NYTimes to battle USA Today

Posted on December 4, 2003 by Chris Heisel

[The New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com) is going to soon be offering a free version of its [digital-replica edition](http://homedelivery.nytimes.com/HDS/Transition.do?mode=EE&ExternalMediaCode=N22AA) to patrons of [Wayport](http://www.wayport.net/), a provider of hotel and travel Wi-Fi hotspots. (via [Poynter](http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=56243))

What does this have to do with [USA Today](http://www.usatoday.com/)? The Times is going to be getting its (digital) foot in the (hotel room) door.

USA Today’s strength, I think, has always been its distribution (NOT its content). Go to any hotel and there will be a “free” copy of USA Today waiting for you. I say “free” because obviously the hotel is paying for a copy and passing the cost on to you.

It’s a “if you leave it in front of their door, they will come” thing.

Every time I spend a night in a hotel and I have to dig up change to buy a local paper from the rack (if the hotel even has one), I think papers are missing this boat.

I’m glad to see the Times making strides toward competing with USA Today’s distribution – albeit with their digital-replica edition.

Local papers should keep their eyes on this market (esp. cities with a lot of tourism and/or conventions — yes, I’m looking at you Atlanta).

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Usability of digital editions

Posted on November 14, 2003 by Chris Heisel

“E-media Tidbits”:http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=53888 has an item about the usability of digital replica editions. (See “previous”:http://www.heisel.org/archives/2003/10/29/taking_a_liking_to_digital_replicas.php)

While I can’t read German, the overview presented indicated that its seen as an extension of the print version, rather than the Web and that it scored well with novice computer users.

As I “mentioned previously”:http://www.heisel.org/archives/2003/10/29/taking_a_liking_to_digital_replicas.php, digital replica editions may be a good way to extend your brand to older users who fell away from the print version for various reasons (delivery problems, etc.).

I stand by the thought that replica’s are not a replacement for traditional news Web sites — these are being accessed by younger groups and will, in some form or another, represent a strong distribution method for newspapers among a younger audience.

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Video ads on news sites

Posted on November 7, 2003 by Chris Heisel

“Editor and Publisher”:http://www.editorandpublisher.com reports that the two “Denver”:http://www.denverpost.com “papers”:http://www.rockymountainnews.com/ have begun “selling video ads”:http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2016756.

I was unable to find any of those ads on the site today, but the “E&P article”:http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2016756 says that they do *not* start playing automatically — thank god.

“The article”:http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2016756 also says that the ads require “Windows Media Player”:http://windowsmedia.com/download/download.asp.

I’m by no means a “Flash”:http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash wizard, and I know Flash has it own usability problems, but I’m pretty certain you can stream video through Flash rather than using a potentially platform-restricting choice (see M$‘s “Windows Media Player”:http://windowsmedia.com/download/download.asp and “Apple”:http://www.apple.com’s “Quicktime”:http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/).

Ideally, there’d be a W3C(World Wide Web Consortium) video standard, but barring that, it seems that with Flash’s market penetration it’s the closest thing.

As long as the users will always *have* to click to play the video ads, I think they’re a great idea, as long as they’re kept a commodity.

There’s no reason why we shouldn’t start taking advantage of the Web’s multimedia-ness, and if the ads were context-sensitive and entertaining then they could do well.

If, however, I start seeing more than one video ad per page, then they — like animated banner ads before them — will be doomed to failure.

One of the nice things about the printing of a newspaper is that you can only physcially have color on certain pages, and thus only have color ads on certain pages. This makes it a commodity for the advertiser (read, more revenue for publishers) and it means more contrast for the reader (“Hey look, that ad’s in color!”).

On the Web, we’re confronted with dozens of flashing, blinking, screaming banner ads — on the top, down the side, in the content, at the bottom… .

The genie’s out of the bottle in this case — it’d be a tough sell for an ad manager to convince advertisers that he can no longer offer 5 animated banner spots on a page. There’s no good excuse like “the press can’t handle it.”

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Beyond the click-through

Posted on November 5, 2003 by Chris Heisel

The New York Times has a good article about the ever changing face of advertising metrics.

Google is now offering a piece of code that advertisers can place on their site to track users that come from Google-placed ads.

The article talks about how this is leading to more effective campaigns.

True, the data it provides is a very valuable metric. But I’d caution managers not to base all of their decisions on this glorified click-through data.

I have two words for ad managers focusing on click-through performance: Trinity Homes.

What? You ask.

While I was working at The Indianapolis Star, Trinity Homes had purchased the top right ad avail on our home page.

The ad was a square, non-moving, non-flash, non-jumping, non-beeping, non-everthing ad. It was a purple square with the company’s triangle logo and their name.

That’s the power of branding. I saw that ad, I still remember that ad, and probably will for years to come. And, I assure you, if I’m ever back in Indianapolis and looking for home, I guarantee I’m going to look at Trinity Homes’ Web site.

This is a round-about way of coming to my point: there is more value in online advertising than the click-through alone.

There are four key things that have to be in place for a potential buyer to act on an ad and make a purchase.

The first three we can borrow from one of my favorite shows: motive, means and opportunity.

Continue reading →

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Breaking news makes the case for standards

Posted on October 31, 2003 by Chris Heisel

E-media Tidbits has an item about how the San Diego Union-Tribune was swamped as the nation hit their servers to find out about the wildfires.

Just a friendly reminder from Waspy the standards bug: Standards-based layouts save you bandwith!

Some sites, like CNN, already have a stripped down version ready for breaking news events that might swamp their servers.

But if you already use standards-based layouts:

# You’ll save bandwith now.
# The level of traffic at which you might have to switch to a stripped-down version will be higher.
# You could switch to the light layout easier by making changes to a global stylesheet.

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