I AM A
DEDICATED
PATRON AND
PARTICIPANT IN
THE BOSTON
ARTS
COMMUNITY
John Wilpers, Senior Consultant, INNOVATION International Media Consulting Group
The 36th Annual INMA Europe Conference, “The News Channel of the Future,” Oct. 2, 2008

THE NEW INFORMATION
CONSUMERS & CREATORS:
Attracting, retaining
& involving them
John Wilpers, Senior Consultant, INNOVATION International Media Consulting Group
The 36th Annual INMA Europe Conference, “The News Channel of the Future,” Oct. 2, 2008

NEWSPAPERS WERE ONCE THE SOLE
SOURCE OF QUALITY INFORMATION
That is no longer true.

NEWSPAPERS FACE A NEW WORLD
A world where top-quality content is being consumed AND
created by the people formerly known as the audience, many
more expert in their field than our reporters.

THAT AUDIENCE
IS LEAVING
NEWSPAPERS
EU paid dailies saw a
2.37% avg. drop in
circulation in ’07 &
almost 6% drop since
2003; non-EU
countries also saw
significant drops.

AND IT’S NOT BEING The single biggest threat to the
REPLACED BY YOUNGER future of newspapers is the decline
in youth readership.
READERS The 2008 Newsroom Barometer queried 700 senior news executives from 120
countries, March 2008.

WHY ARE WE LOSING
TODAY’S YOUNG PEOPLE?
They are:
• Time-crunched
• Wired (Facebook, MySpace, iPod, Twitter, blogging…)
• Creative (creating content in many forms)
• Looking for connections
• Focused on specific interests
• Expecting interactivity

EUROPE’S 15-34
YEAR-OLDS DO NOT
FAVOR
NEWSPAPERS
They prefer:
Internet (46%)
TV (35%)
A book (7%)
Radio (3%)
Newspaper (3%)
Magazine (1%)*
They think your papers are irrelevant:
neither about them nor by them nor by
anyone like them.
* Online Publishers Assn. Study

WHAT DO THEY
WANT?
1) Local news relevant to their
lifestyles & interests
2) Information &
community
around shared
interests
3) Variety of
viewpoints
4) Chance to participate

What can
newspapers do to
attract, retain and
involve these new
information
consumers and
creators?

BLOGS
Their blogs
Their content, their
thoughts, their interests
Written by them or
by people like them
On your website
AND in your paper,
NOT in a “blogger ghetto”

BEFORE 1994, THERE WERE NO BLOGS
Internet users had no voice. The Web was, well, quiet.

IN 1994, THE FIRST BLOGGER…
… emerged erect from his cave
(Actually, it was Justin Hall from his Swarthmore College dorm room.)

BY ’02, THERE WERE 200,000 BLOGGERS
By 2003, 3.5 million bloggers

BY ’06, 35 MILLION BLOGGERS; BY ’07, 70 MILLION
Today, 133 million bloggers; tomorrow: ?

THE BLOG
FLOW IS A
TSUNAMI
• Twelve new blogs every minute
• More than 100,000 new blogs by day’s end
• Nearly 1 million posts/day
• 41,600 posts every hour
• 700 every minute
• 12 every second
Technorati, State of the Blogosphere Annual Report,
Sept. 2008

BLOGS ARE
EVERYWHERE
& ARE ACCEPTED
• 184 million people
worldwide have started a
blog
• 346 million people
worldwide read blogs
• 77% of active Internet users
read blogs
(COMSCORE
MEDIA
MATRIX/August
2008, eMARKETER/May
2008, UNIVERSAL MCCANN/
Mar, ’08)

BLOGGING IS
SPREADING TO ALL
CONTINENTS AND
DEMOGRAPHICS
Technorati, State of the Blogosphere Annual
Report, Sept. 2008

BLOGGERS ARE HARDLY THE
PAJAMA-CLAD SEX FIENDS EDITORS FEAR
Technorati, State of the Blogosphere Annual
Report, Sept. 2008

AND THEY ARE WRITING ABOUT A WIDE
VARIETY OF TOPICS (NOT JUST SEX)
Technorati, State of the Blogosphere Annual
Report, Sept. 2008

THEY DO IT FOR LOTS OF REASONS
Money is not the top reason, it’s not even in top five!
Technorati, State of the Blogosphere Annual
Report, Sept. 2008

AND THEY ARE REAPING REWARDS
• Becoming semi-famous
• Getting promotions
• Changing professions
• Getting more executive visibility
Technorati, State of the Blogosphere Annual
Report, Sept. 2008

LOOK AT THE
PHENOMENAL
NUMBERS OF
BLOGGERS IN YOUR
COUNTRIES
Hundreds, even
thousands of text
and video blogs
are available to
you every day.

HARNESS THAT ENERGY & TALENT
High-quality local bloggers: A great bet to increase your
• REACH • RELEVANCE • REVENUE

SOME DISAGREE
The Brazilian paper, Estadao, compared local bloggers to monkeys
banging on keyboards. It was a funny campaign,but it was short-sighted,
ignoring a legion of high-quality bloggers.

EVEN IF 50% OF THOSE BLOGGERS ARE
ESTADAO’S MONKEYS…
… that’s still a TON of
good LOCAL content.

INCREASE REACH AND RELEVANCE
With high-quality local bloggers,
readers see your paper and website as
being created by them and for them.

BUT GATEKEEPERS STILL RULE
Most mainstream media reject or
discourage user-generated content.

THE NEWSPAPER MAGIC STILL EXISTS
Bloggers are thrilled to be asked
to be part of your paper & website.

YOU JUST
HEARD
POWERFUL,
VIRAL,
GRASSROOTS
MARKETING
Word of mouth: the most
effective, most trusted
means of marketing.
Publish local bloggers
and unleash a legion of
cost-free marketers!
Photo by looking4poetry on flicker, CC

YOUR BRANDS STILL RESONATE
Your brand = the best in information; Extend that
brand to blogs & vlogs.
Be THE source of all the best info in town,
even if you don’t create it! Aggregate and
point off.
Or host the blogs.
Who could resist
a blog address like:
www.lavanguardia.es/myname?

IT IS A WIN-WIN:
You get:
• Great web content
• Great print content
• Increased ad inventory, and
• Viral grassroots PR from happy bloggers
The bloggers get:
• Big-time exposure in your newspaper and on your website
• Increased traffic
• Increased income
• Prestige and fame!

BLOGGERS BRING TRAFFIC
• BostonNOW hosted 3,900
bloggers; 900 of whom
posted regularly
• Four of the top 13 page
view URLs were blogs or
the blog home page
• Our longest time on a
page was a blog
• Our highest unique page
view page was a blog

BLOGGERS BRING TRAFFIC
• Between 12-20% of
BostonNOW’s site traffic
was to blogs; much of the
classic “long tail” variety
• In less than 12 months,
we attracted
773,000 unique visitors
• Who viewed more than
2.1 million pages

5 free papers, all the same -- but we,
YOU GET RESULTS! BostonNOW (the top line), had bloggers!
Paper closed April 2008
BostonNOW
Launch dates: MetroBoston (’00) Denver (‘01) Dallas (’03) TampaBay (’06) BostonNOW (‘07)

THAT’S ALL VERY COOL, JOHN
But
show us
the MONEY

BLOGS ARE YOUR SALES DIFFERENTIATOR:
Demonstrating:
• Connection with
young readers
advertisers want
• Community
involvement
& loyalty
• Interactivity

BLOGS CAN BE USED BY ADVERTISERS
• Clients can own a
segment & deliver
their message their
way
• Clients can
interact with their
consumers
• Clients can use print to promote
their Web presence

EXAMPLES OF SALES RESULTS
• A $90,000 deal with a large
regional bank mixing web and
print budget to reach young
college grads with text and video
content, and banners
• Two $10,000 deals with
real estate developers
to offer content, interact
with consumers, and
run print ads and web
banners in the real
estate section.

BUT NEWSPAPER EDITORS ARE NERVOUS
Are we risking our hard-
earned credibility opening our
pages to outsiders?
NO!
You are still the gatekeeper.
Don’t publish ALL the blogs, only
the BEST blogs.
Photo by CayUSA on flickr/CC

THEY WORRY ABOUT THE UNKNOWN
How can I take responsibility for
authors and content I know
nothing about?
EASY!
You vet them like you would
any columnist or freelancer…
…& pull them if they err.
Photo by SarahFelicity on flickr/CC

THEY WORRY ABOUT PROFESSIONALISM
Don't you see any difference
between blogs by journalists &
by readers?
ABSOLUTELY!
Reporters are trained to
collect and check facts;
bloggers aren’t.
While many bloggers are
excellent, you should
brand them graphically to
make the distinction.
Photo by Reinvented on flickr/CC

THEY FEAR NEFARIOUS ULTERIOR MOTIVES
Isn’t it just a clever
idea for publishers
looking to cut costs?
NO!
Most bloggers are
not reporters. We
still need reporters
Bloggers are an
addition to your local
news products.
Photo by St Stev on flickr/CC

THEY WORRY
ABOUT THE
FUTURE
Will community
bloggers will be
willing to produce
their content for free
in the future?
YES!
Traffic is more
valuable than a
freelance check.
Photo by Red5StandingBy on flickr/CC

THE ALTERNATIVE?
Do nothing and
the competition
will eat your lunch
“Newspapers are going
to see the relentless
emergence of new forms
of media that
might not even be …
positioned as competition, but
which have the potential to
siphon off audience.”
— Andrew Nachison, Co-founder
iFOCOS, a media think tank

A NEW BUSINESS MODEL
Incorporate
professional AND
citizen content,
new advertising
models, and new
audiences so we
can continue to
fund our
journalistic mission.

A NEW VISION: INCLUSION
\"Stop pretending your
organization is an oracle.
It's not. You don't know
everything, and even if you
did, you couldn't publish as
much as you'd like to.
Pointing to outside sources
of information — especially
local blogs and other
media — is a great start …
blank

A NEW VISION: CREATING TOGETHER
“… It does not mean that
you endorse what these
folks are saying or vouch
for it, but it does mean that
you recognize that others
in your community are
creating media with at least
some information other
people might want to see.\"
Dan Gillmor, Director, Knight
Center for Digital Media
Entrepreneurship, Arizona
State University

SEIZE THIS NEW DAY
Welcome the reader as a content creator into your
website and newspaper, and expand your world

.
Take-aways:
Start today
Start slow
Start safely
But START NOW
John Wilpers, Senior Consultant
INNOVATION Media Consulting Group
001.617.688.0137 / johnwilpers@aol.com
Johnwilpers.wordpress.com