#MagNet11: Dismantling the print-digital divide

Yesterday afternoon at MagNet I participated in a panel alongside Philippe Gohier of Macleans and Doug Wallace of The Kit, moderated by Arjun Basu. It was a lot of fun and went by far too quickly. Luckily, Shannon Ward of OnTrack Media was kind enough to take extensive notes and share them with me for the blog. Thanks, Shannon!

First, the Introductions

Doug Wallace - Editor and Associate Publisher of Content, The Kit
- print isn’t enough
- print & digital need to play off and reinforce each other
- budget needs to be allocated for this

Philippe Gohier - Web Editor, Maclean’s
- it’s really about harmonizing print & digital (not dismantling)
- content needs to be different for each medium and publishers need to understand what people are doing with it

Kat Tancock
- storytelling is the key regardless of medium
- great story about BCMag inspiring and keeping a connection to BC while she lived in NZ, and some 8 year old kid having the same experience with digital today!
- good editing is key today
- these are exciting times because we have so many more options for storytelling

Moderator: Arjun Basu - Editorial Director, Spafax

A: Are there commonalities in what people  expect from media?
P: Commenting is same core functionality that it has always been. It is simply reacting to content in a public or semi-public fashion. It is an enduring feature of how people read news
D: Good tweets will lure digitally savvy readers
P: Long form narrative on the web is ok thanks to ipad, etc., but what works better on web is primary source journalism (ie live blogging gov’t committee meetings)
K: It’s an issue of time & place rather than platform & reader. Recognizing that readership changes at different times of day – not that people necessarily want short content on web. As tech changes, so will people’s usage
(eg She read girl w/ Dragon Tattoo on iPhone on the subway)

A: Print is glorified, web seems to be denigrated. Why the bias??
D: Yes, but it will change with time. Advertisers still want print regardless of higher ROI on web, but cost is factor.
K: All print is not created equal (ie paper quality, design), but with new tech digital can be just as beautiful and also fun to play with. Remember we all learned to read on paper so we have built-in nostalgia.
P: We’re only starting to create good reading experiences on web. For instance, SEO is getting in the way, the obsession with page views over other metrics. Web needs to get better in terms of reading experience
K: google is working to fix this, starting to value publishers in terms of them having authority over random websites

A: We’re in a phase of the web that can be compared to when TV was treated like radio. These are early days and there is a lot to figure out. How has the editor’s job changed with a multi-platform environment? How do they need to adapt?
D: Storytellers will never go away but editors need to get more technical
K: Editors need to be be part of web culture (collaborative, sharing , linking, tweeting). Web editors are always working in tandem with the world, not just once a week/month. Editors need to have some tech skills to deal with the coders effectively

A: How have you had to change going from print to digital (to Phil & Doug)?
P: Everyone needs to remember that they’re working toward the same thing whether they are technical or not. Developers need to have their head in the publishing game as well, they need to always have eye to producing better news.

A: Silos are a problem – how should an office be structured so people talk to each other?
K: I had an idea that magazine offices should move around once in awhile so everyone gets exposed to all parts of the team and gets the benefit of different perspectives (web editors get to do this more than print)

A: What does work in digital and not in print or vice-versa?
P: Primary source works well with digital only. “Professorial editorial” doesn’t work very well online (i.e traditional Maclean’s editorial does not work online). It is too haughty (Arjun). There is an expectation of confrontation on the web (pugilistic style).
K: Silos work well in print, but not being able to share online is not ok. (i.e ipad article with no share links) – Wired does this well on ipad app. Makes things easy on digital from platform to platform.
D: Video is great online and it is really fun

A: Do digital page turners on website work anymore?
K: they are archaic (amen!!). We need to make things easy for people on the web. If I have to zoom, it will not work

A: Paywalls – how long will it take for people to realize we will pay for content and not everything is free? (gave itunes store example, people pay for music now)
P: First, we need to figure out a coherent way to sell it to them. Current models are confusing. There is no good way for people to buy. There is an effort to minimize print cannibalization, but not all readers can go out and get a print copy! Suggests a freemium model (regular and first class – people are all going to the same place but with a better experience)
D: We’re all experimenting right now (and it’s a very expensive experiment – Kat). gives NY Times example.

A: Another question re: digital biz model that I didn’t quite catch
K: Problem of scarcity & quality, learning on the web that mags are in many times similar and lots are trying to present the same info. The economics change quickly and innovation is key.
K: Food bloggers sell cookbooks even though they give away many recipes for free
A: Brings up the google print magazine in UK, suggests there is talk of a print twitter magazine

Audience Question: Doesn’t it take more, not less time to read on the web? That’s why mags @ airports work well.
D: Digital can take longer to find the entry point
A: Brings up the buzzword “context”. Web has expanded the definition of context.

A: Let’s talk design & format. Do we expect good design on the web?
K: I do.
D: I insist!
K: Design is getting much better. Sites are starting to look like they’ve taken that next step that they didn’t 3 years ago
P: I actually don’t like our design online, but don’t mind the print version. Websites need to conform to the way users are using them. Referenced someone that said, “design is how it works”. Look at metrics and get an idea of how to present it in a way that users want.
A: …and that can change constantly
P: Gives pagination example  - people don’t read past page 2, but if page views (rather than actual reader engagement) is your metric then that will affect your design
P: We need art directors in our industry (web) badly!

A: Are we leaving to much to the web guys?
K: Or leaving design to web designers who don’t understand how to ‘distract people enough to read your content’

Audience Question: what’s the best way to put your print mag online?
K: Put it on your website, not in flip edition (like wired)
A: First ask, why am I going on the web? If you don’t have a good answer, you’re damaging your brand. If the answer is to enhance reader experience, then you will want to do more than a page turner.

Audience Question: Is maclean’s making more $ online than offline?
P: Hell no!
K: But you’re spending less
P: There just isn’t enough revenue to have massive resources on web. I was amazed at how little it would take to buy all ads on our website (5k)
K: digital is 40% of rev @ wired but they have 40 stories a day. “If you play small you’re going to stay small”

A: Where are we going?
D: Publishers are looking for a way to add a web component to their print with a reasonable cost model.  that is what a good art director can do.

A: Does a good art director need to think both print & digital?
D: Writers have to as well
P: Mobile is not the saviour people think it is. iPad actually make things harder, doesn’t mean people will automatically shell out $$ for what we did 5 years ago.
K: We need to evolve metrics beyond page views to targeted products (ex.national geographic is doing good iPad stuff). The beauty of iTunes store is impluse buying, but you need to price so it can be an impulse buy

A: Brings up Apple’s new magazine rack
K: Zinio dropped the ball and I’m hoping Apple will pick it up

A: Example of kid who tried to zoom a print pub. Aren’t we just pushing info, does platform matter in the end?
K: No
P: Yes, though there is a lot of crossover. What you do best in print is rarely what you do best on web. It’s a different experience readers are looking for. The two things are separate (ex web on tv)
D: What we do on the web would not make sense on the web. web and print need to live together and play off of each other rather than being separate camps
K: Print isn’t dying, but it is going to become a nostalgia item. Readers are changing, ie. she can’t read printed paper anymore. Deliver what the reader wants for where the reader is.

A: “Printyness” of magazines is rising.  Magazine’s are embracing their difference from the web.
Audience Comment: Community is key to online success, but hasn’t been exploited yet
K: the beauty of the web is it isn’t limited by geography

Audience Comment: It isn’t just a revenue issue, it’s also about cost. The model needs to work both ways.
K: Content that is great in print isn’t always the content you find in magazines

Audience Question: What is your opinion on physical newsstands?
K: Canadian newsstand is weak to begin with
A: Newsstand for many mags is just a branding vehicle. that audience can’t be proven well to advertisers. The web does data so much better, there is much more to sell, but it is honest. quoted someone” the difference b/wn old media and new media is truth.” the old metric system (PMB) is ludicrous.
K: The videos people want to watch are not where advertisers want to be
A: Had a one month app sponsorship recently! “What does that even mean?”
P: Revenue depends on pageviews but it depends on the sections people don’t actually go to, to the point where it is crippling

Audience Question: Are print subscribers the same or different from the digital subscribers?
P: Right now, we can’t know. unifying metrics needed
K: Rogers example  - her ipad sub was running out so they sent her a physical copy
K: Online ads are bad.
D: Design is the largest advantage that print has – people consider ads content
K: Is that because the ads are so much better done?
D: On web its easy to ignore advertising?

Audience Question: What is the “real cost” to produce an online pub if the content comes from writers already on staff for the print pub?
P: We effectively have two separate operations (web & print) and content is licensed from print ops. A certain % of revenue goes to the print pub to cover writing costs.

A: Is there pressure to make web financially sustainable?
P: We don’t make enough money to pay for one month of a top writer
A: Newyorker.com doesn’t create any original content except blogs (writers on retainer). these writers post when they want (have access to CMS)
K: Web writing is about interacting with a community of readers (i.e. good writers who have good twitter following is worth more than another writer)
D: My editors get paid to create a certain amount of pages and they agreed to let me repurpose in order to expand our sub base (but he was a start-up essentially)

Audience Question: What are ad rates for apps?
K: Admob and iAd take a %
A: Sponsorship is a model. It’s like the wild west – that’s why a brand is so important, right type of eyeballs regardless of format
D: Advertisers are buying across platforms, so it may be thrown in or at least not costed out on its own

Quoted: On Apple’s subscription model

From tech blogger John Gruber of Daring Fireball:

The idea with Apple’s 70-30 revenue split is that developers and publishers can make it up in volume — that people aren’t just somewhat more willing to pay for content through iTunes than other online content stores, they are far more willing. The idea is that Apple has cracked a nut no one else¹ has — they’ve created an ecosystem where hundreds of millions of people are willing to pay for digital content.

Unfortunately he’s missing a few complexities of the issue from the publishers’ perspective, most notably name-gathering (although many analysts are for good reason not sympathetic about its absence in Apple’s model), but it’s a good read and raises some important points.

Q&A with Suite101 CEO Peter Berger

Last year, I posted on SEO-oriented content creation… well, factory is a good word… Demand Media. The goal was to point out what they’re doing right (they are making money, after all) and what we can learn from them.

Today, I’m shifting the focus to another big online content publisher, this one homegrown: Suite101, based out of Vancouver. Their model is quite different from Demand’s: while the former generally pays writers on a fixed (and low) per-article rate and has them write preselected articles based on analysis of real web searches, Suite101 pays in advertising royalties and lets writers choose their titles and topics. I asked Suite101 CEO Peter Berger to answer a few questions about the Suite101 model and what magazine publishers can learn from it.

Q: What is Suite101? How does it work?

Suite101 publishes original, informative, fact-based articles written by freelance contributors. We help non-fiction writers build online profiles and audiences for their expertise. Writers choose the topics they want to cover and work with our team of professional editors to publish them online.

Our editors are mostly from the print journalism world and are based across North America with some Canadian bias: right now approximately 80% of Suite101.com editors are Canadian.

Through our editors and our online training, we work with writers to identify the most attractive angles for making their knowledge accessible online, and then guide them in establishing themselves as authorities in their fields. We would encourage that every writer or topic-expert give it a try, but begin with an open mind and get ready to write at least 20 to 30 evergreen articles. To really begin making money at this, you should also be ready to experiment with tips we provide about things such as how to title articles so they get found online.

Suite101 is Canada’s largest content website and has grown fast over the last few years, recently passing CBC.ca as the top Canadian-owned content site. We get over 28 million unique visitors each month and have published over 10,000 writers. Last year we launched sites in France and Spain, and in 2008 launched a German version. Our English-language site Suite101.com also ranks as one of the top 100 websites, in terms of US traffic. We’re based in Vancouver, and have been publishing online for 13 years.

Q: How does Suite101 make money?

Reading our articles is free – Suite101 generates revenue through online advertising. Given the nature of our articles (non-fiction, mostly evergreen material, lifestyle-focused), the biggest source of income are performance-based ads/text ads.

As for payment and rights, we share advertising revenues with the writers, and writers retain the copyright to their work. We ask for only one year of exclusive electronic publishing rights.

Q: How does Suite101 pay its writers and editors?

Writers participate directly in the revenues generated on the articles they write, for as long as the articles are live on the site and are being read. Depending on the commercial attractiveness of the areas they specialize in and how much they worked with their content and our team, this can be lucrative – our best writers earn north of $3,000 each month in royalties from previously written content. (For example, if they didn’t ever write another article they would still get this amount each month, for as long as their articles are on the site. Quite a few of them talk in our writer forums about paying their mortgages this way.)

However contrary to intuition, there is very little correlation between the number of articles a writer has contributed and the royalties they earn. A lot has to do with the topic and how many readers are seeking that information.

We pay writers each month via PayPal.

Our 45 editors are part of our team and are paid based on section-specific responsibilities and the amount of articles they oversee.

Q: What can magazine publishers learn from the Suite101 model?

Our model is probably most interesting for magazine publishers who want to build up audiences that are independent from the “destination” traffic they typically have built up. This is a step that tends to be very hard for organizations rooted in offline thinking. Having a website does not signify an organization has embraced online. Being an online pioneer, Suite101 has learned and demonstrated that:

• helping people write what they know can be lucrative
• if you want to be successful, you must research potential audiences and the commercial prospect of content prior to creating it (or assigning it)
• in every case, great quality works better than adequate pieces
• royalty-based payment is the fairest combination of rewarding great content while still keeping a scalable system

Success in new online content models is something that has to be grown over time – it takes persistence. We have not yet seen a single example where this was done without effort and patience, but the long term rewards make it very worthwhile for writers and publishers alike.

How to make money online

The debate is still on (and for good reason) about how the media can make money with their online properties. Readership is certainly there, but display advertising isn’t bringing in enough revenue and most readers are unwilling to pay to read articles online. The New York Times is said to be about to charge a monthly fee of $5 for access, but whether the strategy will work is questionable. (They might suck me in, though – I’ve become extremely addicted to their excellent health section.)

The Guardian recently spoke with Chris Anderson of Wired on his thoughts on monetizing media websites. His ideal model, they write, is that we shouldn’t charge for everything, but for those things that people are really willing to pay for: “It’s not about whether to charge but choosing carefully which specialised content people will pay for and developing additional premium services.” Golf Digest, for example, is considering starting a branded club that will charge for membership in exchange for services, discounts or other premiums.

The million-dollar question, of course, is what will people pay for? Figure that out, price the model well, and you may just bring in profit from your brand in excess of advertising, using the “free” content on the website as a lure.

The problem with pay walls

Just came across this piece on pay walls by Scott Rosenberg. His thesis? “It’s not the pay, it’s the wall”:

The problem is that the steps publishers take to maximize revenue end up minimizing the value and utility of their Web pages. Building a “pay wall” typically means that only a paying subscriber can access the page — that’s why it’s a wall. So others can’t link directly to it, and the article is unlikely to serve as the starting point for a wider conversation beyond the now-narrowed pool of subscribers.

This is an important thing to keep in mind when considering not just pay walls, but also registration walls, where readers must register to comment on or even see content. Be very careful that you don’t put so much of your site on the registration-required side of the wall that there’s nothing left for anyone to discover or share.

Web vs. print at Wired

Thanks to Rex Hammock for pointing out this interesting comment thread on a Boing Boing article about Wired that itself comments on a New York Times article discussing Wired’s ad revenue problems. (And this is why I love the internet.) Discussion topics include:

• Does print matter?
• The division between print and web staff
• Could wired.com survive the death of Wired?
• Can a print publication really be relevant when discussing tech?
• Why was/is the liquor cabinet on the mag side?

Chris Anderson even gets in on the discussion, but most of all the thread is worth a read (although I confess it’s long and I haven’t gotten through the whole thing yet) for web readers’ perspectives on magazines.

And I love this comment from former Wired staffer Brian Lam:

The spirit of what makes a magazine a magazine doesn’t have to die because it moves to the internet. In fact, it just needs to be treated more like a magazine and given the support the magazines have received so far.

Which comes first: print or online?

In the magazine industry, the typical state of affairs is that the print product is primary, and web comes second. The bulk of the resources (be that time, money or staff) go to print, and online gets just enough to survive.

Which is fine, if your only goal is to succeed in print. But if you want to have a truly great website, you can’t always see it as second best. After all, you’re not just competing with other magazine websites. You’re competing with the entire online world, including many amazing websites with no print product to worry about at all.

Obviously revenue is an issue here. Our websites just aren’t bringing in a comparable amount of money as our magazines. But let’s be clear: while many magazines are still cherished by many readers, they’re not all going to survive the Internet age, and those that do will have to evolve. The web just does so many things better than print.

So when making decisions about your website, stop and think: is this the choice I would make if the website were all I had? Or am I doing this because I think of the website as a complement to the magazine?

If it’s the latter, that’s fine. Just be sure that it’s a conscious decision – and you’d better be confident that it’s the right one.

Moving backwards

Generally in the magazine world, if content is shared across platforms it goes from print to web – rarely, with the exception of letters and some user-generated content, does it go the opposite direction. But magculture.com brings up a very cool example of exactly that: a printed collection of blog posts called “Things our friends have written on the Internet 2008″. Go and check it out, it’s a creative idea and something you can take inspiration from for future multiplatform projects.

What’s your primary business?

A New Yorker article I referenced the other day emphasized the importance of identifying your core business, and asking yourself if you make magazines or content. (Content, obviously, is platform-independent, whereas magazines are not.) Further to that, I found this quote from an article on Publishing Executive interesting:

Many publications today are seeing the future of their businesses shift more toward the Internet. For Christopher Ruddy, editor of Newsmax.com and Newsmax magazine, the future is the Internet. “Publishers should start thinking that their businesses are really Web-based, and their magazine is an adjunct to that,” he says. “The Internet is the way we get most of our subscribers and promote our magazine.” In other words, magazine publishers today should think more in terms of the Internet as their primary business with a print component to it. “We think of the Web as the main hub for our publishing company, and our magazine helps build our community and our brand,” Ruddy says.

What do you think? Can you imagine your publication shifting its primary focus to the web?

10 keys to making your magazine website great

1. Create excellent content
As in print, this is number one by far. Create editorial that you believe in, you would click on and you would read. Without this step, the rest is unimportant.

2. Make it accessible
How will your potential readers find your content? Is it easy for readers to share with friends, whether through email or social media? Think about how to make content accessible for site visitors, Google and the rest of the web.

3. Make it web-friendly
Make your content easy to read on-screen by keeping it tight and focused, breaking it up, bolding key phrases and using bullets or numbered points when appropriate. Ensure titles are clickable and make sense.

4. Make it timeless
This isn’t always possible – dated content is dated content – but every article that can be evergreen should be evergreen. Make its lifespan as long as possible.

5. Think
It’s easy to slip into auto-pilot, but your work will suffer. Always think critically about the decisions you make and reassess what you’ve done in the past so you can make your work better. The web is constantly changing and you should be too.

6. Link
Don’t exist in a bubble – link to others and they will link back to you, plus you’ll be making your site more useful for readers. Believe in linking karma.

7. Be creative
Think beyond articles and explore other formats: slideshows, video, audio, blogs, tools. Explore how you can best serve your reader.

8. Communicate and engage
The best thing the web has to offer is its interactivity. Make use of this to create a conversation with your readers, whether it’s through site forums, newsletters, social media tools like Twitter or Facebook or simply email. Offer readers a chance to participate in your site.

9. Analyze
Make sure you have good analytics software, and keep track of your site stats. Know what people are reading and how they’re getting to your site. Know where they’re leaving from. Then use this information to develop and change.

10. Experiment
Know what’s common practice, but don’t rely on it. Stay informed about the latest and greatest in online publishing. Constantly experiment to see what works for your reader and your site. Try new things and always be willing to evolve.