Thanks for the comments. It is fascinating how the thread about newspapers became a newspaper vs. online comparison, as I had hoped.
RudeDog posted: "I would be very surprised if electronic news services were ever so popular that they could be considered a daily part of normal American lives."
Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the Multimedia Lab at MIT and author of
Being Digital, suggests that in the not too distant future we'll have electronic newspapers and books. A soft, pliable electronic parchment that shows print via millions of tiny ping-pong like balls that are black on one side and white on the other. These will arrange themselves to form text and graphics (later, they'll be hex-cubes for color) because of wireless electronic impulses they get. So I do believe a morph of the newspaper and the web is in our future.
RD continued: "one of the reasons i believe we will always take a second seat to the papers is because of advertising revenue. the newspapers rake it in, at the moment i would be happy if it trickled in. heck i would be happy with stumbling in stone cold drunk. hard to grow with no budget. "
I couldn't agree with you more! Though hopefully not
always. One day the ad agencies may wake up (or be uprooted by competition) to the awesome media buys represented by sites like
www.DailyKenoshan.com and theBubbler.com.
We're fortunate to have a strong client base and we run ads on theBubbler as part of our service for them ~ and many get surprisingly strong results! Nevertheless, theBubbler costs us a good $40k a year in real costs (let alone the opportunity costs). I still believe when agencies and advertisers really get wind of the values inherent in a site like this, that will change.
RD continues: "i think the really big reason we'll never become a real threat to the established newspapers is that we have a really hard time establishing our selves as anymore then a hobby. people don't see us as legit unless were in print. i cant count how many times my business has been called a hobby by others."
True. I keep harping on the fact that theBubbler.com is the number one ranked online guide and directory for Wisconsin, yet the money keeps flowing to the newspaper peoples' sites. This site started as a hobby (a passion, really, as it continues to be) and as a way to show people what we (the staff at
www.OnYourMark.com) can do on the web. The passion continues. The results we generate for clients are strong. Our traffic ranking is the best in Wisconsin. I simply believe we have to persevere. "Do what you love and the money will come" is what they say.
I appreciate the comments from j10asen and pk, too.
Regards,
Keith
