Publishing Environment PPublishing International ublishing International 3311
WEB 2.0
Digital challenge or
opportunity for publishers?
With the trend away from traditional media expected to con-
tinue into the future, publishers are increasingly looking to
expand into online media in order to diversify and to weather
any future storms.
It’s an uncertain time for publishers. New web formats are vy- The best known Web 2.0 services:
ing for the same resources publishers are looking for − read- Will this be the future for publishing
ers’ time and advertisers’ money. There are many examples of companies?
publishers formulating online strategies to cope with this tran-
sition. In Britain, for example, The Daily Mail acquired online
recruitment site Zambassy, as well as
findaproperty.com and
jobsite.co.uk. In Ireland, the Irish Times paid € 50 million
for property website
myhome.ie. These regional trends are Internet access through broadband. The best-known Web 2.0
also being reflected in the global publishing market. Rupert services include MySpace, Youtube, iTunes and Facebook
Murdoch’s News Corp International acquired UK classified Whereas the first wave of Internet technologies was focused
advertising website
propertyfinder.com in a deal worth £ 14.3 on communicating, e-commerce and search, the second wave
million. Murdoch has been quoted as saying that he’s turning is much more focused on content. Internet users are spending
to online media because the threat of losing print advertising nearly half their online time viewing content, which represents
dollars to online media is very real. a 37 percent increase in the time spent doing this compared to
This goes beyond the more established online properties and four years ago (according to recent data released by the Online
extends into the latest web innovations, loosely described as Publishers Association, OPA).
‘Web 2.0.’ These include phenomena such as online video, Murdoch’s News International has already bought myspace.
online music, and social networking, which were made com, a popular social network, which competes with face-
possible by the widespread availability of high speed
book.com and
bebo.com. MySpace is a network of pages −
most set up by individuals, some by musicians and other crea-
tive types − each mixing self-generated text and pictures, links
to content elsewhere, and streaming music and video to create
networks of friends and contacts. The result is a densely inter-
woven community − or social network − which many of its us-
ers find addictive. This creates challenges for content produc-
ers, because the users act as their own editors, choosing their
own news and content from the huge range of possibilities
available online. The contents produced and consumed on
Web 2.0 sites often have a different approach than traditional
3 strategies for publishers to handle Web 2.0 publishers’ sites − they are more amateurish and usually more
special interest than any printed publication.
1. The Murdoch way: Buy entire Web 2.0 sites as soon as they become Subscriptions to the above-mentioned sites are free, but adver-
successful (and are expensive to buy). tising is displayed on all user pages. The ads can be targeted to
2. Do-It-Yourself: Smaller and local publishers cannot buy control of the specific audiences, because users specify their location, employ-
popular social networking sites. The only opportunity for them lies in the ers, interests, and their educational affiliations. Banks such as
development of particular Web 2.0 elements that are valuable to their JP Morgan have been using
facebook.com to attract graduate
respective readers. recruits, targeting specific colleges and academic specialties.
3. Forget the amateurs: Publishers still have the option to believe in their In addition to entire community and social networking web-
quality content created by professional writers and not to invest in Web 2.0 sites, particular elements of websites go with the term Web
at all. 2.0 as well − such as video, weblogs, RSS feeds, and message
boards. According to a study by The Bivings Group in the
U.S., magazines are slower than newspapers at adopting Web
2.0 elements on their websites.
Ciaran Buckley
AAU07_2722_Inhalt.indd 31U07_2722_Inhalt.indd 31 008.11.2007 13:50:45 Uhr8.11.2007 13:50:45 Uhr
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