Does Anything Good Happen at Executive Summits?

It’s amusing to see all the attention being paid in the blogosphere to the one-day gathering of newspaper industry CEOs last week. It’s partly because of how badly managed it was: First it gets announced in a way that makes it look like an event that urgently needs to produce results to save the industry. Then afterwards, the buzz is that nothing really happened, and everyone clams up.

But here’s the question: Have an industry’s CEOs ever gotten together and come up with a great idea for the future that could benefit all of them? Especially in the newspaper industry, there’s not much of a track record of this. But in other industries too, bosses rarely get together and come up with creative joint ideas, unless it’s something illegal.

Probably a more effective (and energizing) meeting would have been one bringing together all the talented journalists and businesspeople the industry has laid off. It’s the people with nothing to lose or protect who will come up with the really good ideas for the future of print and online news. Here’s an idea from one of the big blogging platforms that tries to reach out to all that talent – hope there are others that actually get some new businesses started.

More on Nonprofit Online News

It’s worth visiting all the sites mentioned in today’s New York Times piece on online news sites pursuing a new business model at least partly based on raised income.

And why not? My wonderful local public radio station isn’t based in a major market, and doesn’t even carry All Things Considered or Morning Edition. Yet they’re able to raise more than $500,000 annually from listeners. It’s not an easy life, but raising money somehow keeps the place operating. Sure, it’d be harder for a Web site than a radio station. But I think a community could step up and support the right kind of nonprofit online journalism operation, don’t you?

Where Are Local Ad Dollars Going, Then?

Sad to see in today’s wsj.com that the telephone directory industry is going the same way as the newspaper industry – plummeting print advertising from local businesses, and drab Web sites that don’t begin to provide replacement audiences or revenues.

This follows another recent survey that says local online spending will also experience dramatically slower growth next year.

And yet … local businesses need to advertise somewhere. In a recession, in fact, they want leads and new customers more than ever.

I wonder if these depressing numbers don’t in fact signal an opportunity. Everyone says Google is ultimately going to “own” local information in some way, but I’m not so sure. Buyers don’t just want an address and a phone number and a map, and (except for restaurants) that’s mostly what Google now has. If you’re looking for a rug cleaner or refrigerator repair (as I was last month!) most of us also want to see what the business has to say about itself – and of course, most local businesses don’t have Web sites that are adequate to the purpose. There are still opportunities out there, both in print and online, to build an effective directory business that makes economic sense.

Good Luck “Pushing” Readers Anywhere

Over at PaidContent.org, respected analyst Lauren Rich Fine claims that folding a print product (e.g., Christian Science Monitor) or cutting one back (e.g. U.S. News) could have the happy side effect of “pushing” readers to the online counterparts of these publications – thus extending the life of the franchise.

If only it were that easy to push people across media. I’ve been reading and doing print-vs.-online reader studies for 10+ years, and people who like the print version of a publication tend to be relatively uninterested in jumping, even (I suspect) if they’re pushed. When has any business ever successfully “pushed” its customers anywhere?

The real issue if you’re thinking about killing print is: Have you invented something new online that’s fundamentally more powerful (bigger, richer, more helpful to a larger audience) than your print business? Most print brands haven’t. If they had, they wouldn’t have to worry about pushing people to use it.

Nice Change from Those Endless Red-Blue Maps

Here’s an imaginative Election Day feature from the New York Times: A real-time tag cloud reflecting how voters say they’re feeling during the course of the day.