Darby Sieben -

Our friends at Search Engine Watch having been published a great article called, The Ongoing Struggle of Free vs. Fee, Part One and Two which discusses traditional media and whether it can survive. I strongly suggest your read both these parts, as there is a some good information. One of the keys I have taken out is that finding ways to monetize content will be key.

To my headline. What is happening is that traditional mediums are now forced to adjust to the new landscape? This is no different to when radio came on stream, then TV, then the Internet. The Internet will not replace any medium, it will however, be an opportunity for the traditional companies, if they choose to do it right.

I think the talk about newspapers is justified in the sense that they have the most to lose from the Internet. The reason however, is not that newspapers can’t adjust, just that newspapers are still run by very arrogant people. Specifically what I mean by this comment is this; prior to the Internet, newspapers owned their local markets. There was a high barrier of entry for competitors, they were the only mechanism that delivered every day, they contained more information than TV and radio and they were very inexpensive for consumers and actually presented fairly relevant advertising to those consumers. However, when the Internet came onto the scene, all of a sudden the local markets were not controlled by the newspapers anymore. If I wanted information I could get it every second of every day with more insights that what newspapers could provide. Then came the targeted ads, that maximized advertising revenues for advertisers and gave the consumers relevant advertising based on what they were looking at.

Newspapers can survive if they change their model. Newspapers have the distribution network already in place in their local markets, but the product may need to change. For example, what if newspapers allowed a person to customize their content that was delivered to them daily – similar to speciality channels on TV. What would this mean for a local businesses? Would you be more or less inclined to spend on targeted newspaper delivery? For example, take the top headings in newspapers, local news, national news, sports, entertainment. Why not expand those. Why not allow users to choose which channels they want delivered with the opportunity to add channels or remove channels. Sure it is going to require more work and yes margins may fall, but the 21st century is about choice. At the end of the day, most of your users will choose the exact same thing – this is what is happening online – everybody has the choice, but are all doing pretty much the same thing.

Remember, small businesses are not loyal to newspapers, tv or the Internet. For the small business owner it all comes down to who produces the best results. Just like the flock of advertisers to Google, that flock can go to newspapers just as quick.

Newspapers – stop doing what you have been doing, change your tactics and sing with Gloria Gaynor – I will survive.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Newsgroups? Ever heard of them? If not, here is a quick introduction, if so and you are a small business, the question is why are you not using them for your business?

Two reasons for this post today, 1) to remind everybody that newsgroups can be a great tool for small businesses and 2) to highlight the fact that Google Groups has relaunched and it’s pretty darn nice – see screen shot below.

Small Businesses and Newsgroups

The first problem with newsgroups is spam – there is a lot of it. However, newsgroups are still used by a large portion of the public that is looking for specific topics of discussion. This can range from everything to do with cars, business, health, pictures, photography, etc. When it comes to newsgroups there are over 100000 of them, so they basically cover every topic know to man.

So how does a local business use newsgroups? To start with find the groups where you local audience resides, for example in Calgary I might watch calgary.general as a newsgroup. Let’s assume that you are an automotive repair shop. Every week, I would view the newsgroup scanning for posts looking for user who are asking for information on auto repair. When you spot a question, provide the response and tag your companies website with that response. What you don’t want to do is simply post in the newsgroups promoting your web site without any context – this is called spam. Nobody on the newsgroups will consider it spam if you post a reply and the signature of your reply contains your business name and website URL.

What this does for you is a couple of things; a) you start to become that groups expect – this will lead to sales, maybe not right away, but over time it will, b) it helps with your SEO marketing by creating links as well as opening your site and business to the groups search on Google, and c) it is a good place to refine your business story.

As for Google Groups, here is the new beta site screenshot below. If you have not tried newsgroups, take a look – there is a lot of good information available.

Popularity: 37% [?]

Today was a crazy day. Many people were asking for my opinion on the announcement of Google and YouTube. First my personal opinion, this was a good deal for Google. Why? Because it continues their vision of connecting people to content. To me, at the end of the day, YouTube was very much like Google in the fact that they didn’t create anything rather they become the middle man between content creators and people looking for content – very much in line with what Google does. That’s all great, but what exactly does that mean for a small business?

I think we the advent of online video, there is a real opportunity for local businesses to take advantage to television style production. In the old days (back when my dad walked 10 miles to school and 20 back, everyday), a commercial or infomercial created by a business meant one thing – air-time on a TV station. However, today, a company can invest in the production of a commercial or infomercial and use it in a variety of places without ever touching television. For example you could use the video on your website, company CD’s, post it on Google video or YouTube, and a host of other places.

What I am saying is that if your business has a great concept for video and you have some application, it may be worth the investment. A commercial no longer needs to be played on television to be effective.

And if you think TV production is really expensive, read my post on SpotRunner.

Popularity: 2% [?]