is that the MSNBC Digital Network is the top news site. Maybe I'm biased because I don't see their promos during The Today Show (not a fan). How can they be the news destination on the web? I assume this has something to do with MSN Mail, particularly since Yahoo is right behind them, but it's surprising that MSN beat out Yahoo.
E-mail must be driving that train, which is why it's a bit surprising to see Google News behind some of the newspaper sites. Also surprising is that The New York Daily News' traffic is up 109%. They must have poached some of The New York Post's writers.
If these traffic figures could somehow translate into ad dollars, all would be right with the world, but that's not the case. The Baron believes that the ad dollars will be there eventually, though things could get worse in the news business before they get better. The New York Times is a great brand -- something Rupert understood about The Wall Street Journal -- and a great news organization. There's no reason to think it can't succeed online. It just may have to cut back -- or, gulp, give up -- the print edition. Maybe they should just start nytimes mail.
Changing the Online Newspaper Model
While we were enjoying a lovely 4th out in the wilderness with the family, we spied an insightful take on modern journalism from Timothy Egan (a favorite of The Baron's brother, if that matters at all). Writing for one of The New York Times blogs -- oh, the irony -- Egan points out that as newspapers reach more and more readers online, they continue to slash jobs. While he seems to veer off topic a bit at the end of the blog post, Egan's point is a good one.
So how do newspapers make money when online ad revenue is so puny compared to print ad revenue? One way is to get past the homepage model. The homepage should be a vehicle to the major stories a paper has to offer. Most papers, though -- and the Times is particularly guilty of this -- cram as much as they can on the homepage because they know readers won't go particularly deep. I think they need to change that model and flesh out the main stories ever more deeply with extra analysis and other content, while using the homepage as a gateway to the rest of the paper. Streamline the sites and make the content easily accessible through search and menus. That would offer a chance for readers to get deeper into the site, spend more time there and see more ads, mimicking the print experience. Of course, RSS feeds bypass this solution, but those are still only very popular with the tech savvy crowd.
Another problem -- and this is constantly being debated -- is what determines online engagement. Egan quotes a Nielsen stat about visitors, but visitors are no longer viewed as the default measurement in the digital research world. Folks there also focus on page views, time spent on the site and page views per visit. If newspaper sites looked at this information and created some sort of combined rating, they could determine how their sites are being used and they could optimize for that. It's a lot easier to say than to do, but there are a lot of people who care about this -- just look at how many comments his post received -- and the print industry should look for creative solutions from passionate readers, shareholders and staff members.
