Unless your Internet connection has been cut off for the last year,
you know that “old” media is finally starting to open up and become more
interactive. To varying degrees, news organizations are giving their
audience greater opportunities to participate. An increasing number of
them — especially newspapers, but also some more forward-thinking
broadcasters like the BBC — are inviting the public to contribute
their “news” in order to have it published under the news company’s
brand name.
Many news executives and editors are struggling to get past the
psychological hurdle of allowing the public such free reign — to toss
out old notions that only the work of trained journalists should be
allowed to be published. Once past that, then their thoughts must turn
to business models.
For newspapers, the business model for doing a local citJ project can include something they’ll be comfortable with: print.
The print-online citJ project begins with a Web site, where local
citizens typically are given an easy way to contribute their news and
information. Content from the public might be published online in a
separate, stand-alone Web site — a la Bakersfield’s Northwest Voice or Boulder’s MyTown
— and then the best of that content is used to fill a once-a-week
print publication that’s either delivered separately or as an insert in
a daily paper.
Such print publications can become a modern version of the old
“shopper” or zoned weekly local-news edition. But instead of being
filled with press releases and/or the work of a small, overworked
suburban news bureau’s staff and freelancers, the content is the best
of the last week’s contributions by members of the community. (More
often, such print products combine citizen-submitted content with a few
articles and photos from staff journalists.)
Where’s the money come from? Advertising, of course, just as
the old, stale weekly inserts or shoppers used to attract. But with a
more “down-home,” grassroots feel, you can expect more interest in this
neighborhood edition, and thus more in it for advertisers. Such
neighborhood or regional citJ-oriented editions serve to attract more
advertising from merchants and companies that only want to reach their
immediate neighbors, not pay for run-of-press ads that go all over the
paper’s circulation area.
New money from new advertisers
By offering a cheaper alternative than advertising in the newspaper
or on the TV station, some traditional news Web sites have had success
attracting advertisers that have not been customers before. Going after
non-advertisers is a particularly good strategy for news organizations’
citJ Web sites and the print editions mentioned above.
Steve Yelvington, vice president of content strategies for
Morris Digital, says that it’s unrealistic to think that newspapers can
wring more money out of existing local advertisers. If anything, after
all, their money is harder to get, because of the abundance of
other advertising opportunities that exist in the media world today. So
when a new citJ Web site and print edition come along to add to the
cacophony, ad money to support them probably needs to come from
somewhere else.
Morris has been experimenting with citJ on sites like Bluffton Today,
a combined Web site and print edition that actually integrates
staff-journalist and citizen content. Yelvington says that beyond
traditional advertisers, BT is looking to recruit ads from strip-mall
and entrepreneurial companies, for example — those who haven’t written
checks to Morris before.
Yelvington also sees considerable opportunity for targeted ads, such as those seen on many Web sites from Google’s AdSense
program. His company is looking at approaches such as allowing
advertisers to enter orders any time of day or night through
automation, including the ability to target audience slices. That
doesn’t mean that traditional ad-sales efforts are cut back, only that
automation enables expanding the base of targeted potential
advertisers.
CitJ as a classifieds marketplace
Classified advertising can be an integral component of a news
organization’s citJ initiative — but don’t expect it to operate by the
old rules. Especially within the realm of citizen journalism, the idea
of the consumer paying to place an ad in a publication or on a Web site
is anachronistic. “Citizen reporters” also can be “citizen
advertisers,” placing their ads for free. If they can do it for free on
their local Craigslist, then they should be able to place a free ad on a news citJ site, as well.
CitJ sites would be well advised to offer free ads at a basic
level, but then offer “upsells” to bring attention to their ads. Extra
charges can be added for such goodies as premium placement, special
targeting, extra photos, inclusion of video, extra wording, additional
length of run for the ad, etc. For those with accompanying weekly print
editions, there’s even the option of making online ads free but
charging to be included in print. Or offer brief free print ads, but
charge for extended ones and/or for print references to expanded online
ad listings.
To pay or not to pay
For any citJ operation, a significant issue to resolve is whether or
not to pay those who submit content. There are two schools of thought,
of course:
- We’re providing the publishing tools for community members to
engage in a conversation with their neighbors. This isn’t something
that they should be paid for; their reward is in participating in a
better community interaction than they’ve ever had before. They’re not
real “reporters” and shouldn’t be paid as though there are. - In order to attract quality content, and to get people to do
so on a routine basis, they must be compensated in some way. To expect
community members to go out of their way to submit content and cover
their micro-communities entirely for free is an irrational expectation.
Among news organizations practicing citJ today, the majority, it
seems, favor No. 1. But a small but growing number are beginning to
recognize the value in compensating citizen contributors. In South
Africa, for instance, the company that owns the Sunday Times, Johnnic Media Investments, has launched Reporter.co.za,
a citJ site that pays contributors who submit articles and photos of
good quality a small amount of cash. (It has copied the oldest
independent citJ Web site, South Korea’s Ohmynews,
which pays its citizen reporters, with rates based on how Ohmynews
editors rank a submission.) Reporter.co.za also entices citizen
reporters by announcing that if a citizen news report is important
enough, the parent company’s traditional news properties may pay a
licensing fee to republish it.
Obviously, then, the decision to pay (or not to pay) your citizen
reporters has a bearing on the business model required to support the
citJ operation. The costs of acquiring content are going to be higher
with a Reporter.co.za-type model. One thing to consider is non-cash
options for compensating citizen reporters. Contributors can be enticed
by being entered in drawings for prizes, or contests can be held
routinely to reward those who submit the best photos. Even giving away
promotional T-shirts and coffee mugs can be an enticement. At Backfence.com,
a venture-capital-backed network of local citJ Web sites, the company
has begun offering free $5 “coffee cards” in exchange for submitting at
least five articles.
Unless you firmly believe that citizen reporters do not deserve
to be paid, figure out some way to compensate them as an enticement to
continued involvement with your citJ operation — whether the payment
is coffee or cash.
Partner with existing community bloggers
A growing number of news Web sites have figured out that playing host
to community bloggers is a good thing. They provide free hosting and
marketing, but typically don’t pay the bloggers anything. (The
exception are sites that seek out and attract a small number of the
best local bloggers, then agree to pay them on a freelance/contract
basis.)
This come-all-bloggers approach can pay off — both to the
publishing Web site and to bloggers themselves. The most obvious method
is to deploy contextual advertising from search-engine companies like
Google with its AdSense program, then split those revenues between publisher and blogger.
Don’t pooh-pooh this as a source of revenue. AdSense and
programs like it tend to work well on Web sites that target a narrow
niche. So if you’ve got a community blogger hosted by your site who’s,
say, writing about water skiing in your region, he or she can perform well
on AdSense in terms of percentage of clickthroughs to the contextual
ads. If a community blogging initiative has a bunch of blogs that are all that tightly focused, the AdSense revenues can add up.
There’s money in clicks
And speaking of contextual-advertising programs, overall, these can
be a lucrative revenue source for citizen media. Much of the “coverage”
that community members contribute to citJ initiatives focuses on narrow
topics. Things like citizen reporting of local kids’ athletics, for
instance, can be successful in attracting decent activity in contextual
advertising. Clickthrough rates on such niche pay-per-click advertising
typically outperform traditional Web site banner ads.
Local ad sales may still provide the lion’s share of revenues
to support citJ programs, but, managed right, programs like AdSense, Yahoo! Sponsored Search, and Chitika can provide considerable financial support.
A good source of advice about making your site AdSense-friendly is AdSense Chat,
an online forum where publishers discuss how to make AdSense perform
best for them. The host of that site, Joel Comm, also wrote an e-book
with tips about enhancing AdSense revenues. This sort of thing is
useful to all publishers who accept advertising, but especially to
publishers practicing citJ.
Another good source is Darren Rowse, who publishes a blog called ProBlogger,
which exists to teach bloggers how to make more money. While targeted
at bloggers, of course, the site’s advice is appropriate for citJ
publishers, too. (Rowse also has some good advice and information about getting the most out of Google AdSense.)
