john einar sandvand
DESCRIPTION
Presentation at the INMA Seminar in Copenhagen "Re-creating Value in an age of Abundance"TRANSCRIPT
Good morning to the 2nd day of this INMA seminar Wifi “Pressen” access code: 33472244 Special thanks to
Finding new digital revenue streams, but how?
John Einar Sandvand [email protected] Twitter: @johnei
3
Morning edition • Subscription paper (>90% subscription)
• Published Mon. – Sun. • Ca. 240k circulation (2nd largest in Norway)
• Content • National & int’l news • Arts & Leisure • Editorials and commentaries
• Business
Online and mobile newspaper • No subscription • 1,1 million unique users weekly
• 4th largest online newspaper in Norway
• 45k weekly mobile users • Newsletters • Content from the morning edition + original content (e.g., oslopuls)
Supplementary publications, e.g., • ‘A-magasinet’ included weekly w/ morning edition
• Various specials (e.g., Executive Education)
• Niche websites (e.g., E24, Norway’s largest business site)
• Commercial inserts • Magazines (e.g., Innsikt)
Evening edition • Subscription paper (bundled with Morning)
• Published Tue.. – Thu. • Ca. 110k circulation (3rd largest in Norway)
• Content • News/feature/utility for readers living in Greater Oslo area
• Eight super-local editions (for neighborhoods within Oslo) distributed to all households in Oslo weekly
Aftenposten’s product portfolio in brief
MOBILE
Norway: 7 national news sites
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Weekly unique visitors – week 50, 2009
Aftenposten.no • User profile: Higher education, higher income • Most of the content from newspaper + original content • Separate sites for travel and Oslo guide
What to do?
2008
Minus 3 million
euros Revenues: About
9 million
2009
Minus 3 million
euros
Three step strategy for new revenue streams
Display ads Classified ads
User payment
Developing more revenue streams
Ad-revenue ap.no Mill. kroner
Display ads Classified ads
User payment
1. Making our ad products work better
Developing premium ad formats
Premium formats: The T ad
Premium formats: Info sections
Premium: Behavioral targeting
2. Classified ads as new revenue stream
Display ads Classified ads
User payment
Finn.no: Online classified success
Active job seekers Passive job seekers
There is an attractive No. 2 position
Using business news to attract passive job seekers
Search in job listings
Upselling good positions
Special deals with recruitment companies
Adding context with job section
Same technique used with property
Coming up: Cars and public announcements
3. Develop user-paid services
Display ads Classified ads
User payment
But how to do it?
Embarrasing discovery 1
We were very bad at selling our products online • Near impossible to discover the products • Cumbersome buying process • Hard to find the products after you buy them • No efficient and simple payment system • Different login systems not coordinated • Very hard to put new products up for sale • Improvement projects not coordinated
First step: Build a customer frontend
New project: Online Sales and Service • Involves editorial, ads, subscription, IT, business development • Goal: Build a completely new frontend for all sales and customer relationships • High emphasis on simple interaction and user friendliness • Easy to add new products • First version will be launched in May
Users will only pay for Unique Value
?
? ?
? ?
Creating Unique Value
Unique Content
• Content you don’t think you can find anywhere else • Local, niche, experts, etc
Unique Convenience
• Access in specific situations or areas • Extremely easy to use • Flexibility
Unique Usefullness • Content and services you can use to reach personal goals
• How to’s, guides, weight club, apps, tools, tests of products, etc
Unique Packaging
• Premium presentation and design • Selection of content, for instance personalization or for niches
Unique Experience • Gives an emotional attachment, entertainment, social connections, etc.
• Brand value, community, entertainment, unique user experience …
Unique Convenience
Unique Usefullness
Unique Content
Unique Experience
Unique Packaging
Creating Unique Value
Unique Value for main products
Newspaper Unique content
Unique Convenience
Unique Usefullness
Unique Packaging
Unique Experience
1980s Strong Strong Strong Strong Strong
Today Medium Strong Medium Medium Medium
Web site Unique content
Unique Convenience
Unique Usefullness
Unique Packaging
Unique Experience
Today Low Medium Medium/low Low Low
Exploring three directions
Repackage old and/or make new
core content
Special services
and/or clubs
Mobile services and
apps
Some premises in our work
• Must find products which serve the needs of our most loyal users
• General paywall for web site carries too big risks – at least for now
• Looking for products where some users pay for some content/services
• Digital products should build on and strengthen core values of the Aftenposten brand
• Only experiments will teach us what will work or not
Repackage old or make new content
Repackage old and/or make new
core content
Special services
and/or clubs
Mobile services and
apps
Projects for repackaging content
• Revitalizing the e-paper • Digital archives • New digital versions of Aftenposten • Niche products
Re-vitalizing the e-paper
• New and more user-fiendly solution • Make it easier to buy • Market campaigns
Digital archives as paid service
• 150 years of history – and a unique position as Norway’s newspaper of record • 1,7 million newspaper pages
User-friendly solution
Business model
• Single day access or subscription • Special campaigns for newspaper subscribers • Considering bundling with e-paper • Launch in connection with 150 year anniversary in May
New digital versions of Aftenposten
E-readers?
Tablets? Adobe Air?
Pay level on site?
Our goal is to make paid digital versions of Aftenposten offering premium quality and reader experience
Two very different e-reader roads
Based on e-ink
• Kindle, Sony • Primarily book reading tool. Excellent for text and battery life • No color/interactivity yet • Limited web browsing • Cheap devices • Most content paid
Tablets
• iPad • Primarily multimedia tool. Excellent for web browsing, video, apps, gaming, tools. • Full web access • Higher prices • Lots of free content
Strong growth estimated
Content will be consumed on many platforms
… and users will expect seamless transfer
Analyzing user situations How do we serve users’ needs in specific situations during the day?
How to produce?
Social media iPad
Copiers
Net TV
Tablets
Net books E-readers Mobile API/Widgets
Print and web
Unknown print
channels
Unknown digital
channels
Embarrasing discovery 2
We had very little control of our information structure • Not able to get a good XML-feed out of our CMS • Editorial staff cheated on meta data to achieve design goals • Information structure mainly defined for print • Big trouble in delivering XML-feed consistently
A cultural challenge
How to become a multi-product company?
• A big mental shift in the organization • Putting the content, not one end-product, in the center • Content without metadata has no value • Challenges of organizing the work flow • Creating a culture of experiments
Special services and/or clubs
Repackage old and/or make new
core content
Special services
and/or clubs
Mobile services and
apps
Ordspill.no – online scrabble game
• Free service today • Extremely loyal users • Very long user sessions • 72 % of users under 40 years
Finding the good ideas
Mobile services and apps
Repackage old and/or make new
core content
Special services
and/or clubs
Mobile services and
apps
Apps
Hva skjer? Søk
I nærheten Inspirasjon
Appendix: An extra story of reusing content
Summing up 1
Display ads Classified ads
User payment
Unique Convenience
Unique Usefullness
Unique Content
Unique Experience
Unique Packaging
Creating Unique Value
Summing up 2
Summing up 3
Repackage old and/or make new
core content
Special services
and/or clubs
Mobile services and
apps
Thank you! John Einar Sandvand Mail: jes@aftenposten Twitter: @johnei Blog: BetaTales.com