ContentOne will fundamentally change the way we gather and distribute content across the company. ContentOne also will attempt to guide coverage of major events not only to reduce duplication of effort but also to provide national advertising sales platforms.Ultimately, the true step forward for ContentOne will be to make a market for our content separate from our traditional products, which means our content will become one of our products. The project is underway now and is testing its processes, acquiring its infrastructure and probing advertiser interest.
How will this pay-for-content market differ from the free-content market in place now? Post replies in the comments section, below. Or e-mail confidentially via gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.
Good luck with that. All Gannett's newspapers except USAT produce very local copy that has zero value outside that community. Even if contentone were to find useful content, no one is buying right now. They're all cutting back.
ReplyDeleteGCI might have made this work 10 years ago but again, too little too late. But Dubow might be able to fool Wall Street for awhile.
This is such ridiculous garbage. It has been tried, and it failed. A couple of years ago, the Memphis Commercial Appeal cut a deal with Fedex to write an around-the-world series underwritten or sponsored by FedEx focusing on all the places FedEx goes. The paper sent out reporters and photographers and put a piece together. But when the finished product got to the desk, they realized there was a problem of the usual down side of Singapore, or corruption in foreign countries FedEx would prefer the paper not focus on. The reporter screamed like hell, and the FedEx got such a black eye they withdrew from the project. Check stories on Romenesko about this.
ReplyDeleteDoes this have something to do with "selling" audiences to marketing research companies for advertising purposes?
ReplyDeleteI read this six times and I have no more information about ContentOne than I did before. Sounds like a news service on the web. Not sure how that fundamentally changes anything...
ReplyDeleteNo, 12:26, it is a news service for advertisers. Think advertorials, or putting subtle messages in copy that are pleasing to certain businesses. It is a truly unethical idea that I believe will blow up in Corporate's face as the various groups discern what is happening, and ferret out the sponsor. There are groups like trial lawyers who would love to plant stories and whip up public campaigns. Read the recent vaccines don't cause autism decision and you will see the trial lawyers paid $800,000 to a lead scientist to prove mercury in vaccines were linked to autism.
ReplyDelete"ContentOne also will attempt to guide coverage of major events not only to reduce duplication of effort but also to provide national advertising sales platforms."
ReplyDeleteScary stuff written there.
Just who is ultimately responsible for guiding the coverage of major events?
I can see some logic in trying something like this. For example, Indianapolis can write pieces on Open Wheel racing and other papers in Gannett could use it. That is possible just as Indy and Louisville share content about IU Basketball. Thing is, that if anyone is interested, they already go onto those newspapers' web sites to get that info. I don't understand why Content 1 should change that.
ReplyDeleteHas Gannett changed the ethics statements reporters have to sign to relect the ContentOne initiative?
ReplyDeleteEthics? As long as you don't use your insider knowledge to make a killing on Gannett stock, nobody cares about ethics. We're selling eyeballs. You want high purpose, go talk to the Sulzbergers.
ReplyDelete(How do you make a killing with Gannett stock? Buy $1000 worth and drop it on someone's head.)
I agree with the post that ContentOne sounds like no more than just a glorified news service on the Web. Of course, if it's purpose is to add marketing/sales (advertorial) content to the platform, then perhaps it qualifies for a certain level of uniqueness.
ReplyDeleteIt just seems like Gannett is still trying to play catch up.
I still think that there will be a funding platform for local newspaper reporters. I think Google or some other yet-undiscovered futuristic company will likely keep staffs of reporters (dare I say only one editor) in local markets and maybe one salesperson. It would be a relatively cost-effective approach to maintaining the "local report" without all of the crazy spending and overhead.
Crazy spending example: Why did one small Gannett newsroom in the Midwest need a $30,000 LCD TV two years ago to broadcast Web sites to its reporters when they are all sitting in front of monitors? The TV ended up just turning into a big daytime soap opera watching device, anyway. Here's a hint on the location: It's EE shares more than his name in common with a famous cartoon mouse. This is a prime example of directors and execs failing in their fiduciary responsibility to investors. Regardless of why that TV was purchased and whom deemed it necessary, it was a wasteful misappropriation of funds. I'm sure my fellow colleagues among the Gannett ranks have more specific examples like that to share.
Jim: You should consider starting a thread on specific examples of wasteful spending like the one I mentioned above. I'm sure that it would fetch some really outlandish spending examples.
That TV would have paid for my newspaper to keep a reporter on staff for a year (we don't pay well). How crazy! Why do newspapers need such extravagant things like that?
ReplyDeleteThis man us the head of America's largest newspaper company? What in heavens name does this drivel mean? Please, please give me someone who can simply say what he or she means? This reads like something consumed during the awards luncheon at a media consultants's convention and then dropped in the crapper 10 hours later. Oh, Harry S Truman must be turning over in his grave.
ReplyDeleteI hate euphemisms!
ReplyDeleteHe uses "content" over and over, never saying what it is.
News? PR copy connected with ads? Features? Sports? What is content?
Chicken Soup?
Who are the customers? With whom is he testing? What consumers are in the market studies?
As always, Gannett is encouraging mushroom growth -- keeping people in the dark and feeding them horse manure.
Does anyone have an original idea at corporate? The emporor has no clothes.
ReplyDeleteWhat pisses me off about ContentOne is that it will drain money from the community papers. The Crystal Towers will put together these projects with their ad agents getting the revenue from the ads placed, leaving local papers some holes to fill with local ads. But it will be the Crystal Towers, not the community papers, who will get the revenues. ContentOne is a clever way of draining ads from our papers.
ReplyDelete@ 1:09 PM poster ...
ReplyDelete$30,000 LCD? I'll believe when you post the invoice. Gannett had special pricing for the Information Center conversion, including LCD monitors. The 52" Sonys cost $4,000.
But it's the internet, so people can make up whatever they want.
What this statement says to me is that the muckety-mucks think that the newspaper is a product - that there's something intrinsic about a newspaper that draws people to pick it up. Is it the crackle of the paper? The ink on your fingers?
ReplyDeleteNo, morons, the value of a newspaper is ALREADY the content. The sports scores, the local news, the letters to the editor. The newspaper is just a tool to present that content.
By saying things like 'content is a product,' you reveal your complete ignorance of what your company does.
Now shut the bleep up and quit already.
Jim and others,
ReplyDeleteLook more closely into the 'green' initiative to get an idea of how C1 will be rolled out. The idea as I understand it is that you collect some generalized national articles, preferably picked up from regional papers and sanitized into pablum that's as timeless and evergreen as possible. Then you add some local bloggers and calendars to make the site "yours." Voila - you can get GM or Ford to sign a contract promoting their latest geothermal-powered unicycle to be carried on all the sites.
Give David Ledford at Wilmington a call - no, seriously! He's been touting this thing for a while, and boy, does he love to talk.
Someone told me that Dubow is promoting Tara Connell to the new role as head of global editor for Contnt One. Does he see that he will have a revolt in the newspaper ranks if she is appointed to this role?
ReplyDeleteSerioulsy, I can't believe we would sit here and let this fucking idiot Dubow (the broadcast suit) tell us how reporting and journalism will be conducted. Especially when hehas a puppet lead this Content One shit.
Come on people, speak up about this.
Does anyone know what the USAT folks think of this?
I know what ContentOne is, it's the only viable way to convert over 80, quality publications serving local interests into... I don't know, crap publications with the majority of "content" and advertising coming from an office out east?
ReplyDelete@ 1:09 PM poster ...
ReplyDelete$30,000 LCD? I'll believe when you post the invoice. Gannett had special pricing for the Information Center conversion, including LCD monitors. The 52" Sonys cost $4,000.
But it's the internet, so people can make up whatever they want. ----
That makes sense -- I recall looking online to price TVs after taking model numbers off our newsroom's flat screens -- $4,000 sounds about right.
1:09 PM - If that ticks you off, take a look at Florida Today's mission control. It cost a hell of a lot more than your 30K.
ReplyDelete