New research set to show users' local news sites habits

In the ongoing discussion of finding innovative ways of using digital media and trying to generate income from such methods, it can be easy to quickly lose sight of your audience.

But, as freelance journalist Jon Slattery blogs, new research is set to reveal how, when and most importantly why people use local online news services.

He has reported on an announcement by The Newspaper Society that they have appointed Connect Insight to conduct the research.

The study, wanted ads Digital, will take place in January with results expected to be announced by the end of February. It is intended to complement the local media print and online planning tool Locally Connected which was launched by the Society in November.

According to The Newspaper Society, the project will use focus groups and in-depth interviews which will include accompanied web surfing sessions in which respondents will be quizzed by researchers while surfing news websites.

Keith Donaldson, NS head of research and insight, said: “Locally Connected has enabled us to see and quantify the unduplicated reach that local media websites add to the print product.

“Building on this, the wanted ads Digital will provide valuable insights into why people log on to their local media websites as opposed to any other news outlets, and how they use them.”

The study will look at usage of different areas of websites and services such as video, blogs and podcasts. It will also examine how local media online fits within the overall picture of online media and how it relates to its parent print product, the local newspaper.

It will certainly prove interesting for digital editors and journalists looking to refine their online product to generate much needed traffic.

WAN-IFRA launches World Newspapers Congress in India

Today sees the start of the 62nd World Newspaper Congress and 16th World Editors Forum in Hyderabad, India, hosted by WAN-IFRA.

Interestingly, the overall theme for the conference is 'Newspapers: A Multi-Media, Growth Business', something that may raise eyebrows of those watching their newsrooms struggle with plunging advertising revenues and shrinking circulation for their print products.

Naturally, how to tackle these hurdles is at the forefront of most of the keynote speeches and panel discussions.

Already, according to WAN’s own Shaping the Future of the Newspaper blog, Are Stokstad (Norway), executive vice president at A-Pressen, suggested that e-readers now make it necessary for newspapers to build strategies that combines both the traditional newspaper and the business model for e-reading.

He described how large investments have been made to expand the opportunities for online newpapers. Social networking sites have become a large part of the generation of these new online papers.

"This past year 3,000 print pages originated in social media. Next year we hope to increase this number to 30,000," he told the conference.

Social networking sites create groups of people interested in similar topics and activities. Many online newspapers are targeting their articles towards these groups, increasing online readership.

Meanwhile Martha Stone (USA), director of Shaping the Future of the Newspaper Project (pictured), talked about the opportunities available to newspapers through mobile phone technology.

"Text message advertising has become one of the hottest new ways to advertise," she said.

Stone also explained how mobile phones have become more than a way to just communicate with others.

She described how phones are becoming more advanced and can now be used not only for talking and texting, but also for online searching, television, blogs, advertising, alerts, and much more.

World Digital Media Trends, created by the SFN project, conducts research each year to show the latest revenue and newspaper trends. This year's study was posted in June and predicts the continued growth of digital media.

The Shaping the Future of the Newspaper blog will continue to bring full coverage of the conference, which will include discussions on Google featuring Kees Spaan, President of the Dutch Newspaper Publishers Association and Gavin O’Reilly, CEO of Independent News and Media as well as a presentation on what newspapers need to know for the digital future by Les Hinton, CEO of the Dow Jones newswire.

You can also follow the conference via the following Twitter feeds @NewspaperWorld and @WANindia2009, using the hashtag #WANindia09, or on Facebook at the conference page. There is also a dedicated congress blog.

Will JP's plunge into paywalls pay off?

The eyes of the local news industry will be on six small weekly newspapers owned by Johnston Press, as their websites are used in a paywall trial, Holdthefrontpage has revealed.

Since the story - which was followed up by the Guardian and Press Gazette along with other journalism blogs - broke, JP has confirmed the names of the six paid-for titles involved in the ground-breaking trial, which will run for three months.

They are the Worksop Guardian in Nottinghamshire, the Ripley and Heanor News in Derbyshire, the Whitby Gazette in North Yorkshire, the Northumberland Gazette, the Ayrshire-based Carrick Gazette and the Southern Reporter in Selkirk.

Visitors will now be unable to access content beyond the homepage unless they pay £5 for a 3-month subscription (the equivalent of 40p per week).

HTFP stated how four of the six have average weekly circulations of under 10,000 and one, the Carrick Gazette, sells just 2,572 copies a week.

JP's digital strategy director Lori Cunningham told HTFP: "It's a small scale trial so we can better understand what the consumer dynamics are around paid-for content.”

She added that the company currently had "no plans" to extend the trial beyond three months or to roll it out to other titles.

However HTFP reported that they have seen an internal company memo which makes clear that the trial will be extended if it proves a success.

"The switch to a paid-for model is part of a broader roll-out across Johnston Press and in line with industry moves in this area to find a sustainable business model going forward. Customers are used to paying for content in-paper and we are simply transferring this thinking online," the memo stated.

Meanwhile, Trinity Mirror indicated it would not rule out introducing a paywall on its titles although it has no current plans to do so.

Digital director Chris Bunyan said: "Now is a time when a lot of publishers are experimenting and over the years we'll see some failures and successes. We wouldn't rule it out."

Whether the trial is a success remains to be seen. Kevin Ward, editor of the Newsquest-owned Worcester News has previously suggested that local titles are enough of a “niche” product to be able to successfully charge for content.

However some of the comments on HTFP would suggest otherwise. One reader stated how he “wouldn’t visit for free, let alone pay for it,” complaining about the lack of interactive content on one of the sites involved in the experiment.

Another suggested that all such a trial would prove is how readers would be unwilling to pay for a “poor product” unless JP invested in quality copy.

Execs: Are your readers as loyal as you think?

If your readers can’t access your newspaper content online, don’t be so sure that they will come back to your print product.

That is the stark warning arising from a study by the American Press Institute on the attitudes of newspaper executives to digital content, highlighted by Professor Alfred Hermida on his Reportr.net blog.

According to Professor Hermida, the study (PDF) shows a shocking disconnect between the attitudes of executives and those of readers.

75% of execs thought that readers would return to the print product is they could not access the newspaper content online, in sharp contrast to only 30% of readers who said they would return to print.

68% of readers said they would actually go to other websites if their local newspaper website was no longer available.

The findings are all the more relevant, says Professor Hermida, given the current debate about locking content behind paywalls.

The API study found that nearly 60 percent of execs were considering charging for news, with 25% expected to start doing this in the next six months.

It also gave clear recommendations to execs considering putting content behind such a paywall, saying:

“For paid content to succeed, it must go well beyond repurposed print content and old models. Audiences are most likely to pay for unique content that is not available elsewhere for free. Fully paid blocks of repurposed local area newspaper content have not proven to be a significant revenue source for news websites that have tried this strategy.”

Professor Hermida argues that if a news organisation is going to consider charging for content, it needs to view it from the perspective of the audience.

The value of news and information is not determined by execs in a newsroom/boardroom, says Professor Hermida, rather, the value is determined by the audience.

Study shows that Journalists want quicker change to digital

Nearly half of all print newspaper journalists think their newsrooms are moving too slowly in the transition into digital news reporting reveals Editor and Publisher.

A study from Northwestern University's Media Management Center (MMC) finds that whilst publishers and sales directors are searching for ways to make digital news pay, newspaper journalists "have no trouble envisioning a career where news is delivered primarily online and to mobile devices instead of in print," according to the study "Life Beyond Print: Newspaper Journalists' Digital Appetite."

Study authors Vickey Williams, Stacy Lynch and Bob LeBailly surveyed almost 3,800 journalists in print, online, or hybrid jobs at 79 U.S. newspapers, asking their attitude towards shifting from print-only to multimedia.

The majority were still working in print, but did not want to continue doing so forever, according to the study. In fact, when dividing participants into six categories, depending on their level of enthusiasm for the transition into digital, just 6% of journalists fell into the category characterized as "Turn Back the Clocks," who wish the digital era would just go away.

"For several years we have heard that it is the journalists' resistance to change that was holding newspapers back," said MMC executive director Michael P. Smith. "What this study shows is that they are ready -- and some are even impatient -- for change."

Fully half of newsroom staffers fell into the category the study called "Moderately More," journalists who would prefer to work as much in digital as they do in print.

Another 12%, dubbed the "Digitals," are already doing most of their work in the digital space, and wish their paper were transitioning quicker from print.

The study also found that it was heavy use of the Internet outside of work and knowledge of online audiences and their preferences that drove digital appetite and it was there were no particular age groups, or levels of experience that distinguished those keen on digital content and those reluctant to change.

Finally, even in the face of job losses and employment uncertainty in the wake of the recession, the survey reports that journalists are surprisingly upbeat.

More than three-quarters, 77%, say they are somewhat or very satisfied with their current jobs, and 67% think it somewhat or very likely they will be in the news business two years from now. Most, 59%, even think they'll be working for their present newspaper.

The full report is available here.

The end of the road for paid content?

Bad news for struggling newspapers: nine out of ten UK consumers would never pay for online news, reports Press Gazette.

They highlight a survey of more than 2,000 consumers by Lightspeed Research which asked what content users wouldn’t be prepared to pay for online.

It found that 91 per cent of respondents would never pay for news online and 90 per cent would be unwilling to pay for news analysis.

This follows a Harris Interactive poll, commissioned last month by Paid Content, which found that just five per cent of readers were willing to pay for online news.

The survey, says the article, is yet further evidence against publishers, like Rupert Murdoch, who intend to start charging for access to their websites.

But, reports Press Gazette, News Corp claims to have conducted its own audience research in Australia, the UK and US, which gives it confidence that people will happily pay for news content across a range of digital devices.

Surprisingly, the Lightspeed survey found that it is the older age group that seems the most unwilling to pay for news content.

Of those aged 16 to 24, 86 per cent would never pay for news online, while in the 45 to 54 age sectors, 96 per cent said they would not pay, according to MediaWeek.

Huffington Post: better headlines from real-time testing

A/B testing - where you show half of your audience one version of something, the other half a different version and adjust accordingly based on the results - is a highly valued method of user research, from Google’s testing of its design tweaks, to Dustin Curtis’ experiment with direct commands and clickthrough rates.

Now the Huffington Post has got in on the act, according to a report by Zachary M. Seward at Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab, randomly showing one of two headlines to readers before permanently offering the headline that attracts the most clicks, something that, as a high-traffic site, they can determine within several minutes.

Considering the role that headlines play in attracting readers, Seward argues that it only makes sense to apply the best tools of market research to their crafting, likening the process to "a more rigorous version of magazines adjusting their covers based on newsstand sales."

Speaking to Seward at the Online News Association conference in San Fransisco earlier this month, Huffington Post's Chief Technology Officer Paul Berry said that the system was created inhouse, but wouldn’t disclose much else about how or how often it’s done.

He did tell Seward that Huffington Post editors have found that placing the author’s name above a headline almost always leads to more clicks than omitting it.

(Via Martin Stabe)

Mirror Seeks To Reflect Readers

The Mirror Group is looking to gather feedback from its readers by creating an online research community.

Journalism.co.uk reports that the organisation has deployed Market Evolution to coordinate the project, entitled Mirror Mouthpiece.

The community will be asked to provide its opinions on national titles including the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, and The People as well as accompanying websites.

Among the tools expected to be used by Mirror Mouthpiece are webchats, opinion polls, blogs and forums.

“The launch of Mouthpiece enables us to have a regular dialogue with our readers, putting them at the heart of what we do,” commented Richard Webb, managing director of the Mirror Group.

“Mouthpiece has already been used for advertiser projects and can give immediate insight and feedback on their campaigns.”