One of the more spectacular stock declines in this Bear market has been Quad City Times parent Lee Enterprises. In less than a year, the stock has lost 80 percent of its value, falling to less than $3.25 a share. The stock has since “rebounded” to around $4 a share.
According to Forbes, the stock is at a 27-year low and Editor & Publisher reports the company’s largest institutional investor, Chicago FMR LLC, jumped ship in early July. Lee isn’t alone in newspaper chains being devalued by Wall Street, but its decline has been unusually precipitous even as it has been announcing online partnerships with Yahoo and revenue gains from its online division.
Economic woes expected to boost ad shift to online
According to ZenithOptimedia (owned by ad agency giant Publicis), the economic downturn will translate into more online ad spending as more firms look to make the most of their advertising budgets and seek to better track advertising performance with online buys.
The agency also forecasts the economic woes which hit housing and car sales will expand to other sectors. Zenith predicts newspapers will lose the most market share to online advertising, declining from 28 percent in 2006 to 24 percent by 2010.
Flash searchability to boost use of dynamic content
Google and Yahoo’s announcement to make Flash (Adobe’s dynamic software) searchable didn’t make a big media splash, but the ability to index Flash web sites is expected to have a big impact on users and web developers.
Flash has always been great software to animate web content and provide a “rich media” user experience. The big drawback has been Flash sites didn’t rank high in search results because they were not crawlable by Google/Yahoo bots which index Internet content.
Widgets and RSS feeds make for convenience and shift from ‘pull’ to ‘push’
RSS feeds and widgets (applications which deliver web content to your personal webpage) are growing in popularity and could cut into ‘page views’ and ad revenues of many web sites and blogs.
You don’t have to look much further than Google Reader (which delivers RSS feeds) to your personal Google page to realize the impact RSS and widgets could have on site traffic. Having RSS feeds from a half dozen news sites on my Google page, I often scan the headlines (and first sentence of the article) before visiting the originating site. Many times, I don’t bother to visit the site after seeing nothing of interest.
Widget and RSS feeds help to more widely distribute content, but sites which rely on “page views” and banner click throughs for ad revenue could see fewer visitors and less ad revenue. Some news sites already have taken note of viewers who don’t directly visit their sites and have begun embedding ads along with the news feeds.
July 24th, 2008
An online firm providing placement of web television ads is now offering online web video production service. You’ve seen the pitches from on-demand printers who offer customization of stock postcards and brochure layouts. Now a company called Spotrunner is offering similar customization of stock video for company web commercials/ads. Pick out your market area, select from a variety of stock footage, send them your unique information/logo and hit the “return” button. Prices start at $500 for the video spot; not bad if you’ve priced hiring a video production crew lately. The cost of placing the video banners on various web sites is additional.
Yellow Page directories and others have jumped into Internet video ads/commercials. Look no further than the City of Bettendorf’s homepage to see some of the results. Through partnerships with chambers, cities and civic groups, such companies use existing video and artwork/logos to put together short videos linked to a business’ web site.
Web video and sports broadening reach
Streaming of sports live via the Internet is gaining popularity on all levels. For the Iowa High School boys basketball tournament, $9.95 would buy you a live webcast of the quarterfinal or semifinal games (The finals were broadcast on network television and weren’t available online). For the NCAA men’s tourney, you can watch all of the games free online. . . if you either sign up early (get a VIP pass) or tune in before the CBS Sportsline servers are filled up with viewers.
QC Times Online Editor get print edition facetime
In an apparent effort to get some “facetime” for its online editor and added visibility for its online entity qctimes.com, the newspaper’s print version recently featured a daily front page “flood” article by Online Editor Jim Gale. In the daily column, Gale traveled to various area river locations to observe flood levels. . . more easily accessed and monitored via the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ online river levels web page.
iphone a travel necessity
A recent family trip to a large metro area gave me a chance to find out how useful an iphone can be. Need to locate a coffee shop near the hotel, just do a quick search. Want to find out what restaurants are within walking distance. Search on the phone. Are the restaurants open and what is the menu? View the restaurant web site on the phone. How far is that museum from our current location? Check the phone. More useful than any hotel room magazine and more detailed than any city visitor map. And, our taxi driver from Dubai confirms the mapping/usefulness of the iphone is just as good in foreign countries.
Greg Gackle, President/Principal
GAH, Inc., 2415 Eighteenth Street, Bettendorf, IA 52722
Web Design & Development | Publications & Public Relations | Corporate & Brand Identity
Phone 563.355.8074 | gah@gah.com | www.gah.com
© GAH, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
If you prefer not to receive future GAH Briefings, reply to gah@gah.com
Visit this link for the online newsletter version, http://www.bettendorf.com/gahbriefing/?p=32
March 24th, 2008
A small technology advance in our household ‚Äì a wireless network ‚Äì has me once again rethinking why I subscribe to the local newspaper. More mornings than not lately, I’ve read the latest local (and not so local) news on my son’s laptop at the kitchen table before the paper hit the front door.
And, as I watch our newspaper delivery guy brave the snow and subzero temperatures to drop off the morning paper, I can’t help question the enormous energy and expense newspapers expend each day of the year for a service (news and information) I can access with the click of my finger.
Lee’s Wisconsin paper first to ditch print edition
The Capital Times of Madison, Wis. – partially owned by Quad City Times parent Lee Enterprises – has the dubious distinction as the first daily newspaper to end its print version in favor of an Internet-only edition. The 17,000-circulation afternoon paper will continue to publish two free print editions each week in addition to maintaining its online news site. The move will result in a reduction of 60 positions at the Capital Times.
The shift was made easier by the fact Lee and the other Capital Times partner also own the much larger morning newspaper in Madison, The Wisconsin State Journal. The twice-a-week print edition of the Capital Times will be distributed as an insert in the Wisconsin State Journal.
Online ad spending surge continues despite economic woes
Ad spending in the fourth quarter of 2007 was up 28 percent from the same period in 2006 despite the slowing U.S. economy. Fourth quarter online ad spending totaled $7.3 billion, according to IDC. For calendar 2007, online ad spending totaled $25.5 billion, up 27 percent from the previous 12-month period.
Not surprisingly, Google received the lion’s share of those online revenues, nearly 24 percent, according to IDC, followed by Yahoo at 11 percent, Microsoft at 5.6 percent and Fox Interactive Media at 3 percent.
Newspaper group forms online ad network seeking greater share of Internet ad spending
Major newspaper chains Tribune Co., Gannett, Hearst and the New York Times recently launched a new online ad network – QuadrantOne – in an effort to garner a greater share of online advertising revenues. Advertisers will have access to 27 major markets and 50 million people a month through the QuadrantOne network.
The new network is notable for the absence of any partnership with the leading online players ‚Äì Google, Microsoft or Yahoo. Last year, Lee Enterprises and 12 other newspaper chains entered into a partnership with Yahoo which gave Lee access to Yahoo’s ad-serving technology for managing and targeting online ads. The move was seen as a way to help the newspaper partners attract more national advertisers to their online newspaper sites. In return, Yahoo received access to the newspaper partners’ news content.
February 25th, 2008
I received an iPhone for Christmas and a month of use has convinced me Apple only called it a phone to remove any association with the ill-fated Newton handheld computer.
I’ve used it to make phone calls, but the vast amount of time spent with the device has been checking the Internet and email, and using the mapping, weather and stock widgets.
The device for Internet browsing is slow-going over the AT&T Edge network, but the growing availability of Wi-Fi in the community makes it a very fast and convenient on-the-go web device. Did you know even the Hy-Vee Food Store on Devils Glen and Middle has free Wi-Fi service available? The Wi-Fi connections are automatic, so there’s no fiddling needed other than to choose which network you want to use.
Another smart move by Apple and AT&T was to bundle data with voice service and make the data service unlimited. No worries about using the device where ever and whenever you’re out and about.
And, one more thing. The Google maps widget for locating businesses/addresses and finding directions anywhere is truly amazing. Coupled with satellite imagery overlays, you can navigate at the city block level viewing buildings, roads and intersections while getting detailed turn-by-turn directions.
And, while we’re talking about mobile Internet
The wait for an industrial strength Wi-Fi network (WiMAX) in the Quad Cities is nearly over.
Quad Cities Online is in the final phase of testing its WiMAX (Nortel) network installation. The QC Online network will utilize three base stations at Black Hawk College, downtown Moline and downtown Rock Island, and can provide wireless broadband coverage to a large geographic area (yet undefined by QC Online) with much less equipment than Wi-Fi networks serving a similar sized area. For additional info: CLICK HERE.
The speed and pricing options for the WiMax service have not yet been announced. QC Online and others have been offering “line-of-site” wireless broadband for some time, but the WiMAX network should provide much greater coverage and higher wireless speeds for businesses and individuals.
Local news web traffic takes strange twist
A recent check of Quantcast’s web ranking site provided a strange result: WQAD-TV’s site ranked first among local news providers. A closer look at the statistics, though, shows a huge run-up in page views last October to more than 5 million over a three to four week period. The averages of visitors, page views and unique visitors is now back down to a more normal level, but the sky high numbers from back then are still distorting the rankings.
Here is the breakdown of local news sites:
Site | Ranking | Monthly page views | Visits per month | Unique visitors per month
WQAD.com 5105 1.6 million 734,000 573,000
QCTimes.com 7351 3.25 million 820,000 331,000
KWQC.com 28,992 474,000 198,000 77,000
QCOnline.com 38,534 832,000 232,000 57,192
WHBF.com 113,002 92,800 21,200 17,834
For comparision, Deere & Company’s site (deere.com) remains far and away the most visited “local” web site with 31 million pages views, 2 million visits and just over 1 million unique visitors each month. The site ranks 2,491 in the Quantcast model.
Greg Gackle, President/Principal
GAH, Inc., 2415 Eighteenth Street, Bettendorf, IA 52722
Web Design & Development | Publications & Public Relations | Corporate & Brand Identity
Phone 563.355.8074 | gah@gah.com | www.gah.com
© GAH, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
If you prefer not to receive future GAH Briefings, reply to gah@gah.com
For the online newsletter version, click here.
January 25th, 2008
Lee Enterprises’ online initiatives and joint ventures with Yahoo during the past year haven’t reversed a steady decline in the Davenport-based newspaper chain’s stock price. Lee closed this week at $14 a share, down from more than $49 a share in May of 2004 and over $34 a share in February of this year.
Lee isn’t alone among newspaper groups with sagging stock prices. Another partner in the joint deal with Yahoo, the Journal Register Corp., has seen its stock decline from nearly $22 a share in May of 2004 to $2.15 a share this week. Likewise, Belo Corporation is down $6 a share from May of this year, E.W. Scripps is off about $10 from its January 2007 stock price and McClatchy Co. traded this week at $12.83, down from $41 a share in January of this year and $75 a share in March of 2005.
Lee announced its joint venture with Yahoo HotJobs in November 2006, and early this year expanded its alliance with Yahoo seeking to boost online advertising/visitors to its newspaper web sites. More recently, the same consortium of newspaper companies announced they would partner with Zillow.com to broaden the reach of the newspapers’ real estate listings.
For insight into investor concerns driving down newspaper company stocks, click here.
News isn’t good for television either
Newspapers aren’t the only media sector under pressure from the shift to an online world. A recent Nielsen study reports more than half of the coveted 18- to 34-year-old audience isn’t watching television on the television. Those young adults are watching television online or via DVR’s and both venues are sans commercials. For more on the study and insights into the viewing/audience issues facing commercial television, click here.
Coming in 2008, Google’s 10th birthday
Google turns 10 years old on Sept. 7, 2008 and the search engine giant can well afford to throw a large party for its 16,000 employees with its annual revenue of more than $10.6 billion (2006) and net income exceeding $3 billion (2006).
December 21st, 2007
Lee Enterprises (parent of the Quad City Times) recently announced it will join 11 other national newspaper publishing companies in a joint venture with online real estate listing service, Zillow.
Zillow is a 2006 start-up headquartered in Seattle. It provides a real estate listings platform (with a Google-like mapping interface) along with property valuation tools for homebuyers and home sellers. Sellers and real estate agents can list their homes at no cost, similar to craigslist.com.
The Small Newspapers (Dispatch/Argus and QCOnline.com) developed its own QCHomes.com real estate listing platform several years ago, seeking a share of the lucrative home sale market. The QCHome.com site is independent of local real estate firms and similar to QCFSBO.com (For Sale By Owner) service. As a result, neither site includes homes listed by local Realtors through the Multiple Listing Service database, and both charge an upfront cost to individuals for posting homes online.
While real estate classified ads continue to be a staple of newspapers, local real estate firms have been aggressively expanding their online presence as more and more homebuyers go online to find a new home. An estimated 80 percent of homebuyers say they go online to view real estate listings.
The Lee announcement said advertisers who place print and online real estate ads with the newspapers will be able to choose to have those listings placed on Zillow. If, or how much, it might cost to add local real estate listings to the Zillow site through Lee wasn’t specified.
Housing slump seen accelerating move from print to online listings
According to a Borrell Associates study, the housing slump will accelerate the move from print to online real estate listings. The study predicts real estate newspaper ad revenues will drop nearly 7 percent this year and the same amount again in 2008, with a higher 16 percent decline in 2009 and a 13 percent drop in 2010. The reports also predicts online real estate ad spending will surpass print real estate advertising by 2012.
Something we hadn’t thought about
Just in case you need more trivia, an Amsterdam research firm has found the most common Internet search query consists of two words. The firm says 32 percent of searches worldwide include two words; while 27 percent of the searches involve three-word phrases, while single-word searches comprise about 15 percent of all queries.
Poker gambling sites rank high in ’stickiest’ brand ratings
In case you thought teenagers were spending too much time on Facebook and MySpace, take a look at the “stickiest” brands (where users spend the most hours per month) sites on the net, according to an article on ClickZ. Citing Nielsen Online research, the article reports four of the top 10 sites are poker card game sites with visitors spending anywhere from 4 hours to more than 14 hours per month ‘playing’ poker. The number two stickiest brand site was Electronic Arts, developer and host to numerous online role-playing games. AOL’s Media Network ranked eighth (4 hours per month) and Yahoo 10th (3.5 hours).
November 21st, 2007
The Quad City Times newspaper site (QCTimes.com) is the top ranked local news site according to QuantCast’s analysis, followed by WQAD-TV’s site (wqad.com) and QCOnline.com (the Dispatch/Argus/Leader newspaper site). Unlike QCTimes.com and WQAD.com, QCOnline is partially subscriber only, which limits the number of page views/unique visitor counts.
According to QuantCast, QCTimes.com is ranked 25,401 among U.S. web sites with an estimated 73,127 unique visitors each month. WQAD’s site was ranked 28,041 (65,467 unique visitors) and QCOnline 34,642 (51,531 unique visitors).
Rounding out the local media were: KWQC.com, a 40,767 ranking with 42,834 unique visitors each month; WHBF.com, a 124,493 ranking with 11,387 unique visitors; and the River Cities Reader (rcreader.com) ranked 307,603 with 4,452 unique visitors per month.
In the real estate web world, Ruhlhomes.com is the top-ranked web site with a 58,450 ranking and 28,142 estimated unique visitors per month, followed by QCFSBO.com (Quad City For Sale By Owner) ranked 68,814 with 23,159 unique visitors and Melfosterco.com ranked 85,767 with 17,868 unique visitors.
The rankings for all the local news or real estate sites, however, pale in comparison to worldwide manufacturer Deere & Company. The company’s site (deere.com) ranks 2,372 with nearly one million unique visitors (963,448 to be exact) each month. Those numbers don’t include other Deere sites: machinefinder.com (ranked 8,881 with 246,947 unique visitors); johndeere.com (ranked 31,782 with 56,814 unique visitors) and johndeeregifts.com (ranked 42,239).
New York Times moves away from subscriber model
The New York Times online content, which used to be very limited to non-newspaper subscribers, is now fully available online to all viewers.
The move away from the subscriber model – still in place locally at QCOnline (The Dispatch/Argus/Leader newspapers) – will no doubt increase the popularity (page views) on the Times web site and is one of the reasons given for the move – more viewers, more advertising exposure and more ad revenue.
The future of ‘whois’
ICANN is considering a proposal to restrict public access to its “whois” database, the directory of domain name owners.
If you’ve ever come across a web site and wondered who was the owner/operator, the whois directory is a fast, convenient tool to find out at least some basic details. Although, many domain name registrars like Network Solutions, GoDaddy and Registry.com already protect/hide owner names, addresses for an additional fee.
ICANN is looking at two plans: one would restrict access only to domain name registration details (i.e. phone numbers, addresses); the other would allow organization’s (like a women’s shelter) to protect sensitive data, such as the organization’s address and phone number.
October 11th, 2007
Google recently announced a move favoring direct links to Associated Press wire service stories rather than newspaper/TV sites with those same wire service story links. The change in ranking/linking in Google News feeds probably will benefit consumers who don’t have to view multiple online newspaper/TV feeds of the same AP story, but it will likely bring correspondingly lower pages views to the various news sites.
The move also is likely to further strain the cooperative relationship AP has enjoyed with its newspaper/media “owners.” As part of the AP contract, the subscribers pay for access to wire service articles and feed local articles to AP for use around the world. The ranking/linking change also further erodes the value of national and international news articles in the local media.
For more on the AP/Google News deal and discussion of its implication on the news/newspaper business, click here.
Ad blocking goes beyond killing off pop-up windows
The growing use of multimedia ads and other intrusive online advertising has spawned a logical response: a more sophisticated ad blocking plug-in for the open source browser of choice, Firefox.
Ad Blocker Plus installs in seconds and give the user the ability to filter out ads that take up valuable bandwidth and slow the loading of many popular sites. Waiting for a video ad to load and play before viewing a page’s content is a growing problem on many popular sites, and the ability to reject ad feeds may awaken the senses of some advertisers and web site operators to limit ads with lengthy load times.
Being in the business of communication, I’m usually interested in the ads, along with the news, on local web sites and don’t mind viewing the advertising. After installing the ad blocker, though, I was surprised at the noticeable decrease in page load times and am enjoying the less cluttered view of the sites.
Wholesale use of ad blocking software could cut into ad views and the effectiveness of online buys. One more reason to keep online ads interesting and not annoying.
Google adds PowerPoint competitor to online tools
Google Docs has just added a presentation application to its existing spreadsheet and word-processing software. The anticipated third application makes it a full suite of tools aimed squarely at the Microsoft Office franchise. The application comes with a full complement of presentation templates.
Some people may still be reluctant to upload their information (financial and other sensitive data) to a Google server for using the Google Docs applications, but for most of us, the leap is pretty small. The speed and reliability of Google is hard to beat and the firm’s computer network security higher than most companies. My only problem with Google’s online applications is the current limit on file sizes one can upload.
September 19th, 2007
Solo Direct Connect, a start-up firm using wireless spectrum of Eastern Iowa Community College, said it plans to begin Wi-Max (broadband wireless) service in the Quad Cities in September.
The cost of home service (1.5 Mbps down/512Kbps up) is $59.95 per month with a $299 installation fee. The wireless broadband business service ranges from 1.5 Mbps down/ 512Kbps up ($99 per month with $299 installation) to 5 Mbps down/1.5 Mbps up ($399 per month with $299 installation). The home service is comparable to DSL speed, but far less than Mediacom Cable which ranges from 3 Mbps on the low end to a new 15 Mbps Ultra business service.
On the flip side, you can “take” wi-max wireless broadband with you from home to work or to the library, provided those locations are within the QCA service territory of Solo.
As part of Solo’s agreement with Eastern Iowa, Scott Community faculty, staff and students are to receive broadband wireless.
A similar wireless broadband initiative was announced in April of this year by Small Newspaper Group (owners of qconline.com, and the Dispatch/Argus and Leader newspapers). The company still plans to roll out the service this year, but no firm date has been set. Likewise, pricing of the service hasn’t been determined. In a move similar to Solo Direct, Small Newspapers said it planned to use wireless spectrum owned by Blackhawk College in exchange for providing the community college with wireless broadband Internet service.
Google enters ‘behavioral’ search world
In what some people may find an intrusion into their privacy, Google has begun using “behavioral” methods to target ads. Until recently, Google ads (those AdWords on the top and right of the page) were sent along with your search results based on the words you entered in the search box. Now, Google has begun delivering ads based on the current search, as well as your searches immediately preceding it.
While it doesn’t approach the behavioral targeting employed by Yahoo (which incorporates ads based on recent web pages you’ve viewed), it moves Google into an area previously off limits by the firm because of privacy concerns. Google has moved into behavioral ad-serving slowly, and with even less fanfare than its usual “announcement” of new features.
For advertisers and marketers, behavioral targeting has long been favored as a means to improve the relevancy of ads appearing as a result of searches.
Yahoo Local and R.H. Donnelly (Qwest) expand listings deal
In its continuing quest to diversify from its printed yellow page books and improve its Internet presence, R.H. Donnelly has signed a deal with Yahoo Local to sell featured listings, enhanced listings and Yahoo Maps business listings. Donnelly (which owns both the AT&T, formerly SBC/Ameritech, and Qwest DEX books in the Quad Cities) previously was able to sell and place paid listings on Yahoo, but on a smaller scale than the new arrangement.
The Donnelly deal covers 14 Western and Midwest states where it distributes the Qwest Dex book. In addition to the print listings and online Yahoo Local listings, the paid enhanced listings also would appear on Qwest’s DexKnows.com web site.
August 29th, 2007
While most consumers are tired of the iPhone hype by now, the new cell “phone” from Apple promises to give mobile (local) online search a huge boost. I recently ran into a friend with an iPhone, and the combination of Google Maps, on-the-go Internet access and search was truly amazing. Add a “widget” like Movie Times and you can see the future is a mobile device (phone is hardly adequate to describe it) like the iPhone.
With an iPhone, a person can access a business web site, locate the business on a Google Map, get driving directions, and call with just a few keystrokes. If you’re a service business with a high convenience factor and walk-in traffic, the iPhone (and future products like it) is the ultimate local search box.
If you don’t have a web site, and aren’t on Google Maps by now, the parade of mobile shoppers is beginning to pass by your door.
Google enters print newspaper ad business
Nearly a year ago, a consortium of newspapers (including the locally based Lee Enterprises) partnered with Yahoo! to offer advertisers the ability to leverage their print advertising into online advertising.
Now, Google has entered the fray, joining with 225 newspapers nationwide to enable online AdWords customers to place print ads.
The new service is available to all Google AdSense customers and joins Google’s other offline placement of cable television and radio spots (commercials).
The Google official in charge of the new print services, described newspaper advertising as “an excellent way to validate a business that may have been built online.”
Media giant isn’t Murdoch, but Google
With its acquisition of DoubleClick and expansion of its AdSense network, Google is now the leading ad serving network with a reach of more than 88 percent of Internet users, 5 billion-plus page views a day and 706 million visitors per day to its network.
Google posted a 58 percent increase in second quarter revenues ($3.87 billion) from the same period last year. Nearly half of that amount is from outside the U.S.
ComScore’s Top 50 Properties by Unique Visitors, June 2007 (in thousands)
Total Internet Users 178,839
1 Yahoo sites 133,093
2 Google sites 123,601
3 Time Warner Network 123,379
4 Microsoft sites 116,824
5 Fox Interactive Media 83,598
6 eBay 81,224
7 Amazon.com 53,285
8 Ask Network 52,600
9 Wikipedia sites 47,031
10 Apple Inc. 44,114
11 New York Times Digital 42,718
12 Viacom Digital 42,212
13 Weather Channel 39,865
14 Adobe sites 36,441
15 CNET Networks 31,023
16 Gorilla Nation 30,721
17 AT&T 29,992
18 Target Corporation 28,323
19 Expedia 28,238
20 Facebook.com 27,965
21 Wal-Mart 27,922
22 Monster Worldwide 25,825
23 United Online, Inc 24,199
24 Verizon 23,876
25 Disney Online 23,443
26 Bank of America 23,240
27 Photobucket.com 22,873
28 Craigslist.org 22,529
29 CBS Corporation 21,838
30 CareerBuilder 21,723
31 Superpages.com 21,426
32 Shopzilla.com 21,417
33 Lycos sites 20,900
34 Yellowpages.com 19,340
35 Comcast Corporation 19,267
36 ARTISTdirect Network 19,157
37 Real.com Network 19,130
38 Travelport 19,119
39 Glam Media 19,075
40 Gannett sites 18,999
41 ESPN 17,473
42 Cox Enterprises Inc. 17,370
43 WebMD Health 17,127
44 WhitePages 16,727
45 Weatherbug 16,375
46 Citysearch 15,737
47 iVillage.com 15,544
48 Oversee.net Network 15,518
49 Mozilla Organization 15,457
50 Ticketmaster 15,393
Note: Total U.S. home, work and university locations.
Source: comScore Media Metrix, 2007
July 24th, 2007
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