Newspapers - Today, Tomorrow and Day After

These are tough times for newspapers. Subscriptions have hit an all time low and advertising revenues have seen a significant decline. Production costs are rising and stock prices have tanked significantly. Average daily circulation for 635 newspapers in USA fell 5 percent in 2010 from a year earlier, according to Audit Bureau of Circulations. There have been 166 U.S. newspapers that have shut down or stopped putting out a print edition since 2008.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Much has been said about how this happened – the digital revolutions, Google, Google News, blogs, etc have all taken the blame for this fall from grace. I will therefore refrain myself from beating the dead horse and concentrate on a different aspect. What can newspapers do to get out of the hellhole?? Is online the savior for the newspapers? Atleast for the immediate future, this does not seem to be the way out. An immediate concern is the willingness of the users to move from the online free model to a paid model. In a study by Harris Interactive, of the 2,105 U.S. adults surveyed, 80 percent said they would be willing to pay "nothing" to read a daily newspaper's content online!

Next is the much touted free model where revenues are only generated from online advertisements. Proponents of this model – popularized by Google, argue that free is the purest and far reaching form of model.

So is free the way to go for newspapers?

In my humble opinion – Definitely not

Firstly – a quick glance at the current revenues being generated by online advertisement reveals a telling tale. As of now, online advertising revenue accounts for a small percentage of the total newspaper revenue. So unless the online advertising revenue reaches the scale where they can replace the print revenue it is unlikely that newspaper companies will completely move to online only format.

Secondly, news and advertising are very uncomfortable bedfellows. The basic premise of news consumption is the credibility of the news content and the trust the user has. A newspaper dependent on the advertising only model makes itself susceptible to getting influenced by the very dollars which are financing its existence. Already we are seeing examples of news content being tailored or softened to suit some companies. In April 2009, page one of the Los Angeles Times featured an ad for a new NBC show, with a look and feel of a news item – clearly an issue bordering on grey areas of newspaper ethics. There have been similar accusations of some network newscasts softening the content of the news delivered to benefit a few companies. Truly an alarming situation and one fraught with risk of losing credibility for newspapers.

Finally a dependence on advertising only revenues has the potential to make the newspapers vulnerable to any recessionary trend. Advertising budgets are typically one of the first items to undergo pruning during a time of recession. The current recession is an example to the point - total print and online newspaper advertising fell to $25.8 billion last year, a 6.3% drop compared with 2009, according to data released by the Newspaper Association of America. Print ad revenue dropped to $22.8 billion, a decrease of 8.2% over the same period. For any newspaper completely depending on advertising revenues this situation could prove be very challenging.

Clearly an online advertising only model does not seem to be the most preferable one for newspapers. And despite reducing subscription, print model still is the single most important source of revenue and would continue to be in the immediate future. Newspapers are exploring other revenue streams e.g. online subscription model to boost their revenues, but it will take some time before newspapers can move from the online plus print model to online only model. However with newspapers looking to work out a strategy of charging for premium content and full access things do not looks so bleak. A News Corp research concluded that in another 10 years online version will generate sufficient revenue to replace print.

The big question for newspaper would be - How do they go through the next 10 years?

Shopsavvy - An App that is Changing the way we Shop!

One of the most frustrating aspects for me while shopping is an unending urge to compare prices across all buying touch points and trying to ensure that I am getting the best deal. Given that these touch points might range from retail stores to a plethora of online websites(dealers plus retailers) this task is invariably a challenging one. And if I am at a retail store and find a product I am interested in buying, it is an even more painful experience to somehow hook online and find whether there are any better deals.

But these days of struggle should hopefully soon be behind me. For the other day while browsing the web I came across an interesting mobile app – Shopsavvy. This app basically lets the user easily compare prices across the various points-of-sale. All you have to do is to scan a retail item's barcode using the phone camera. Shopsavvy then runs an automated search across a large number of online websites and retails stores and  brings up the best prices which the user can get. Not only this, it also shares with the user, information such as shopping offers, weekend sales, rebates, etc. Additionally the reviews provided for the product allows the customer to make an informed buying decision drawing on experiences of experts and fellow users. For local products, he can even get map directions or call a specific store. For online products, he can visit their website and place the order. The app even has an indicator for whether the product is currently in stock or out of stock.

Another interesting feature offered by the apps is the ability to define a price point alert for products. The app will alert the user whenever the product is available at the defined price. This frees the user from having to constantly monitor the prices while waiting for the desired level. Customers can also use Twitter or Facebook to share with friends any deals which they have discovered.

While retailers may hate something like this, because it gives shoppers all of their competitor’s information, increasingly, they have been working with ShopSavvy to come up with ways to make buying in their stores even easier. Currently more than 20000 retailers share their pricing data with Shopsavvy.  And anyways, what can the retailers do anyway? All of this information is out there on the web, ShopSavvy is just providing easy access to it.

Originally launched for Android this app is now also available for iPhone and RIM mobiles. Its popularity can be gauged from the fact that in a short duration of time it has become the 16^th most popular app on iTunes. Why not, for it is truly changing the way we shop!!

When Mobility Moves Mountains!

Some facts

• 4,239,956 people are having a cell phone conversation at any given second in the world
• Cisco VNI Forecast states that global mobile data traffic grew 2.6-fold in 2010, nearly tripling for the third year in a row
• According to new research from Universal McCann and AOL, one of every seven minutes of media consumption today takes place via mobile devices

Ladies and gentlemen – Welcome to the Mobile Age!

No matter the location, the time, the occasion – Mobiles have transcended the spectrum of human life. The comforting presence of the device has become our umbilical cord with the world. Any why not?? Mobile devices have dramatically changed the way we live and work. It has pervaded every aspect of our lives and opened infinite opportunities for us. Businesses too have not been left unscathed by the little guy. It has proved to be their worst nemesis and their best friend too.

So let us try to understand how these devices are influencing and in turn bringing about significant changes in our life.

Making the world searchable

Be it directions or a restaurant serving a particular cuisine, we find ourselves turning to Google. The fact is that “googling” has become a ubiquitous part of our life. And why not? Google’s search algorithm has the ability to provide answers to 70 per cent of the search queries. Not only this, technology is enabling consumers to discover the best value for their money. Applications like Red Laser and ShopSavvy enable shoppers to use their camera phone to scan bar codes and compare prices across different retailers. Not a comforting thought for retailers, but definitely a great feature for consumers!

It’s not that companies don’t have anything to cheer about. Geo-tagging and location specific services enables companies to discover the customer and then provide customized products and services. Apps like Foursquare (with 6.5M registered users) allow registered users to share their location with friends by “checking in” at particular venues. Users can also bookmark information about venues they visit and can also view relevant suggestions about nearby venues. It offers a great platform to companies to leverage and utilize a wide set of tools to engage the customers. Already companies like Pepsi and the New York Times have jumped in and are working with it in different ways.

Our very own personal assistant

How often have we all wished for our very own beautiful personal assistant who would take care of all the mundane data we need to remember to get by in daily lives. Maybe not in terms of glamour quotient but mobiles devices are proving to be very efficient in managing our lives. Right from our appointments, birthdays & anniversaries, reminders, phone number, etc mobiles are proving to be a great asset. By offloading the task of remembering such details they are freeing up our brains for complex and much more rewarding activities.

Less is more

ROFL, BRB, CIAO…

Nightmares for Grammer teachers but a must for Gen X. Our communication has becomes much more informal and abbreviated. And mobile phones symbolize this to the maximum. The screen size and rendering limitations of mobiles phones have introduced a new aspect to human communication. Texting lingo has emerged as one of most important medium of communication. A third of US teenagers send more than 100 text messages a day! The impact on mobile devices on social networking sites is no less. A research by Comscore has linked the exponential growth of Twitter to mobile users. The primary appeal is the 140 characters limit on Twitter which is similar to the text message size limitations on mobile phones. Similarly the Like button on Facebook is much more useful on a small screen of a mobile device than a PC.

Peer PowerPlay

This urge to share experience as we are undergoing them has been supported to a large extent by web enabled mobile devices. I see so many FB status updates and tweets from friends trashing a movie from the movie hall itself or how great Bryan Adams is performing in the event they are currently attending. The consumer decision making process is in turn being impacted by this real-information being shared by their friends on social networking sites. Companies too are looking at this real time user feedback and trying to act on this. Several businesses have "community managers" active on Twitter. These act as evangelists, customer service reps, and public faces for the company they represent.

Mobiles phones have indeed brought about a significant change to our lives and will continues to impact it in future too. True there might be several privacy related concerns in the short run, but the long term potential benefit of mobile phones would far outweigh such concerns.