What goes up, must come down. Ads revenue declining? I don’t think so, well, maybe a little bit, but for which one? Print or Online?
Print Publishers makes money on Advertisement, Advertising is the only way to offset cost for Publishers. Since the inception of the internet and year by year the internet is the easiest way to find information online and more publisher go online to look for more audience. The more audience, the more publisher can make money from advertising online. One of the reason why print publishing advertisement is lower this year, by 11.4%.
“Print ad sales for the industry skidded 11.4% in the first three months of the year to $5.2 billion, according to data released yesterday by the Newspaper Association of America. This compares with $10.3 billion in the same period in 2005, reflecting a decline since then of 55.3%.” – Newsosour
Our audience, our users, have always thought the internet is free. But we all know that’s not the case. Someone has to pay, and the way they pay is by advertising online. The advertising pays for our server mainframe, our cost to write these reports, cost to maintain, cost for uploading the information to the internet service provider, building maintenance, utility bills, and so on. And sometimes, these cost offset isn’t enough for publishers. Even for big print company, it takes them years to be profitable and debt free.
Publishers don’t have to find money in advertising for the internet, it could be in many ways. Mobile is getting more and more traditional when it comes to finding information online such as iPhone and BlackBerry’s. These mobile advertising isn’t as easy as advertising for the web, it requires a different software and requires a different kind of subscription for the publisher, unless if the publisher have their own software with it’s own subscription. But those who doesn’t want to fiddle with the hassles, there are software out there ready for you. Just like the Google for web advertisement, and Admob for the standard mobile phones and iAd for iDevices such as iPhone and iPad 3G. Those are ways to make Google richer.
“Print advertising matters because it traditionally accounts for three-quarters of the revenue base at most newspapers, with circulation and digital media making up the rest.”
Google has been buying a lot of companies outside of U.S, making them bigger and bigger throughout the world. And those companies letting Google buy them isn’t interested in making their country better with it’s economy. Why make bigger company even bigger? Why not just sustain yourself in your own country and be proud with your accomplishment rather than building something great and letting yourself bought by a giant company who’s interest is nothing more than to take more of your shares. Keep the shares within your own country and excel your countries economy.
In Indonesia, there is such a company for search and advertising, it’s called Bataviase at bataviase.co.id. The group, SITTI, a company by Andy Sjarif and this company has already been approached by Google. Google wants to buy them, and that’s because these guys (SITTI) isn’t the average Joe that anybody can do. Andy Sjarif is a graduate from MIT as a Kama Cum-laud, the best in his class, and SITTI has their own language professor in Bahasa. These guys are serious and Google is serious to acquire them.
So what is the point of all this? If you live in a developing country, like I’m currently am, the opportunities are better, and if you do it right, you too can become successful. Google isn’t the enemy, in fact, Google is there for you to make your own choice. Whether you want work with Google, or not, that’s up to you. If you do, then Google will work with you and take part of what you make with them. Well, that’s smart, that’s business.
Second point is, the only way make money online is by advertising, but you know that already. While other countries ad sales are down in their print version, it’s actually up in Kompas, base in Indonesia. Even an increase of 1% of ad sales is better than loosing money. What’s even better is, the online ads are increasing exponentially.
Especially with the launch of iPad and the new iPhone 4. It’s a big buzz in countries like Indonesia. Those who wants to take the interest in advertising with us gets a huge promotion deal. As we (Kompas) launched an iPad App for their Daily Editors’ Choice, whoever took the deal to advertise early, before the iPad even launch, gets promoted with the iPad App. It’s like a free ride, and the cost offset our production cost, well, not entirely, but enough where we can sleep at night.
These are examples how the trend are moving from Print Advertising to Online Advertising by countries. And it is a big deal if you are a company like Google, because the trend can only go one way. Up!
Stats From: Newsosour and Nielsen
Investigative Journalism made easy with Wikileaks
Wikileaks; a new tool for Journalism? A source for investigative Journalism made easy with Wikileaks, is it another value added tool for Journalist? Should Journalist depend on Wikileaks? Should Journalist use Wikileaks at all? Can Journalist depends on Wikileaks?
A few weeks ago I discovered Wikileaks after a co-worker showed me a video of how U.S Navy operates during a mission in Afghan War. It has a video of two Apache Helicopter intercepted what appear to be part of a rebel group with weapons. The video was longer than 10 minutes long. I wonder how this video could be up in Wikileaks in the first place. It might or might not be confidential to begin with, but if we can learn about this video, well, then so can those who seek to destroy U.S. Learning how we operate and how we execute every command, or maybe they already know, but with Wikileaks, it’s so easy. Too easy. But I’m not here to talk about ethical exercise of Wikileaks, I’m just awed at the video and start to wonder the what ifs.
Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, were asked if Wikileaks better to be separate from investigative Journalism? Would being associated with a news organization subject it to different standards of verification and transparency? “I think it’s better separate,” Rusbridger responded. Wikileaks does things the paper wouldn’t want to do or couldn’t do. And a paper is easier to attack by governments and companies; it has greater liability than a stateless news organization, as Jay Rosen calls them. “I think the Afghan leaks make the case for journalism,” Rusbridger said. “We had the people and expertise to make sense of it.”
Alright, so Wikileaks is there, what is the advantage for Journalism? The internet is so easy for us to find information, Wikileaks proves itself that it doesn’t need News Media Companies to support it, it can do so by itself. Information on the internet after all is free. Wikileaks would be a good way for collaboration, just like what Guardian did with CommentisFree. So we can see Wikileaks to be an added value for Journalist, without second guessing, and sources can be from different places, add Wikileaks to one more source now.
But as a Journalist, information can be found easily, shouldn’t just be a stenographer, but should also add value to the story. A story without opinions or perspective won’t be as good as an original story found. As long as Wikileaks is credited where it belongs, Journalist could save money, resources and time. And I believe in news collaboration, lets hope it’s going to the right direction with Wikileaks and CommentisFree.
Can we depend on Wikileaks? Just like Wikipedia, anyone can put information in, so information might or might not be reliable. Thus, Wikileaks is just merely a tool for double checking and re-checking with your source. Wikileaks would just be a provider for Journalism to add maximum value to the story.