I had to share this – www.typobuddy.com

The Deal Locker group saw it fit to launch a Web site that tracks misspelled ads on eBay and craigslist and it is appropriately called “Typo Buddy”. This is a great idea considering that if you type the item your are looking for, with the correct spelling on either listing site, you will miss the deals where the seller spells that same item incorrectly.

If you get a chance to visit the Typo Buddy site, you should also peruse their “misspelling blog” – there are some very funny posts there!

Note that Typo Buddy was launched in February of 2008.

written by Beverly Crandon

Nielsen has released its July listing of the top 25 companies in terms of online user share and stickiness. What’s interesting to note is that 16% of the companies on the list are publishers of newspapers or they own newspaper publishing companies. In addition, 24% of companies on the list dabble in classifieds. Not too shabby

Source: Nielsen Online, 2008

written by Beverly Crandon

The Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada released its annual online advertising report and the numbers  show that 2007 was a banner year.

Online advertising revenues in Canada grew by 38% in 2007, to reach 1.2 billion and according to the IAB, this means that online ad revenues in Canada have more than quadrupled in only five years.  Of the growth in Canada, Paula Gignac (President of IAB Canada) said “The sky’s really the limit for Online, as new developments in targeting technology, creative (it’s great to have our first Video advertising revenue number), and integrated strategies are happening on an almost daily basis — all with the goal of helping marketers capitalize on online’s ever-growing and engaged audience. Online advertising is no longer below the line in any way — it’s now an essential component of any marketing mix.”

According to the IAB, the 2007 online ad revenue breakdown was as follows:

• Display - $432 M
• Video - $9 M
• Search - $478 M
• Classifieds/Directories - $305 M
• Email - $17 M

From a geographical perspective, approximately $260 million (21%) of the $1.2 billion, came from French Canadian Online properties.

The IAB breakdown of 2007 online ad revenues, by advertiser category was as follows:

• Automotive - 16%;
• Media + Entertainment (Music, Film, TV) - 8%;
• Financial - 11%;
• Leisure (Travel, Hotel, Hospitality) - 7%;
• Packaged Goods - 6%;
• Retail - 9%;
• Technology - 10%;
• Telecommunications - 7%; and,
• Other - 26%

You can download a summary of the report here: IAB Canada 2007 Online Ad Revenues

written by Beverly Crandon

ImpreMedia, the number one Hispanic news and information company in the United States, has launched its all-vertical Web site called Impre.com.

This is big news for traditional media who has tried to capture the Hispanic market with the use of special supplements and micro sites. This announcement by ImpreMedia means the group many media heads (MTV) would turn to for aid in translations or content, will be serving it all up on their own. “Impre.com will be the premier online destination for, by and about U.S. Hispanics,” said Arturo Duran, CEO of ImpreMedia Digital.

Those who understand both the power and strategic growth footprint of ImpreMedia have already reached out for partnerships - for example, the McClatchy Group and MySpace.com. With MySpace, Impre.com will provide content to the MySpace Latino TodoFutbol community.

In addition to carrying news, entertainment and sports, Impre.com also includes a classified section where primarily, cars, homes and employment can be sourced.

ImpreMedia is the largest Hispanic newspaper publisher with publications in the seven of the top 10 markets, reaching 17 markets total and representing 65% of the U.S. Hispanic population.

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: hispanic media, impre.com, impremedia

Covering stories from blog.ad-ition.com and other relevant classified media news.

This episode’s covered news bits differ from the regular format as we have designer Ana Gervasio of Bridge Collective commenting on newspaper and classified Web site design. The specific sites reviewed in this episode are: Tulsa World, NY Times, Toronto Sun, Penny Saver USA, Loot and Thrifty Nickel Classifieds.

 

 This Week's eMedia with ad-ition (ep.5) [28:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: ad-ition, classified website design, classifieds podcast, newspaper design, newspaper podcast, podcast

According to Hitwise, ‘Classified’ search share has increased by 7% in March 2008, compared to the year previous:

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: Classified Search Share, Online Claslsifieds

In an earlier post this week, I wrote about a thorough report produced by InQuira and ServiceXRG. It covered the “To Do’s” of effective self-service online tools. In that earlier post, I promised to provide supplementary data on how the reports nine self-service “To Do’s” could be applied to print publishing businesses and their online properties.

1. Understand the Experience your Customers Expect

When reviewing or especially starting off at the design phase, publishers should demand that their interactive department produce fact and research on the customer online experience. The interactive team’s findings should answer the following:

• What your competitors are doing
• What is happening in your market place?
• What best practices exist globally?
• What functionality your newspaper customers have been asking for online

2. Define the Elements of the Experience you Intend to Deliver

After reviewing your research documentation, you will need to come up with a customer online experience footprint that is in alignment with your brand and your offline business. Publishers should ensure that no matter what the experience looks like, that the self-service applications allow customers to place the ad independently, from beginning to end. Your only injection in the process should be your online tutorials, “How To” guides and help options (email, chat, etc…).

3. Identify the Content and Tools Required to Fulfill Customer Expectations

This is where it all falls apart for many newspapers and magazines. They take their offline business practice and forms of serving content and mirror it online. No more do I want to see PDF’s of display ads! The Internet gives you the opportunity to build engaging and interactive applications and in many cases, due to reduced costs and no page yield concerns, more information for your readers. Because of this increased ability to serve information in interesting ways, you must think clearly about the content you provide and how you provide it. Ensure the areas of your site that most interest your customers is easy to access and ensure the areas that you want to showcase, probably because it provides you with a competitive edge, is clearly promoted.

4. Establish Success Criteria to Monitor your Ability to Deliver a Positive Experience

As self-service online applications have been rapidly adopted by newspapers and magazines over the past four years, you would think a larger majority of them would be actively monitoring their Website statistics – but this is not the case. Many newspaper organizations aren’t even familiar with the key performance indicators that apply to a Websites success.

Publishers should ask for routine Website reports covering the following:

• Bounce Rates
• Page Views
• Time Spent Online
• Drop-off Rates and Point of Drop Off (the funnel)
• Unique Monthly Visitors (UMV’s)
• Site hits and visits are good to measure, but they do not tell you much about the user’s activity on your site.

5. Identify Other Resources that Infringe on or Inhibit your Ability to Deliver the Intended Experience to your Customers and Prospects

Meaning, be prepared for the unexpected. Ensure you have a backup plan if things go haywire. Better yet, launch your changes to a controlled group determined by a ratio of URL entries and then measure your results. Are they what you expect?

6. Fight to Maintain Control of the Experience you Deliver to your Customers and Prospects

This applies to those on the sales lines in newspapers and magazines. The sales team hears customer queries, rants and raves on a day-to-day basis and they in turn represent the customer internally. Therefore, when they suggest changes or new online products, they are doing it because there is a customer need. They should be listened to and their feedback should be incorporate into site plans.

7. Make Investments that Improve the Customer Experience

I know publishers all over are crying the revenue blues, but you will have to make an investment in online to gain in later phases. Online applications will allow you to efficiently and quickly service customer needs, void of a live person – meaning your overhead costs will decrease. Moreover, depending on how savvy your online application is, you will have a chance to reach a larger audience, as opposed to your zoned circulation methodology, which is suffering from falling pick-up rates.

8. Experience the Experience

I encourage all publishers and senior level managers to walk through the ad placement processes themselves. Through my consulting experience, I have seen the challenges publishers have had when trying to devote the time to review their revamped site or brand new builds, but not getting acquainted with your technology, leaves you with a void of understanding and it makes difficult for you to empathize with the customer experience.

9. Rinse and Repeat

Congratulations to you and your team if you have covered the previous eight steps, but don’t think it ends here. As technology changes rapidly and so too do consumer habits online, there is a necessity for you to review your online self-service tools at least annually. Ask yourself if the experience you built online is in alignment with what your customers want.

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: Newspapers, self service online tools, self-service

InQuira, a developer of automated self-service applications and research firm ServiceXRG, have just release a 36-page report analyzing the customer experience with online self-service applications. The report is filled with great data that I for one did not find shocking, especially when providing prose on the difficulties many consumers have when trying to find things on random sites independently. I say it all the time, just because you can find everything on your site doesn’t mean the ‘guy’ next to you will be able to. A site audit is important and many of us forget that and instead find it a trivial item, when in fact an audit should at least be done annually on your Website property. With the available technology online, user behavior changes all the time and you your Web property should be able to answer to those changes.

“As self-service transactions replace personal interactions, the ability to shape customer experience depends on the online tools and content provided,” explained Tom Sweeny, principal and co-founder of ServiceXRG.

Although examples of poor self service tools online could be found in all verticals, one of the biggest offenders are newspaper sites. There are way too many newspapers that negatively impact the customer experience on line and in many areas, but listed here are just a few:

• Letting customers place ads only part of the way, but to complete the ad placement process, the customer is directed to call into the newspaper.
• Many newspapers that dabble in new media, (i.e. video and UGC) hide the fact that the enhanced functionality could be used while placing ads. I assume it was probably easier for their technical department to create a new section online for the functionality, as opposed to integrating it!
• The newspaper photo upload processes are also painful. Expecting the lay individual to understand what you mean when you talk about pixels, gif’s and tiff’s is a mistake and to boot, newspapers sites do not do a good job of providing “How To’s” on this topic or even useful tutorials. In fact, my experience shows that 30% of individuals placing ads on newspaper and weekly shopper sites drop off at the photo upload process, due to difficulty.

To combat and or avoid having that poor customer experience with your Web property, the InQuira ServiceXRG report lists nine things you must do and in a later post I will review each one and apply it to newspaper online properties:

1. Understand the experience your customers expect
2. Define the elements of the experience you intend to deliver
3. Identify the content and tools required to fulfill customer expectations
4. Establish success criteria to monitor your ability to deliver a positive experience
5. Identify other resources that infringe on or inhibit your ability to deliver the intended experience to your customers and prospects
6. Fight to maintain control of the experience you deliver to your customers and prospects
7. Make Investments that improve the customer experience
8. Experience the experience
9. RINSE AND REPEAT!

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: newspaper online self serice tools, online self service tools, self-service

In the vein of sliding newspaper revenues, I have decided to post the results reported from other newspaper properties this week:

• The Washington Post reported a 13% drop in 2007 revenues, when compared to 2006.
• McClatchy reported a revenue decline of 14% in January 2008, compared to the same month in 2007.
  • This publisher saw their greatest decline in the area of commercial advertising, which dropped by 16%.
• Gannett reported that their January newspaper advertising revenues fell by 9.2% and the company’s broadcast properties suffered a 6% decline in revenues, when compared to January of 2007.

As we mentioned in our post on Media General, newspaper properties are celebrating increases in online revenue, but the increases are not enough to cover their losses from newspaper advertising and classifieds. The rate of online growth has also slowed in comparison to previous periods, making it difficult for publishers to play overall revenue catch-up!

• At the Washington Post, online revenues grew by 11% in 2007, which was down from the 2006 growth rate of 28%.
• In January, McClatchy’s online revenues grew by 2.6% when compared to a 14.6% growth rate in January 2007.

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: Gannett, MCClatchy, Media General, Newspaper Revenues, Washington Post

Media General, the publisher of nearly 130 daily, community and weekly papers, primarily in Southeast USA, released their January 08’ revenue results and like what we have seen time after time from newspapers, the results weren’t pretty.

For January 2008, Media General reported revenues of $71.5 million – this equates to a decline of $6.5 million when compared to last year. The biggest decline was seen with the publisher’s classifieds. Among its large dailies real-estate classified revenues were down 37%, automotive 35% and employment revenues decreased 34%. All other media types owned by the publisher were up (broadcast and online). Increases in other areas however, were not enough to make up for the newspaper losses.

Unlike some of the other publishing groups its size, Media General has started to dabble in areas outside of traditional newspaper, but still remaining entertaining, for the purpose of user engagement. Media General has branched into the online gaming arena and so far, has seen some success with this. Their advergaming revenues were up 4% in January!

written by Beverly Crandon \\ tags: Media General, Newspaper Revenues, Online Gaming