There's been very little feedback or reaction to the previous newsletter suggesting more ideas and more failures and a greater pace would be a good thing for news "papering". We're either on to something or everyone is hard at work implementing their latest and greatest ideas and don't have time for discussion. No other possible explanations come to mind!

We'll continue in the same vein and highlight other thoughts for your contemplation...

...saying "thank you". Not just to the million dollar advertiser and not merely with those two words, but across our organizations and to all who granted us the privilege to serve.

Something more than the carrier form letter at Christmastime thanking for another year. (...what about some of those extravagant offers papers are enticing high churn new subscriptions with?) Or, really partnering with advertising customers to offer their products and services jointly to prospective reading customers in the geographies advancing their cause.

Or, a systematic contact by reporters after an article has run and getting feedback on the coverage and thanking the source for their time and input. I can hear the hoots and hollers now, but harvesting our human capital in ways previously unheard of will be part of our future.

...Along the same lines, is there a way our newsrooms can help us build our database? There's been talk from many papers of creating a universal database allowing advertising to "talk" to circulation, but the editorial side of the equation has rarely been a part of that discussion. We need to truly be "universal" and better capture all the ways our constituents interact with us.

That means the internet, too. In Spades. And, then some.

This point bears repeating: IF audience is our most important external asset (and, it IS!) we need to be able to parse it in ways all customers want. This demands the creation of that overall internal database facilitating this eventual reality.

...for ages we've heard about Convergence. Well let's set the record straight. It doesn't exist! There IS collaboration between reporting and advertising staffs of co-owned or partnered television and newspapers, and those experiments should be applauded and continued. There are real successes to share. Lessons learned should help on future distribution platforms.

BUT, things don't converge. They get MORE complicated; not less. So, if you are dreaming of the day when you will be publishing more with less, forgetaboutit.

To reach the more diverse reader and advertiser with an increasing variety of tastes and preferences, newspapers will be offering more products, tools, platforms and options. Count on it.

...it won't be long before we begin to explore genuinely new and innovative ways of pricing our product. We must.

Not just the day-of-the-week or readership notion that seems inevitable, but building a new paradigm allowing micro payments for each and every little article we have served up on our computer or delivered to our doorstep. Or, advertisements? Or, material unpublished from the various feeds we "edit" before publication?

The entire array of offerings we have lends itself to that possibility and the sooner we begin testing that, the better. Think how valuable decades worth of archives could be if offered in a way that provides a decent value? It could be HUGE!

...targeted serendipity. It wasn't all that long ago the serendipitous quality of newspaper reading was touted as an unsung benefit. And, for those of the baby boomer and older cohort, that is probably true. But, young news seekers and gatherers do not consume news or "surf" the web, they are looking for something specific. They have a destination, whether it print or online. So, we have to create the serendipitous experience or quality by redirecting them to other articles or ads that might be of interest, given those previously read.

The notion of "amazoning the news" is not new, yet it has legs! Not in just reader ranking of the articles or subject matter we publish, but in the ads and columnists and everything consumed and read.

As you might expect, that also requires the "universal" database previously mentioned. While this clearly focuses on the online opportunity, we all must think in grander ways! Today's internet is like the early days of electricity... we're only seeing the most basic offerings. When very high speed, 24/7 ubiquity is the norm (wimax, not wifi) news and information consumption will often be "on the fly"... Are we there yet?

...similarly, the time for user generated material has arrived. A couple of organizations are succeeding already (Memphis, Bakersfield, Jacksonville...) but it is crystal clear the "newspaper" as a conduit which facilitates communication between audiences is REAL and we should be experimenting to fully understand the consequences of such connections.

...is the time right to harness the technology that converts text to speech for a true audio newspaper? There have been attempts in the past. We were even engaged about 5 years ago to research the possibility, but maybe now is the time? Perhaps as a premium service on satellite radio? It seems to me if there is a "niche" for the full paper-to-web product like Newsstand or Olive, the same could be true with an audio version?! (...if location based services are real [and they are!], this is even more tantalizing!)

...speaking of location based, sooner or later we'll harvest the power of mobile telephony. If novels can be distributed via phones in Japan and ads can be served up based upon interest in Europe, we've got to learn from others and create products and services to harness the 112 million text enabled phones already in use.

...ok, last point - and, this is a BIG ONE.

All this R&D...all these diverse products...the requirement we segment our content in ways mirroring the demands of an increasingly segmented audience suggests smaller margins. There's no way around it.

The math or accounting doesn't work any other way. So, someone tell Wall Street what we are doing - - financing the next news"paper" paradigm on the final generation (one is all that is left) of an existing paradigm which has served us (and them) very well, and that by taking EXCELLENT care of a new generation of readers/viewers/user etc., we'll grow for a l-o-n-g time to come.