Newspapers News & Articles

Web publishing is a tipsy topsy world, full of paradoxes and contradictions. On any given week, the experts of the publishing world tout the benefits of keeping the news free. But that's not this week. No sir-ee. This week free content goes bust.

WoodWing Software (news, site) has a list of clients that reads like an international Who’s Who of the print industry. Acquia (news, site) is the commercial arm that offers products and support for the open source software web content management system Drupal (news, site).

Last week, the two companies announced a new partnership that will see WoodWing's Enterprise 6 Content Publishing Platform ship with Acquia Drupal as the default content management system.

The result is an integrated package that gives publishers a tool that is simple to use as well as the ability to adopt print content for web users who are looking for interactive and engaging online experiences.

This week in Web Publishing brings us some sage advice, courtesy of ReadWriteWeb COO, Bernard Lunn.

He encourages bloggers and journalists to look optimistically to the future, rid ourselves of all the bad elements of what weighs the publishing industry down and keep the parts that make up happy -- namely a strong desire to find the truth, among others.

He also recommends evaluating the reasons we rely and respect true journalism and ultimately accept that it costs money. "Until we as an industry can do a better job at monetizing quality at correlating quality with revenue," Lunn says "the sensible business decision is simply to go after page views, any page views."

Newspapers are in crisis. Anyone with an ear to the ground knows that the industry has reached a watershed. They either adapt to changing circumstances, or do what many have already done – they shut down.

The writing is on the wall it would seem – traditional publishers need to invest in their online presence as successful publishing businesses have already done, or clear out the desks.

And there’s a lot of money in developing solutions that enable smaller companies take the online route.

With this in mind, Content Data Solutions is facilitating these companies by releasing its Web Publishing Solution as a SaaS.

Americans are traditionally sentimental towards newspapers. They represent democracy, freedom and all that America was built upon. Yet, in these changing and challenging times, newspapers are no longer reliable employers. Nor are they able to generate revenue. This week, newspapers get a government intervention and are upstaged by new media.

It has been awhile since we talked about newspapers.

To recap, they are still struggling. And there is not a shortage of armchair publishers offering their ideologies and suggestions about how newspapers can regain their footing and rebuild their empire.

At MarketWatch, a site which follows business news, personal finance information, and offers real-time commentary and investment tools and data, they asked three media experts -- Larry Kramer, Lauren Rich Fine and Nathan Richardson -- to offer their assessments of the problems of newspapers and what can be done.

Each expert honed in on a different issue, from monetizing content, to charging for online content and handling change. 

Another week and another exciting update about the state of web publishing.

Auto Industry Drives Online

You may recall that the auto industry isn't fairing so well. While stocks fell earlier this week a Nielsen report shows that as far as the auto industry in concerned, their online presence isn't doing as badly as Detroit. Even as auto companies slashed their overall ad budgets in the second half of 2008, their online spending dipped only 0.5%.

So far this year, Nielsen says that auto-ad spending online is “once again gaining momentum and is forecast to be on par with Q1 07, while still slightly below Q1 08.” By next year, Nielsen expects the Internet to be the second-largest advertising category for car makers, after TV.

This week in web publishing offers a point, a counterpoint and if needed, an escape plan.

Despite reporting an increase in revenues of 29% for Q4 2008, Nstein Technologies (news, site) -- a Canadian provider of online publishing solutions -- has warned the market to expect a more conservative growth trajectory in 2009.

While you were Googling, AOL named a new CEO and chairman. Tim Armstrong, who headed up ad sales in the Americas for Google, will replace Randy Falco as chairman and CEO. As well, AOL President and COO Ron Grant is leaving the company. Perhaps Armstrong was in need of a challenge, as AOL does not have the strength of either Google or even Yahoo in terms of advertising assets or traffic. Now things will get interesting. Everything you knew about AOL is about to change.

It's been a week or two since our last round-up of all things web publishing, and it is with pride that we announce that newspapers are still alive.

Setting Records

Earlier this week, newspaper pros gathered in Las Vegas for the Newspaper Association of America's first annual mediaXchange conference. Data from Nielsen Online was presented to indicate that average monthly unique audience figures for newspaper Web sites grew by over 7.9 million in January to 74.8 million visitors -- an increase of 11.9 percent over the same period a year ago.

As dark and gloomy as it may be, the newspaper industry is never dull. 

As newspapers continue to struggle to see another day, there has been recent speculation about the dramatic shifts poised to take place. As publishers cut back on print editions, sometimes even altogether halting them, they are turning to digital media to carry the load. The Christian Science Monitor, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Denver's Rocky Mountain News and the Tuscon Citizen exist purely in online formats.

These days many in the publishing are just trying to stay afloat from one week to the next. This week is no exception.

This week in the Web publishing industry has been a little bit of everything: from blogs to online content, from social media to online visitors.

We have also learned that 95 of the top 100 newspapers have blogs. As far as the numbers go, it was a great week to be an online publisher.

Can a newspaper exist without publishing syndicated news content?

Early this month, The Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey, put this question to the test with a one-day boycott of The Associated Press news. The print issue relied primarily on stories by staff members, as well as Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, McClatchy-Tribune News Service and several smaller Advance Publication papers in New Jersey.

After the one-day experiment, The Star-Ledger was back to publishing AP news. While the boycott may have been inspired by a need to prove independence from the world’s largest news-gathering source, it also may have been fueled by the rate increase the AP is implementing in January 2009.