Newspapers are creating the right product for the wrong market
Newspaper sites are creating a product for a market that doesn’t exist.
You see, it looks to us like their websites are just not so good, but they have thought about their sites a lot, and these are not dumb people.
Why then, is so much effort going into making such a low quality product?
One could argue that the management just doesn’t get it yet, if they ever will, or that they are out of touch with the younger web demographics. Well, that may be true, but there is more to it.
Newspaper sites are creating a product based upon what they perceive to be what their loyal customers want and in many cases they succeed at this.
Unfortunately for us, that means we have to put up with all the noise that a strategy like that causes for our sense of what a good website should be.
Thankfully we can route around that by just consuming RSS feeds. But wait, they are almost never full text, so these sites even fall short there.
A typical print newspaper reaches a small percentage of its market. The percentage of that customer base willing to use the online product is orders of magnitude less. In other words, there is no market there. Certainly not a large enough one to build a business upon.
In essence, by building a product aimed at an audience that hardly exists, they have alienated most of their possible future customers or readers.
Why are they doing this?
It all comes down to two things. One, that many of them love their own product, as do many of their current customers. They think that they can transfer that love to the web, but too few of their customers are willing to do that, including the very people creating the product.
The second is the wrongful assumption that because traditional advertising and journalism is good and satisfies a need of the community, that there is no other sufficient way to accomplish that need . It is this wrongful assumption that is at the heart of an entire industry finding it difficult to adapt.
The core opportunity that the web provides both service users and service creators is the ability to satisfy needs in a better or more efficient way. If it does not succeed at that, it will not succeed.
Instead of classifieds, we have ebay. Instead of traditional journalism, we have a host of other things e.g. . Instead of advertising, we have pay-per-click.
Here is a word to the wise.
If you don’t think your web strategy is going to be better for both your business or your customers, just get out.
If you are trying to retain some quality of your analog product because you think the digital version can’t accomplish it, just get out.
The biggest geeks around don’t sit down at a computer because it’s innately enjoyable.
they do it because it’s going to accomplish something better than could be accomplished without the tool.
If it ain’t better, it’s worthless. Just get out.
And thats the name of that iTune.