Quigo prepares for IPO after signing deal with Time Inc.

Posted on June 29, 2007
Filed Under Advertising, Analytics, Contextual, Future, Journalism, Newspapers, Search, Technology, Tools and Services | 1 Comment

Batya Feldman reports in Globes Online that Quigo has raised $30 million from Institutional Venture Partners.

One to watch - they have c. 10% of the contextual ad market already.  I spoke with Quigo last year but it was slightly too early as they were not geared up to working in the UK.

If they get the service right I reckon this is where the majority of the large publishers will end up. The killer is that it allows publishers to retain and develop relationships with their existing advertisers - rather than pass them onto a third-party who may turn out to be a competitor (guess who?).

The key selling points from their site:

Own Advertiser Relationships

The advertisers you attract are yours. Build relationships and up-sell/cross-sell your advertisers new products. Earn revenue when they spend on other sites in the AdSonar Network.

Capture Your Brand's Value

Leverage your premier brand to command a higher cost-per-click from advertisers willing to pay for your site’s targeted, quality traffic. Set your own minimum bid – don’t dilute your site’s value on a network that doesn’t promote direct placements.

Don't Empower Your Competitors

The AdSonar solution is focused on one goal – helping you. Don’t surrender your advertiser base to networks that also compete with you for audience or advertisers. Take back control!

Media syndication startup Mochila gets $8M funding

Posted on January 4, 2007
Filed Under Advertising, Copyright, Journalism, Newspapers, Paid Content, Technology | Leave a Comment

Red Herring reports on the new funding for Mochila.  They have an interesting model that combines good return for publishers on their licensed material when it is syndicated (70%) and a resonable 30% on any ad revenue generated from free material (40% goes to rights owner) - in both cases Mochila keeps 30%.

“The barriers into the media business are now very low. They’ve taken away the barriers of being a buyer of media,” Charles River Ventures partner Austin Westerling said. “What they’re basically doing there is creating an ad network on top of already high-quality content. I think there’s quite an interesting opportunity.” 

 

News aggregation and copyright in Europe and China

Posted on January 4, 2007
Filed Under Advertising, Copyright, Journalism, Newspapers, Search, Technology | Leave a Comment

Good item from IHT on changes that are likely to reign in rampant “piracy” by Chinese web sites re-purposing content from newspaper sites and in Europe an overview of the ongoing court case by AFP against Google News.

According to one recent academic study, newspaper readership in China has declined sharply in the past three years, with the proportion of people who say they read a newspaper at least once a week falling to 22 percent from 26 percent since 2003.

A major presumed cause for the decline is that big Internet content providers, or portals, have become one- stop sources for all manner of information, from news and entertainment to blogs. Until recently, for most portals the general practice involved lifting news and other information directly from other sources, sometimes crediting the original source and sometimes not, but rarely paying for it. 

 

Layoffs imminent at The Philadelphia Inquirer - expected to cut 17% of newsroom staff

Posted on January 4, 2007
Filed Under Advertising, Current Affairs, Journalism, Newspapers, Trends | Leave a Comment

Amounting to 68-71 employees. The International Herald Tribune reports that the move follows the sell-off of the title by Knight Ridder to McClatchy who subsequently sold to a group of local businessmen.  The move has been closely scrutinised to determine whether a local and privately held ownership (rather than centralised and corporate) could work.  

But things changed over the summer as advertising revenue for papers across the country plummeted and circulation continued its years-long decline. At The Inquirer, the consolidation of local department stores and telecommunications companies has meant fewer ads, with revenue falling 10 percent in September 2006, from September 2005.

Daily circulation fell 7.6 percent, to 330,000, in the last year. Sunday circulation was down 4.5 percent, to 682,000, in the same period.

Guide to citizen journalism

Posted on January 14, 2006
Filed Under Journalism | Leave a Comment

http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/weblog.php

Future of news threatened by move away from traditional sources

Posted on May 10, 2005
Filed Under Journalism | Leave a Comment

Required reading.  Lifted from Wired piece Bruce spotted referencing …

What’s the future of the news business? This report to Carnegie Corporation of New York offers some provocative ideas.

"…the Internet is already clearly ahead of other media among the young. According to the Magid survey, young news consumers say that the Internet, by a 41-to-15 percent margin over second ranked local TV, is “the most useful way to learn.” And 49 percent say the Internet provides news “only when I want it” (a critical factor to this age group) versus 15 percent for second-ranked local TV. This audience, the future news consumers and leaders of a complex, modern society, are abandoning the news as we’ve known it, and it’s increasingly clear that a great number of them will never return to daily newspapers and the national broadcast news programs".

The New Old Journalism

Posted on April 29, 2005
Filed Under Journalism | Leave a Comment

Wired News: The New Old Journalism

"People haven’t been abandoning newspapers (and magazines). They have been abandoning the print medium."

Synapse: The future of news

Posted on April 26, 2005
Filed Under Journalism | Leave a Comment

Conversations about the future of newspapers recall the story of John Jacob Astor at the bar of the Titanic: "I know I asked for ice but this is ridiculous"; Astor quipped when informed the ship had struck an iceberg. Ten years ago the captains of news saw the emergence of the consumer Internet as a way to defend and extend markets, reduce costs and drive profits through synergies with digital media. "I know I asked for ice".

OLD QUESTION: What is the future of newspapers?

REALLY ASKING: Will editors and reporters have jobs in five years?

SHOULD ASK: How is a connected society informed? What’s paper got to do with it? What future are newspapers and TV networks creating? What story do they represent?

Murdoch on Future of Newspapers

Posted on April 19, 2005
Filed Under Advertising, Journalism, Newspapers | Leave a Comment

Article from The Guardian on the recent speech by Rupert Murdoch on the future of newspaper publishing.  Full transcript of speech is also published.

Does RSS drive traffic ?

Posted on June 26, 2004
Filed Under Journalism, Newspapers, RSS | Leave a Comment

Article from OJR on RSS …

Industry decision makers still have concerns about public acceptance of a technology with no standardization or brand identity. They also worry about losing ad visibility on their own index pages.

keep looking »

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