Newspaper Websites Still Feeling Their Way, But Some Progress Noted

Newspapers are still lurching their way around the Web, a new study finds, but at least they are making some progress. The Bivings Group released a study today that quantifies the Website features of the top 100 newspapers in the U.S. Among the findings: Nearly every newspaper site has reporter-written blogs and some form of video; features that elicit content from readers are on the rise; podcasts and mandatory registrations are down; social networking features are pretty much non-existent.

You can pretty much see all of the findings in two graphs, which I’ve marked up. (Click on the images for a larger view). In the one above, which shows the penetration of all the online features on newspaper sites, 93 percent have reporter blogs and 100 percent offer articles in RSS feeds. Yet only one percent put ads in those RSS feeds. That seems like an opportunity, even though most RSS ads are complete garbage and readers hate them.

In terms of reader-submitted material, newspapers are more comfortable accepting images than words. More newspaper sites accept photos from readers (58 percent) than videos (18 percent) or articles (15 percent). Comments are less controversial, with 75 percent allowing reader comments on articles. One thing I found curious is that 57 percent of newspaper sites offer their editions in PDF form. Why? A PDF of a page, maybe, but nobody prints out the whole edition.

The graph below shows the biggest changes between this year and last. Newspaper sites that incorporate user-generated content is on the rise (58 percent in 2008, versus 24 percent in 2007), as are comments on articles (75 percent in 2008, versus 33 percent in 2007) and bookmarking (92 percent, versus 44 percent).

Sites that require registration are down from 29 percent to 11 percent, which means that most newspapers have finally figured out that putting up any barriers, even a temporary one, between readers and articles simply drives readers to other sites.

Original post

Comments

[Tim Nott:]

The all (entire print edition) or nothing (single article) take on PDFs is about par for the course in the industry. What about PDFs of select articles and features?

Yesterday's most-read/most-popular + crossword, sudoko, etc. Any number of micro subscriptions could be delivered. Maybe I just want the sports page - better yet, just prep sports.

Or, let users flag articles and features they'd like to print as they browse the site and then make a PDF on the fly.

People still like print for many reasons. Portability, higher quality display, ability to take notes, posting on bulletin boards, scrapbooks, on and on.

Why not cater to this and drop in some ads? The niche nature would allow for great targeting.

I'm interested to see where the Berkley printcast project goes - it seems to be going in this direction.

While the web has made a more level playing field for the likes of blogs, TV stations and social networking start-ups, the depth of coverage is still in the newspaper. The web is better suited to quick reads - but it could be a launch pad for continued delivery of in-depth coverage.

The demise of print is greatly exaggerated. The purveyors of print simply need to adapt to the needs of a changed world.

2008 Dec 19 12:41 PM

[Scott Bateman:]

Newspaper Web sites offer little in the way of PDFs because they generate almost no value in the form of readership or revenue. Many have tried and many have failed to turn them into a viable niche product.

Only a small number of readers view PDF pages or sections because they require high bandwidth to download and especially because viewing an entire page is clunky at best. As a result of low readership, advertisers won't sponsor the PDFs to pay for the cost of producing them.

The same problem holds true with RSS feeds, mobile content and local video -- readership is so small that advertisers won't pay to put their ads in them.

2008 Dec 19 04:13 PM