NewsMixer Offers Better Engagement (IdeaLab): Tidbits contributor Rich Gordon writes of this Medill student project, “NewsMixer melds three commenting structures (question and answer, short-format ‘quips,’ and letters to the editor) into a site that leverages users’ social networks by using the newly released Facebook Connect system.
“…Facebook Connect allows the site to display comments from your social network, meaning that every user has a different — and personalized — experience. We’re thinking that this will stimulate more intelligent discussion than generally occurs via the open-ended comment box that appears at the end of articles on most news sites. Also, every time you post to NewsMixer, you are given the option of cross-posting that comment to your Facebook feed, which exposes it to friends not using our site and potentially draws them to participate as well.”
News-oriented Websites Have a Future (Advertising Age): Summary of a new report, Size Doesn’t Matter, by online media-research company ContentNext (which owns PaidContent). Research director Lauren Rich Fine is quoted as saying, “The conversation [with advertisers] gets interesting at 200 million page views plus a month, but much more so around 800 million.”
Ad Age writes that according to Fine: “Those ambitious numbers show how hard it is for local news sites to be really profitable, and underscore ‘why local papers will have trouble offsetting traditional media declines’ with revenue from their websites.”
Ad Age also notes that the $199 report examines “whether the Times could ever succeed as a Web-only product, and concludes that it could — once NYTimes.com starts generating 1.3 billion page views a month. By Fine’s back-of-the-envelope calculations, that kind of traffic would bring in $300 million in quarterly advertising revenues — about what the flagship paper is expected to generate in the fourth quarter. The Times’ site had 173 million page views in October, according to ComScore Media Metrix.”
New York Times: Our Digital Ads “Could Be Under Great Stress” (AllThingsD, Dec. 9): “NYT Digital head Martin Nisenholtz said revenue at his unit had been okay until the last two months of the year, but that there had been ‘softness in November, accelerating into December …Next year is going to be a different year, by a fairly profound margin.’
“Bear in mind that the Times’ digital performance pre-November was grim to begin with — digital revenue grew just 4.3 percent in October — and it becomes possible to imagine that digital revenue will decrease for at least part of 2009. Nisenholtz didn’t do anything rash like attach any numbers to his comments, but he did add a little bit of color: His About.com unit, which is boosted by cost-per-click/search ads, is still doing okay-ish. But the business of selling display ads to Times Web sites is getting pummeled, and could be ‘under great stress’ next year, he says.”
New York Times: Here’s How Much Cash We Need To Survive (Silicon Alley Insider): “With the patient help of the folks at the NYT, we’ve put together a schedule of how much cash the New York Times Co. needs to come up with and when. Barring asset sales or further deterioration of the business, here’s the bottom line for the next three years:
- 2009: $214 million of cash needed
- 2010: $546 million of cash needed
- 2011: $500 million of cash needed
“If current revenue and expense trends continue, the business itself will soon stop generating cash and start consuming it. Unless the company significantly cuts costs or sells assets, therefore, NYT Co. will likely need more cash than we have outlined here. In a Dec. 9 press release, the company said it was looking at various options for raising this cash, including revolving loan agreements and equity or debt offerings. Details in this online spreadsheet.”
Most Emailed News: Many news sites offer a “most e-mailed” feature. This mashup aggregates headlines of the current most-emailed stories from several major news organizations, including CNN, NY Times, BBC, Washington Post, LA Times, USA Today, Times of India, and more. Intriguing view into which kind of news has “legs” online.
