This past week, the online ad network QuadrantOne, formed by the Gannett, Tribune, Hearst and The New York Times Co's drew more online news publishers into its fold and grew its pool of ad inventory that the company intents to be able to offer advertisers through its network (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120536817760332065.html?mod=loomia&loomia_ss=t0:a19:g2:r2:c0.0374071). For those of you who haven't been following the launch of QuadrantOne (which was formed only last month), it represents an effort by major US newspapers to offer advertisers a centralized hub through which to place advertising buys. The hope, it seems, is that the conglomerate will offer an extended national reach and targeting that will encourage larger national advertisers to start buying ads through the consortium of newspapers. It should also give the newspapers more flexibility in selling remnant inventory as well as allow advertisers to leverage a larger ad network offering greater reach and targeting.
I think that QuadrantOne is smart move by newspapers to leverage the value of their content online. Print media specifically has been hurting as it hasn't been able to figure out how best to monetize its digital content. That said, such a consortium of news publishers will allow advertisers to reach a very local audience across the US and allow its publishers to charge more for such access. But I think that QuadrantOne also illustrates the old world thinking of print media and its hesitancy to commit online.
Instead of just seeing the internet as another broadcast channel, why not use it to collect online reader data? QuadrantOne, to me, illustrates that newspapers see their value online as simply their ability to reach readers in the online arena and sell that access to advertisers. However, I think that if newspapers began to collect more user data and track their users online that they would be able to better monetize their content, better tailor their products to their users and offer more targeted and customized advertising products to their advertisers. Why not, for example, force users to register online to access news content? If registration were free, fast and painless it would allow newspapers to know exactly which readers were accessing their content online, what they were reading, for how long etc. allowing them far greater insight into their online readership as well as the basis for building a superior online reader experience.
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