What Little I Know…

Well it’s that time of year where we run down our top 10 ad-ition news and classified blog posts for 2009.

10. The recession brought about a frugal mind-set and publishers who were wise, saw a huge revenue increase by way of couponing.  The more forward thinking publishers took advantage by creating niche couponing sites, selling couponing features to advertisers (for both consumer buying and performance tracking purposes), as well as pump up their flyering business.  Now, a whopping 70% of  adults say they use newspapers as their couponing source!

9. In 2009 we saw Oodle create some strong partnerships that catapulted them to the ‘must watch’ list.  Amongst the more dominant Oodle partnerships were AOL and of course Facebook.  Given Facebook’s continued growth, especially in North America, this partnership has left many in the classified publishing world thinking deeply about their next move.

8. In January, there was a lot of buzz about what the top online marketing trends would be for 2009.  We’ve added this post to the list because as we review what the pundits were saying almost 12 months ago, it appears as though we could publish the same post this coming January and call it the top online trends for 2010.  Not much has changed here.

7. This year was definitely the year for bailout conversation and there was no shortage of bailout talks when it came to the US newspaper industry.  As a matter of fact, there has been no final ruling on if government will come to the financial aid of this paramount industry, but as many newspapers start to now see a revenue lift in a few of their verticals, speculation is that there will more than likely be no bailout advocacy for the industry.

6. Along the vein of bailouts… what we saw happen to the automotive industry the end of last and the beginning half of this year, was extremely painful for publishers, considering that auto had been one of the strongest verticals for both newspapers and niche magazine.  On the upside, most recent auto reports show that OEM and dealer ad spend seems to be on the rise.

5. Could you really have a top 10 and not include Twitter – NO – not even for news and classified industry. We’ve added Twitter to this list because it was in 2009 where every news and classified publisher decided to get a Twitter account for their properties.  Even though it is unfortunate that many of them are using the uber micro blogging/social networking site incorrectly (i.e. posting every classified listing in bulk), we’re happy, nonetheless that traditional publishers are getting on board with social media – in some sense.

4. The Associated Press also made our list of hot news and classified media blogs for 2009, but not for the astute reasons that they would have liked.  Instead, the AP is on our list because it was in 2009 that publishers finally decided to stand up to AP’s ongoing rate increases.  This situation was most ironic as one would think that the Associated Press, of all institutions, would understand the need to work closely with publishers to find an amiable rate card.

AP’s newsworthy beahviour didn’t just stop with rate cards in 2009.  This year we also saw the AP try their hand at taking search engines to task for what they were calling “inappropriate use of their content”.

3. The forever discussed lawsuit initially filed  by eBay against Craigslist also made our list, primarily because the whole thing played out like an episode of a soap opera.

2. No list would be complete if we didn’t include the annual conversation about charging for online content.  Initially sparked by Rupert Murdoch, we saw the last quarter of 2009 introduce paid content models for additional publishers.  The paid content initiative is still too new to determine what level of success publishers are seeing, but we don’t believe it will be much.  Unfortunately, Murdoch’s thinking has caused many publishes, with ‘general content’ to think that they too can charge for online news access; this is nothing like Murdoch’s original plan, which was to charge for online content from his niche products – and charging for niche content access does have the making of a viable online revenue model.

1. Number one on our list is a sad but true story. There was a period of 2009 where a week didn’t go by where we didn’t hear of a newspaper reducing their publishing cycle, going online only, or worse yet, close their doors all together.  The dismal revenue performance of newspapers over the past three years and the rise of pure play online news sources, have made it difficult for many traditional publishers to stay afloat.  We by no means think the newspaper fatalities will end, but the number of closures in 2010 will be far less.

Visit us on January 4th for our ‘Must Do’ list for publishers in 2010.