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Online Newspapers Turning a Profit
Posted by
michael
on Sun Apr 20, 2003 06:20 PM
from the salon-still-screwed dept.
from the salon-still-screwed dept.
PCOL writes "The Asia Times reports that after years of losing money, online newspapers are starting to pay off. The New York Times has gone from losing $7.5M on their site in 2001 to an $8M profit in 2002. The new profitability is attributed to changes in the technology for delivering ads which make it possible to embed advertising in news stories and tie the ads to articles related to reader's interests without resorting to pop-ups and banners. As print newspaper readers age and die, no new readers are replacing them and one survey found that 46 percent of all journalists believe that within 15 years their publication will only be available online."
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Advertising... (Score:3, Funny)
and furthermore... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
I found their trick (Score:4, Informative)
The code is as follows:
img src="http://graphics7.nytimes.com/ads/usga/blank.
Blocking doubleclick didn't stop it but produced a blank popup window. I was able to copy the page source listing and verify that removing this clause stopped the popup window.
Anybody have any ideas on how to turn this off with a mozilla macro ? I should email the mozilla team and see if they're aware of this.
I'm not against advertising by the way, just obnoxious stuff like unrequested popups.
Parent
the details (Score:5, Informative)
Mozilla does stop most of the popups in the New York Times by the way but definitely not all of them. For other sites it does appear to work 100 percent of the time.
I see the popups when going in the first time through my bookmarks or typing www.nytimes.com in the url area. Sometimes it happens when it hit the "New York Times" text in the upper left hand corner to get back to the home page. I just tested it in a tab window while entering this response and it happened again. It was the Orbitz add that they always run. I don't recall seeing any add except for Orbitz doing this.
Parent
Re:Advertising... (Score:3, Informative)
Daniel
making money... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:making money... (Score:3, Insightful)
Two plausible answers: /. effect.
/. effect!
1. Yes, thanks to the
2. No, thanks to the
That's Nice (Score:5, Insightful)
I would still like to see a buisiness model for the Net that is something other than the "Give stuff away for free but pop-up ads" model.
I think that once Micro-Payments roll around to being feasible, it will be alot easier for companies to get paid for what they do without having to crowd up the Internet with those fsking ads all over the place.
ever look in a newspaper or magazine ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:ever look in a newspaper or magazine ? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That's Nice (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm really sick of this myth (Score:3, Insightful)
The DoD funded the Arpanet because big honking computers were expensive. It just wasn't worth the money to buy one for your group when another group a few hundred miles away already had a computer that would do the job. All that needed to happen was to hook them up.
Defense had nothing to do with it. "Surviving a nuclear attack" had nothing to do with it. Getting the most computer power from a limited and geographically-widespread number of computers had everything to do with it.
Success of Online News is Good News for the West (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is an example. Consider "Poll: Hong Kong residents optimistic [cnn.com]". I have been able to refer this article to several friends and acquaintances over the course of several years. Unlike an article from an old newspaper, the online article will not be lost or will not disappear with time. The article is shocking and dispels many of the myths about Chinese society. Before reading the article, most Americans believed that the Chinese are like, well, Americans. After reading the article, most Americans believe otherwise. The majority of Chinese in Hong Kong (to the shock of many Americans reading the article) actually cheered the Chinese government and supported the unification of Hong Kong and mainland China.
Anyhow, by ensuring that we all have an accurate picture of the world, as citizens of Western society, we can better ensure that Western governments enact legislation that best deals with other nations and peoples. Better immigration policy would be one result of the new online news.
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Re:Success of Online News is Good News for the Wes (Score:4, Insightful)
You bring up an important point.
The Internet is also a great way to spread bad or biased information.
How do you know CNN is to be trusted? That the conclusions from the poll are corrected?
Personally I don't trust CNN's content. They very often don't have a clue about what they're talking about, and often push an agenda outright.
Parent
Re:That's Nice (Score:3, Funny)
Besides, *I* think that's why Gore REALLY invented the Internet.
uh huh... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:uh huh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Main advantage of paper (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't imagine that large portions of the population will be willing to give these comforts up for less than a buck a day.
Of course, one day ultra-light laptops with revolutionary, easy-on-the-eyes screens may be commonplace; but until then I would not count out the printing press.
Tor
Re:Main advantage of paper (Score:5, Insightful)
1) I can read them at work at lunch w/o leaving my desk to buy one.
2) I can search for news relevant to me easily.
3) No ink on my hands.
4) I can discuss the news with others and often gain contextual information in the process (con: or I can get tricked into surfing to goatse.cx!)
5) Cheaper.
6) I can get news from different sources (thank you Google! [google.com])
I think that new technology (ie/ tablet pc), along with younger chaps like myself that grew up on computers, mean that eventually print news will lose a lot of market share. The numbers in the article seem to back me up on that.
Parent
Re:Main advantage of paper (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Things can catch my eye that wouldn't in an online paper. ie articles on the front of a section that I don't usually read or a little column that's hard to find in the online version (this happens a lot with the W.Post).
2) I can discuss the news by talking to people. Plus I get the visceral joy of seeing people.
3) I don't get ink on my hands be
Re:Main advantage of paper (Score:3)
That depends, I suppose.
I don't understand what you mean exactly(?) - I read the news on the Internet every day an
Re:Main advantage of paper (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Main advantage of paper (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Main advantage of paper (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems to me that print media won't die out for a while yet (never say never
That said, electronic media also have several advantages. They're quicker and easier to access, and so are ideal if you just want to find something out. Being able to word/phrase search, and use powerful tools is also a huge boon for research purposes.
Paper and electronic media both have their advantages. I think we'll just see a reduction in the scale of production of paper reference media, as that's primarily where electronic holds more advantages than paper.
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I sure hope not. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll admit that I'm speaking a bit from nostalgia here, as I do enjoy sitting down with something physical in front of me. I also tend to think of the papers as having more substance, somehow, than their online counterparts-- as if seeing all the pages in front of me will give me a fuller story than clicking link-to-link.
But the real reason I see the death of print media as a shame is the historical record the papers provide. Any library can archive their old papers for reference for all. Electronic media, as we're all aware, is subject to technology shifts, media that decays considerably faster than paper, and so on. It takes a fire, or years of neglect, to do the same to the physical object. A mistaken click of a button in a database somewhere could lose years of information, and what then?
Re:I sure hope not. (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't speak for most libraries, but my local library stores all of the old newspapers on microfiche, along with many other old and rare documents that are difficult to get on paper. Keeping the paper copies in the first place simply isn't feasible. From what I understand, most of it comes through various s
Re:I sure hope not. (Score:5, Insightful)
But the real reason I see the death of print media as a shame is the historical record the papers provide.
In addition to the fleeting nature of bits, there is another point in favor of print newspapers: editibility (or lack thereof). I have personally seen a number of news stories appear on the web sites of various newspapers, then when I go back to read them later, they've been changed. Sometimes it's just a spelling correction (has anybody else noticed that FOXNews has had a lousy week in the spelling department?), but sometimes it's a substantial change, completely changing the meaning of a story. Those changes are rarely, if ever, marked (the one thing the Slashdot editors do right, IMHO, is posting errata, instead of just changing the stories). Such transparent changes totally destroys the usefulness of the medium as an historical record; there is no good way of determining if the record has been altered. While dead-tree format can be changed, it's a serious ordeal to attempt, and may or may not be successful, particularly with a large number of copies in circulation. I think hardcopy will remain important for a long time for archival purposes, and I, for one, will mourn its demise.
Parent
News, the hot commodity... (Score:5, Interesting)
And, as we all know, the television and print news are scripted (at least insofar as they only tell what they have space/time to tell). The Internet, on the other hand, has virtually infinite potential. Concentrating specifically on news, you can find news regarding just about anything online that you can't find in print or on television.
Finally, the absolute best way to find news on any topic: go to Google News [google.com] and search for a topic in the same way you would typically use the standard Google search engine [google.com]. The news search scans Internet newspapers from all over the world and delivers instant links to ANY reports containing the search words. Default sorts by relevance, but I prefer to sort by date for the most recent articles first...
I LOVE MY GOOGLE. And for those who were not aware of the wonderfulness of their news site, I hope you love it too. :-)
Re:News, the hot commodity... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it has just made many people crave reassurance. Witness the huge ratings for "news" channels like Fox, and the reaction against many channels like BBC News 24 here in the UK for providing such constant, raw (in the sense of live and out of the studio, because it was of course more or less scripted by the military) coverage, which was just too much for a lot of people.
Of course it's probably had the side effect that many people are now far more current affairs savvy, and hopefully it will transfer into more of a current-affairs-savvy culture, not just in relation to America's latest ventures. The Internet is one possible vehicle for this, given it's strength in linking many issues together (though of course on the flipside it will often just as easily contain people through a lack of wider linking). That's one thing that Google is good for - a slightly wider view
Parent
I haven't read a newspaper in awhile (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a question though - how do traditional newspapers make money? Is it mostly ad revenue or is it from actual sales? Whats the split? Why did it take so long for web news to catch up?
Re:I haven't read a newspaper in awhile (Score:3, Interesting)
There are a number of 'news'papers that you can pick up on the way out of the grocery store for free. They not only make all of their revenue from ads, their ad rates are typically lower than the larger papers that charge for subscriptions, and are usually better targeted. That's why I run most of my own advertising in the small specialized local papers.
I sell insura
Re:I haven't read a newspaper in awhile (Score:3, Interesting)
The ratio will vary from paper to paper, but I think that consistently you can assume that advertisements are paying for the bulk of the cost for any media.
In some arrangements, advertisement is
Different products! (Score:5, Insightful)
NYTimes website LOSES 7.5mil in year? (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice to know they'll be around for a while... (Score:5, Interesting)
The great thing about getting news off the 'net is that you aren't constrained to the news your local publishers feel is relevant. Interestingly, I find that some of the most relevant news about the U.S. is published in foriegn papers, and ignored domesticly.
Ten years ago, my chances of ever seeing an article that originated in the Asia Times were pretty much zero.
And then, of course, you have sites like
I can't even imagine having to go back to being limited to what was published on paper. I'm glad publishers have developed a model that will make that unnecessary.
Reminds me a lot of.... (Score:3, Funny)
Declining readership related to other factors ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Although the internet is obviously partially to blame, I think most of the newspaper industries problems are self inflicted.
Television (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Times Ad-Matching System (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, I still prefer google's ads.
what about retractions? (Score:5, Insightful)
This means that facts and 'controversial' ideas can be edited, modified and even deleted without notifying the public. I have several friends who insist on copying the articles they read directly to their hard drive because they have experience with articles 'disappearing' or changing without being noted.
Posting online allows news sources to get the news out much faster than was ever possible in the past. It seems to me, however, that it also requires a much more stringent approach to journalistic 'integrity'. In the neverending fight for readers and stories, papers can publish articles containing misinformation simply to get the story out first and then change the content later to reflect a more accurate portrayal of events.
If the only source of news is the web, how is the public supposed to know that things were ever changed? Human memory is questionable at best. Think 1984 (i know i know i know) for a second and consider Winston's job of rewriting news and, therefore, history.
Oops- forgot to remove my tinfoil hat...
Re:what about retractions? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we have lower accuracy expectations for TV news?
Do we simply *notice* version differences more easily on the Internet?
I believe in old-school "first rough draft of history" journalism that says the errors and misinformation in an initial, breaking news story are a valuable record in and of themselves, and that subsequent "corrected" versions should be clearly identified and the originals should be available for comparison. Note that Slashdot does it the way I think it should be done. This is not an accident. Part of my job around here (OSDN) is to think about things like how to handle story updates and corrections. And, warts and all, we have a very good and concerned crew on Slashdot that wants to get things as right as possible as often as possible.
A lot of protocols and ethical standards for online news are still under development. It'll be interesting to watch the changes over the next few years in what is and is not considered an acceptable practice.
- Robin
Parent
Revised article text (Score:5, Funny)
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PCOL writes "The Asia Times reports that after years of losing money, online newspapers are starting to pay off. The New York Times has gone from losing $7.5M on their site in 2001 to an $8M profit in 2002.
[image - ENLARGE YOUR PENIS NOW!!! GET GEEK GIRLZZ!!]
The new profitability is attributed to changes in the technology for delivering ads which make it possible to embed advertising in news stories and tie the ads to articles related to reader's interests without resorting to pop-ups and banners.
[image - WANT TO GET A FIRST POST?! OUR AUTOPOSTER v.3 WILL LET YOU DO JUST THAT!]
As print newspaper readers age and die, no new readers are replacing them and one survey found that 46 percent of all journalists believe that within 15 years their publication will only be available online."
The ULTIMATE FLAW of online news (Score:3, Funny)
How the hell am I supposed to read it in the john?
.
I know, I know, show me pictures of the iHole ( *iRoll* (read: eye-roll) ). Until I have a connected bathroom this paper is not going anywhere!
And I could read this too, ooo, fun fun. [circleoflegends.org]
A few comments (Score:5, Interesting)
Second, I'd like to comment on the fact that the news media made the transition to the Internet without too much difficulty. They're now distributing online, without any form of copy protection, what used to be sold as a physical product. Perhaps as notable, the major comic syndicates have done likewise (although as I understand it, artists are not yet being compensated for people who read syndicated comics online). There are a lot of kinks left to iron out, but it looks like this is going to work, and that most of these companies that could have been wiped out by online competition will survive, even flourish, in an online environment. Perhaps the RIAA and MPAA members ought to look to the newspapers for ideas?
Finally, just one note I find amusing: sci-fi authors have been predicting some form of electronic news reader that gets continious or periodic updates for quite some time. I believe such a device was featured in 2001. Nice to see that some predictions do actually come true :)
Might as well die (Score:3, Insightful)
Newspapers might as well die (so long as TV news dies as well). American journalism is dead anyway. Not only are most major cities losing out to a single paper, but papers are mostly just official news (news taken from official press releases). There is indeed little to no investigative reporting done anymore, and this is sad.
that's it? (Score:5, Interesting)
This sounds a bit pesimistic to me. The cost cuts that could be made by going digital seem incredible. Competition will likely drive all but the biggest papers into the digital realm. 15 years seems a bit long though. The major obstacle will be portability, but with the cell phone explosion and the implementation of efficient hi-res full color screens and better batteries, this will no longer be an issue.
On a similar note, if bandwidth can ever outgrow demand, the papers will all be buying video cameras and we'll be seeing a blur between newspaper and news channel. In fact, it might not be a bad idea to buy stock in the newspaper companies now. They'll have the upper hand when it comes to delivering you news when they are more like TVmedia. Currently TV media relies on newspapers for finding the stories for them to report on. They could be high and dry when the newspapers are releasing the footage they would normally have grabbed.
Hope they're being archived (Score:3, Insightful)
In that case, I hope the newspapers themselves are diligently archiving their electronic editions, hopefully in forms that would make an Orwellian rewriting of history impossible.
The counter-argument: It already is! (Score:3, Insightful)
DRM works much better when you are providing exclusive content. Is artist X only availible through DRM-crippled service Y? Well, since I'm a
Re:The problem with that... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, there's one nice thing about paper newspapers, and some but not all online newspapers and magazines (this certainly excludes the New York Times). When I read a normal newspaper, I'm not leaving a digital slime trail behind myself that records everything I've read. Most online papers quietly deposit cookies on you and track you using those cookies. I don't know why the NY Times registration process is so much more invasive. They insist on an email address. I read the NYT all the time, and I have a NYT cookie that I never even think about. I just went to my NYT profile page. It's listing an email address I had in 1996. Yikes. And back then I foolishly chose my (rare) last name as my NYT username. I must have accrued a couple thousand rows in their database by now. I can only guess what sort of conclusions could be drawn about me and my reading habits in the past 7 years. Which makes me wonder if the New York Times has ever received subpoenas from the Justice department (which the PATRIOT Act forbids them from even disclosing).
No totalitarian government in history has ever had access to this type of information. Can you imagine if the Nazis had detailed records of every Berlin newspaper article read by any German citizen during the twenties? And they had the computational resources to do data mining and assign a score to each German based on this information? Remaining silent during the actual repression wouldn't even help you anymore! The U.S. isn't exactly Nazi Germany at the moment. But who knows what might happen five, ten, or twenty years from now? People here presume the U.S. will never become a totalitarian state- bring it up and people laugh in your face- but that's a bad sign. It's an indication that we aren't exercising our eternal vigilance. We assume we'll always have this freedom- after all, we're Americans. We'll think we still have it after they've taken it away.
So I sometimes wonder if all my smartass comments on Slashdot will ever come back to haunt me. Maybe this post will be read by the thought police in 2010. Nobody ever deletes anything. (Hopefully Slashdot's lousy search functionality will foil them.) But I don't worry about it anymore. Between my stupid USENET posts during college, sites like this one, and my surfing habits, I figure I've left behind so many indications of being a troublemaker that it would be pointless to shut up now. But I do think about it sometimes.
Parent
Re:The Ny. Times can thank Flash (Score:5, Informative)
Spam Gourmet [spamgourmet.com]
Set the number of forwards to 3, say, and after your registration confirmation e-mail and a couple of others, Spam Gourmet eats everything else.
You can also customise the e-mail addy, with the name of the subscription site, and leave the number of forwards high, so you can see who the site you registered with is passing your address to.
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