August 2006 Archives

In Newspapers: Integrate the Web! No . . . wait!, Scripps new media maven Jay Small tries to reconcile a report from market researcher Scarborough and a report from innovation gurus Innosight on the role of the Internet and innovation at newspapers. You might call this the yin-and-yang of Integration and Disintegration. Jay writes:

Establishing mindshare for the Internet as a growth opportunity is not the same thing as consolidating your Internet development, operations, marketing and sales arms into the corresponding printside organizations.

But I'll bet a lot of publishers who read "integration of the Web site into the core newspaper business" think the latter, not the former. And for those publishers who already folded online into offline, whether hoping for innovative outcomes or, more likely, cutting costs, I guess they could look at the Scarborough report and infer a rationale for their decisions.

. . . It isn't impossible to innovate from within the behemoth. But I know it is very, very difficult and wastes energy, akin to paddling a boat up Niagara Falls.

Tags: Newspapers | New Media

Mindy McAdams' blog pointed me to this piece in The Hollywood Reporter.

It's about how the "publishing scions," including my employer, E.W. Scripps (SSP), are transitioning -- or not transitioning -- their businesses.

Tags: Newspapers | New Media

A sharp new look for the Dayton Daily News Web site was launched today.

Congrats to Ray Marcano and the entire team! It's awesome.

Tags: Dayton Daily News | Web Design | Newspapers

Howard says buy his house.

I believe that in the future media companies will generate the bulk of their value from serving their ability to aggregate and serve audiences better than the competition. It doesn’t matter if the media company actually creates or even controls the content that draws them.

-- Charlene Li, Forrester Research

I'll be on the radio show "State Your Case," hosted by George Korda, on FM 100 WNOX at noon on Sunday (Aug. 13) talking about Knoxnews. Tune in if you can. The station does stream its shows on the Internet so I'm guessing this one is available both on-air and on the net.

Never been on the radio with Korda so it should be an adventure in radioland. I have no clue as to what kind of questions callers might have. The show is on from 12 to 3 p.m. -- three hours!

Tags: WNOX | knoxnews | State Your Case