Journalism in the New EconomyFor An Intelligent Management Of On-Line Content

Anabela Rocha

IndexIntroductionNew economical perspectives

Changing paradigmsGlobalisationThe intrusion of sociologyDigitalisationThe optimist ones: meta-capitalism

New management perspectivesNew organisational perspectivesI. Knowledge management

The importance of trustII. Management on the on-line content publishing industry

A) The importance of a good database and of standardisationXML specifications for on-line content publishingXMLNITFNewsMLB) Chain value of the on-line content publishingThe productive process of the non-fictional content publishingChain value

III. Business modelsA) Business models for small and medium size companies

The publishing on-demand modelThe sub-urban publishing model

B) Business models for big companiesThe regulation model or peer portalTV on-lineThe speculative market: trading inside multimedia industryThe model of the national regional netThe model of the vertical portal: “affinity portals”Vertical portals derived from the distribution of political and economical spaceContent distribution model

C) Business models for publications who exist equally off-lineThe differentiated reciprocal advertisementSubscription packagesGeneral and specific magazinesRadio broadcasters

D) Business models for start-upsInnovation centred modelCampus news

Specialization centred modelE) Business models for companies centred upon advertisement

E-mail advertisementF) Business models for companies centred in content selling

SyndicationThe correct price strategy is the one who sticks the clientAnd arquives?New opportunities in the reprint business

G) Business models and news time perceptionBusiness model centred on real timeBusiness model centred on news agenda timeBusiness model centred on user decision time

IV. On-line payment systemsBuying cardsIntegrated accounts software

V. Content typesWireless contentContent for e-readersChanges on news genresThe European bet

VI. Strategies for increasing trafficVII. Forums dinamisationVIII. E-mails management

Technical aspects of the management of an e-mails databaseIX. The use of picturesX. Marketing and branding

Traditional brands and target usersXI. Advertisement

BannersThe use of Flash animationContestsE-mail “on demand” marketingContractsWhere to advertise your siteAdvertisement in B2BCounters

XII. Editorial independence vs. advertisementXIII. Emergency situation - how to be readyXIV. Sites structureXV. Technology for New ReportersXVI. New competencies for the new journalistsXVII. Research about on-line readingXVIII. Promising future areas

E-inkConclusion: a future vision – which are the sometimes forgotten fundamental strategical determinantsBibliographyWebgraphy

IndexIntroductionThis work is a reflection about the possible business models for on-line content publishing industry. For doing that we need to know how its chain value works and what are its most value added moments. We're looking for competitive advantage in a long-term trust management.

New economical perspectivesWe think it's important to know about the new perspectives in economy that influence management. We went looking for them in Changing paradigms – The Transformation of management knowledge for the 21st Century, Thomas Clarke & Stewaart Clegg, HarperCollinsBusiness, 2000.

Changing paradigmsThe great challenge for management always has been change. The problem today is that change is discontinuous and harder to understand. Change must also be thought in a global way because globalisation has affected local competition.The paradigm based on the resources is now the dominant one and these are the resources considered critical: core competence, invisible assets, capabilities, organisational processes, firm attributes, information and knowledge. In the centre of this paradigm is the concept of collective entrepreneurship and the consequent importance of international relationships.A Company is supposed to be more flat, more networked, open and decentralised, so that it can achieve mass customisation.

At this moment informational technology is the technical core of paradigmatic changes. But there are other cores, like innovation and learning and increasing the notion of stakeholders (including all sectors who have a relationship with the company).In a view that joins together Kondratiev’s cycles and Schumpeter’s clusters, the authors believe that we are initiating a new cycle in which the convergence of communications with informational technology, together with innovations in bioengineering, materials, energy and spatial technology are the cluster of discontinuous change.Which are the fundamental rules to react to discontinuity? Sustained effort within existing methods to carry the company up a steeper change curve; transforming the organisation's methods with a step shift that will get ahead of the change curve; establishing new operating paradigms and organisational infrastructure.The mainpoint is entering the industry when discontinuity has already happen and new rules are getting clear without having to invest in old infrastructures. But this is a very subtle timing because, at that moment, barriers to entrance may already exist.

Changes are not only discontinuous but also faster: “Multiple technological breakthroughs, shortening product life-cycles, and rapidly changing markets are together forcing the pace of paradigm shifts.” (p. 15).

The most important structural consequences of these changes in the competitive environment are, for Prahalad and Hamel, “The search for new paradigms”, 1994: desintermediation (consumers want more value in the services); desintegration (no more vertical integrated structures); business, technologies and industries convergence. The most important thing for Prahalad and Hamel is to know our core competencies and not to get stuck in products. This means, in our opinion, that there are some dangers in the acquisition of media companies by other type of industries (since their core competencies have nothing to do with media).

These organisations are the Diversified Multinational Corporations (DMNCs). They are multidimensional and heterogeneous. They need to be very clear about the portfolio of their core competencies. For the Boston Consulting Group the most important core competencies are: “business processes; strategic capabilities; strategic investments in support infrastructure; CEO’s who champion capabilities-based strategies that are able to reach down into the creative well-springs of organisation members in general” (p. 42).For this to happen we need: cross-functional teams; integration of processes across organisational boundaries; organisation around products and markets; delegating authority to lower levels of the organisation; reducing the number of management layers.

Thomas Clarke and Stewaart Clegg consider that is not enough knowing our core competencies. We need to know which are the strategical determinants of our vision of the future; and only after ask for our competencies and protocols.According to them, we should ask: What are the key drivers for the future? Should they remain the same as in the past or could other possibilities be explored? If so, what are they likely to be? Will these engage all stakeholders’ interest and commitment in long term? How will the new possibilities change choices about how the organisation does and how it will do what it will do in the future? What will the organisation end up looking like if the driving forces change?” (p. 57).

GlobalisationThe biggest challenge that comes with globalisation is multiculturalism. The dialog between them is glocalization (that brings along integration, deregulation, mobility, technological diffusion, worls standards, simultaneity and pluralism).

The authors refer to Concepts of globalisation, p. 64, in Petrella, “Globalisation and Internationalisation: The Dynamics of The Emerging World Order” (1996)

Category Main elementsGlobalisation of finances and capital ownership

Deregulation of financial markets, international mobility of capital, rise of mergers and acquisitions. The globalisation of shareholding is at its initial stage.

Globalisation of markets, strategies and, in particular, competition

Integration of business activities on a world-wide scale; establishment of integrated operations abroad (including R&D and financing); global sourcing of components, strategic alliances

Globalisation of technology and linked R&D knowledge

Technology is the primary catalyst: the rise of information technology and telecoms enables the rise of global networks within the same firm and between different firms.Globalisation as the process of universalisation of Toyotism/ lean production

Globalisation of consumption patterns and cultures

Transfer and transplantation of predominant models of life. Equalisation of consumption patterns. The role of the

media. Transformation of culture in “cultural food”, “cultural products”. GATT rules apply to cultural flows.

Globalisation as political unification State-centred analysis of the integration of world societies into global political and economic system led by a core power.

Globalisation of perception and consciousness

Socio-cultural processes as centred on “One Earth”. The “globalist” movement. Planetary citizens.

We think its important to oppose to these globalisation of consume and identity the socio-cultural perspective of Castells in "The rise of the net work society", Blacjwell Publishers Inc, 1999.

The intrusion of sociologyCastells agrees with Thomas Clarke e Stewart Clegg that "A technological revolution (...) is reshaping (...) the material basis of society.", p. 1. But technology is not the only thing that's changing: "Social changes are as dramatic as technological and economic processes of transformation.", p. 2. "In such a world of uncontrolled, confusing change, people tend to regroup around primary identities: religious, ethnic, territorial, national.", p. 3. And this is Castells main thesis: "In a world of global flows of wealth, power, and images, the search for identity, collective or individual, ascribed or construed, becomes the fundamental source of social meaning. (...) People increasingly organise their meaning not around what they do but on the basis of what they are, or believe they are.", p. 3. The problem is that networks are global (with unequal access) but the identities are historically rooted, particularistic identities. "Our societies are increasingly structured around a bipolar opposition between the Net and the Self.", p. 3 (author's bold). It's a "structural schizophrenia between function and meaning" (p. 3) and "(...) social fragmentation spreads, as identities become more specific and increasingly difficult to share." (p. 3).

So it is really important to understand the relation between technology and society: "The information technology revolution has been instrumental in allowing the implementation of a fundamental process of restructuring of the capitalist system from the 1980s onwards.", p. 13. Informationalism is the new base of economic activity and social organisation. "Yet both processes (capitalist restructuring, the rise of informationalism) are distinct, and their interaction can only be understood if we separate them analytically." (p. 14), but is still "(...) essential for the understanding of social dynamics to maintain the analytical distance and empirical interrelation between modes of production (capitalism, statism) and modes of development (industrialism, informationalism).", p. 14.

In the informationalist development mode "(...) the source of productivity lies in technology of knowledge generation, information processing, and symbol communication.", p. 17; "(...) what is specific to the informational mode of development is the action of knowledge upon knowledge itself as the main source of productivity (...).", p. 17.

Informationalism is related to the emergence of a new social structure. "As for the social effects of information technologies, I propose the hypothesis that the depth of their impact is a function of the pervasiveness of information throughout the social structure.", note 11, p. 31. And this is exponential because "(...) the application of such knowledge and information to knowledge generation and information processing/communication devices a cumulative feedback loop between innovation and the uses of innovation.", p. 32. "As a result, diffusion of technology

endlessly amplifies the power of technology, as it becomes appropriated and redefined by its users [and this faster than ever]. New information technologies are not simply tools to be applied, but processes to be developed. Users and doers may become the same.", p. 31.

There's also a new culture, the culture of real virtuality: "What is then a communication system that (...) generates real virtuality? It is a system in which reality itself (...) is entirely captured, fully immersed in a virtual image setting, in the world of make believe, in which appearances are not just on the screen through which experience is communicated, but they become the experience.", p. 373.

In this culture the hierarchy between alphabetical communication and sensorial-emotive communication is changed. It's a multimedia communication, a CMC (computer mediated communication, in a network, interactive and individualised). "The setting of barriers to entry into this communication system, and the creation of passwords for the circulation and diffusion of messages throughout the system, are critical cultural battles for the new society (...).", p. 374.

Castells considers that content is going to be very important: "Although decreasing media exposure seems to be linked more to an overworked society (dual-job families) than to lack of interest, multimedia business is betting on another interpretation: lack of sufficiently attractive content.", p. 367. "the message is the message" (p. 368).

There's going to be a social stratification of the different multimedia expressions: the interacting ("those who are able to select their multidirectional circuits of communication", p. 371) and the interacted ("those who are provided with restricted number of pre-package choices", p. 371). There's going to be a big segmentation of the users, with formation of self-selected communities.

DigitalisationThomas Clarke e Stewart Clegg present on page 146 the contrasts made clear with digitalisation:

Manual/ analogue stand alone Electronic/digital networkAtoms BitsPhysical ElectronicHard copy DigitalMainframe ModularHardware SoftwareSingle function MultimediaStand alone Networks

The optimist ones: meta-capitalismSome authors believe that, mainly due to B2B ant the way it may permit new alliances throughout the value chain, we will enter meta-capitalism.PriceWatterhouseCoopers presents consider the bases of B2B revolution to be, in the nineties, XML, B2B software, B2C, SCM, outsourcing, Metcalf’s Law, ERP, CRM and bits communication.Main factors were the business processes standardisation, the capital global market integration ant the focus on the core competencies.

The most important thing is to have a brand and then not to fear the outsourcing of everything. You may produce nothing and distribute everything. If you have a brand you can be a convergence central network and a system integrator.

VAC's (Value-Added Communities) are nets of exterior companies to outsource from. They form around specific industries (solving specific supply chain inefficiencies) or specific processes (leading to the formation of Metamarkets which cross several industries).

New management perspectivesFor Thomas Clarke e Stewart Clegg the main characteristics of a new management are vision, achievement focus and management of apparent paradoxes.

The company must be seen as having creative autonomy, as offering more than just centralisation on the client.The biggest lesson of chain value is to improve relationships with everyone involved, managing trust. “This wider stake holding conception of the corporation is often proposed as an ethical new basis for business enterprise.” (p. 7).In knowing how to answer to change the authors consider some important contributions: Michael Porter's competition as innovation; Peter Drucker's discontinuity, knowledge economy and post-industrialism; Charles Handy's inverted thought (not engineering but politics, culture, nets, times, coligations, influence and power; not control but leadership); Tom Peters' creativity, people and fast answer; Rosabeth Moss Kanter's three C's (competence, concepts and connections); Alvin Toffler's convergence of telecommunications and informatic technology; Peter Senge's learning organisation.

New organisational perspectivesIt became a main factor to renovate through learning. Bennis, Parikh and Lessem in “Beyond leadership”, 1994 speak of a New Global Paradigm (The Values of Human Capitalism): self (transcultural)-mastery; social group synergy; organisational learning and sustainable development.

Especially important in sectors with technological innovation is the frame of Hames in The Management Myth (1994):

“(...) Transition from Industrial to Information Age Organisations

Industrial Age Organisation Information Age OrganisationFocus on measurable outcomes Focus on strategic issues using participation and

empowermentHighly specialised knowledge base resulting in single-skilling

Interdisciplinary knowledge base resulting in multi-skilling

Individual accountability Team accountabilityClearly differentiated and segmented organisational positions, roles and responsibilities

Matrix arrangement – flexible positions, roles and responsibilities

Linear input- output thinking about programmes Holistic perspectives on programmingReactive in solving problems as they emerge – a short-term focus dominated by the ‘bottom-line’

Proactive: anticipate issues before they come crises; achieving balance between short-term pragmatism and long-term purpose

Local perspective informs programming Global perspective informs local action

Hierarchical, linear information flows Multiple interface, ‘boundaryless’ information networking

Attention to quantitative differences Attention to qualitative differencesPlant and equipment targeted for investment Development of people targeted for investmentAchieving effectiveness through methods Achieving superior performance underpinned by

shared valuesInitiatives for improvement emanate from a management elite

Initiatives for improvement emanate from all directions

Present-oriented, doing what is know now Future-oriented, operating at the cutting-edge”

For a more cultural, psychological and social perspective of the New Organisation Limerick e Cunnington in Managing the New Organisation (1993):

“(...) The essential Elements of the New Organisation

Discontinuous change

Economic change

Disorganised capitalism

Postmodernism Interpersonal

change Neo-humanism

Organisational change

Structure:- Networks- Boundaryless

organisations Culture:

- collaborative individualism Strategy:

- entrepreneurship

New managerial focus

Metastrategic management

Identity, vision and operating systems of management

Management of meaning, especially during periods of discontinuity

New managerial competencies

‘Soft’ competencies:

- empathy- trust- managing symbols

‘Hard’ competencies:

- negotiating- politicking- contracting”

p.50

I. Knowledge managementFor an efficient management the intranet, extranet and internet have to be integrated in a Corporate Media; this emplies an Electronic Communications Management (ECM). Data must become knowledge. We read David Weinberger of the Journal of the Hyperlinked Organisation (JOHO), on-line by IBM in the KMWorld Magazine to understand better how and why.Corporate data must be a whole with unified access (SQL, Structured Query Language can help) through vertical, mainly intranet, portals.The way to structure your database is to understand how people in your company usually circulate through the hyperlinked architecture of documents. If you think those methods aren't good enough you must bear in mind that you would have to create new search habits.

To understand how meaning circulates in your company is fundamental to have conversational places (real and virtual) and to dinamize them.

One important aspect of communication within the company is also to publicise the knowledge you have, to measure it. How do you measure this intangible asset?

In the nº 1 of “Perspectives” Gordon P. Petrash, member of the Intellectual Asset Management Group from PriceWatterhouseCoopers, refers the importance of relating knowledge measurement to strategy and results: “A Measurement LogicExactly how do you embed knowledge management measures within a strategic measurement system?The answer is to follow a simple logic or, more accurately, to sketch the logical flow of how actions at the front lines boost results at the bottom line. Which employee behaviours contribute to critical capabilities? Which critical capabilities contribute to critical processes? Which critical processes contribute to desired strategic results? How do strategic initiatives deliver financial returns?You can sketch all of these connections on a white-board. (…) This white-board diagram provides a template for devising critical measures, whether for managing knowledge or another corporate capability. You don't want to devise a measure for every item in your cause-and-effect diagram. Instead, you want to weigh which items are pivotal to delivering strategic results, and assign a measure (or measures) for each of those.”

Behaviours must be aligned with strategical objectives only.Petrash summarises the importance of this measurement: understanding value creation; pinpointing critical processes; enabling rapid improvement; visualising the value; driving behaviour; crafting better strategy.

PriceWatterhouseCoopers has recently launched ValueReporting (knowledge management for understanding value creation).

Knowledge management is more important in strategies centred in innovation, according to Trevor Davis and Frank Milton from Management Consulting Services from PriceWatterhouseCoopers, also in "Perspectives", nº1.The fundamental to have new products is to manage ideas; and this is a cultural question. You also have to create the right climate and the right leadership/followership balance through Group Ware. The more efficient Group Ware still is direct, face-to-face, meetings but new group software decision is always appearing.

As important as knowing how people deal with documents is to know the lifecycle of documents. George Jamieson, also in "Perspectives", nº 1, considers this fundamental to content management and personalisation. An important attribute of this technology is that the information is created once and then reused many timesOrganisational know-how relating to how documents are created, routed, assembled, published, and distributed is captured and embedded into software as business rules. Such rules direct how the document will be handled, ranging from the choice of content and format to the method of distribution. These processes, including the parameters set by the business rules, are then automated.Personalisation or mass customisation refers to the practice of delivering personalised content to individuals based on their profile and preferences. The object of this exercise is to create customer intimacy and differentiate product and service offerings. Client retention is one of the key drivers because companies recognise that the costs of winning new clients are far greater than those associated with retaining existing ones.

That's why its fundamental to align the value chain with the lifecycle of documents and both with a standard language and software. The concept is to create a knowledge infrastructure and deploy a number of integrated applications. This is referred to as knowledge chain applications (KCA).

The importance of trustWe follow “Trust fund” from Arthur Ciancutti and Thomas Steding, in Business 2.0, June 2000 to understand what is trust in business environment and how to maximise it.They defend the Leadership Organisation, one that consciously and intentionally creates a culture of earned trust, against a negative culture of fear and obstacles. This is mainly bet on the desire of people to contribute creating an emotional link in the team. This team has several advantages: sustainable competitive advantage, self-regulation, efficiency, inspired performance, capacity for change and meaning. From an organisational point of view they defend a Trust Model, which is a continuous process of building trust. This doesn't mean any authority: “Closure means coming to a specific agreement about what will be done, by whom, with a specific date for completion.(…) Wondering breeds suspicion, and suspicion is antithetical to trust. Therefore, closure is critical to trust. The goal of a Leadership Organisation is to have 100 percent closure on all communications, big and small.” They present six theorems for trust: "1. People are more willing to trust, more quickly, when principles that promote trust have been explicitly and universally adopted. 2. False commitments lead to dramatisation in the organisation. 3. If you are learning about problems from your customers or the marketplace, it is already too late. 4. At least one person on the team always knows about a problem well in advance of it being revealed by customer complaints. 5. You can only honour commitments to customers to the extent that you honour commitments internally. Many problems with commitment come in the making and not the executing. An effective environment must make adequate accommodation for the serious nature of commitments. We can begin by providing adequate opportunity to weigh commitments in the making, which means honouring doubt in a new way. 6. Genuine doubt virtually always precedes real commitment."Finally, the "Fundamental Theorem of Competitive Advantage: The greatest prospective opportunities for competitive advantage arise from the most virulent current instances of Them vs. Us in the organisation.”

II. Management on the on-line content publishing industry

C) The importance of a good database and of standardisation

XML specifications for on-line content publishing

XMLXML (Extensible Markup Language) is a development of SGML, worked by the XML Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium. It's standard 1.0 version dates from 10 February 1998 and its freeware. It's main characteristic is been independent from platforms, allowing the construction of metadata (because data are introduced in categories allowing the search for families of content between different platforms and softwares - it's an extensible language) and the independence of contents from specific presentation forms.

NewsML is the specification of XML for the on-line content industry.There's also a XML/EDI Group working in a standard for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) for e-commerce.

Any word edition software can create XML, but only a XML parser can visualise it (that's why it still is necessary to use XSL (eXtensible Style Language). Microsoft and Netscape are working to ad this kind of parser to their browser. There is also software for validating XML text.

W3C has recommended “Namespaces em XML" in 14 January 1999 to support the communication amongst two or more XML languages (a Namespace is an identified collection of elements). In June 1999 W3C launched Recommendation for Style Sheet Linking. This was the second phase of XML development.The third phase begun in September 1999 and has a Working Group on XML Query, a Working Group on XML Packaging and a XML Linking Working Group, maintaining the XML Core Working Group.

In Europe there's the European XML/EDI Pilot Project (started in June 5, 1998) which is part of the Standardisation System of the Information Society, specifically part of the workshop on Electronic Commerce from the European Committee for the Standardisation (CEN/ISSS).

Also important standardisation processes are the EDI's of each industry. For defining them MIG's (Message Implementation Guides or EDI Profiles, Implementation Guidelines, Implementation Conventions, Sector Specifications) are created. This is what NewsML does. But first came NITF.

NITFNITF, News Industry Text Format, was the first XML based language for news industry. The International Press Telecommunications Council developed it in the beginning of the nineties.NITF 2.5 allowed for wide band content, for a variety of platforms and for personalisation of content delivery. NewsML increases the categories of metadata and their interoperationality.

NewsMLNewsML was launched by Reuters in 11 October 2000 and was ratified by the IPTC. It was adopted by Agence France-Presse, Business Wire, Press Association, Screaming Media, UPI, Dow Jone and WSJ.com. DTD from NewsML 1.0 is free but intellectual property of IPTC.Senior Vice President of IPTC said that NewsML can improve the integrated management of content and a reengineering of processes in the industry "The membership's endorsement of NewsML v1.0 brings to a close the first phase of the IPTC2000 work programme which we initiated a year ago at a similar meeting in Amsterdam. The goal of IPTC2000 is to deliver an XML-based standard to represent and manage news through its life cycle, including production, interchange and consumer use. We feel that v1.0 does this and we are pleased to commend this exciting new publishing model to the wider news community”.The strong European bet on WAP needs a platform-independent language and one that allows good transition between on and off-line.In the centre of NewsML is the NewsItem concept: proper for several media (to select a media broadcast presentation and secundarized others there's the NewsComponent; each element of the NewsComponent is a ContentItem) and allowing understanding the relations amongst several metadata.

D) Chain value of the on-line content publishing

The productive process of the non-fictional content publishing

To understand were value could be added to the chain we must understand the productive process. The on-line Editorial Services Guide of Bay Area Editor’s Forum was very useful to characterize it. New technologies have affected techniques and verification stages of the news process. Some of them, if not properly monitorized, may increase editorial mistakes. To execute all this new stages there is the need for new professionals (and for editorial competences in old professionals). These stages must be clear to increase the understanding amongst client and producer.There's proofreading, editorial proofreading, copyediting, light copyediting (baseline editing), medium copyediting, heavy copyediting (substantive editing), developmental editing, production editing, project editing, acquisitions editing, fact checking, information design, permissions editing and indexing.New technologies allow a quick execution of the product making the concept stage very important because the velocity of all other stages may lead to the illusion of been doing something good just because you're doing something fast.

Chain valueThe chain value of on-line content publishing is dependent of the Internet chain value. “Media Sector – Portal Combat”, Deustche Bank, March 2000 is a study that helps to characterize that chain. The moments of value are: ISPs (Internet Service Providers), delivery mechanisms, paying or free, now buying contents to become horizontal portals; horizontal portals who create value by the traffic repetition aggregation, buying and creating content also to create barriers to entrance and inertia in content subscription; vertical or content portals, specifically targeted and expecting to profit from advertising and e-commerce; e-commerce companies, mainly e-tailers (becoming vertical portals and improving mortar products distribution) and e-finance. Bernd W. Wirtz, in “Convergence Processes, Value Constellations and Integration Strategies in the Multimedia Business”, Journal of Media Management, Winter 1999, from St. Gallen Univ., Switzerland, gives a more user centred perspective who shows that content and service aggregation (in portals) is the key to maximize content production and to get repetition.

The Deutsch Bank study believes ISP's should differentiate by offering content. We believe that they should explore their core competence of delivering services, becoming places for the outsourcing of applications.

The Deutsch Bank study believes that horizontal portals should also differentiate their content to form communities; we believe that too but also we believe that content and simple application delivery must be very persoanlizable.

The Deutsch Bank study believes that “Content, “context” (that is, the ease of search and navigation), and branding, are the three main drivers of Internet traffic to a portal.” (p. 5). We would ad to this the creation of social identity, following Castells. We think this must be the base because prior to Content there's Relation, meaning a dynamic process of social recognition of identities attainable by contents, practices and navigation aesthetics.Aesthetics is very important because it’s a main field of social identity experimentation in post-modernity, even if it’s an illusory identity experimentation. We also must think about the strong perception the Net Generation has of several multimedia aesthetics. That's why we think that aesthetic present in navigation habits and virtual experimentation is a strong factor in community aggregation.

The Deutsch Bank study believes that these are the critical factors for on-line success (page 5):

Content Context Brand ScaleSpeed to market/distribution power

Creates (repeat) traffic

Ease of navigation, relevance and use

Together with content, key differentiation in the entertainment battle

Most valuable commodity for advertisers

First mover advantage

Creates stickiness As distribution platforms compete and ultimately overlap, customers will increasingly demand a stable, highly functional and easy to use platform

Assure user of integrity of data/content

“Success breeds success”

National footprint

Essentially media-neutral

“Interesting read/watch/listen” phenomenon

Together with content draws in distribution and commerce partners

Ability to leverage brand and content across broadest possible customer base

Not necessarily easy to move online under offline brand

New brands are readily accepted in a digital environment, but over time require content to distinguish themselves

Operational metrics

Cross promotion of dominant brands across many distribution platforms as possible

Stock market

performance

We think that Community/Social identity and Aesthetic Experimentation is going to complexify this frame.

The Deutsch Bank study believes that new economical agents will emerge in the chain: MNM’s or Medium Neutral Marketplaces. These markets will have platform-independent databases, making easier the leverage of a brand, content or infrastructure. It’s a big business for big news companies using NewsML. This markets have to know how to be glocal: “ Portability, branding and an unparalleled knowledge of the local market provide real advantages and create defensible barriers to entry for the printed newspaper groups, and the local brands and community standing enjoyed by the strongest regional titles across Europe, will prove difficult to replicate for online competitors. The emphasis is on speed and flexibility.” (p. 23). The study defends that news must scale down (become more local); we think that news must be able to bring closer to the citizen what's important and not only to make important what's close.Advertising packages (multi-platform) is big money but, we think, must also be understood as content delivery because of the value the Net Generation gives to experiencing it; we must remember that nowadays there are Advertisement Festivals and that delivering animated advertisement is also delivering great content.

As for magazines the study defends that they should make alliances with MAN’s (Media Navigators and Aggregators) to improve distribution, since they usually have Content and Community. These e-markets must be good in comprehensibility and not necessarily in scale; they must have a good understanding of the value of their business for their users in terms of time earning and trust (Business 2.0, June 2000, “Niches bring Riches”, Patricia B. Seybold).

The study believes that all the money invested in these efforts can be back by ‘eradication of legacy systems and costs; integration of sales and marketing function into the divisional infrastructure; rationalisation of product development centres; lower marketing, development and support costs resulting from the move to IP.’(p. 28). The problem is that companies seem not to be able to network-integrate as fast as believe earlier (and also not as cheaply as thought initially because the complexity of the process was underestimated). We think there's an organizational culture problem that needs to be worked.

As for academical and professional magazines the subscription model seems to keep working. We think there's a big e-learning market also, mainly for management professionals.

Another study that helped us characterized the Internet chain value was the Internet Economy Indicators™ (www.internetindicators.com ), developed in Texas University and financed by Cisco Systems. They quantified two indicators: Internet Economy Revenues Indicator™ and Internet Economy Jobs Indicator™.They divided Internet in four layers to get there: Infrastructure Layer (includes companies with products and services that help create an IP based network infrastructure); Applications Layer (Products and services in this layer build upon the above IP network infrastructure and make it technologically feasible to perform business activities online); Intermediary Layer (facilitating the meeting and interaction of buyers and sellers over the Internet); Commerce Layer.It is important to note that many companies are players at multiple layers. Further, the multi-layered approach lets us analyse how companies choose to enter one Internet layer, choosing later to extend their activities to the other Internet layers.

The Internet Economy Indicators: $301,393 M e 1,203,799 jobs. For Cisco this is indication of an Internet Ecosystem, who works more as an inter-relations network than a chain: “Unlike the value chain, which rewarded exclusivity, the Internet Economy is inclusive and has low barriers to entry. Just like an ecosystem in nature, activity in the Internet Economy is self-organizing. The process of natural selection takes place around profit to companies and value to customers.” (www.cisco.com). The quality of the ecosystem is what makes it more or less profitable. And what gives quality to an ecosystem is its variety and layer equilibrium. And also its openness to changes with other economical ecosystems.This study shows that there's too much weight on the Infrastructure Layer, meaning that the other layers are still growing and diversifying.

Another important point is the change in business brought by wireless and m-commerce (and all the extra importance of radio and granular content distribution). But we think that the king is on demand generally; not only wireless but also big screen immersive broadcasting, the kind of broadcasting were characters and users of the news are reporters. There's again an aesthetical plus in immersivity (in the sense of experiencing senses) that must not be underestimated. As Derrick de Kerchov argues in his "The skin of culture", we live in a culture that's reacting against the excessive alphabetisation of communication and is valuing more and more sensitive communication.In this sense on-line publishing industry should know more about webart to understand better how news can be infotainment without loosing objectivity.

III. Business modelsThe big advice we found to all business models is to look at the company as an “electronic business”. This is a concept by IBM that means that the company must be webcentered and not adapted to the Web. All company departments must be integrated so that all information flows through intranet and extranet.Knowing your core competences and having a future vision that allows understanding your strategical positioning is what helps you to get value of the network integration of your company.

Business models must differ according to your investment capacity and to your time and type of previous presence in the market.

The key question for business models in on-line publishing industry is whether content is or not central and whether it should be original or not. Steve Outing is a big defensor of original content for non-portal publishing sites, what he calls killer content, and use it to create community. But that content needs to be efficiently monetized.This original content needs not be only news; the point is that it must have the news branding.We think news sites have a strong point against born portals because news have a specific relation with social truth and social identification which makes more easy for a news site to build community. That’s why we believe news site must be cautious not to dissolve in portal content and to stick to their brand, if been a user of that brand is an important self-categorization characteristic for the social identity of users. This is even a bigger asset if the brand is a previous existing off-line brand. These sites, if deciding to launch a portal, must keep the news site in an autonomous place of the site.Another central point to any business model is the building of a database with unified access. This is the only way to keep monetizing content, to re-publish content, to customize content. This shouldn’t be a point of discussion in big companies. It’s just what must be done if the business is to have a brighter future. But this also means investment that some don’t want to risk. In our opinion

those who are not willing to do it shouldn’t even start business – unless we’re thinking in short time and very segmented content production.As in all media chain value, value is mainly in distribution. And if you don’t have the technical support to keep doing it, platform-independent and time-independent your content becomes worthless (and news people know about the quick decreasing value of news).

This clear we must ask: what content should we distribute? Here, having the organizational flexibility to maintain an editorial renewment is fundamental. Only content that we can distribute can be produced. Only content which distribution can be measured must be produced. The more demand for a type of content the more it must be produced. Some good off-line content says nothing to your on-line users. The best on-line content is the one who proves to have interactive responses (your user deals with it). It is not enough to have good content and good interactivity structure (it is not enough having users saying it’s good content; they must show it by involving emotionally with it); you must measure the user interactivity, not the system potential interactivity. You must let your interactive content find its segmented target; if it doesn’t, live it.You know you’re in the right direction when you’re users really surprise you about what they really want.The relation your user has with your content is the one he has with your brand; make your brand a living thing, a place for social identification. Don’t forget people don’t have all day to be in the Net and need to relate to meaningful sites, meaningful socially, psychologically and professionally. That’s why you should be very careful about what they ask you. Mainly if there’s lots of them asking the same. Evaluate if there are ways of making it profitable and, if not, be honest; give them an answer.

That’s why a good customer service is essential and should get very personal (be sure to have a good e-mail distribution in your company – don’t forget e-mail is the most personal and easy way to interact electronically). Every journalist who signs an article should have an e-mail or should be available in a moderated forum; forums are very good for sponsorships.

Main trap in the e-news industry: given almost real time content and updating frenetically. This is a technological trap. You must not forget to understand what is break news for your user; you understand this measuring the interactivity of its follow-ups (forums, chats, e-mail questions, etc). Use better technology to deepen your interactive database not just to show off.

Main forgotten thing: there are other businesses in the Web besides news. Keep a good look on them.

Finally, don’t forget web surfing is an experience. Make it beautiful and emotional; make it fun and truthful. Make it important.Don’t forget we are not exclusively cognitive categorial machines. Shockwave.com and Flash have more than one million downloads per day…

A) Business models for small and medium size companies

The publishing on-demand modelIt can be an expensive model but it is working well for small “vanity” presses. If you’re big try to understand whether you have segmented audience to do it with some of your particular content.

The sub-urban publishing model

Every cities has its rich and poor neighbourhoods, it’s in and out neighbourhoods. Understand where they are and build a vertical portal around their services and their symbolic meaning.

E) Business models for big companies

The regulation model or peer portalBuild private jurisdiction sites useful to business partners; don’t forget that were they are clear rules there is trust. With globalisation rules aren’t always clear. Give your users a place for doing news content business with clear rules if you have the organization and credibility to be the one to do it in your industry. It’s B2b (business to small business).

TV on-lineUsers are surfing the Web and watching TV at the same time. On-line TV websites have to make the most of interactivity between on and off-line broadcasting.TV’s have strong brands and should use them to associate with other on and off-line media.Automatic permanent or temporary cameras are killer content for TV on-line. Another killer content are news agenda breaking news, the ones everybody wants to See.Advertisement is the main revenue stream but on-line TV is going to be e-commerce strongest platform.

The speculative market: trading inside multimedia industryIf you’re really strong financially don’t forget to have a general vision of the market bargains.

The model of the national regional netA national network of communitarian regional or city journalism should bet on local agendas like institutional activity, police matters, trials and ads. Don’t forget small communities who don’t usually get media coverage. Be the best site to place an add.Journalists should be freelancers with social charisma and status.Advertisement, mainly from the tourism industry, is the main revenue stream. But there is also local commerce and regional industries.Another stream of revenue is the web support to local companies (in terms of web pages but also other type of information they need to publicize and collect rapidly).Local vertical portals, like city portals, are very competitive environments because they may become the main local e-commerce sites. Every ISP and start-up will try their chances on it. That’s why quality of local content is the main thing here. Don’t forget local users content is also (the best) local content.

The model of the vertical portal: “affinity portals”These portals are the ones who aggregate users according to common interests. The strongest common interests are the ones perceived by the users as self-categorizing interests, identitary interests: professional, aesthetical, musical, sexual, of belonging and of closeness.

Vertical portals derived from the distribution of political and economical spaceVirtual space can easily mirror social and symbolic new spaces like European Union regions and European Union thematic cities.

Content distribution modelThe main thing is not to have inflexible prices; build package prices evolving affiliated sites, sales commissions, etc.

C) Business models for publications who exist equally off-line

The differentiated reciprocal advertisementThe on and off-line editions must advertise their differences of services and content in each edition. Don’t forget the target audiences are different and want different things.

Subscription packagesPremium subscriptions packages who combine on and off-line advantages.As for totally free sites keep free what's free but as for the subscription of some customisable service to keep it free.

General and specific magazinesGeneral magazines have a specific aesthetic approach they must keep. But they main killer content is informal users content.Specific magazines are mainly professional magazines; they must become the one site to visit to have all the information and services the professional might need (mainly the interactive ones); they should associate with vortals to potentiate e-commerce.

Radio broadcastersRadio must take advantage of been heard while you're doing something else; that’s why written editions must be voiced (with adjustments). Killer content will be live Webcasts and on-demand content.

D) Business models for start-upsInnovation centred modelInnovation is the only way to build an exclusively on-line brand.Disruptive technologies are a kind of innovation for niches that are very strong because they need to build the target users as they go along.

Campus newsThese kind of content must be mainly produced by students. Killer content is any content that is placed were others could see it (don’t forget this users usually know each other). It can also be e-learning on-demand content.The main revenue stream is advertisement.

Specialization centred modelThe main revenue stream is subscription and on-demand of report specialized content, using e-mail delivery. Another revenue stream is specialized e-commerce.

E) Business models for companies centred upon advertisementYour database must be ready not only to provide granular content but also granular advertisement; advertisement who pops up context according (according to news context, to search context, to chat context, etc).You must show advertisers new advertisement on-line services and possibilities: how to pass more information about their products, how to dinamize a contest, what to do with Flash, how to articulate on-line and off-line advertisement campaigns.

E-mail advertisement

Text advertisement in e-mail (you click and you get more information in the e-mail, not having to change to internet) gets more hits then on-line banners. When media change is necessary to have e-commerce make it as quickly as possible for the user to find what you said would be there.

F) Business models for companies centred in content selling

SyndicationCompanies centred in producing contents for companies, advertisers and users. They can also offer outsourcing of applications to produce content.

The correct price strategy is the one who sticks the clientTo pay for content is to create new consumer habits in the Net. That’s why you have to be cautious and keep free what’s free while demanding very little money for some other subscription content (daily pass to forums and chats; on-demand e-mail of forums), arquives and re-utilization of content. Generally speaking, you’re not selling the news but what comes around it - follow ups, users opinions, live chats, live webcasts alerts, etc.High price content must be kipped high price but with experimentation offerings.Editorial sites (generally vortals, with more capital invested and more professional management) pay higher for content than news sites.There are also companies who distribute others content because they know the Net better; they also are the best sites to sell new web writers.

And arquives?Fundamental for selling the most of your archives is to have links within; again, it's very much depending on the quality of your database organization. Arquives selling is a good way for knowing your paying users.

New opportunities in the reprint businessReprint is also depending on the quality of your database because it’s important to have printable formats, package thematic content, etc. G) Business models and news time perception

Business model centred on real timeReal time breaking news only works if you have applications to offer immediate delivery to your users.Only credible news companies may invest in real time news because their agenda creating news (and, as such, their credibility depends on other news media following or not).

Business model centred on news agenda timeNews sites that polemize news agenda mainly via applications that allow interactivity with users.

Business model centred on user decision timeMore for editorial than news sites. It consists in offering content in time for several kinds of users decisions.

IV. On-line payment systems

Buying cards

These are cards that aggregate several on-line credit shopping products (even the very cheap ones) allowing to reduce taxes.

Integrated accounts softwareOutsourcing software that allows not having Net specific accounts and makes it unnecessary for users to keep digitalizing their credit card number.

V. Content typesAccording to Vin Crosbie there are three kinds of content, different for different platforms: headlines and blurbs (for devices with tiny screens, like today's wireless Internet phones); articles (for devices with screens big enough to comfortably read full stories, such as palmhelds and phone/PDA combos, or tiny screens on airline seats); publications (for devices like desktop and laptop computers, and wireless tablets that can present a publication or Web site in its full presentation format and content).

Wireless contentKiller content for wireless are top headlines; personalized headlines; weather forecasts; sports results (especially local teams); stock prices; lottery results; restaurant guides and reviews; movie times and reviews; traffic reports; jokes; exchange rates; auction bids; e-mail; audio on-demand shorts.As portable screens become bigger is important to offer options for bigger texts.

Content for e-readersProbably shorter than books, content texts for e-readers will become popular.

Changes on news genresNews genres will become hybrid as a result of user interactivity, bandwidth increase and democratisation of reality capturing technology. All these will increase user participation in the production of news. This implies been able to make a balance between news judgement, democratic access to news agenda and news credibility (in this point it's interesting to notice that the more credible news for the users are the ones produced by users). Newsmen are no longer the gatekeepers of news.Field stories are going to be the most democraticized and the ones with more important consequences in and outside the news field (because they have a mythic importance for newsman). The European betMoebius is the European bet in wireless content and services, in areas like health-care, m-business and wireless multimedia streaming.

VI. Strategies for increasing trafficUsers will come back to sites who ask for their participation and who answer to their questions and requests. The user will tell you what he wants to keep coming back; you have to have the right interactivity measure system to listen.Another point is making your content the arrival point of lots of links from several sites and services.What you can control is your brand differentiation, your character, and the sense of community an user gets from sharing it.Main mistakes to avoid: have a directory design; over-headlining; no editorial innovation; no e-mail contacts with journalists.

VII. Forums dinamisationThe most important thing is to moderate the forum. The moderator should be a journalist who will be perceived as a specialist. An on-demand e-mailed forum is a very sticky content.Forums are good for sponsorship.Sticky forums are usually about sports, entertainment, politics, food, gardening and hobbies, and current events.

VIII. E-mails managementE-mails should be by confirmed subscription (trying always to offer something when you ask for it) and text only. They should have great headlines, brand content and actualisation alerts. The best content should come in the end and advertisement should be text format (advertisement must be sold in packages for all the on-line applications you have). There should be a sender’s name.You should always clean your list of inoperative e-mails. It must be easy and quick to cancel the subscription of your mailing list.Remember you can operate exclusively by e-mail.

Technical aspects of the management of an e-mails databaseTo avoid server’s filters (which are not universal and keep changing) is better to send text format e-mail. These filters are negotiable, mainly by companies who deal exclusively with e-mail.The non-deliverable messages should be analysed and technical specifications changed accordingly. When they are no such messages HTML verification links should be sent to confirme reception.If you want to send e-mail granular content you should have an XML database.

IX. The use of picturesPhotojournalism may come back with new compression software, inclusively with voice. This is good content for wireless devices that might work as hard disks and photos may be visualised in bigger screens.

X. Marketing and brandingIn Business 2.0, May 2000 Don Tapscott, David Ticoll and Alex Lowy publish an article named “The New Marketing: Eight Imperatives”. In it is said that “The brand is no longer an image established through print and broadcast media; it functions as a measure of relationship capital.” This relationship needs bi-directional interactivity and the cooperations of consumers in the creation of products. The product is becoming an experience.

Traditional brands and target usersTraditional brands should only be kipped on-line when you’re aiming at non-local targets. Even in this case small alterations must be made if you’re having different services then just digitalizing the printed edition. You should consider bigger differences when targets for on and off-line are very different, may be even contradictory.

XI. Advertisement

BannersStandard size banners on the top of pages are inefficient. The best moment to place an ad is in the middle of content. Advertisers must have a connection to the content, although not direct.Promotional banners are the most clicked.

A good banner should lead to transaction.

The use of Flash animationFlash banners should be on top of pages. After one or two cycles of animation the control of the animation must pass to the user. These banners are perceived as special (mainly for aesthetical reasons) so there shouldn’t be too much of them in a site.Flash banners allow the display of more information, allow more experience of interactivity with the user and are more beautiful. This must be selled to advertisers.

ContestsContest banners are the more popular ones.

E-mail “on demand” marketingYou should have specific consumer areas where you can give answers to your users request, using advertisement in those answers.

ContractsYour advertisement contracts should be for three months.Don’t forget to demand for text links whenever they could apply.Separate graphically editorial from advertisement content and demand for small text notifications that clarify this point. Advertisement is a matter for sales department and not editorial team.If you’re selling content via a distribution company don’t forget to have a clause where you can reject some sites.

Where to advertise your siteAdvertise in outdoors, amongst classifieds, in all other media and in small sheets. And on other sites.

Advertisement in B2BThis should be oriented to consumer acquisition and retention. There should be a balance between mass-media orientation and directed marketing (usually B2B products demand more information), depending on how big is the target and how new is the company and the market. Co-marketing must also be considered if your product is bundle with someone else’s.

CountersThe standardization of measurement is necessary to have clearer rules for advertisers.

XII. Editorial independence vs. advertisementStrong editorial content must be clearly separated from advertisement. A small link to a notification text about this separation must exist. In every case it must be clear who is the producer content and who is the advertiser.Contextual advertisement (of products in the consumer area of the content) is the most interesting and can be done as long as it’s not direct advertisement.

XIII. Emergency situation - how to be readyYou must have a plan for your human and technical extra needed resources. Everyone must bet on interactive emotion. You must evaluate that plan after use.You must have previous contacts with emergency civil services.

XIV. Sites structure

The structure should be clear enough so as the user can name what he wants to receive via e-mail. You may get faithful users by having specific editorial content and by having the best breaking news. Don’t have too much editorial sections and too much headlines. Headlines should be few and interesting, so that the user links to content he wasn’t intending to.Users like to be in a site where they feel they know other users (this is important for they to interact with them) because they know what they’re doing there; if the site is too big or too complex they loose this sense, they feel that there’s no interest communion after all. Don’t overwhelm your user with multimedia noise.

XV. Technology for New ReportersMore important than identifying good devices is to think about journalists formation on technical workshops. Also important is to evaluate if your database and your newsroom is ready to profit from all the real time information these journalists will produce.

XVI. New competencies for the new journalistsThere are new competencies a journalist must have: deal with electronical search techniques; good English; knowing to operate with some reality capturing devices; knowing to differentiate amongst different type of editorial synthesis for different platforms.

XVII. Research about on-line readingPointer Institute and Stanford University are conducting a study that points to the importance of local breaking news and to the importance of having small news on front page and links for developments to other pages. Top page banners are invisible. The users give an average of 5 minutes of their attention.

XVIII. Promising future areas1) Sites who explore the target market of users who want better information and more

interactive experience of their favourite TV programs. The habit of surfing the Web and watching TV simultaneously is growing. Games who allow users from both medias are increasing.

2) Audio format, mainly due to wireless.3) E-learning4) New software applications for interactive users.5) Web Content Management software for all size and all platform companies.

E-inkFor now only exists in blue and white and for big size screens (which can be wireless); but in three or four years there will be possible to have headlines in your print sales point.

Conclusion: a future vision – which are the sometimes forgotten fundamental strategical determinantsAll on-line media will evolve to demand driven. That’s why the identification of the consumer with the brand, its interactive style, its aesthetic, its community, is fundamental. That’s why prior to Content must come Relation, the creation or reinforcement of social recognisable identities. And, when the traditional social categories collapse, social surfing habits and social experiencing on the Web are going to be strong mechanisms of social aggregation. They are new public spaces, not because they are ideal but because they are needed.Pos-modernism as made of aesthetic identity construction a very strong point that should not be undervaluated in relation to Content. Nevertheless news content is quite strong content in community formation because it has a strong connection with social reality and its potentialities.

Another central characteristic of our times is the will to immerse sensorially in any environment, even created ones. That’s why immersive experiencing is more than Content; that’s why big screen interactive broadcasting shouldn’t be forgot. Central in immersion is the aesthetic characteristics of the environment. Content publishers should always keep an eye in webart. The use of Flash is just the beginning.

Another thing that must not be forgotten is the world European people live in, it’s political and symbolical changes in the last decades, the newly perceived European regions. Those regions call for other identities and belongings, other exclusions too. The Web is a very sensitive media to social and symbolic space and new target audiences are borning.

Finally, don’t forget to have an extensible and standard technological infrastructure (NewsML) if you want to position yourself for glocal distribution – the most profitable moment of on-line content publishing chain value.

BibliographyWebgraphy