I'm going to stick my neck way out in a few minutes and predict where technology is going to take us over the next 30 years. But before I do that, I want to talk with you a minute about:
•How far we have come in the last 30 years.
•How it has made us re-examine how and what we publish.
•What we should be doing now with the technology available to us.
30 years makes a difference
Look back with me for a minute to 1974. If you were in publishing, you were probably making the transition from hot type to film. This saved hours of composition time.
Over the next 30 years we went to front end computer systems or small self-contained paper and chemical systems and pasted up our pages. Then we graduated to the personal computer, pagination and electronic transfer of files. This increased the time we spent composing on the screen but cut out the costly, time-consuming practice of waxing and pasting up pages.
In 1974, the Internet was something only a few of us had heard of. It was an electronic tool scientists used to exchange research. Who could have imagined then what it would become?
Time magazine's model
In Target Marketing magazine last month, writer Alicia Suman interviewed Ned Desmond, the president of Time Interactive. His company is responsible for Time Inc.'s on-line content. This includes the web sites for not only Time magazine but the company's seven other magazine web sites — among them People, Southern Living and Cooking Light.
Time had followed many of us into the free web site business. This was the model for the alternative press and free distribution newspapers and magazines. We told ourselves we could give the content away to increase traffic to our sites. All those eyeballs on our sites would become highly desirable to advertisers. The money is in advertising sales, we said.
How many of us are recovering the cost of operating our sites with advertising sales?
Time quickly found out that giving away their content on the web wasn't stimulating subscription sales. It was depressing them. Just as many of us are finding out in newspaper publishing. Neither was it producing a gold mine of advertising sales.
When subscribers found that they could get — without charge — the same things they were paying to receive in our newspapers, they quit renewing their subscriptions. Well, duh.
Why advertisers aren't beating down our doors to advertise on our sites is a mystery to most of us. But we're finding it a hard sell, aren't we?
Time faces reality
Time Interactive management faced reality and decided to adopt the paid model that Consumer Reports and the Wall Street Journal pioneered. That is, if you want our content, you're going to pay for it, whether in print or on the web.
"We said to ourselves, let's no longer look at the web as a stand-alone business, judged mainly by its success in generating advertising revenue," Desmond said.
"Let's look at the overall contribution to the business — advertising plus its contribution to the economics of the print circulation business."
Now Time Interactive will sell you a subscription to its print magazines, its on-line content or both. Not only that, they devise ways in their magazines to drive readers to their web sites.
For example, in an article on home entertaining, they refer readers to recipes for dishes described in the article that appear only on their web site. Now that's a model to think about.
The Blockbuster challenge
I heard recently that Blockbuster — the mega-video company that dominated its market — is under siege by an upstart named WebFlix. The upstart sells videos strictly on the Internet the way Amazon sells books and a whole variety of other products.
To meet the challenge, Blockbuster has cut its prices drastically and is doing away with penalties for late return of DVDs and videos. The company is even considering doing away with its brick-and-mortar stores and selling movies and music on the Internet. Without this technology, WebFlix could not have started up nor could it have had such an impact on Blockbuster.
Think about that model and how it could affect the publishing and distribution of news, advertising and other information in our markets. What an exciting prospect.
My predictions for 2034
Lets look ahead at where technology may take us. In many of our small markets, we are now the dominant provider of news and advertising. But broadcast, outdoor, direct mail and other print publishers have cut into our domain. What's more, our markets have changed as the big box stores and discounters moved in and drove our Mom-and-Pop advertisers out of business.
Take heart. Technology can be our salvation – if we're smart and use it to our advantage.
Within the next 30 years, we will not only dominate our markets with our web presence, but we will be able to rival our brethren in broadcasting. Inexpensive, hand-held digital video cameras will give us the capability of live action, full color news reports on our subscribers' computer screens whenever they want the local news. And we'll be able to do it in real time with the power of satellite transmission. Most of that stuff is available to us today.
Our subscribers' computer screens may be a inch thick and big enough to hang on the wall. Subscribers also will have mini-laptop versions they can take to the bathroom or view in bed.
That means we will become even more visual with reporters doubling as videographers. Our equipment will be so light and mobile that it will make our notebooks look heavy.
Showing, not just telling
Of course, we will have to learn new reporting and editing skills. We will have to learn to show stories in ways that subscribers can grasp their meaning and significance.
The trouble with most TV news today is that it is shallow. TV reporters don't tell the complicated stories we tell — budgets, taxes, laws and ordinances— because they can't figure out how to make them visual. We will face that challenge, too.
We will have to learn to write for the voice and the camera, the ear and the eye. Simply sending our subscribers a text story with a color photo won't be enough.
And unlike the 6 p.m. TV news, we will be able to update stories as developments occur and our subscribers will be able to pick the stories they want to see when they want to see them.
Our first challenge is to change our mind set from thinking of them "readers" to realizing they are "subscribers". We can make local news compelling for them. That's still our franchise.
Our other challenge will be like Blockbuster's challenge. As technology becomes less expensive and easier to handle, more competitors will be attracted to our markets. To compete, we will have to be the best at what we do.
How technology changes the way we do business
©2005, The Bellune Company, Inc.
