Where is the Money?

In 2011 the revenues from online advertising overtook print advertising. This shift signifies that more companies are placing their faith in the future of the internet, yet for the newspaper industry most of their revenue still comes in from print advertisements. But according to an article on Reuters, 46 percent of Americans get their news online at least three times a week versus 40 percent in print.

Where are the online advertising dollars for newspapers?

According to that same article most online ad spending is in search advertising, little of which finances news. Even though newspaper advertising has dropped 46 percent in the past four years, it is still more than seven times the revenue of online advertising for newspapers. Thus the print newspaper is the financial backbone that allows the newspapers to expand and explore online options.

According to a new study by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Project for Excellence in Journalism, in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, readers are willing to pay for a print newspaper but not the online equivalent. 23 percent of respondents to a survey conducted for the above study say they would pay, but no more than $5 a month. A month of receiving the Seattle Times, for example, costs $22.40 a month. Only 5% of people who currently get their news online pay for the content.

According to the Reuters article, three dozen newspapers have moved to an online pay model. Of those newspapers, only one percent of readers opted to pay for the service.

This leaves a dark shadow hovering over newspapers. If the printed news no longer becomes profitable, can they find a way to survive online? Or will the world resort to dependance upon citizen journalists who blog and tweet about the news?

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons.

Read more...

Why Should We Blog?

At the beginning of enrollment in BNR class, a majority of Simpson College students had never contributed to a blog in their life.

Many students pondered about this whole blogging business at the beginning of this course. Why would we need blogs? What are we going to write about for our blogs? How are we going to know what we're blogging about is useful? How do people even use blogs?

Traditionally, blogs started out as being a sort of online diary for people across the world. However, as blogging became more popular, many businesses and journalists decided to contribute to the blogging world to gain publicly.

Blogging has helped the journalist world in all different aspects. Once writers have exposed their work online, they are easily able to catch reader's attention. In result, they can receive feedback and gain subscribers to read their daily postings.

As you continue to blog, you will notice an improvement in your writing skills. For those who have previously blogged, think back to the very first blog you wrote. Now snap back to the present. Your writing portfolio and skills have improved tremendously because of your frequent interaction with writing.

What if you aren't interested in blogging for journalist purposes and promoting business? There are still many different reasons you can post your blogs online.

One last pro of becoming a blogger is you can even make profit from blogging. A lot of people blogging have not found themselves becoming a blogger to make money, but find out later that will end up doing so.

An unknown author once said, "Blogging is the new poetry."

If you have never blogged before reading this article, please consider the benefits of blogging. Go ahead and give starting your own blog a shot.

Photo Credit: Tutor2U @ Creative Commons

Read more...

Social Media and Advertising

As social media like Facebook and Twitter grow, banner ads are becoming less common.

Banner ads are usually rectangular and placed above, below, or on the either side of a Website.

Even though these ads may be annoying to the average consumer, a good chunk of money is spent on them each year. Last year, $23 billion was spent on Internet advertising with one-third of that being spent on advertising involving banner ads.

Twitter and Facebook are affecting banner ads quite a bit because from my personal experience I haven't seen many banner ads on those forms of social media.

One thing that social media has been a helping hand with is the ability to customize ads based on the user's interaction or interests.

Have you ever noticed how the ads, usually on Facebook, involve your interests?

Google's managing director for media and platforms for the Americans thinks 75 percent of ads will be "socially enabled" by the 2015.

That means that the new advertising formats would allow for "on-the-fly" customization while the user currently interacts with the site.

I find this to be interesting because now social media isn't simply just for personal use. It's becoming a tool for companies as well.

Even though banner ads aren't doing so well right now there will be a new generation that evolves from that failure.

You can go to Dorian Benkoil's blog, "As Social Media Grows, What Will Become of the Plain Old Banner Ad?," for more information.

Read more...

Paid Tweets in Twitter Searches

Twitter recently announced that is is testing the concept of advertising through "Promoted Tweets." This comes after pressure to turn its wide usage into profits since growing rapidly from 2006.

The Promoted Tweets will appear as ads on top of search results, so users would see the new ads when they search broadly for topics being tweeted about.

Twitter invited a test group of advertisers, including Virgin America, Best Buy Co, Sony Pictures, and Starbucks Corp. The ads are not expected to bring in much money during this initial phase, but it should eventually turn into a paid model.

About 69 million people worldwide used Twitter in March, up from roughly 4 million at the end of 2008. Investors have valued the site at $1billion. Twitter is making an undisclosed amount of money by providing Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. with access to messages for their search engines.

The catch? If a Promoted Tweet isn't replied to or forwarded by other users, it will disappear. With advertising bombarding our emails and virtually every website visited, I don't know how logical it would be to expect viewers to forward ads. It will be interesting to see if the concept is successful.

Read more...

Discovering New Online Ad Types

Like it or not, journalism obtains a large amount of its funding through advertising dollars. Therefore, with the field constantly changing, it remains important for advertising to keep up with new journalistic mediums. Unfortunately, advertisers have, much like in the newspaper industry, simply utilized online advertising as a new way to offer the same old thing. However, in a recent article for the Online Journalism Review entitled "Moving Beyond Traditional Display Advertising: Its All About ME," Dave Chase describes three new methods being embraced by hyperlocal Web sites that follow the simple ME principle.

First, what is the ME principle? According to Chase, the inability measure their effectiveness renders the current banner type ads useless. Thus, the first letter of the ME principle stands for measurable. Secondly, these ads must be Easy for businesses to offer (the second part of the principle).

In his article, Chase describes three types of innovative online advertising currently working on independent hyperlocal Web sites. Internet coupons top the list, with several new features built in, such as the ability to share with friends or send to a mobile phone. Next, group buy offers, in which a business, such as a restaurant, would offer a discount if a certain amount of people buy in. Lastly, is the idea of a "deal of the day" in which visitors to a Web site can then visit a local business to receive the exclusively online deal. It should be pointed out that Simpson's own Holy Grounds Coffee shop utilizes this technique with daily Twitter specials. Since all three of these advertisements would exclusively exist online, businesses would have no trouble in judging their effectiveness.

I found this article to be very interesting and important for communications students, as many of us may someday find ourselves working for a small hyperlocal Web site or a local newspaper where these advertising tactics could be applied. Having an understanding of the techniques of the business not necessarily taught in class can only give us an edge on the competition. In addition, in this developing field there is limitless opportunity for creative ideas. These new advertising techniques provide excellent examples of how simple ideas can change a professional field.

Read more...