The Future of Online Publishing - It's Complicated
Just yesterday, voters in the UK went to the polls and decided that their country should exit from the European Union. And where did the rest of the world find out about this vote? Certainly not in the morning newspapers that were delivered on their driveways this morning and probably not from the morning TV news programs. No, they found out on their personal home pages as soon as they fired up their phones, tablets, or computers. And there were several other news stories of interest to – a shooting in a German movie theatre, the latest diatribes from the two U.S. candidates for President, and a host of other news items that may or may not be of interest.
Major News Outlets Facing Crisis
Enjoying a monopoly on content and communication for a couple of hundred years, major news publishers had paywalls that were impenetrable. Aggregation and sharing were cardinal sins, and huge streams of income from subscribers and ads made fortunes in this industry.
This is gone. First, the days of print publishing are dying, whether in news or books. Today, even though news content is important to consumers, they have clearly demonstrated that they trust search engines more than they do traditional media outlet brands. Search engines are now the aggregators of news content, and consumers can now read about the same news topics from many different perspectives through those searches. It would behoove major news outlets to focus on SEO tactics and strategies, so that they are ranking on these search engines. So far, they are not making major moves in this direction.
As Paul Granger from WebsitePromoter states: "All major retailers understand the importance of SEO. News publishers need to begin to think of themselves as retailers, not holders of syndicated, protected information."
Enter the New "Big Boys"
Facebook, with its "Instant Articles," is now determined that it will be the biggest has now determined that it will be the biggest publisher of news on the web; the other "biggies," Google, Twitter, and Yahoo, are seeking ways to do the same. All of this while the former industry titans are still clinging to their non-syndicated paywalls that work no more. Content is no longer the key to profit – consumer demand is. The future of online news publishing will really be all about personalization and community.
How Personalization Works
The technology exists for publishers to personalize what they deliver to a variety of audiences. Analytics allows them to do this. When they take advantage of this data, they can customize news for various demographics within their target audiences. They can do the same for advertising as well. Building readership and loyalty is now all about what that consumer wants, not about what the news outlet want to publish. When they understand this, they will be on the path to customer engagement.
Building Communities
The other major error that the major news outlets have consistently made is failing to understand the need of today's consumers for "connection." That's exactly why social media is such a huge phenomenon. In trying to protect their content, therefore, they have failed to allow conversations and sharing – all in the name of protecting their "brand" and its content from so-called "trolls." Some of them have jumped into social media, of course, but they neither own nor control those platforms and are, in many ways, in direct competition. Relying on those platforms to be welcoming and "friendly" is a bit naïve.
So, Is There a Future for These Former Titans?
Yes, if they get smart. It's time for them to work together – to develop a single industry of cooperation and aggregation in order to compete with the new "big kids on the block." Together, they can amass a loyal readership, by adding personalization and connectivity, court lots of ad dollars, and become a major force in online publishing.
Whether they will do this or not remains to be seen. One innovative possibility has come from FlattrPlus, an organization that aims to remove the irritating advertising that consumers have come to know and hate. Instead, consumers of news can establish their own monthly payment budget. Flattr Plus algorithms will determine customer reading preferences and deliver just that type of content from journalists and publishers, who will then share in the monthly subscription payment. This allows news outlets to generate income without disrupting readers with ads, and readers get the news content they want. Whether publishers will get on board remains to be seen, but this is certainly where the future is if they are to survive.
