Time to think customers

For all the benefits of today's good press, I'm just as excited about the lunch meeting I had today with a super-smart former Citi/Diner's Club exec today. We were brought together by a mutual friend who thought we'd have a lot to talk about. He was right.

In the course of the meeting, I came to realize that we'd become so focused on the logistics of what we're about that all of our literature is too "inside-out" as opposed to "outside-in." We're talking about ourselves, as navel-gazing media folk are wont to do, when what we need to do is articulate the needs we're serving that the MSM don't (well).

Here's a first brush. I'd love to hear additions/edits:

Reader needs:

• Unique local content
• Convenience
• Realtime news
• Medium of choice
• Relevance (content and advertising)
• Price

Advertiser needs:

• Accountability
• Targeting
• Long tail
• Price