The on-line only newspaper begins

I'm still trying to understand web advertising.

I checked the site from front to back. Every page has a banner ad. There are about six of those with a few repeated on multiple pages. As you click through a section, it seems that the same banner ad is on every story link.

Each page also has one or two additional adds.

I counted ads from 15 different advertisers. Some are repeated on more than one page.

So how much did they page for each ad? Is it based on clicks? On page views? I don't get it.

How much cash is generated from 15 advertisers?

 

You wanna talk old-school going online, check this:
http://blog.wired.com/furthermore/2007/02/worlds_oldest_p.html

 

I love the top comment on the page right now:
"Interesting news, but this should not be the top story. After such a crazy storm, this should have waited to be placed at the top."

Quickly followed by:
"Only took 'em five years."

and

"Ah, the newspaper death spiral begins!"

 

Not much fun for folks who have to re-apply for jobs or leave the pub.

 

Many more papers will follow this pattern, or one very similar.

 

I hope this goes well. This business needs to find ways to make money on the internet.

 

By no means am I a business guy. In fact, I've always hated math and anything to do with sales and marketing.

But I sat down last night and crunched a lot of numbers. In fact, I was up past 2 a.m. What I discovered was pretty alarming. With some investment capital and lots of technology-savvy media wisdom, a person could launch a start-up online newspaper and turn quite a nice profit.

I started with the notion that it would take a certain number of dollars to generate a certain amount of Web site traffic. Much of the expense would be an investment in journalists. I was thinking along the lines of five young, exuberant, hungry men and women working for about $25,000 per year. Not great cash. But nothing unheard of in our industry, particularly for a start-up.

Altogether, I figured up an annual expense of $500,000. My basic premises was that a person could generate 10,000 or so daily visitors with that kind of investment.

Then I looked at what a person could do in terms of ads. It seemed that one might be able to pull in about $500,000 annually in ad revenue with my model company.

Of course, the key is finding $500,000 to throw on the card table.

Where a start-up would have a huge advantage is in being able to start from the ground floor and build a modern-day mansion. Meanwhile, many newspapers are trying to modernize a building that is about to collapse.

The irony is that the people being sent packing right now are the very people with the know-how to build online sites with very localized, quite journalistically-solid coverage. If you want to stick it to the man, just imagine what would happen if you took a year to build an online newspaper from the ground while the big boys are still trying to figure out how to make the transition. They'll be left in the cold.

Of course, we all know stories about Joe Blow, the business guy who decided he could start an online newspaper and rail against city commissioner so-and-so. And we've heard about Mr. Tech, who thought he could parlay his javascript skills into a profitable sports Web site.

What we've yet to see much of are the true journalism folks throwing their professionalism into this realm. Now that these folks are out on their asses, I have a feeling the online newspaper is going to be the story of 2009, if not 2008.

 

In Canada a 16,000 circ. means one person. Maybe two if you're lucky. There are daily papers in the neighbourhood of 30K circ with only one person.

 

I hadn't sent out actual newspaper clippings when applying for jobs in years. Cut my work into a nice, Word-based format and emailed them out. Compatible for all, and never had any complaints.

 

How does the potential employer know you didn't go back and make it better after the story published?

 

As a sports editor, I'm not going to hire somebody I don't think I can trust that far. Plus if you are in the running for a job, whoever is hiring is going to Google your name and check out some samples of your work beyond what you've sent in. It's also pretty typical to ask around and find out if the copy editors are making the person look good or if they can actually write a little.

 

Trust me, I'd love to email copies of my stories - even those from the website. I just always thought the purpose of requiring us to send clips or copies of clips was to show it's your work. I know some papers will accept emailed copies, but I didn't realize people will accept Word copies ...