Ditch all websites

The point is that newspapers pay for the content create.

Most profitable web sites (not all, but most) are only profitable because they draw on content that they didn't have to pay for, either leftover stuff from a print publication or user-generated.

*I* said most web companies aren't making money. They may be growing by leaps and bounds, but most of them are just burning through venture capital. The profitable ones are few and far between, because ad revenue still can't support full-time employees in most situations, and most people don't want to pay for most content.

 

We have all the typical AP copy everybody else does, plus a fulltime staff of writers and producers and a number of correspondents that will likely grow in the next couple of years.

We also have a staff of Fantasy writers, who produce copy for a Fantasy product that brings in a lot of revenue. So ours isn't the typical "advertising only" model to be sure.

I just return to something I say all the time -- that the web is still in its comparative infancy, and writing off its future as a revenue producer based on what exists in 2010 is silly.

To me, it's kind of like basing your projections of the earnings potential of newspapers based on what was happening in 1790. My belief -- and it's only that -- is that whatever comes our way, the 'Net can be the eventual equivalent of the newspaper cash cows of the '60s, '70s and '80s.

 

Were newspapers unprofitable in the 1790s?

 

wfw

 

CU is right what he/she said earlier. The paper's website and print product should be two totally different products in terms of editorial strategy---the online version all breaking news, in-game updates, a few blogs, tons of photos, chats, message boards, etc., and leave the print version for substantive reportingt, analysis, enterprise, etc.

If you still feel a compulsion that you HAVE to post all your print content because your one-track brain can't compute doing otherwise and all those Twitter neurons are firing and social-networking outlets are consuming your psyche, then post it 24-48 hours after it appears in print as an easy-to-find-and-navigate "immediate archive".

Shared staffs, all advertising across both platforms still bundled, etc., but two totally different worlds.

 

Instead of just saying things like "most sites" this and that, can you provide examples? I'm guessing ESPN.com, SI.com, Foxsports.com, CBSSports.com, Yahoo Sports, etc. pay for their own stuff. I'm curious as to the sites making a profit from "leftover" and "user-generated" content.

I am glad though that this conversation has diverted from the original post which was ridiculous on so many fronts.

 

No newspaper I ever worked at made a real commitment to the Internet, and I don't feel like I'm talking out of school saying that, because I think it's universal. Newspapers today are trying to produce two distinct products with less staff than they used for the one product.

Can't see why THAT hasn't worked.