Aspen NewBizNews 5

Assumptions

In the beginning was the word.

And the word was....

Hyperlocal

New News

Organization

Framework

Publicly supported journalism

Next

Hyperlocal business

Assumptions

• 5 million metro market
• 99 blogs (areas of 60k, 35k, 20k)
• 12 PPV/user
• 12 avails/page; 55% STR
• CPM: $12 overall; $7.50 local network; $5 national

Hyperlocal business

Potential dollars

Potential uses

• WHYY budget: $6m
• Foundations supporting related causes, Boston: $173 million.
• Voice of San Diego: $1.2m, 2 yrs
• Minnpost: 807 members, $320,700
• Spot.US 800 donations, $32k
• Projection: $3m

Optimizing hyperlocal

What would you do with $3 million?

• Investigative
• Statehouse
• Collaborative, crowdsourced project
• Organization, training

• Improve ad products & services sold
• Metro network
• Local networks
• E-commerce
• Reducing costs

Ecosystem

• Hyperlocal
• New news organization
• Framework
• Publicly supported

State of hyperlocal

• Town blog revenue: up to $200k
• Market: 60k seems optimal (range 5k-150k-millions)
• 10K hyperlocal blogs in U.S. 1K blogs in Brooklyn alone

CUNY survey

Potential structure

• NPR/PBS David Fanning Aspen Ideas proposal
• NFP news org (a la San Diego, MinnPost, New Haven)
• NFP adjunct to news org (a la Huffington Post)
• Independent efforts (Spot.US)
• Investigative news network

Tasks

• Enable metro network
• Enable local networks
• Coordinate national advertising
• Enable e-commerce
• Train local sites: playbook
• Technology platforms
• Collaboration platforms

At Aspen

After Aspen: CUNY

Needs

• Polish models & continues discussion
• Share best practices
• Hold events

• Specific experience
• Questions
• New ideas
• Needs
• Priorities
• Investment & experimentation
• Best practices

Goals

New Business Models for News

Photo: Flickr/Sleeping Sun

• Investment
• Experimentation
• Technolgy
• Standards
• Research/analysis
• Means to share best practices
• More models
• Private, public, nonprofit initiatives
• Education (& reeducation)
• Advertiser research, discussion, education
• What else?....

• Top-25 market
• Post-paper

Framework business

City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism

Next: CUNY

NewsInnovation.com

Specific

Sustainable

Open

• Link economy framework and content marketplaces
• Hyperlocal business laboratory and incubator
• Advertiser research & models
• Publicly supported journalism models & best practices
• Transparency: means & impact

• International best practices: meeting & sharing
• International coverage (the Baghdad problem)
• New distribution means: API, embeddable paper, networks
• Tools, technology, equipment
• Training: need & impact

Lines of business

• Serving fee: 15% of local ads
• Local network fee: 20%
• Metro-wide serving fee: 15%
• National ad enablement fee: 20%
• Citizen sales training fees

Also

• Transparency
• Volunteerism
• National networks
• Vertical interest networks
• B-to-B's role
• Ethnic media

And...

Ecosystem review

Revenue opportunities

NNO Tasks

• Reporting: metro-wide, beat, investigative
• Sell metro-wide advertising into network
• Curation of network
• Collaboration with network
• Journalistic training

• Paid content: partial or full
• Subscription
• Micropayment
• Memberships
• Ecommerce (see: Telegraph's hangers)
• Ad networks (see: Glam)
• Advertiser services (news org as agency)
• Events
• Lists & databases
• Education (see: RosenblumTV)
• Mobile (advertising, apps)
• Print products (see: Bakersfield, MyHeimat)
• Niche sites
• Donations (See: Spot.US)
• Deals (see: AnnArbor.com)
• Gift card exchanges (see: HalfOffAmerica)
• Premium products (see: gambling)
• Cafe (see: AnnArbor.com, Futuroom)

Optimizing: NNO

Network benefits

• Metro-wide network sales
• New network distribution:

> reverse syndication

> API

> embeddable paper

> network promotion

• Collaboration on news
• Creation of verticals

Assumptions

• Staff (yr 1-3): Edit: 26-47 Total: 46-90
• Audience (yr 1-3): 1m-3m
• PPV/month/user: 12
• CPM: $12 base

NNO business

Optimizing: NNO

Also: Paid & blowout models

Mignon Media

Lines of business:

• Local targeted web services
• Business listings
• Events
• Themed issues
• Training
• Marketplace
• Coupons
• Newsletters