Nätet

This post is part of a blog race about Free and Chris Anderson who´s visiting the Media Evolution conference in Malmö, Februari 4. Therefore, I´m for once abandoing my native tongue and write this in English (or Swenglish some would say, please don´t hesitate to suggest language improvements ;-))
If you prefer Swedish it´s here.
Once upon a time newspapers equalled distribution of news. Newspapers, together with radio and television, was the dominant source of information in a society.
Internet changed all this. Today anyone can be a publisher, all you need is a computer and an internet connection. We in the newspaper industry doesn´t only compete with each other, but also with blogs, new kinds of online media, online communities and even the companies and organisations who we previously only used to write about.

This makes it almost impossible to charge for information anymore. The abundance is so enormous and the cost of distribution so low.

So to be able to continue producing the journalism that we think is important to society we must find the money elsewhere.

The simple answer is ads. Sofia and Niclas write interestingly about it in yestardays post in this blog race.

But I´m convinced we must and are able to be much more creative. Here´s some suggestions for this to sellin a world of freeconomics:

• Relationships
• Availability
• Customer experiences
• The unique

1. Sell relationships
Sofia and Niclas writes that the paper always has sold the packaging, but that the content itself has been free. For me who´s always worked at various niche and industry magazines I would put it that it is the relationship we sell. The readers want to be part of the meeting place we create for them under our brand, no matter if it´s in print, on the web or in a physical meeting. The advertisers want to be part of that relationship, they want a place by the fireside where the interesting stories get told. The advertisers want to reach not only the audience itself, but also in the context that we create together with the readers.

In this field Google is the digital pioneer. Google´s business model is to automate this so that the ads gets as relevant as possible, and this forces us newpapers producers to rethink our case.

But there is lots of things newspapers owners can do. At my magazine Veckans Affärer (Weekly Business, in English) we have, for instance, identified a number of core focus areas where we have a strong position and a strong relationship with our readers. These areas have then been further developed with events, web sites, special issues etcetera. This can be sold to both readers and advertisers, even if it for us with our roots in the paper it´s much harder to sell events and memberships to readers, with everything that means in terms of customer service and payments operations.

2. Sell availability

With to small kids at home I have at maximum ten minutes every morning to sit down, eat breakfast and read my morning papers. I do love the web and I read almost everything else online, but nothing beats the overview the print paper can offer me during that short time in that situation.
But availability can also be digital. Up until recently I occasionally did download music that I found interesting from torrent sites, but since the Swedish music service Spotify launched this need has almost vanished. Almost all music I get curious of is there, and it never takes more than five seconds before it´s streaming out of my loudspeakers. That instantness, availability and simplicit is hard to beat.
And it is, I think, sellable, once people understand it.

3. Sell the customers experience
Another way to find income streams it to look at the customer experience in what you produce. Our publishing house publishes magazines under som 40 brands in areas such as fashion, life style, technology, family and childred, and many of them are doing really well, economically. The feeling and enjoyment that a luxurious magazine offers is hard to copy, as is the happening of attending a concert with an artist.

When I look at my own magazine it´s easy to see the development from when the magazine once was the leader in business news in Sweden, to today when the magazine to a large extent consists of long features and deep analysis with exclusive photography and explaining graphics. That is material that is well suited for thorough "lean back" reading, compared to the constant hunt for news that characterizes the readers behaviour online.

4. Sell the unique

To sum up my thoughts I would say it´s about creating the unique. Content, stories, features and experiences that are unique are always easier to sell than something that´s similar to what the competitor already offers.

This is also the great challenge for the newspapers of today. Many of the large papers in Sweden are still, to my opinion, stuck in the thought of distributing information: "Our mission is to inform our readers of all that we think is important, and what we think

they

think is important".

But that ambition is much too broad in 2009, I think. The newspapers must choose what they want to be best at.

I´m sure you have heard the expression that many people have about newspapers. Usually they like their newspaper, "as long as it doesn´t write about my speciality". I hear thoughts like that more and more often, from both collegues as well as friends. I think it builds on a misunderstanding from the journalists that produces the newspapers: That we as journalists are the ones who knows a subject the best, when it in fact is the other way around. Often readers know the subject better than the reporters, at least there is a large number of readers who knows it better than the reporter who put his or her name on the news story. The newspapers and magazines must be much better at using this, and admit their lack of knowledge to get their readers to contribute.

But to do this the newspapers and magazines must stop seeing themselves as organisations owning information or by themsselves gathering information, information they then distribute to their readers. Instead we must see ourselves as facilitators who identify important areas and trends and which we then, together with our readers, explore.

The web and the economy of free has put up a completely new set of rules for the media and publishing industry. It´s time to realize that the old truths aren´t valid anymore. It´s time to see the new business opportunities the new landscape brings. Otherwise the publishing industry risks facing the same future that has already struck down on the record companies.