Having been busy with non-blogging activities, my Bloglines blogroll is hopelessly backed up with things I've tagged to post about when I have the time.
Chief among those is Jay Rosen's discussion of the Times' purchase of About.com. Jay asked me what I thought about it today, and my response was (mostly) as follows:
Have been following this thread with interest. In my mind, the key pearl in your post is:
Times journalism, like the content of other Big Media firms, is created primarily for offline use, and then re-purposed on the Web. (When that cycle is reversed, the Web era in journalism truly begins.)
I think that one shift in mindset will be what really turns things around. Sometimes I fear I'm counting on it too much -- but in our early days, I think this will be our most noticeable differentiator.
As far as our model, we intend to be fully searchable, but think that there is a middle ground between freely available and walled off. We're still working it out, but our thought is that you can Google us and read any story you want for free and without registering, but you're limited to x number of stories a day at that level ("x" being something greater than one and less than the whole site.)
The idea is that registration, and maybe even subscription is crucial to our ad model. But, the ads are primarily local -- and its locals that will primarily use us every day multiple times per day. (We hope!) So why should I hassle you in NY with registration in order to monetize serving up an ad for a Chinese restaurant in East Dallas that does neither you nor the restaurateur any good. I can't imagine a lot of folks out of market wanting to read more than a couple things a day on our site -- and if they do, that's another business altogether.
Of course, the NYT is in a different business than we are -- they are a "national" site. We're all local, all the time.
Another reason to let anyone read a few stories a day without playing the registration game is so that we can be "part of the conversation" on blogs etc.
A key, we think, to registration is REALLY delivering a reward for registering, something that most sites don't do. At the NYT, registration doesn't enhance the site -- it's just a ticket to the fair. If you register with us, we'll customize your homepage with both implicit and explicit preferences based on where you live and what you like to read. And, if you shop at our advertisers who are in our pay-for-performance program, you'll get cash rebates. (Real, effortless rebates -- not the silly shopper programs a lot of papers are trying.)...
...But, to the original question. I don't think the About purchase was a great deal. Two things I've come to realize from my close watching of this world the past year are that:
- Previously sci-fi technology is now insanely commoditized and cheap. My original budget to build our site? $3 million. (Admittedly guessing high.) Now, it's less than $100k for stuff that, as one of my compatriots says, is "just barely distinguishable from magic."
- A really great idea can now build critical mass in a frighteningly short time -- See Bloglines. See podcasting.
The upshot? The NYT, if it had really wanted to, and would break free from bureaucracy, could have built something way cooler and more trafficked than About in ninety days.
One ancillary thought on why I question the About deal. Search engine placement is primarily in the hands of the people who make search engines. If Google changes its algorithm tomorrow, that whole rationalization for the purchase is moot. And anecdotally, I don't buy that they get such great placement. I'm a Google junkie and I almost never land on an About site.
In contrast, our little Pegasus site barely gets 100 unique visitors a day, and we come up ridiculously high in the search engines. (I can tell from our referrer reports. Take my most recent. For "sudden death eulogies" (not strung) we're number 5?!...
...Although there are a lot of details to be worked out, I've never been as sure of anything as the viability of our core principles (revised and simplified):
- Be unique. Where you aren't absolutely unique, aggregate.
- Deliver at the right time and the right way, as chosen by the reader.
- Conversations are better than monologues.
- Paid customers are good. Engaged customers are better.
- Be precise. (A reference to our ad model.)
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