A good roadmap
Now that we've faced the reality of the newspaper business, what now? Where do journalists go from here? Where do news companies go?
Go to where the people are going, right? Well, duh. (Funny, though, how we have such problems figuring out where that is.)
Now, thanks to Michele McLellan we have some information from Jeffrey Cole, who runs the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern Cal, that helps shine a light. His research on young people and the media is filled with potential for news companies. As McLellan reports his comments at a conference yesterday:
Life of a 12-24-year-old:
* Will never read a newspaper but attracted some magazines
* Will never own a land-line phone (and may never wear a watch)
* Will not watch television on someone else's schedule much longer
* Trust unknown peers more than experts
* For the first time (2005) willing to pay for digital content
* Little interest in the source of information and most information aggregated
* Community at the center of Internet experience
* Think not interested in advertising or affected by brand, but wrong
* Everything will move to mobile
* Television dominates less than any generation before (important but not the only thing that's important to them)
* Want to move content freely from platform to platform with no restrictions
* Want to be heard (user generated)
* Use IM. Communicate through Facebook. Think e-mail is for their parents
Some of this research will surprise of some of us, and my guess is that many will deny it. "They will trust peers they don't know over us??? They don't care about the source of what they're getting??? They don't use e-mail??? That doesn't make sense. Everybody uses e-mail! How can they not trust us? We've been here 100 years!"
But this is an excellent roadmap showing us where people are moving. It's mobile. It's social networks. Our "trusted brand" is devalued. We can talk about various platforms; they just want it when, how and where they want it. The challenge for news companies is to diversify, expand and experiment. The challenge for journalists is to learn and use new digital skills to extend their journalism.
Steve Smith of the Spokesman-Review has another take on Cole's talk.
Comments (4)
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I'm not sure a snapshot of the opinions of 12 to 24 year-olds is necessarily a predictor of what's to come. Sure, they are developing habits that will likely persist, but as people mature, their needs and wants change to. So, while it may well be true that 24 year-olds don't currently care about "trusted brands" I seriously doubt if that will be true when they are 30.
Posted on July 17, 2008 1:30 PM
The way I read it, that's Cole point. They think they aren't interested by advertising or brand, but they are wrong. I have two in that category and they are influenced by brand.
To me, the challenge is to change/expand the brand image. What the NR means to middle-aged newspaper readers is decidedly different from what it means to a 20-year-old.
Posted on July 17, 2008 2:02 PM
I can see that. For the 20-something, the N&R could be a trusted brand because of what it aggregates or how it's delivered, for the older audience, the N&R brand might be trusted because the information it delivers is of a better quality (more detailed, better researched, helpful context).
Posted on July 17, 2008 5:12 PM
So should we advertise our news feed through Facebook's Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point networks?
Posted on July 17, 2008 8:33 PM