This is how a major newspaper dies, and is reborn online, in real-time: Shortly after 10 a.m. Pacific on Monday, I find out the fate of the 146-year-old Seattle Post-Intelligencer on — where else — Twitter. P-I “Big Blog” reporter Monica Guzman tweets the breaking news: “Publisher Roger Oglesby just announced in the P-I newsroom: Tomorrow will be our last print edition, but seattlepi.com will live on.” Guzman’s 21st-century bulletin immediately gets re-tweeted by others in the Seattle media scene.
This is how newspapers have thrived through the years, now online newspapers need to adapt to self-service advertising platforms for their online versions.
Great article. What the Seattle P-I--and all other papers that morph to online versions only--is build the brand. Worldwide.
Print versions stayed alive by building their brands locally. You saw the newsstands everywhere, the paper in the hands of commuters, people in coffee houses. Online versions will have to do the same: Make it a brand that people see everywhere in the physical AND online worlds.
For example, to the right of this article is a piece that says ((in effect) that a newes organization can do Twitter's "Brought to you by [news organization]." Not a bad idea, though perhaps difficult to implement.
Global brand-building will be more problematic but important. Seattle P-I's management may think that their future is local--providing news INTO that community and ABOUT that community--but they miss the point that, in fact, people elsewhere will want news ABOUT that region, considering it seminal role in the tech world.
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Online Journalism Experiment Begins in Seattle
Posted by: Renay San Miguel March 20, 2009 08:30 AMThis is how a major newspaper dies, and is reborn online, in real-time: Shortly after 10 a.m. Pacific on Monday, I find out the fate of the 146-year-old Seattle Post-Intelligencer on — where else — Twitter. P-I “Big Blog” reporter Monica Guzman tweets the breaking news: “Publisher Roger Oglesby just announced in the P-I newsroom: Tomorrow will be our last print edition, but seattlepi.com will live on.” Guzman’s 21st-century bulletin immediately gets re-tweeted by others in the Seattle media scene.
Print versions stayed alive by building their brands locally. You saw the newsstands everywhere, the paper in the hands of commuters, people in coffee houses. Online versions will have to do the same: Make it a brand that people see everywhere in the physical AND online worlds.
For example, to the right of this article is a piece that says ((in effect) that a newes organization can do Twitter's "Brought to you by [news organization]." Not a bad idea, though perhaps difficult to implement.
Global brand-building will be more problematic but important. Seattle P-I's management may think that their future is local--providing news INTO that community and ABOUT that community--but they miss the point that, in fact, people elsewhere will want news ABOUT that region, considering it seminal role in the tech world.
The message is simple: Build and sustain a brand.