Audience aggregation: a new concept in newspaper industry

This is the third article in two weeks about the quest of Newspaper giants for new business models and concepts. Before I continue, let’s be very clear: the Newspaper industry is in a good shape. Although certain articles report declining revenues for Newspapers (subscriptions, advertising, classifieds), the dynamism and thrust of publishers has never been bigger. But still, once at the top, the only way back is downhill.

Therefore, new concepts, such as audience aggregation are introduced. Audience aggregation stands for aggressive expansion of print and online media by developing and launching niche, more targeted and supplementary media. More and more you see new local or specialist titles or inserts in existing media. Online, you can see micro-sites being part of bigger portals trying to get eyeballs from global events. Today Fifa World Cup is a good example.

Mobiya will paly a dual role in the audience aggregation model: (1) exact demographics and (2) classifieds content.

(1) Exact demographics: mobile classified advertising has an enormous advantage: the mobile is personal. Mobiya can capture demographic information from the advertiser and responder. Mobiya can capture exact location information and start analysing where advertisers live and where responders come from. This will be important for print, when launching new titles to aim for exact and efficient distribution, making the classified paper as cost-efficient as possible.

(2) Classifieds content: Mobiya replaced taxonomy (human edited classification) with folksonomy, allowing the user to tag classifieds via keywords. These tags will create a social or community based classification. Putting it back into the audience aggregation model, media groups are able to see seasonal trends in classifieds advertising. People selling their motorcycle and caravans at the end of the summer, while at the beginning of the winter you might have people wanting ski’s or ski holidays. Just imagine Newspapers can create themed inserts based on the classified content they captured during the last 7 days.

Last but not least and probably the most important end note of the author: creativity and innovation works, certainly in media. The role of product and marketing managers are a crucial element. Creativity is the foundation of prestige and image. What is protecting the Newspaper advertising margins? Advertisers that believe in the prestige of your media, and won’t squeeze you down on price by considering you as spread and density for advertising.

Article source: Media Marketing nr. 109 – Jun/Jul 2006

MobileMonday – Investment climate warming up

Mobiya attended the MobileMonday chapter Brussels yesterday. I had the opportunity to meet with the CEO, Jari Tammisto and discuss the global opportunity for Mobiya. He referred me to the Global Summit which took place in May this year. A well full of presentations and network contacts. Next week, MobileMonday Chapter Barcelona holds its first event. This chapter is organized by Rudy De Waele, a Mobiya believer and our connection into the Spanish market.

The real business model in free-online advertising

An interview with Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist, in the Wall Street Journal Online confirms my thinking about the true business model behind free online-classifieds. Craigslist is a phenomenal success, being the 7th most popular site in the world. Still, while other portals make billions, Craigslist took a relatively paltry $25 million in revenue.

An industry analyst has estimated that Craigslist could generate 20 times the current revenue, that’s half a billion dollars left on the table. How:  via Google Adsense and banner advertising. Consider that as the real competitive business model to Mobiya as many media groups consider the free-classifieds model as the best way to serve their customers.

At Mobiya we think it is about customer value-add, and not about price. According to Jim Buckmaster it is about customer comfort. Craigslist is much more comfortable charging companies than charging individuals. Well, the real underlying problem to make such a statement is their difficulty to raise micro-payments while offering enough real value-add. The quality of the content is also under pressure: a growing pile of duplicates, false teasers and adult links. There is no free lunch.

Mobiya provides the enablement platform to media groups allowing them to offer mobile classifieds on their online properties. Their customers can do a micro-payment over a premium sms to get a listing on Mobiya or affiliate sites. Also Craig Newark is adding more and more paid listings to its site, the latest being real estate ads in New York at $10 the ad. Now, the bizar thing about the latter : the user asked for it!

Investors, no kidding!

The investment landscape in digital media is getting seriously competitive. While 3 months ago round A investmens in digital media startups such as mobile media, web 2.0 , social networking , interactive advertising and search were between $1 and $3 million, today Envio announced the fundraising of $7m by two Boston based investment companies. Envio seems to be in a very early stage, even without any web presence.

Another competitive factor for traditional investors looking for opportunities in the digital media market is the announcement of established media companies creating funds to attract startups, joint ventures and outright acquisitions. Today, Endemol UK announced that it is setting up an investment funds of 15 million pounds. Their focus: Mobile!

Mobiya provides a digital media platform for classified advertising connecting users over mobile services to an web 2.0 environment. The right target for digital media funds.

Yellow Pages business model under pressure

Marketing Week magazine reports this week that print revenues from Yellow Pages listings are under pressure. Yell.com, UK’s market leader in directory services reported a revenue of about £700m, whereby £60m was generated by the online service, not even 10% of the total Yell revenue. However, Yell.com revenue was up 65% and Yellow Pages only 1.2%.

The article quotes Karl Gregory about the problems of print directory services. "Paper directories have limited distribution, they are expensive, they are not searchable by keyword, it is difficult to navigate the classifieds, they have limited shelf-life and are usually printed just once a year. The web is local, national and global all in one," he adds. "It is searchable by keyword, easy to navigate and allows business to update their information." All very true, but Karl is avoiding the very core of the problem: how to fix the business model. Can Mobiya also tackle the business model of directory services?

24/7 Aggregation of news and ads

Mobiya is offering a layer of interactivity on top of classified advertising that goes beyond online publishing and email. Mobile services will not only speed up the distribution of ads, but more importantly the publication is instant. The newspaper industry has for many years been funneling the revenue stream of print classifieds and delayed the online publication by 24 hours or even 7 days, depending on the frequency of publication. This allowed them to subsidize their online media activity.

An article titled ‘online publishing is a balancing act’ in the UK publication Marketing (june 21, 2006) gives the bold story of Alan Rusbridger, the courageous editor of The Guardian. He has given green light to push 95% content online, without delay and without a business model. According to the article, in an age of transition, there is a clear need for ingenuity and creativity. That is exactly what Mobiya offers for classified advertising.

You can find an extract of the article online at the BrandRepublic site. To end again with a quote, this time from a senior City analyst, who no longer buys the Financial Times, noted rather bluntly "he no longer needs an aggregator of 24-hour-old news." He also meant this for classified advertising. Mobiya’s vision is to become a global aggregator of classified advertisements with a revenue model behind it, in an instant way.

Mobile Classifieds: the idea

Here we are, our first posting only a couple of days away from the release of the international beta version of Mobiya. We have seen dozens of investors and potential customers across Europe. All of them had the same question. Has anyone done this before you?

After visiting mobile exhibitions and conferences, reading thousands of RSS feeds and talking to hundreds of people worldwide, I can finally confirm that I have found at least one person on this planet that has done the same analysis and thinking about classified advertisements as Mobiya. His name: Russell Beattie.

Russell must be the worldwide opinion leader for many mobile marketers. He has a broad international experience and does consultancy for Yahoo. Read his braindump article, on what is exactly the core functionality of Mobiya. Using Premium SMS/MMS functionality for classified advertising and micro-payment. Ending in beauty, quoting Russell "Even easier than Craigslist!"

Mobiya, here we come…