Category Archives: newspapers

Inhale, it’s Free

October 5, 2009 – 3:47 am

Tweet“Free”, as a business model, is a figment of the imagination. In itself, “Free” is not a business model, it is only a component of broader revenue system. Unlike Chris Anderson, author of the book “Free” ($18.00) — a bestseller not a bestfreebie — I happened to actually practice the free “model”. Between 2002 and [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Tagged , | Comments (23)

A Case Study: Le Figaro’s Advertising Gamble

September 20, 2009 – 11:08 am

Tweet Let’s start with a counterintuitive move: At a time when, all over the world, publishers are  tired of the red-ink their printing plans produce and dream of dumping the dinosaurs, the historic French daily Le Figaro fires up this Monday a brand new €80M printing facility to launch a redesigned edition. Behind this apparently [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Also posted in magazines, online publishing | Comments (22)

How to make readers pay for news

September 13, 2009 – 8:43 pm

TweetAn idea is gaining momentum: online readers must open their wallet. In recent weeks, several suggestions for moving from wish to implementation have popped up. The latest one comes from Google. The company proposes to give a boost to its not-so-successful Checkout service by harnessing it to online newspapers interests. Quite a change here. Only [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Also posted in online publishing | Tagged | Comments (19)

Indian Press: The Price Problem

August 31, 2009 – 8:10 am

TweetHere is the Indian newspapers price problem: at the kiosk, you face a multitude of titles (roughly 4700 dailies across the country) including about 60 in English. Prices range from 1 to 3 rupees ($0.02 to $0.06). Even by Indian standards those are untenable rates: they cover only about 10% of variable costs. Finnish newsprint [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Tagged | Comments (5)

Web + Print: A Powerful Combo

August 23, 2009 – 9:47 am

TweetIn today’s context of massive revenue depletion, everyone (almost) agrees on one thing: digital media revenue sources will have to be diversified. There is no magic bullet, no dominant model that will guarantee, by itself, a sustainable revenue stream. Time to think the hybrid way.  Free will coexist with paid-for, different users (occasional vs. intensive) [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Also posted in journalism, online publishing | Tagged , | Comments (6)

Media: What’s left for the brand ?

August 2, 2009 – 6:36 pm

TweetA well-established brand is supposed to be a key asset. Everybody keeps dreaming of building a long-lasting brand with lots of positive attributes. How true is it for media ? In the rapidly changing environment, in the massive shift towards electronic media (and the vaporization of value that goes along with it), how relevant is [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Also posted in journalism, magazines | Tagged , | Comments (6)

The News Cycle Heartbeat

July 18, 2009 – 1:04 pm

TweetHow do mainstream media and blogs interact? How do they feed each other ? Everyone in the newsmedia would love to get a better view of the mating dance. A few weeks ago, scientists at the Cornell University unveiled a thorough analysis of the relationship between the two universes. Borrowing from genomics techniques, they dug [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Also posted in crowdsourcing, journalism, online publishing, radio & TV | Tagged , | Comments (10)

The end of the breaking news — as we know it

July 12, 2009 – 7:40 pm

TweetIn the internet storm sweeping the media, breaking news is, without a doubt, the main casualty. This branch of the information stream is the most likely one to endure a kind of “commodity syndrome”. The breaking news circa 2010 will be ubiquitous, instantaneous and simultaneous. Its value, its market price actually, will tend to zero [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Also posted in journalism, online publishing | Tagged | Comments (10)

The real cost of genuine journalism

June 14, 2009 – 5:51 pm

TweetUpdated with a video on PolitiFact Guide to Fact-checking The idea for this column came to me last March; I was flying back from Stockholm. Schibsted, the Norwegian media group I work for, had asked me to be part of the jury for its yearly Schibsted Journalism Award. I was both honored and curious to [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Also posted in journalism, online publishing | Comments (17)

Brilliant insights at the NYT

June 7, 2009 – 10:02 am

Tweet“If they start making products people don’t want, and start losing users, then Apple’s strategy will run into problems.” You can see the full NYT Business section story here. My wife and I love to read the papers in the morning. French-born, we still marvel at this American icon: the newspaper route, the nice deliveryman [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Also posted in journalism | Tagged | Comments (2)