All too often when I ask a colleague at another media company what their monetization strategy is (in general or regarding a specific product) the response I’m given is akin to “that’s not my station.” To me, that answer epitomizes the problems we’re seeing at too many media companies – too many people passing the proverbial buck.
Now, for those of you who have previously read my blog, you know that I’m a proponent of transparency and when it comes to an issue like monetization, I think companies need to increase transparency to lessen the impact of employees who believe that making money isn’t their problem.
Years ago, I worked for a company that had a gainsharing program. The idea was that when the company was successful and earned revenue above a certain target, the results were share with employees. When business didn’t go well, those results were also shared with employees who wound up referred to the program as “painsharing.” More then anything, the program made it clear to all employees that everything had a cost and that if there was an expense, there needed to be revenue.
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I spent part of my Sunday morning visiting dozens of newspaper websites and by the time I was done I found myself wanting to scream. WAKE UP! LOOK AT WHAT YOU ARE DOING!
Too many of the sites I visited looked as if they’re frozen in time or, at the very least, not working with any sense of urgency. When I tweeted my observation:
“Where’s the innovation? Where’s the experimentation? Don’t see most newspaper sites doing anything different or new. What happened?”
“Biggest risk of organizational (i.e., newsroom) convergence is a loss of imagination and innovative spirit.”
While I agree with his comment, I just don’t feel like any of these sites can afford to rest on their laurels or to be stuck in neutral. With marketing budgets at many newspapers shrinking or disappearing altogether, for the most part, it’s up to the individual web staffs to increase metrics such as page views, time or site and return visitors (for example).
What concerns me even more is that I’m not sure the people at any of these sites realize that they have a problem. On too many occasions I’ve heard the cliché “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”.
Recently, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about Ron Popeil. An American inventor, Popeil is responsible for such gadgets as the Chop-O-Matic, the Veg-O-Matic, Hair in a Can Spray and the Showtime Rotisserie Oven which he hocked on many late night infomercials. It was this last product that has been on my mind much of late.
Popeil claimed that it was so easy to cook whole chickens in the Showtime Rotisserie Oven that all you had to do was “set it and forget it.” This phrase popped into my head recently while I was trying to explain my approach to website management.
Too many online staffs treat their websites like the Showtime Rotisserie Oven. They, say it with me, “Set it and Forget it.” Enamored with automation, they design sites that is chock full of headline pulls, RSS feeds and automated dayparting, Flash galleries, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a technophobe, but the problem I have is that all the automation becomes an excuse to not deal with their site unless there is a problem or special project. They never stop to ask, are the right stories are being presented at the right time? Is the best photo being featured? Are our visitors being best served? They never ask because well, it’s all automated.
To me, that just spells missed opportunities.
I believe that the pages on your site should showcase not just the best, but the most appropriate and appealing content that your visitors would want at a given moment. And yes, that means change comes often.
My approach is to use metrics to help plot a roadmap and then use your journalistic sense, your common sense to make the right choices. Are there places for automation? Of course, but your site won’t grow automatically it requires your constant attention.
So if you want to cook a chicken follow Popeil’s advice. But if you want to grow your site, take my advice and do the work yourself.
I thought I would share this address that I gave at the Bi-Co Boot Camp at Bryn Mawr College. The event was a gathering of students from both Bryn Mawr and Haverford College who work, or are interested in working at the student newspaper, the Bi-College News. I was invited by Dave Merrell, a former editor of the newspaper and a recent intern at Philly.com. Feel free to share you comments, questions or thoughts.
Thanks, Andrea for that introduction and thank you all for this opportunity to speak with you today.
Now some of you might laugh, especially since we just met, but the truth is I already owe you an apology. I know that may be hard to believe, but it actually gets worse, because not only do I owe you one but so do my colleagues at newspapers throughout the country.
As you all know the newspaper industry is in horrible shape. Circulation is declining, advertising is disappearing, revenue is shrinking, the news just isn’t good. But all of this didn’t just suddenly – happen. These problems didn’t just materialize overnight. Frankly, some of them didn’t have to occur at all.
Somewhere along the way we dropped the ball, we screwed the pooch, we lost sight of the goal line, hell, we just blew it.
