Robert Osazuwa Ness

Fallout from the Great Newspaper Implosion

We will continue to see such painful changes as an industry built on local monopolies and 30% profit margins tries to reinvent itself for a future where news is a commodity. The focus will be on business models (perhaps) find paid content models for hand held devices, and more importantly deepen local content and go beyond local advertising to find new ways to ad value to local businesses. locoforlocal.blogspot....

Ads and News: Google Capitalizes on Old Idea

Great article. I still wince when I hear of newspapers talk of partnering with Google and Yahoo. Local newspapers still have an unmatched opportunity to corner the market for local advertising, as well as going beyond advertising to help businesses use the web to promote their products and services locally. Local businesses still have not figured it out. If Google takes that opportunity away from newspapers, then its truly game over. locoforlocal.blogspot....

A Sad Day for Newspapers

I agree that it is the problem is innovation. Innovation has to be applied to answering the question of "how can we develop new digital products based on local content and local advertising?". Merely taking made-for-print content and sticking it online with a pricetag is NOT innovation. locoforlocal.blogspot....

Newspaper Death Watch

1. It is not enough to charge for local content--which means just taking local content made for print on the web and stick a price tag for it. Newspapers need to redefine themselves as local media and go through the traditional product and customer development process to develop content specifically for the web.

2. If you want to look for business models that make money on the web, look towards Asia. Tencent, Cyworld, and others put Facebook and Youtube to shame. THERE ARE COMPANIES MAKING MILLIONS ON THE WEB. It just so happens that they are not from Silicon Valley.