Innovation in Community Newspapers

Technology Challenges& Opportunities
Steve Buttry, Gazette Communications
Iowa Newspaper Foundation
Mores Newspaper Leadership Institute
June 19, 2009
steve.buttry@gazcomm.com
@stevebuttry on Twitter

How vulnerable is your organization to a startup news, sports or business
web site or blog?

Population of your counties
Sioux, 32K
Plymouth, 24K
Hardin, 17K
Delaware, 17K
Hamilton, 15K
O’Brien, 14K
Franklin, 10K
Davis, 9K
Ringgold, 5K

Complete Community Connection
Idea born at API as part of Newspaper Next
Not included in Newspaper Next 2.0
Needed to find a place ready to make the leap

C3’s revenue approach
Move beyond advertising
Direct sales (tickets, reservations, gift registries, sports paraphernalia)
Lead generation
Targeted ads
Sponsorships
Events

Community Content
Driving
Home
Conversation
Calendar
Local knowledge

Driving
How often do you buy a car?
How often to you drive, gas up, service car?
Databases, conversations, services focused on drivers’ everyday needs
Connect auto services with drivers (emergency repair services)

Graduation
Many newspapers gather mugs, names anyway for graduation section
Launch page for each graduate
Senior, family fill in stories, photos, videos
Gift registry
Fill in school, target ads appear
Fill in career, sign up for email, text alerts

Personal content
Births
Youth milestones
School
Graduation
College life
Military service
Weddings
Parenthood
Divorce
Jobs, pets, holidays, food, interests, health
Illness
Empty nesters
Retirement
Reunions
Obituaries

Entertainment
Traditional entertainment in digital form
Entertainment news
User-generated entertainment, events
Games

Business services
Direct sales
Local search
Communication & marketing services

Enriched news content
What’s happening now
Community engagement in news, enterprise, sports coverage
Storytelling (narrative, multimedia)
Aggregation, curation

Innovation in a small staff
Engage the community (not free labor, but multiplying your labor)
Yes, you lack resources, but you’re more nimble
Write for web, edit for print
Consider innovation “vacations”

Two examples
Liveblogging
Twitter

Follow developments
chuckpeters.iowa.com
stevebuttry.wordpress.com

Do we want to be the monks or Gutenberg?