The audience business
• Aggregate an audience that is of
commercial interest
• Sell the attention of that audience to
an advertiser
• On the web, that means targeted
marketing, not just mass marketing
Forget about paid content
• Charging for content works only when
there is a shortage of content
• We now live in a world where
information is in extreme surplus
• The very few paid-content success
stories all exploit spot shortages
• Print is going free
Info scarcity <-> Info
overload
Our products, processes,
organizational structures and basic
journalistic forms all evolved in an
environment of scarcity
Today's scarce resource isn't
information ... it's time and attention
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Compound growth is a cool thing
Column B
Column C
Column D
A $1.5 billion business in 2005
• Most reporting profit margins > 50%
• Targeting, search, CPC-based “mom
and pop” ads still largely untapped
potentials
• Most laggards have internal issues in
committment, compensation
Take it seriously, but don't panic
• Even if practically nobody reads a
paper every day, newspapers are still
likely to be the strongest mass ad
vehicle, because all other media are
suffering the same way
• Supporting the print edition is still a
viable business model for the web
Why targeted advertising is key
to our future
We must break the connection between
sponsorships and content
We can now focus on building an
audience with features the audience
wants and delivering that audience in
ways the advertiser wants
News junkies are a niche
market
12-17 18-24 25-34 35-49 50-64 65-74 75-84 85-up
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10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
Registrants vs actives, 1 week, Athens
Registrants
Audience Population
Bluffton, SC
• Adjacent to Hilton Head
• 15,000 households, mostly high-end
• Extraordinarily high broadband penetration
• Explosive growth – planned/gated developments,
golf courses
• Morris plan of attack: Free daily newspaper with a
participative website, flowing web content to print