Monday, June 1st, 2009...8:34 pm
The ‘hyperinterest’ approach to online news
Imagine a news Web site that’s a portal to everything people used to read in newspapers plus a bunch of things that newspapers were never able to provide. A cool idea, I think, but first it requires newspapers to embrace two provocative ideas:
- The mass audience is dead.
- The product of newspaper Web sites is not news.
No more mass audience
Radio lost the mass audience first when TV proliferated. Gone were the days when a large swathe of the American audience was listening to “Gunsmoke” or the “Avenger” on radio. TV started as a mass medium because there were few channels, so again, everybody seemed to watch “Laugh-In” or The Ed Sullivan Show.” But then as more and more TV networks started, people fell into niches. They could watch networks about just food or gardening or do-it-your-selfing or history. Few shows could garner the huge audiences of the past, but collectively, networks developed tight groups of devoted fans.
The same is happening now with the transition of newspapers to the Web. The old newspaper thinking was to reach a large, broad audience, which was often not highly invested in the news. That meant editors picked story topics that would appeal to the many, not the few. The Web, however, gives news organizations a chance to reach a lot of small but highly interested niches. New thinking is needed.
BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis called this the “mass of niches” in his recent book, “What Would Google Do?”
A colleague of mine, graphic artist Darren Sanefski, coined the word “hyperinterest” to explain how newspaper Web sites could cater to this “mass of niches” on the Web. He was playing on the term hyperlocal, which has come to mean a news Web site that is tailored specifically to a geographic area, such as a town, a city or even a neighborhood.
The thing is, people don’t always or only define themselves geographically. Some define themselves by their interests — skeet shooter, video gamer, foodie. Others define themselves by their needs — person in search of a baby sitter, newcomer to a community, job hunter. Still others define themselves by political interests, or personal agendas or avocation – Democrat, tree hugger, soup kitchen volunteer. At different times, people may define themselves through any of these criteria or other ones, depending on what they need at that moment.
What if newspapers’ Web site helps these readers find what they wanted. To do that, news organizations must figure out what their product is.
What is a news organization’s product?
I’m guessing most in the newspaper industry think they sell news. I’d argue news was never the product even in the halcyon days when multiple newspapers competed in one city. In those days, newspapers delivered ads wrapped in news to readers. The product was really the ads, not the news.
Today, as newspapers try to transition to the Web, part of the product may still be ads. But part could be convenience.
Last week, I blogged about Tim Windsor’s question on the Nieman Journalism Lab blog about whether online news content is like bottled water. He asked how bottled water companies could essentially sell something most people in industrialized world can get for free. My answer: Bottled water companies aren’t selling the water; they’re selling convenience.
So what if newspaper Web sites offered convenience. People read newspapers for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with news. Some like the coupons, the lottery numbers, the comics, the crossword puzzle. Anyone who has worked at a daily newspaper for any length of time knows that a quick way to elicit hundreds of angry phone calls is to repeat the same Jumble two days in a row.
A portal Web site
Imagine if a newspaper’s Web site didn’t look like a news Web site at all. Instead, when you entered the site, you faced a question: What do you want to do? (I’m picturing it almost like Facebook’s “What’s on Your Mind?”)
You could pick from a pull-down list of choices — find out the weather, read the top story, find the movie reviews, do a crossword puzzle, post a video game review, view today’s front page.
You’d also be able to type in what you wanted if none of the options met your needs. And you could bypass this search option, and navigate the site yourself if you desired. It would be like a typical news Web site search feature, but on steroids.
You also could still reach the site in traditional ways: through Google searches or by selecting from topical menus. But these menus wouldn’t mimic newspaper sections — features, sports, news. They would include a whole world of options.
The newspaper wouldn’t create all these options. It would link to them, creating this rich one-stop-shopping for everything a person in your community needs to make life easier. Remember, we’re selling convenience.
A few examples of what I mean:
- A new at-home mom moves into the community, so she types in “find other moms” into the newspaper’s Web page search feature. She’s directed to a parenting topic page that includes a link to the Meetup.com list of moms groups for that locality; a list of recent parenting stories from the wires and that newspaper; a list of all the local moms’ groups.
- A crossword puzzle junkie can’t get his fix with just one a day in print. So he accesses the gaming portal on the newspaper’s Web site and reaches multiple puzzles to confound him plus chances to play Scrabble or Sudoku. The newspapers doesn’t create the games; it finds a way to curate them or link to them.
- A video gaming enthusiast wants to sound off on this great game she just played. She can reach not only a video gaming blog, which offers reviews from readers, staffers and others, but a portal to an already-existing video gaming community. Plus she’ll find aggregation of a variety of the best video-gaming blogs and sites from around the world.
- A member of the community happens onto the site and wants to know what’s the top story, based on what other readers’ think. He is connected to a list of stories that are getting the most comments as well as a list of stories that other readers have picked as the top reads in a Digg-like “most popular in last 24 hours” fashion. (A bit like the way it works on Times People at The New York Times.)
The news Web site becomes not just about news — but about everything. The news site isn’t selling news or ads; it’s selling convenience. Gems on the Web site aren’t hidden but easy to reach. Depending on what the user clicks on, the site suggests other sites, links, blogs, news stories in much the same way that Amazon.com suggests books or videos or Facebook suggests “people you may know.”
All this would need a very robust search function, much more robust than I’ve found on many newspaper Web sites. But it’s possible. I use Google like this all the time, by typing in questions of what I want. I usually get great results. (For example, I just typed “Where to find tax forms” into Google and reached more than 60 million results in .50 seconds, the first of which was the IRS tax forms.)
One final point: Each of these “hyperinterest” pages will have limited, but highly interested appeal. In other words, newspapers can’t expect huge traffic to each. The idea is to create highly interested small groups of readers. One thousand highly interested readers are better than 5,000 who care only a bit.
The impact is cumulative. In a way, it’s like saving money. The easy way to slash your budget is to stop paying your mortgage, likely your biggest expense. But then you’d lose your home. So the only realistic way to cut costs is to trim small amounts of many expenses. In the end it adds up.
That’s how hyperinterest pages would work. Each might have a relatively small but growing following, but collectively they would contribute to a large readership. And because these readers are highly interested, they would spread the word about your site for free. That’s just how it works on Twitter, where one friend tells two people, who tell two more people and so on.
I'm Gina Chen, a 20-year veteran newspaper journalist who is studying for a communications Ph.D. I want to see journalism survive. I believe news organizations need to embrace new media, change their thinking, improve their content and innovate. Read more about me 
43 Comments
June 1st, 2009 at 9:12 pm
[...] …is asked by the ever thought-provoking Gina Chen of Save the Media: Imagine if a newspaper’s Web site didn’t look like a news Web site at all. Instead, when you entered the site, you faced a question: What do you want to do? (I’m picturing it almost like Facebook’s “What’s on Your Mind?”) [...]
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:46 am
[...] The ‘hyperinterest’ approach to online news, Save the Media [...]
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:02 am
Hey Gina,
Interesting piece, and I agree with parts of it. You’re absolutely right about the need to organize our content better, make our content easier to find/search and about the need to involve readers as active participants.
I don’t think we need to coin a new term for this (and not one starting with “hyper”… which gets my vote for the “cyber” of the 2000s). I think there’s a perfectly good term for this: Newspaper websites need to stop acting like newspapers, and start acting like websites. Bing.
The danger, of course, is a site like this can never be all these things. I think within a certain band of interests, we can be — and should be.
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:04 am
Gina,
very interresting idea! But if you “use Google like this all” why another search engine??? Please don´t understand me wrong! I love newspapers, i work for 30 years in the newspaper industrie and despaired about the decline of the newspapers – same here in Europe!
But if there is google nobody will use a new and nameless search engine from a small local newspaper…
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:36 am
Your argument is very well-written and thought-provoking, but I disagree with part of it.
I argue that news content, especially local (or “hyperlocal” if you like) IS the product. It is what differentiates one convenient portal from another, or one set of search results from another. It is why people go to a news Web site.
(Full disclosure: I work for a news Web site. And please forgive me if, in my rebuttal, you feel I have misinterpreted any of your argument.)
The portal concept has been around since the 1990s with companies like Yahoo!, Excite and others. It is difficult to imagine newspaper Web sites improving on an idea upon which some of the best minds of the Web have spent more than a decade.
How could a portal be more convenient for finding widely distributed features, like comics and crosswords, than a simple search box like Google (or Bing)? What is easier than typing “crossword puzzle” or “Chicago meetup” into Google? In your argument, you acknowledge that even a well-organized portal would need a “very robust search function” like Google.
Newspapers’ primary focus should not be on finding the best methods of organizing and distributing content. Others are already doing that – Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc. – and newspapers need merely to learn these methods and how best to take advantage of them. You allude to this in the final sentence of your post.
While a newspaper Web site should be well-organized so people can quickly find local stories and other features, a news company’s primary Web focus should not be on perfecting portal-like organization but rather on producing high-quality local news (and advertising). Content, as the saying goes, is king.
Local news is not a worthless nor an easily replaced product through which we must somehow plead with readers to suffer in order to garner ad revenue. Not only is it simply a vital part of a healthy society, it is what local news organizations can offer that sets them apart from other Web sites.
Stay-at-home-mom message forums, video game blogs, Amazon book suggestions and the like – while quite valuable in their own right – are not the same as professional journalism on issues of importance to a local community.
All the convenient organization in the world means nothing if there is no high-quality local news to which to be conveniently led.
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:48 am
I’d say the “product” was the audience, delivered to the advertisers. The ad was the vehicle through which that product was obtained. But your point is well taken.
June 2nd, 2009 at 9:44 am
Hum, this exists already. It’s called Yahoo (or portals, more generally). Look where it got them… Sorry, I don’t buy this at all.
June 2nd, 2009 at 9:47 am
We’ve been doing hyperlocal news on cVillain.com for about 2 years now and it’s worked out great.
We reach 15,000 local unique visitors in a market of about 100,000 people. Our website focuses on the commentary and opinion of the community as it relates to the topics at hand. We average over 35 comments per post and have way more interaction than any other local website. We did all of this on a shoestring budget, without any reporters, and just asking people to write about what they love.
The tricky part is monetizing.
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:09 am
Why would newspapers be capable or best equipped to deliver this functionality? It sounds like you are just describing a search engine that finds web sites with a “hyperinterest” focus.
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:47 am
[...] Full post at this link… [...]
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:08 am
[...] blog, Save the Media, hvor hun udover nogle almene banale betragtninger gør sig til talskvinde for en mere search-drevet tilgang til nyheder. At du i stedet for en redigeret forside ganske enkelt bliver spurgt om, hvad du leder efter lige [...]
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:55 am
Gina,
The hyperinterest website you dream of is in the newspaper. The entire newspaper is the product, not just “news” alone.
Not all of its facets -crosswords, sports, news, coupons, ads-appeal to everyone. My daughter gets the paper for the coupons. Her husband buys it for the sports, which he also gets online.
The paper itself was a collector of information.
As our definition of information grows via the web and all its offerings, so does our definition of a news website,.
Our biggest problem is that journalists are fixed upon the idea that information can only be delivered via a newspaper, a medium we’re stuck with until we can figure out how to make a profit off the web.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Hyperinterest pages would also be able to show very relevant ads.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Tom Foremski kinda touched on something like this a few months back when he suggested that newspapers start thinking of themselves as news organizations. I think you’re on to something. Specifically, it’s only by going after the “mass of niches” can newspapers be reborn as “news organizations” and start diversifying their revenue stream enough to survive the re-birthing process.
I also think there’s room for them to pursue more of a “symbiotic editorial” once they pursue that “mass of niches.”
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:29 pm
@Aron Pilhofer –
Totally agree with you when you say “Newspaper websites need to stop acting like newspapers, and start acting like websites. Bing.” Very true.
Maybe hyper is hackneyed at this point. Not sure about that.
And I agree most news Web sites can’t be all I describe, but they certainly won’t be if they don’t try.
– Gina
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:32 pm
@Charlotte Li –
Well, I’m not seeing my idea as another search engine at all. I see my idea as a way aggregating in a local way the best of what a newspaper (or news organizations) readers’ want and need. And then have a robust search on that site that helps readers get to all the great content.
I think the search aspect is vital — many newspaper Web sites have awful search functions. Sometimes you cannot even find a story you know is there. So even know readers can’t find some really good Web content on news sites.
I only mentioned the Google example to illustrate that the technology exits. News sites just need to take advantage of it.
– Gina
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:34 pm
@Kyle –
Glad you’re having such success. I do think there is a lot of potential in hyperlocal because for most American newspaper, local is their best asset. The local is what they can give readers that’s unique and not readily available elsewhere.
I just want to expand that idea beyond geography because I don’t think everyone defines themself by their town or community.
Good luck with your hyperlocal effort.
– Gina
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:34 pm
@Bryan Murley –
I think you make a good point about the product being the audience. That is a good way of looking at it.
– Gina
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:35 pm
@CT Moore –
Totally agree with you! I hope there is room to pursue as you say “symbiotic editorial” once mass of niches is considered.
– Gina
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:39 pm
@sk –
Certainly your right not to buy my idea, but I do think it’s vastly different than Yahoo. To me Yahoo is useful, but it’s reach is hardly catering to the mass of niches. It really caters to a mass audience.
My idea would be unique newspapers that understand their communities would provide their readers place tools all in one to make life in that community easier, more convenient, easier to navigate. Without the local aspect to it, you’re right, it’s just a portal like Yahoo and much less useful.
I don’t see it as a search engine as much as aggregation.
Plus, I really want to stress that newspapers need to stop thinking of their online product as just news stories.
You may be right. My idea may not work. May not even get tried.
– Gina
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:45 pm
@Jox –
You’re right newspapers aren’t in a better position to provide search engines than Google or others.
I don’t see my idea as a search engine at all. I see it as aggregation and curation that makes the readers’ job easier. Sure, the average can do all these searches on his or her own. But they might not know how to do it, be motivated to do it.
If I were new to a community and I could find everything I needed to feel at home in one place, I’d feel a lot of loyalty to the Web site that provided that. Sure, I could find meetup.com if I knew about it. Or other organizations. But I might not know what to search for. My idea brings all those together, along with local news content to help readers in a specific community.
– Gina
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:50 pm
@Matt –
Few things …
I don’t think local news is worthless at all. I’ve been a newspaper journalist for 20 years, covered everything from cops to courts to state government. I get the value of local news.
My point isn’t to do away with local news. My point is to realize that local news by itself isn’t enough of a draw to readers to make a site that will get enough traffic to make enough money to be viable. That’s especially true in smaller cities, like Syracuse, where I live.
And yes, people certainly can do their own searches for crossword puzzles or whatnot. But do they? Will they? And even if they will, why not capitalize on that interest as a way to boost your traffic?
Many readers look to newspapers for this type of thing regularly and don’t (unfortunately) give a hoot about local news. All I’m saying is make your online Web site reflect what’s already in your newspaper.
I agree with you that newspaper Web sites need to focus on content. Unfortunately, I don’t think they have the luxury to focus only on content.
But do appreciate your ideas, which make for a robust conversation.
– Gina
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:01 am
[...] Mass audience for news is dead | Save the Media [...]
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:15 am
[...] 3, 2009 Great post here today from Gina Chen, and it raises a basic and fundamental point which many publishers and media [...]
June 3rd, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Gina,
You’re right on the money when you write that news websites are (or at least, should be) selling convenience, not the news or ads.
As I understand your proposal, news sites would be selling the convenience of connecting readers with pages of interest — pages, which while they will most likely contain links to the sites outside the news site, are curated by expert staff, and periodically updated.
I would add that readers must be allowed to customize the look of the website, so they can see either the topics or sections that interest them most. — I believe sites like The Daily Me and NewsVine allow this type of functionality.
News sites should also integrate the social media functionality of Facebook and Twitter and give readers a reason to consider the website a central hub by offering rails that contain particular Twitter and Facebook feeds, as well as the ability log in to their accounts from these locations.
For providing this convenience, sites should charge different users different rates based on the package they sign up for. This “price discrimination” was nicely summarized by Martin Langeveld in his blog post on Albert Sun’s essay on charging for online content.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/06/selling-online-news-content-like-airline-seats-price-discrimination-maximizes-revenue/
Here’s one way to set up a tiered payment scale:
Pay nothing: Get the basic site.
Another tier up: Customization of the website; offer users the opportunity to discover stories that aren’t part of their customized view.
Yet another tier: Allow readers to subscribe to Twitter or Facebook feeds from reporters or even local advertisers that interest them and view them from the homepage. Perhaps receive newsletters and e-mail blasts as well?
Finally, take the same dedication to offering readers convenience and extend it to local businesses. Tim Windsor has covered this topic before, but it bears repeating that newspapers and news sites must realize they are no longer in the business of just selling ads or even eyeballs. They must offer the same convenience that is the linchpin of your post, be it in the form of website creation, mobile apps, coupons, gift certificates and whatever else customers would otherwise have to spend time they don’t have to find.
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:17 pm
@Anthony Salveggi –
Really good stuff. You’re totally getting what I’m suggesting, and I really like your idea about having pages the reader can tailor to his or her needs. That’s an idea that I hadn’t thought of when I wrote the initial post, but I have been playing around with it in my mind today. You’re comment really crystallized my thinking. (Will have a post on that soon.)
Also — great idea on monetization. I really hadn’t gotten there in my thinking. I was focusing on the theoretical, but I like your ideas.
Thanks for adding to the convo.
– Gina
– Gina
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:24 pm
[...] Contact me The ‘hyperinterest’ approach to online news [...]
June 4th, 2009 at 11:19 am
[...] the way a newspaper site looks, operates and conceives itself. Read her posts on a “hyperinterest approach to online news” and its detailed follow-up to get a better sense of what newspapers could be doing instead [...]
June 11th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Gina,
This is one of the most insightful and encouraging analyses I’ve seen — anywhere — on the increasingly urgent topic of the future of journalism.
You identify what are probably the two most important and disruptive changes that the proliferation of Internet access has brought to familiar media: (1) the “de-massing” of demand for information, and (2) the separation of media distribution geography (e.g., the effective range of delivery trucks dispersing from a single newspaper’s printing plant or plants) from media production geography (e.g., the areas within which most of a newspaper’s staff gather most of the news — and advertising — that appears uniquely in that newspaper).
I’d add one slight elaboration to your perception that the product should not be envisioned as news, but as convenience, and convenience in terms of the full range of an individual user’s activities and interests: to the extent that news remains an important part of the product, the news most important to users will be — as it has always been — news about people, businesses and other organizations, and places that are important to individual users. Journalists can count less and less on the probability that almost all of those people, organizations, and places will be geographically near the individual user. But any organization that can conveniently and efficiently bring news about those people, organizations, and places to an individual user can probably count on that user’s loyalty (not to mention willingness to pay!).
June 12th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
@Ted Coltman –
Thanks. Agree with you that news will remain an important part of the product. But I’d argue that news alone isn’t the product — the product is the process of providing the news (and other stuff — from crossword puzzles to comics that newspapers have delivered to readers for decades.)
I think your point about geography is well taken. To me it’s a bit of a contradiction: Local news needs to be the mainstay of local news organization, but these same organizations must not let geography limit them. That’s where I think hyperinterest comes in as a complement to the intensely local approach many publications are taking.
Thanks for adding to the thoughtful conversation.
– Gina
June 14th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
[...] Everything is modular and linkable. Everything is fluid. Meaning, if I want the publication to be a business periodical, then I don’t want to have to read a piece about sports. (Similar to my hyperinterest idea.) [...]
July 28th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Gina –
Sorry to be late to the party on your post — but I recently moved from a metro area of 3 million with two big papers to a small town of 100K with one sleepy little rag. So I’m feeling some pain.
In terms of search, you’re best off using Google to search just about ANYONE’S web site — like this:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2003135_specific-site-google.html
99% of the time, I find that the search results you get are superior to whatever the site itself is providing, unless they block or restrict Google’s access somehow.
And in terms of providing me a “portal” of my own — I’m afraid that’s pretty much 1999. I want to be able to set my own alerts on your site, that let me know (via email, text, SMS or my choice) when something pops up that I’m interested in. Then just give me a link and I’m fine.
(BTW — if you’d like to create a newspaper that actually makes money — do this. Then write great stories and build great content that map exactly to what your subscribers are asking for. Total no-brainer.)
Content, and how the world looks at it, has changed permanently. And it would be very cool to see newspapers notice that.
August 9th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
[...] of methods, including ads and selling the convenience of well-aggregated and hyper-local and hyper-interest [...]
August 11th, 2009 at 9:01 am
[...] saying news organizations would become search engines; they would use their journalistic expertise to curate the web with a mindset toward that local community and provide links to all types of information, from the [...]
August 18th, 2009 at 8:01 am
[...] thinking of news as their product and start realizing their job is giving people what they need to make sense of the world. Something like WikiCity could be part of that effort and it could augment the hyperlocal pages [...]
August 18th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
[...] posts, Chen has advocated for a reinvention of news websites so that they place more emphasis on giving readers what they want — not just in terms of news, but a whole host of [...]
September 1st, 2009 at 9:02 am
[...] More aggregation: I’d like more on AnnArbor.com (or its copycats) to help me navigate the community. I’m talking about searchable calendars to help me find something to do with my kids on a [...]
October 3rd, 2009 at 9:07 am
My idea would be unique newspapers that understand their communities would provide their readers place tools all in one to make life in that community easier, more convenient, easier to navigate.
October 6th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
During the last years the Internet very intensively develops. People which are read by newspapers every year becomes a little. Future for online SMI.
October 27th, 2009 at 10:00 am
The portal concept has been around since the 1990s with companies like Yahoo!, Excite and others. It is difficult to imagine newspaper Web sites improving on an idea upon which some of the best minds of the Web have spent more than a decade.
October 27th, 2009 at 10:09 am
of methods, including ads and selling the convenience of well-aggregated and hyper-local and hyper-interest
October 31st, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Why would newspapers be capable or best equipped to deliver this functionality? It sounds like you are just describing a search engine that finds web sites with a “hyperinterest” focus.
November 9th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
It’s much more convenient to read online news because you don’t have to wake up in the morning in order to go and buy the newspaper and you can interact with other persons in order to share opinions regarding the news. I think that the idea of local news is not very profitable because it depends a lot on the community you are living in. If you happen to live in a community with only a few thousands inhabitants it cannot be very profitable. And a mistake that many news websites are making is that they do not care about the quality of the news. They just “throw” something on the website in order to be the first to do that and they are not even well informed and they are losing readers this way.
Leave a Reply