OPEN

Deep-links vs. Front Pages: newspapers online battle lines are drawn

In the Economist article I linked to on Friday – which I’ve now had time to properly digest, the Norwegian newspaper firm Schibsted
is credited with having a successful strategy because it ignored the
lure of the aggregators and focussed on sticky content strategies (ways
of making people hang around on the website).

The firm reasons that if
it attracts readers for micro-chunks of content such as single stories
only to then lose them.

The secret of making money online, according to Schibsted, is not to
rely on news aggregators like Google News and Yahoo!. Three-quarters of
traffic to the websites for Schibsted’s VG and Aftonbladet
comes through their own home-pages and only a quarter from other
websites. “If visitors come from Google to stories deep in the paper
and then leave,” explains Mr Munck, “Google gets the dollars and we get
only cents, but if we can bring them in through the front page we can
charge €19,000 [$25,000] for a 24-hour banner ad.” In spite of this,
most newspapers still depend on news aggregators.

I think this sounds like a vote for idea of walled gardens of content, a concept that is doomed in the age of networks.

I respect the Economist hugely, but I think its analysis in this case is flawed. I think the idea that you should ignore aggregators and the networks is a short-sighted one, about as sensible as saying that search engines don’t matter – if people find us on their own we’ll make more ad revenue.

The Economist report also mentioned the Guardian‘s success in
the US market, but without understanding that part of that success is
down to the openness of the site. The fact that it is attractive to
aggregators and Google as an authoritative news source is one of the key reasons for its success.

In the language of social media network strategy: The Guardian is a useful player in the online networks of which it is a member, a player, a node.

It’s relatively early commitment to this approach has helped become the first UK newspaper to begin to win profitability and leadership for its online presence.

technorati tags: schibsted
Antony Mayfield

4 responses to “Deep-links vs. Front Pages: newspapers online battle lines are drawn”

  1. Simon Collister Avatar
    Simon Collister

    Interesting stuff, Antony. First up I confess I haven’t read the Economist’s article but I do think that there may be an argument for looking again at the role of aggregators. I’m not for a second suggesting they don’t work but there is always an exception to break the rule.

    Could this be the case for Schibsted? Their referrer stats certainly seem to prove the firm’s claim to be able to bring in substantial readers through the front door. It doesn’t mention this is done with paywalling…

    Plus while the Guardian is a great eg of using onlione networks to boost its success it also has great content and reputation to drive readership.

    The point I’m making (I think) is that sometimes having a dedicated offline readership can help beat the aggregator effect. I wonder if the off and online readers of Schibsted know their paper’s URL and know it offer great online content. So they go direct to the site. Same with the Guardian. It has a dedicated readership and strong content. It also has a growing reputation for being network/online content friendly. All these mean that readers can go direct to its URL.

    Does it boil down to a case of targetting key audiences (local/Norwegian for Schibsted and liberal, progressive middle-class for the G) and working hard to deliver what these audiences want? the other approachs eems to be maintaining your papers existing format and adopting an online scattergun approach, hoping readers will visit through sites such as Reddit and Digg etc…

    Perhaps I’ll know more when I get past the introduction of Benckler’s The Wealth of Networks!

  2. Antony Mayfield Avatar
    Antony Mayfield

    All very good questions – I would dearly like to read a study that answered them.

    My gut feel is that in an online world where networks are the way that people organise their information that the open model is the one to go with.

    People visit websites for three reasons:

    1. A search engine sends them there.
    2. Another website’s link sends them there.
    3. They enter the web address direct into their browser or have bookmarked in their favourites.

    You have to be covering off all three to be effective. You also need to know where you will have the most success in attracting – and keeping more readers, the respective responses being:

    1. Search engine optimisation
    2. Social media optimisation (more on that in my next post)
    3. Good brand communications on and offline.

    Those three responses support one another, obviously.

  3. Simon Collister Avatar
    Simon Collister

    Can’t fault your analysis there, Antony. But I think part of my gut instinct is that while we would probably agree content is king, it is king in two ways: (if I may join you in the bullets!)

    1. Content is king in terms of driving the site up a search engine – so, technical content: keywords, layout etc
    2. Whether it is any good or not.

    I’m sure the Guardian gets a great Google ranking what with the amount of content, tags and blog links, but people also visit the site because the paper is renowned for good journalism and features etc.

    I suppose you could say content is King and Queen – but it’ll take a big ol’ research study to work out which one is which!

  4. Antony Mayfield Avatar
    Antony Mayfield

    Content isn’t king, the networks are – is one way to look at it.

    Another way is to think of content as a currency or commodity that is traded by people through the networks. People earn attention and prominence in the networks by creating, distributing and adding value to the content in the networks.

    Or you might say that it’s not just what content you have, it’s what you do with it that counts…

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