Printcasting is a Knight News Challenge project that allows anyone to create printable magazines without design skills or their own content. It aims to democratize print publishing and make print advertising affordable. The project has launched a pilot program in Bakersfield, California in partnership with The Bakersfield Californian newspaper. It plans to expand to 15-20 additional cities by the summer and will open source the platform in spring 2010. Printcasting works by pulling content from blogs and news sites to automatically create printable PDF magazines that are emailed to subscribers. Revenue is shared between publishers, contributors, and the network.

1. People-Powered Magazines

2. The Bakersfield Californian
Independently owned for 140 years. 110
years in one family.
The only paper of its size in Bakersfield
(60,000 daily circ., 277,000 readers
weekly).
Recognized around the world for risk-
taking and innovation.
My focus for 5 years.
 Social networking & user-contributed content

3. What is Printcasting?
Knight News Challenge project that will
democratize print publishing process.
 Two year grant -- now one year in.
 First site (Bakersfield) launched in March, in
partnership with The Bakersfield Californian.
 Additional cities starting this summer.
 Already talking with two large newspaper companies.
 Maybe yours could be next?

4. Two Key Objectives
1 Let anyone create a printable magazine.
No software or design skills required. You
donʼt even need your own content.
2 Make print advertising easy, fun & affordable.
If you can e-mail or post to a blog, you can
place ads that appear in printed magazines.

5. Make a magazine like this …

6. … or this …

7. … or this!

8. Milestones
Now
 Pilot program in Bakersfield, California
June
 E-commerce and ad revenue share launches
Summer: Begin national rollout
 Open “city hubs” for 15-20 geographical areas
 By December, identify & assist up to 5 local
partners
Spring 2010: Open Source

9. How Printcasting Works
Content comes from participating
bloggers, news sites with RSS feeds.
Local businesses create and Choose feeds, layout and Print and distribute publications
purchase ads online. Prices frequency. PDF magazines with promise. May be a publisher,
are affordable due to niche are created automatically and or a print provider or newspaper.
focus. Everyone gets a cut!
sent to subscribers by e-mail.

10. All Participants Share Revenue
Right now, ads are free. (Paid ads to start soon.)
Revenue will be shared with every participant.
 60% to publishers.
They can mark up ad rates to cover
print and marketing costs.
 30% to contributors.
Proportionate to content use.
 10% to the network.
To cover our costs (e.g. bandwidth,
servers) and ongoing improvements.

11. Printcasting is Ideal For …
Local thought leaders.
 Especially local bloggers. If you have an RSS feed, you can
make it available to Publishers in 2 minutes.
Local community organizations.
 Clubs, schools, neighborhood associations, and the library!
Local businesses.
 Realtors, garden shops, bike shops who already position
themselves as experts in a field. Their advice is good content.
 Small businesses that canʼt afford standard newspaper ads due
to the cost of reaching tens or hundreds of thousands. Now they
pay only for a niche audience of a few thousand.

12. Why Print, and Why Now?
Top questions from digital media people:
 “Why are you investing so much in print when
the printed newspaper is dying?”
 “Why are you focusing on print, which is
expensive, inefficient and not very
environmentally friendly.”
 “The web is the future. Why are you focusing
on the medium of the past?”

13. Primary Reason: Revenue
Itʼs a natural way to grow
audience and revenue together.
Social Networks Grow Audience.
 On 8 sites, we have 53,000 user profiles
(20% of market) with 3,618 blogs.
 Added 100,000 individuals to our audience
who we didnʼt reach before 2004!
Remember: Bakersfieldʼs population is
only 300,000.
Print Ads Pay the Freight.

14. Ad Rate Comparison
Month-long Web site banner ad: Biweekly Magazine full-page ad:
$0.38 / thousand (industry average) $20 / thousand (open rate)
Remember, the exact same content appears in both! But without the Web site, the
content in print would not exist, and/or it would cost much more to produce, thus
cutting into profits. Print and online work together as one hybrid product.

15. Print Still Drives Most Revenue
Social nets with print
components are effective, but
only the print side generates
significant revenue.
Most revenue comes from print
ads in magazines that feature
user content.
 Online-only brands struggle to make
anywhere near as much as those
with print.

16. The Revenue Paradox
In Bakersfield, 65% of
But only 39% of the
businesses have annual ad Californianʼs current
budgets under $10,000.
advertisers have ad
budgets under $10,000.
Bakersfield Businesses TBC Customer Base

17. Look at the Base!
We are mostly here.
We need to be
here. Self-serve
advertising is the
only scalable way
to reach these
businesses.
Bakersfield Businesses

18. More Reasons
2. “Stuff” Matters to Locals
 Locals pick up printed products when they’re relevant, even if
(and especially if) they also use the Web site.
3. Relevance
 Readers prefer more relevance and choice, something the
Internet excels at. We’ve found that as you increase relevance
and choice in print, people continue to read.
 And contrary to what some journalists want to think, community
content is often preferred, depending on the topic.
4. Efficiency
 Customized niche “printable” content costs less, and is better for
the environment. Digital inkjet technology is making Print on
Demand more affordable.

19. Demos
Demo time!
You can also use the open beta at
http://www.printcasting.com

20. Home page

21. Registering content
Easy for bloggers. No blog? We set one up for you.

22. Video: Make a Printcast
Letʼs make a gardening magazine! Click below to play movie)
Video not playing? Click here: http://vimeo.com/3369997

23. Video: Self-serve advertising
Letʼs make an ad! Click below to play movie)
Video not playing? Click here: http://vimeo.com/3370015

24. Outreach in Bakersfield
We hired a part-time marketing evangelist in Bakersfield.
 Reaches out to bloggers, organizations and government groups
to show them Printcasting.
 “Blogger brunches,” training sessions,
booths at events.
 Meets with local clubs at college
campuses and high schools
 Thank participants with T-shirts, mouse
pads, pens and reporter notebooks.
 Basically all the local grass-roots stuff
that only a newspaper would do!

25. Some Early Adopters
A local writer is using Printcasts to
publicize her poems and short stories.
 “Weekly Passion Activator”
The Kern County Library
 Wants to publish book reviews, event
calendars and community information.
Downtown Business Association
 Will get downtown businesses to blog their
event calendars, then pull them into
Printcasts that they hand out from trolleys.
Political Parties
 Interested in using Printcasts for newsletters
that share regional clubsʼ content.

26. Other Newspapers Can Benefit
A newspaper, or any company with content and
printing expertise, can participate in many ways.
 Publish: Create Printcasts that use your own content, and you
get to keep most of the ad revenue (60-90%).
 Lower costs of content : Want to make a niche magazine, but
canʼt afford to pay a writer or freelancer? Pull from bloggersʼ
content, and still keep the majority of the ad revenue.
 Donʼt worry, reporters. You probably arenʼt writing this kind of niche
content right now anyway, so itʼs not competing with your job.
 Monetize existing content: Have great niche content that you
canʼt monetize with your existing products? If another publisher
uses it, you get a portion of their ad revenue.

27. Partnerships, year 1
Weʼll create “city hubs” for partnersʼ cities
 For example: http://cityname.printcasting.com
Partner creates Printcasts for those cities to seed
the market, and registers its content online
 Partner sets ad rates for its own Printcasts (via a markup)
 Partner keeps most of the revenue from its Printcasts
 If citizen publishers use partner content, some of that goes to the
partner -- just like for any citizen publisher.
Partner promotes Printcasting locally
 By registering its content and encouraging publishing, the partner
helps its community while also helping itself. The more publishers
that use the partnerʼs content, the more revenue it gets.

28. Questions?
Let me know if you have any questions,
thoughts or feedback!
 Dan Pacheco
 Sr. Manager of Digital Products
 001 303.465.5560
 dan@printcasting.com
Try Printcasting yourself:
 http://www.printcasting.com
Join our global community!
 http://community.printcasting.com