When I think of the role of publishers today why am I suddenly reminded of a certain movie about a professor who accidentally shrinks his kids and his neighbor's kids to 1/4 of an inch with an electro-magnetic ray gun? more

Four mega-trends emerged from the ballrooms and hallways of the Key Executives Mega-conference last week. And all of them underscored the decline in marketing importance - or at least growth of the banner ad as a business model. While previous conferences focused on how to get a 60% sell-through, the most interesting speakers this year were more likely to refer to banner ads as interruptive, while pressing on to more interesting opportunities: more

We've come a long way since the idea of separate business units was first articulated. The idea was fielded - and largely ignored - by established media years ago, first by the "Newspaper Next Project" and then by Borrell & Associates who have made it their mantra. In reality it is clearly impossible to build a new company that takes advantage of disruption in the marketplace, and so on, from inside the organizational structure of the old one without a separate business unit. But the original idea infiltrated its way into established media in pernicious ways - and that is one reason why it was not adopted faster, even though the research was there to be had. more

The following interview is with Kurt Lozier, SVP of Dow Jones Local Media Group, which is currently testing paywalls in eight small markets. The complete case study is this week's lead item. LMI: Looking over the data, do you find it remarkable that 50% of print subscribers have chosen to pay more to read news online, simply because you asked them to? Lozier: The take rate was higher than we thought. Every time I read about (publishers) launching a site who say current subscribers get into for free, I want to grab the phone and call them. If you just give it to current subscribers, you don't know if it has value. Our new core product is print plus online. more

I have spent a lot of time lately thinking and speaking about paid content models. Last week I had an illustrative moment that speaks directly to both the challenge and the opportunity for local … more

At last week's 2012 Borrell Local Online Advertising Conference the most interesting presentations touched on the need for traditional media companies to create brave, new local media brands. For the most part, media rebranding has been about simply renaming companies as media companies, rather than "print" or "television," especially helpful for media that own both print and broadcast. Thus The Gazette became Source Media, and the trades are littered with companies dropping words like "broadcast, television" as well as "daily, weekly" and so on. But what has been broken in the way we cover the news is not just a fragmentation of channels. It is the mediocrity of voice. more

We've been advocating that developing better creative solutions for local advertisers ("What's the Big Idea?") is an important part of creating future business models. But the revenue team at Palm Beach Post is actively testing this theory with amazing results: a 90% increase in collective revenues from advertisers handled through Innovative Client Solutions in the first quarter tracked. more

After attending the RadioInk conference this week, I did an informal survey of "take aways" from the attendees. Most had great things to say about the key note from Nolan Bushnell - founder … more