Full story from AdAge here.

This effort makes sense. It is just hard to have a lot of confidence in newspapers when they team up for new ventures- their track record is horrible. However, let's hope this works- clearly there is a need. By the way - does this mean that newspapers are for SOPA? Just a few days ago editorial organizations all came out against it.

New York Times, Washington Post Expand Policing of Article Pilfering Online

Newspapers Form NewsRight, a For-Profit Company Tracking Sites That Scrape Content

The New York Times Co., The Washington Post Co., The Associated Press and 26 other news companies began a joint venture today to police websites that use their articles without consent and demand fees for legitimate use.

The NewsRight venture is a for-profit entity spun out of an Associated Press program started two years ago to explore ways to stem content pilfering on the web -- a practice known as "scraping" -- and to capitalize on a news-reading audience that is migrating online. Large news organizations have been suffering financial losses as a result of scraping, according to David Westin, 59, the former head of Walt Disney Co.'s ABC News who became NewsRight's chief executive officer in April.

That need for advertising accountability resulted in magazine publisher Meredith Corp. launching its Engagement Dividend  program, which guarantees that the advertisements in its print magazines will boost the advertiser's sales. The program will compare the buying behavior of a group of panelists who read the magazines with a complementary group that didn't to prove that sales increased as a result of the ads. Kimberly-Clark Corp. said this week that it will be the first “premier advertising partner.”

Meanwhile, Affinity, a marketing and media research company specializing in advertising effectiveness and audience measurement, has been polling reader response to print and digital ads and comparing the effectiveness of tablet advertising vs. print.

"We've measured close to 4,000 digital ads, so we're at the point where we're beginning to develop a normative database: what is the average recall score or action score. We can put them side by side with our print numbers," said Tom Robinson, managing director at Affinity.

The company concluded that compared head to head, the net action scores, which measure effectiveness in terms of response to the ad, are much higher in iPad magazines than in the printed versions.

Tablet ads outpacing traditional print versions

"The ads that appear in iPads and digital tablets seem to be outpacing and outperforming the traditional printed versions of the ads," said Robinson. "The recall is higher but the action scores--to make a purchase, go to a link, click to download an app--are much higher due to the interactivity of the tablet environment," he said. "Digital obviously offers more opportunities to respond with the interactivity, the links built in, the videos, and that is directly reflected in the fact that we're getting higher reader ad effectiveness scores on the digital side," Robinson said.

Affinity also tracks the performance of different types of ads. "It always comes back to the creative," Robinson said. "Ads with 360-degree views (where the reader rotates the tablet to get different views of a car, for example) seem to be pacing at a higher rate of recall for all digital ads, which is also outpacing all print ads. Videos and photo galleries also do well on the action questions we ask," he said.

"The question is, is this a honeymoon effect or is this a trend over time. As tablets become mainstream, will those recall and action scores continue to skew higher?" he said.

Tablets are still far from mainstream, but their influence is growing quickly. Affinity's Fall American Magazine Study reported that the number of Americans accessing magazine-branded content and advertising through smartphones, ereaders, tablets and other mobile devices was up 6.2% from the spring report, to 35 million consumers. Robinson said tablets account for most of that growth.

Full story here

USA TODAY newspapers feature AT&T QR codes

USA TODAY and AT&T are working together to help to provide an enhanced experience for news consumption, which includes printing QR codes onto the pages of the newspaper in order to allow readers to use their smartphones so that they may gain further information relating to the content and the latest news.

Readers of USA TODAY can now use their devices in combination with a QR code scanning app – such as the free AT&T Code Scanner – to be redirected to additional interactive multimedia content. The partnership between the newspaper and telecom companies lets readers enhance their experience by bringing the best of both worlds together; the excitement of the mobile device news experience that is up to date and interactive, with the comfort of reading a traditional printed newspaper.

Over the next few months, these QR codes will continue to be printed into every section of the newspaper. Furthermore, the barcodes will also have a featured spot in the USA TODAY Sports Weekly, in addition to certain additional publications.

According to the USA TODAY executive editor of content distribution and programming, Chet Czarniak, the newspaper is very proud of their ability to include themselves among the first American publications to use the interactive barcodes on a daily basis. He added that they are looking forward to being able to provide an enhancement of the overall experience through the partnership with AT&T.

Czarniak said that “This initiative furthers our goal to bridge digital and print by providing our readers easier access to special features.”

Great idea- 

Full story here

Why Not A Reverse Pay Meter?

By Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine

So try this on for size: Imagine that you pay to get access to The Times. Everyone does. You pay for one article. Or you pay $20 as a deposit so you’re not bothered every time you come. But whenever you add value to The Times, you earn a credit that delays the next bill.

»  You see ads, you get credit.
»  You click: more credit.
»  You come back often and read many pages: credit.
»  You promote The Times on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or your blog: credit. The more folks share what you’ve shared, the more credit you get.
»  You buy merchandise via Times e-commerce: credit.
»  You buy tickets to a Times event: credit.
»  You hand over data that makes you more valuable to The Times and its advertisers (e.g., revealing where you’re going on your next trip): credit.
»  You add pithy comment to articles that other readers appreciate: credit.
»  You take on tasks in crowdsourced journalistic endeavors: credit.
»  You answer a reporter’s question on Twitter and the reporter uses your information: credit.
»  You correct an error in a story: credit.
»  You give a news tip or an idea for an article The Times publishes: credit.

Maybe you never pay for The Times again because The Times has gained more value out of its relationship with you. If, on the other hand, you hardly do any of those things, then you have to pay for using The Times.

I’ve been thinking about this, too, in light of a few other trends I’ve seen with newspapers online. First, some that are trying meters are finding that very, very few readers ever hit the wall (which papers are setting at anywhere from 1 to 20 pages). That so few hit the wall is frightening. It means that most readers don’t use these sites much. That’s nothing to brag about. Engagement is criminally low. Second, I’ve seen many sites that get a surprising proportion of their traffic from out of their markets—traffic that is valueless (or even costly, in terms of bandwidth) to sites that sell only local ads. This comes from following a goal of pageviews, pageviews, pageviews—brought in with search-engine optimization—rather than valued relationships.

After hearing a few such stories, I suggested that a site with a meter might want to reward local readers by giving them more free content and charge out-of-market readers by charging them sooner.

You see, that values the local reader over the remote reader. My idea for the reverse meter values the engaged reader over the occasional reader — and even rewards greater engagement. And therein lies, I think, the key strategic skill for news businesses online: understanding that all readers are not equal; knowing who your more valuable readers are; getting more of them; and making them more valuable.

Now I’ll tell you why my reverse meter won’t work: When I spoke with all our journalism students at CUNY about their business ideas on Friday, I asked how many had hit the Times pay wall — many — and how many had paid — few. Abundance remains the enemy of payment. There’s always someplace else to get the news. The Times can make its present meter work because (a) it’s that good [the Steve Jobs exception that proves the rule], (b) it’s still sponsoring—that is, giving a free ride—to its most valuable readers, though that is supposed to end soon, and (c) its engagement is still too low and thus many readers don’t even confront the wall (that needs to change).

So never mind the idea of the reverse meter, but retain the lesson of it: Value should be encouraged, not taxed. Readers bring value to sites if the sites are smart enough to have the mechanisms to recognize, exploit, and reward that value, which comes in many forms: responding to (highly targeted and relevant) ads; buying merchandise; contributing information, content, and ideas; promoting the site….

The key strategic opportunity for news sites is relationships — deeper, more valuable relationships with more (but not too many) people. Engagement.

This post originally appeared on Jeff Jarvis’s BuzzMachine.

Now this is Direct Response! Article from the New York times, joke courtesy of Jim Jinks:

Washington Examiner Helps Capture Fugitives

The Washington Examiner is known around the nation’s capital for its conservative bent, bite-size news reports and price that cannot be beat: it is given away on the Metro.

But in law enforcement circles, The Examiner has also become a valuable crime-fighting tool, one that investigators turn to when their detective work has hit a wall.

The results have been remarkable.

About once a month, the United States Marshals Service in the Washington area apprehends a fugitive caught with the help of Examiner readers. So far, marshals have rounded up 24 suspects after receiving calls from people who read about a fugitive in the paper.

The captures are the result of a weekly item in The Examiner called “Most Wanted,” which has featured a fugitive for the last two and a half years. Readers are provided a number to call if they think they have any information about the case. More often than not, they do.

The marshals said that even when “Most Wanted” articles did not lead directly to a capture, they could yield a tip that in some way helped an investigation — like an old address where the fugitive had been hiding out.

Calls can trickle in long after the article was published, as anxious associates or relatives of fugitives decide to act on guilty feelings.

“Either it’s been eating away at them or they finally got the courage to give us the information,” said Robert Fernandez, commander of the Marshals’ Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force. “They may be friends with the individual, and they had a falling out. Or they’ve been in a relationship and then they broke up.”

Sometimes fugitives will see themselves in the paper and decide to give themselves up. “They panic,” Mr. Fernandez said. “That flushes them out of their hiding places.”

The kinds of criminals caught by the authorities are often the worst of the worst: rapists, child molesters, drug dealers and killers. And sometimes the confrontation with citizens can be dramatic.

Andre Stevenson, who had been convicted of a sexual offense involving a 15-year-old and had failed to register with the authorities, was spotted loitering outside a Southeast Washington school by an Examiner reader. A group of people surrounded Mr. Stevenson and held him there until the police arrived.

The “Most Wanted” column is a feature in The Examiner’s Crime and Punishment section, which provides often-colorful coverage of crime and justice in the Washington area.

The lead writer, Scott McCabe, has become the capital’s version of John Walsh, host of the long-running television series “America’s Most Wanted.”

“It’s kind of validating for us as reporters,” Mr. McCabe said. “A lot of times you write stories, you put a lot of work into them. They’re hard hitting, you thought. And the only response you hear is the sound of crickets. You wonder: Is anyone listening? Does anyone care?”

The response to “Most Wanted,” Mr. McCabe said, shows that his readers do care.

The paper is certainly not shy about drawing a little attention to its success. “Looks like The Examiner provided just the nudge needed to get him in,” said a recent article about a reader tip leading to the capture of a man with a record of assault with a deadly weapon, cocaine distribution and domestic violence.

Given the paper’s conservative tone, might the high rate of success with reader tips say something about a certain lust for justice among right-leaning Examiner readers?

The editor, Stephen G. Smith, said he thought not, saying that many of the captures take place in poor neighborhoods that are not heavily Republican.

“It would be nice to think our conservative readers are these nice upstanding, law-abiding citizens, but I don’t think that’s why the Marshals Service is getting all these phone calls,” Mr. Smith said.

“The people who get turned in are in really pretty tough neighborhoods,” he said. “You wouldn’t think that the folks who are reading our editorials are living where these folks are.”

From The Economist - full story here

Newspapers have escaped cataclysm by becoming leaner and more focused

Jun 10th 2010

“PRINT is going to live longer than people think,” asserts Mathias Döpfner, the boss of Axel Springer. Perhaps it will in central Europe. The publisher of Bild and Die Welt recently recorded the most profitable first quarter in its history. The profit margin on its German national newspapers is a startling 27%. The firm is expanding into Poland. If newspapers are in crisis, Mr Döpfner says, he likes crisis.

A year ago the mere survival of many newspapers seemed doubtful. It had become clear that the young, in particular, were getting much of their news online. Readers were flitting from story to story, rarely paying. Advertising too was moving online, but not to newspapers’ websites. Rather, it was being swallowed by search engines. The classified-ad market was ravaged by free listings websites such as Craigslist. A deep recession, received wisdom had it, would surely finish off newspapers, which have high fixed costs in the form of journalists and printing presses.

In some ways the pain proved even greater than analysts expected. The Newspaper Association of America reports that print and online advertising has fallen by 35% since the first quarter of 2008. Circulation has dropped alarmingly too. Yet almost all newspapers have survived, albeit with occasional help from the bankruptcy courts. American newspaper firms like McClatchy stayed mostly profitable even as revenues plunged (see chart). Some companies are now worth ten times as much as in the spring of 2009, although they remain far from pre-recession heights.

Steep cover-price rises have helped. But for the most part newspapers have cut their way out of crisis. In the past year McClatchy reduced payroll costs by 25%. Many publications closed bureaus and forced journalists to take unpaid leave. There have been clever adaptations, too. At Gannett, another American firm, 46 local titles now carry national and international news from USA Today, the firm’s national paper. A group of New Jersey newspapers jointly produces features and editorials. Bob Dickey, who runs Gannett’s community papers, says they have realised there is no need to work out what to say about the Gulf oil leak seven times.