The Publisher Online

MARCH 1999

Online publishing:
focus on content and structure
By Robert MacKenzie
The Publisher
ATLANTA, GA - About two years ago, as new technologies started making it easier for newspapers to build their Internet presence, everyone was focused on the need to be there. Papers were busy putting up a Web site that looked good and put their paper on the map of the World Wide Web, and not many stopped to consider the future of the Web.
In the time since then, technology has continued to improve. Likewise, community newspapers have done what their associations have been telling them to do: they've been taking steps to secure their franchise on the Web by registering community domain names, linking local groups and organizations from their sites, and striving to include more than just a re-hash of their weekly print stories on the newspaper's Web site.
Now, as we head into the new millennium, the experts are saying that newspapers need to do even more in order to establish their place in tomorrow's new media world. The key to it all, they say, is structure.
John Bennett, development manager with Cahners Business Information, believes structure is the most important element to consider when developing a Web presence - not presentation.
Bennett was one member of a panel discussion on the topic of technology at the recent Editor & Publisher magazine Interactive Newspapers Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.
"Forget about the presentation," Bennett says. "Focus on content and structure."
Along with his fellow panelists, Bennett feels traditional publishing systems make multi-publishing opportunities prohibitive to newspapers - especially smaller ones - because of the enormous amount of time involved in re-formatting content. By giving some forethought to how the information can be used, and then developing an efficient system for managing that content, Bennett says newspapers are in a position to secure their future online.
Newspapers need to structure all of their content (stories, photography, graphics, etc) in a central database format, more like a library card catalogue than a bookshelf.
Changing technology is also making it easier for newspapers to accomplish this goal, Bennett says, and the new common language for publishing on the Internet will be the XML language, he adds.
"Where we want to be is content authoring and editing to a central repository,Ó Bennett says. "From there it can be sent out in any format - be it print, Web or whatever - with little work."
Newspaper publishers have to balance the need to keep the additional workload of the Internet down, but at the same time providing additional value to their new audience on the Web.
In the early days, most newspapers simply "re-purposed" their print content for their Web site edition. Many papers still follow the mantra that their online edition is simply a highlights of the print version that provides information about the publication to a potentially wider audience than the paperÕs regular readership.
Readers Demand More
Fortunately, newspapers are now waking up to the fact that Web site readers want more from them than just a re-printing of the week's top print stories. Many publications are answering that demand by providing Web-specific content that gives their Internet readers the added value they're looking for.
But that's not to say that print content shouldn't be on the Web; it just shouldn't be used there in the same way it is on paper. "Your value is packaging to give context," Bennett explains. To prepare for this, he says there needs to be an editorial revolution in self-perception, meaning newspapers need to shed the idea that their content has only one purpose. At the moment, most publishers are hesitant to unleash their Web developments to their fullest potential for fear that it may diminish the importance of the print product. From Bennett's point of view, every new medium is important, and we need to shed that idea in order to develop new media opportunities fully.
Integrita's John Freed, another panelist at the Interactive Newspapers Conference, says the philosophy is "write once, publish many."
Like Bennett, he feels the way to do this is better cross-media management, which results in more rapid time to market. This is critical, Freed says, and newspapers need to start looking at these solutions quickly to avoid being left in the dust by their new competitors on the Internet.
For smaller newspaper operations, he says the need to minimize the time it takes staff to modify content for different mediums, and also the training and maintenance involved with whatever system solution they choose to accomplish this. Freed says there are plenty of solutions out there right now that can take the original format and quickly modify it for the Web, or removing the tags from a Web story so that it can be published in print or some other format, such as e-mail.
"The question you always have to ask when talking to a vendor is not 'how much is it going to cost?' but 'how much will it cost me down the road?'" he says.
While all of these ideas may seem somewhat far-fetched to community newspaper publishers, we know the Internet is not going away, and we also know that other new mediums will emerge in the coming years. The question of whether or not print will ever die is arguable, but nevertheless, the way newspapers serve their communities is changing, and now is the time for publishers to be thinking about where their newspapers will be in the future, and taking steps to make sure they get there.
Dale Peskin, vice-president of interactive media, A.H. Belo Corp., sums it up this way: "This is not a hobby for us in the newspaper business. There is a new business model emerging, and we need to figure it out."
This new business is not, Peskin says, going to be banner advertising on the Web, which amounts to another way of mirroring a newspaper's print content online.
"I think that we're going to be creating a special experience for advertisers based on who their audience and their customers are and how they want to reach them," he says. "I think that where media companies need to go is to focus on new kinds of relationships with advertisers, not just one where we're a bulletin board for their ads, but where we can offer a range of services that connect them with their audience."
For community newspapers, Peskin wonders if there are new ways to find profitability through online notification, couponing, memberships in online clubs, and online coupons that can drive people into the shops of their advertisers. Such community-based Web sites make a lot of sense, he says, and building these kinds of partnerships will help newspapers secure their place in tomorrow's e-commerce world.

See Also:

Editor & Publisher's coverage of the Interactive Newspapers Conference

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