What the Print Industry Can Learn from the Open Source Model

      by Wyatt Walter

The conflict between traditional print media companies and Google has been heating up for some time and Google appears to have had enough. The “Hamburg Declaration” effectively said that publishers (including several major newspapers in Europe) are tired of other news aggregation sites using their content for free. Google’s response to the declaration last week was an effective “fine, we don’t have to help you”. Reading between the lines: they want part of Google’s earnings on search. But why should Google give them any? It’s not like anyone forced them to not innovate. The market and old business model have snuck away from them, but how can they get it back?

While it’s true that these news publishers can turn off search engine indexing, can they live without it and at what cost is it to them for it to exist? As Google is quick to point out, their search engine and Google News sites send over a billion visits to newspaper sites a month. Of course, we can only imagine what kind of traffic impact that a loss of search engine referrals would have to any single newspaper site unless they tell us, but I would imagine it would be a pretty big hit. Assuming that these site owners know how to place their ads (a crucial skill for any newspaper), a loss in traffic should mean a loss in revenue.

Okay, so if they can’t do without Google and other search engines, then just what can they do?

Well, for starters, I’d encourage them to pick up a copy of “Who Moved My Cheese” to change their mindset. Seriously, read it. For those who have read the book, their cheese has officially been moved. They’re sitting at the empty cheese station all pissed off at the rest of the technology industry demanding that someone put their cheese back. Guess what? It’s gone. It’s not coming back.

Second, find alternative ways to reach readers where they are. If Google News is such a popular site even though it’s pointing to their site, it only means one thing: consumers want different packaging. I’m among the part of society that grew up alongside the Internet. I don’t go to Fox News every day to get my news. I know that there’s information overload out there and I need to learn to filter. That’s why I use search engines, an RSS reader (though not as much anymore), Twitter and the technology section of Digg to get the news I want and nothing more. I don’t go to Fox News’ home page hourly or daily (depending upon your desire for news) to get my news. I follow the types of information and people I’m interested in on Twitter to get updates as they are coming without all the noise in the way. There are millions of others out there like me and we’re not getting any younger or fewer.

So, how do publishers re-package their content? That’s the million dollar question (well, hopefully multiples of that if you can get it right!). The Wall Street Journal has taken a unique twist to the traditional subscription-based model and allow readers to read the first article they are linked to from Google, but then force the user to pay for more content. Not a bad model, really. It’s classic. Get ‘em in with a freebie (with absolutely no strings attached) and then convince them your content is good enough to buy a subscription. Of course, there may be a few oversights in their implementation, the idea is there.

Along with “Who Moved My Cheese”, they also need to read NIN’s Trent Reznor’s take on business models in the music industry. The music industry suffers from a big problems for its artists. They are no longer making as much money due to piracy. Is this a problem? Well, it’s certainly questionable, but guess what? It’s not going away. It can’t be prevented and people are in general going to not pay money for something if they don’t want to. Their cheese has moved as well. Reznor seems to have figured out where the new cheese is at (okay, I’ll stop with the cheese references).

His strategy? Give the music away. Yes, give it away. When you give it away, you can build a bigger fan base. When those fans like you enough, they will pay for other things than the music. Sell HD music video downloads. Sell limited editions of the album on CD (yes, a lot of people do still like to run down to the music store and buy CDs).

For the print industry, just replace words music and fans above with newspapers and subscribers. So, just what can you sell to consumers? I don’t know. If I knew, I wouldn’t be telling you, I’d be beating your business into the ground. If Google News is the packaging that consumers want, then give them more of what they want. Compete. As Matt Asay says of iTunes and free content: the content by itself is okay, the packaging by itself is worthless, but the combination is killer.

While Sam Zell of Tribune Co. asks “If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?”, I have to ask: If all the newspapers in American did not adjust to the way users are finding and using their content, how profitable would those newspapers be? The answer is that they’d be extinct, just like Google if there was no content for it to aggregate and index.

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Jul 17th, 2009

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