newspapers

Murdok recently interviewed Search Guru Danny Sullivan and discussed several things including the newspaper industry and how it views Google as a threat. Do you think Google is the problem? Share your thoughts here.

Nearly 16 million people in the U.K. visited a newspaper web site in March, representing a 43-percent reach of the country's online population, according to comScore.

Newspapers should be using social media more effectively to engage their readers and boost online revenue, according to a new survey by Gartner. "In the wake of the economic challenges facing the U.S. newspaper industry, publishers are losing focus on the crucial imperative of how to capitalize on those consumers who remain loyal, engaged online and print readers," said Allen Weiner, research vice president at Gartner.

As the newspaper industry continues to struggle its best opportunity is online, according to a new annual survey by the Center for the Digital Future at USC's Annenberg School for Communication. The survey found that Internet users read online newspapers for 53 minutes per week, the highest level seen so far. In contrast, Internet users in 2007 spent 41 minutes per week. The survey also found that 22 percent of Internet users stopped their subscriptions to a printed newspaper or magazine because they could access the same content online.

It's not a news story--doesn't really rise to the level of newsworthiness--but people do seem to be talking more lately about the death of newspapers. Recently even Eric Schmidt of Google discussed how newspapers must find a mixture of advertising, micropayments, and regular subscriptions to fund their futures. To me, all this talk about how newspapers collect money is misplaced. Instead, I think newspapers must think about how to flourish by remaining relevant in the new digital world.

Newspapers that make the move to online-only risk losing 75 percent of their revenue and a decline in Web traffic, according to researchers from City University in London. Their study focused on the Finnish financial newspaper Taloussanomat, which stopped its print version and went online- only in December 2007. The move was made after the paper had suffered significant losses. By going online-only the papers costs were reduced by 50 percent but its online traffic decreased by 22 percent and revenues fell by more than 75 percent.

Three veteran media executives have partnered to launch a company with the goal of helping struggling U.S. news papers and other traditional media make money online by charging readers for content. Journalism Online says it " will quickly facilitate the ability of newspaper, a magazine and online publishers to realize revenue from the digital distribution of the original journalism they produce."

It seems that the only time we write about newspapers these day is to write another obituary or speculate on which newspaper is on its last legs