For newspapers in the US it is less and lesser of print vs online now – as online news becomes a regular part of the daily routines of average Americans, newspapers are expanding their reach to the Web and rapidly developing new products and tools especially for their websites, a new study has revealed.
To assess the degree to which newspapers are taking advantage of the Internet and offering various Web tools on their websites, the Bivings Group analysed the websites of the top 100 most circulated newspapers in the country and evaluated them based on a series of 14 criteria.
The group, an Internet communications firm that develops cutting edge web programs for corporations, trade associations, advocacy groups, political candidates and non-profits, found that newspapers value tools such as RSS and blogs as methods of gaining new Web-focused readers and as a method of retaining former readers whose daily habits have changed to include the Internet, as opposed to print news.
The Bivings report concluded, "Due to the growing popularity of the Internet among Americans, it seems that newspaper publishers have decided to embrace the Internet rather than attempt to compete with it. By including interactive features on their websites, and by making content available via RSS, many of America's newspapers have made a powerful effort to reach Web-focused audiences with mediums that are relevant to today's virtual society."
The research found that 76 of the top 100 most circulated newspapers in the US offer RSS feeds for news content on their websites. This result, it said, was in tune with the growing popularity of RSS technology, blogs, and external bookmarking websites such as de.lic.ious. It was surprising, however, that only 24 per cent of the websites researched included advertisements in their RSS feeds. None of the newspapers offered full text versions of their RSS feeds either. Three out of every four newspaper, nevrtheless, offers RSS feeds for different sections.
While newspapers are embracing RSS, they are doing so to increase page views on their own websites, the report said. They are essentially using RSS like an email alert system: letting people know something new has been posted but still trying to push users to their own websites. Thus, while newspapers are using RSS, they are not yet allowing readers to read full text of their in their own RSS readers without visiting the newspaper's site online.
Perhaps, the research team felt, newspapers fear that by using full RSS feeds and allowing people to read entire newspaper articles via this technology, fewer people will visit their websites. Because page views play a major role insoliciting advertisers, a decrease in page views would have negative implications for revenues accrued from advertisements.
Four out of five of the top 100 newspaper websites offer at least one reporter blog. In most cases, these websites offered several blogs, including one for each section of the newspaper. Politics, sports, and lifestyle blogs were particularly common on these websites. The Boston Globe offers a particularly robust network of blogs. There are individual Boston Globe blogs dedicated to each area sports team, several news categories, business, travel, arts and entertainment, and even the job market. In addition to offering this wide array of Boston Globe reporter blogs, the website provides links to the most popular external blogs read by people in the Boston area. A blog network like this encourages reader participation and interaction between reporters, journalists, and everyday citizens, the Bivings report pointed out.
The team was "surprised" to find that only 19 of the top 100 most circulated newspapers allowed users to make comments directly on articles they read online. This function would be a useful tool for creating productive discussion around topical issues, as it would allow articles to inspire people to share their thoughts about an issue. Despite the value of this feature, the large majority of the nation's newspapers have failed to make this service available to their readers, the report asserted.
The report mentioned the incident in January 2006 when a controversial column caused profanity and personal attacks to be printed on the Washington Post's website. While the paper took responsibility for editing these comments, they became so overwhelming that the only solution was to turn commenting off all together. "Losing control of paper content and the material appearing on a newspaper's website is a factor discouraging papers from allowing full interactivity, and the experience of the Washington Post provides an example of what can happen when irresponsible reader comments and opinions go unchecked," the report admitted.
Only seven newspaper sites were found to offer a bookmarking option. The report said, "Sites like del.icio.us make it easy for Internet users to keep and share news articles with others, and also can contribute to the popularity of an article. Including bookmarking tools not only encourages the viral dissemination of information, but it also helps increase the stickiness of a website." If, however, these "user driven social content websites" (as digg.com describes itself) continue to grow in popularity, these tools might become more common on newspaper websites.
The Bivings report found that 23 of the top 100 newspaper websites still require users to register. It mentioned a Pew survey which found that 54 per cent of Internet users have never registered at a website in order to obtain news or information, and noted, however, that in most cases where users were required to register, signing up was free of charge. "While online registration provides valuable demographic information for newspaper publishers as well as for advertisers, this information can be acquired through secondary methods, such as site surveys. It seems that by not requiring users to register on their websites, newspapers are responding to the online habits of their readers," the report said.
In a March 2006, a study conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that Internet penetration in the US has increased from 58 per cent to 70 per cent over the past four years. As a result, some 44 million American adults get news from the Internet every day, an increase from 2002, when only 27 million people used the Internet as a source of news.
