Media disruption

Click on the image to see the detail of a Tweet sent early today by @jadeleanneNDUBZ to her 1,531 Twitter followers. In the image you will also see a text from her dad and her response to that text. Her dad sent her a text about Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez splitting. Her response about this being a headline in a newspaper is gold for those watching the impact of social media on old media news channels.

The text messages and tweet reminded me of why we are able to sell magazines with Bieber and One Direction featuring in them. They are purchased more as collector items and not as news as such.

It is not just this generation getting news from Twitter and other platforms. My own newspaper interaction has diminished significantly due to Twitter. It’s short-form publishing platform works well in a time-poor world. It’s instant publishing gives me access to news sooner.

Years ago, if we sold out of newspapers by lunchtime on a Saturday there were several means by which we could get replacement stock. We would pursue these because of the role newspapers played in the traditional retail newsagency business.

Today, we are out by noon 50% of the time and no longer chase replacement product because the supply model seen non newsagency outlets supplied to not sell out and because the newspaper is not as important as it used to be. When I told a shopper on the weekend that we were out of The Age they said – it’s old news anyway. Seriously, that’s what they said.

All of this is as it should be – the world evolving, embracing new technology. Our challenge as newsagents is to be retailers focused on the future, giving less attention to the past.

There is no better example of how authors can embrace social media than what Children’s author R. L. Stine, author of  the Goosebumps series, did with a Halloween story published yesterday. Check it out.  Across a series of Tweets to his 61,000 followers he told a terrific story for Halloween.

How is this relevant to newsagents? The world is changing, our world is changing. This story illustrates it.  A couple of years ago we would have laughed at the idea of what R. L. Stine has just done.

We need to make sure we worry about the right things and embrace change for our benefit.

In print edition of The Australian today is a code providing access to a digital copy of John Howard’s autobiography Lazarus Rising. It’s a good given, well targeted. Smart, too, to connect readers with the digital platform.

I was surprised to see that readers at the website need to subscribe to get the code – given that free copies of the newspaper are so widely available.

In 2003, online classified advertising had a 7% market share. A report published earlier this week claims that in 2011 that had jumped to 51% market share.

The decline in the use of print for classified advertising goes to the heart of the viability of the print newspaper model.

Newsweek is to drop its print edition from December 31 according to reports that see the move as somewhat of an endorsement of print to digital transition. Click for a good round-up of comments about the closure.

gigaom reports about a presentation in San Francisco by Amazon’s Vice President for Kindle content to magazine publishers on Monday about challenges publishers face as they move to digital platforms.

“Even books, which is an easier transition for people, is a difficult task. When we started, we didn’t look at who was selling digital books at the time, we looked at the print book,” Grandinetti said. “Because it’s lightweight, it’s resilient, it’s inexpensive. And the print magazine is also very very good at what it does. And the digital experience only approximates a small amount of that in many ways.”

He said the consumers love many of the things that have made books great for 500 years, and many of the challenges in getting them to adopt digital are even trickier with magazines. They tend to rely more on large glossy photos and less printed text, things that don’t always transfer as well to a variety of digital formats and devices.

Newsagents who want to be better informed about print media disruption need to read the article.

The possible end game here could be bigger than T2020. That said, I’m not scared by that. The opportunities for our business are tremendous as long as we develop business plans grounded in embracing and that serve our needs.

PaidContent is reporting that magazine publisher Future has achieved more than £5 million in sales of digital editions of its titles on Apple devices in the last year. This excellent result is due to Future publishing content mobile device readers want.  Kudos to them.

Not all publishers are enjoying this level of success and not all magazine categories lend themselves to the mobile platform. this is why I see magazines selling well in newsagencies for years to come – well, in newsagencies that support magazines.

Writing in The Guardian, David Leigh contemplates about the future of newspapers: A £2-a-month levy on broadband could save our newspapers.

Okay, maybe such a levy could save newspapers. Why knows?  If governments go down that route then why not a levy to save the local shops that nutture and promote local character. And why not a levy to save the penny farthing? Yes, absurd … I know.

What is happening to mainstream media businesses is business. No protection ought to be sought or provided. Businesses will prosper or fail based on what they deliver to their customers. This is as it should be.

It is frustrating enough that the federal government has provided TV networks with financial aid for dealing with the switch to digital. Small businesses are not assisted in coming with change to the same degree.

No, I hope that any proposal to strike a levy to save any business is quickly dismissed.

I urge newsagents to read the excellent article, Brave News World: media is dead — long live media, by Gideon Haigh and published by Crikey today. It’s a long first instalment of a series contemplating what media will look like in the future.

Since newsagents rely on media products for around 33% of all revenue and 50% of all foot traffic this article is must-read research. I highly recommend it.

For those interested in commentary and discussion on the future of newspapers and the future of journalism (two different things), check out the article at gigaom about an interview by New York Times media writer David Carr.

The article reports on an interview with Carr on CBC Radio in Canada. You can listen to the interview here.  It’s a fascinating consideration of the future of journalism and touches on the future of newspapers.

Interviews and articles like these are useful since the challenges of disruption faced by print newspapers and professional journalists are not dissimilar to the challenges we newsagents face in the traditional model of our businesses.

In a clever move, US you retailer Toys R Us is releasing its own tablet computer. This gives it a product not available elsewhere, a product through which it can promote its own offers direct to its consumers.  I say this is a clever move because: it’s packed with kid-friendly apps, it’s physically kid-fiiendly, it deepens the connect between the retailer and those who use its products and, it’s their own product and not as challenged by competition by other tablet makers.  Check our the report at CNN.

Amazon’s launch of the new Kindle Fire yesterday with new models and more competitive pricing kicks off a season of product releases taking the digital access platform options to a new level. The new launches from Amazon, Apple and others will give consumers experiences to challenge the love many still have for reading works and looking at pictures on a page of paper. The disruption of the print channel gathers pace with these releases.