People-Powered Magazines

What is Printcasting?

Knight News Challenge project that will democratize print publishing process.

Two year grant -- now one year in.

First site (Bakersfield) launched in March, in partnership with The Bakersfield Californian. I’ve worked there for 5 years -- previously

focused on social networking and pure-online audience development.

Additional cities starting this summer. Already talking with two large newspaper

companies. Maybe yours could be next?

Two Key Objectives

Let anyone create a printable magazine.

No software or design skills required. You don’t even need your own content.

Make print advertising easy, fun & affordable

If you can e-mail or post to a blog, you can place ads that appear in printed magazines.

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Make a magazine like this …

… or this …

… or this!

How Printcasting Works

Content comes from participating bloggers, news sites with RSS feeds.

Choose feeds, layout and frequency. PDF magazines are created automatically and sent to subscribers by e-mail.

Local businesses create and purchase ads online. Prices are affordable due to niche focus. Everyone gets a cut!

Print and distribute publications with promise. May be a publisher, or a print provider or newspaper.

All Participants Share Revenue

Right now, ads are free. (Paid ads to start soon.)Revenue will be shared with every participant

60% to publishersThey can mark up ad rates to cover print and marketing costs.

30% to contributorsProportionate to content use.

10% to the networkTo cover our costs (e.g. bandwidth, servers) and ongoing improvements.

Printcasting is Ideal For …

Local thought leaders Especially local bloggers. If you have an RSS feed, you

can make it available to Publishers in 2 minutes.

Local community organizations Clubs, schools, neighborhood associations, and the

library!

Local businesses Realtors, garden shops, bike shops who already position

themselves as experts in a field. Their advice is good content.

Small businesses that can’t afford standard newspaper ads due to the cost of reaching tens or hundreds of thousands. Now they pay only for a niche audience of a few thousand.

Why would a newspaper do this?

For us (The Bakersfield Californian), it’s about growing revenue from our online audiences.

It’s About Audience & Revenue

Bakersfield’s social nets with print components are effective, but only their print components generate significant revenue

On 8 sites, we have 53,000 user profiles (20% of market) with 3,618 blogs.

Added 100,000 individuals to our audience that we didn’t reach before 2004!

Most revenue comes from print ads in associated magazines that feature user content. Online-only brands struggle to make anywhere

near as much as those with print.

Small Business Potential

Bakersfield BusinessesTBC Customer Base

In Bakersfield, 65% of businesses have ad budgets under $10,000.

But only 39% of our advertisers have ad budgets under $10,000.

We need to be here. Self-serve advertising is the only scalable way to reach them

We are here.

Other Newspapers Can Benefit

A newspaper, or any company with content and printing expertise, can participate in many ways.

Publish: Create Printcasts that use your own content, and you get to keep most of the ad revenue (60-90%).

Lower costs of content : Want to make a niche magazine, but can’t afford to pay a writer or freelancer? Pull from bloggers’ content, and still keep the majority of the ad revenue. Don’t worry, reporters. You probably aren’t writing this

kind of niche content right now anyway, so it’s not competing with your job.

Monetize existing content: Have great niche content that you can’t monetize with your existing products? If another publisher uses it, you get a portion of their ad revenue.

Demos

Demo time!You can also use the open beta at http://www.printcasting.com

Why Print, and Why Now?

Top questions from digital media people:

“Why are you investing so much in print when the printed newspaper is dying?”

“Why are you focusing on print, which is expensive, inefficient and not very environmentally friendly.”

“The web is the future. Why are you focusing on the medium of the past?”

Many More Reasons

2. “Stuff” Matters to Locals Locals pick up printed products when they’re relevant, even if

(and especially if) they also use the Web site.

3. Relevance Readers prefer more relevance and choice, something the

Internet excels at. We’ve found that as you increase relevance and choice in print, people continue to read. And contrary to what some journalists want to think, community

content is often preferred, depending on the topic.

4. Efficiency Customized niche “printable” content costs less, and is better

for the environment. Digital inkjet technology is making Print on Demand more affordable.

Partnerships, year 1

We’ll create “city hubs” for partners’ cities For example: http://cityname.printcasting.com

Partner creates Printcasts for those cities to seed the market, and registers its content online Partner sets ad rates for its own Printcasts (via a markup) Partner keeps most of the revenue from its Printcasts If citizen publishers use partner content, some of that

goes to the partner -- just like for any citizen publisher.

Partner promotes Printcasting locally By registering its content and encouraging publishing, the

partner helps its community while also helping itself. The more publishers that use the partner’s content, the more revenue it gets.

MilestonesNow Pilot program in Bakersfield, California

June E-commerce and ad revenue share launches

Summer: Begin national rollout Open “city hubs” for 15-20 geographical

areas By December, identify & assist up to 5

local partners

Spring 2010: Open Source

Outreach in Bakersfield

We hired a part-time marketing evangelist in Bakersfield. Reaches out to bloggers, organizations and

government groups to show them Printcasting. “Blogger brunches,” training sessions, booths at events.

Meets with local clubs at college campuses and high schools

Thank participants with T-shirts, mouse pads, pens and reporter notebooks.

Basically all the local grass-roots stuff that only a newspaper would do!

Some Early AdoptersA local writer is using Printcasts to publicize her poems and short stories. “Weekly Passion Activator”

The Kern County Library Wants to publish book reviews, event

calendars and community information.

Downtown Business Association Will get downtown businesses to blog their

event calendars, then pull them into Printcasts that they hand out from trolleys.

Political Parties Interested in using Printcasts for

newsletters that share regional clubs’ content.

Questions?Let me know if you have any questions, thoughts or feedback!

Dan Pacheco Sr. Manager of Digital Products 001 303.465.5560 dan@printcasting.com

Try Printcasting yourself: http://www.printcasting.com

Join our global community! http://community.printcasting.com

Appendix

In-slide demos, and background

Home page

Registering content Easy for bloggers. No blog? We set one up for you.

Video: Make a Printcast Let’s make a gardening magazine! Click below to play movie)

Video not playing? Click here: http://vimeo.com/3369997

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are needed to see this picture.

Video: Self-serve advertising

Let’s make an ad! Click below to play movie)

Video not playing? Click here: http://vimeo.com/3370015

QuickTime™ and aH.264 decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Social Media in Bakersfield

The Context for Printcasting

The Bakersfield Californian

Independently owned for 140 years. 110 years in one family

The only paper of its size in Bakersfield (60,000 daily circ., 277,000 readers weekly)

Recognized around the world for risk-taking and innovation

Media Trends & Challenges

1. Media fragmentation: new competition from cell phones, internet, satellite TV & radio

2. More consumer choice & control: wide variety of sources for news and information.

3. Media habits changing: consumers now seek convenience and customized content.

4. Shift from mass to niche: Traditional media cannot effectively be everything to everyone.

Technology has dramatically changed the media landscape.

A shift from mass media to niche strategy

How many still think about “the media”

Dad: newspaper

Kids: TV

Mom: Off the radar

Or put another way ….

People “graze” through the day from different sources. And they increasingly put content back into it.

The actual media landscape

Less Time

Fragmented market

+ More Choice

Dan’s Law

“A Network of Niches”

We used market research to evolve from a mass media print-centric business model into a multi-media niche strategy.

Leveraged our expertise in local news and unique content to produce targeted print and digital products that connect advertisers with a niche audience of desired consumers. Youth (Bakotopia) Hispanics (Más) Parents (RaisingBakersfield) And more!

Lots of Activity

Launched 11 social media sites starting in 2005. Flagship site

Bakersfield.com plus niche sites for the music scene, neighborhoods, Latinos, moms, newcomers and more.

The network now drives over 4 million pvs/month

Activity to date (March 2009): 53,695 public profiles 34,178 blog posts from

3,618 blogs 283,269 blog comments

Same tools, different usage

Bakersfield.com: Very “bloggy,” news and current events are the drivers.

Bakotopia.com: Very social, with lots of profiles, tags and social networking

NorthwestVoice.com: Article creation and picture sharing drive activity.

How people use our networks

Interests help like minds connect

Find other fans of ska, running, tattoos in a few clicks.

Friends grow the audience

Blogs bring in content, news, fun

Band radio attracts music fans

On Bakotopia, bands upload music to their user profiles, where it streams.

We approve new tunes, then keep our hands off.

Best stuff shows up on home page, in “Bakotunes” Podcast.

In 2007, we started selling a CD compilation for $5. (Yes that’s right -- we made money on free music).

Listen to Bakotopia Radio

The Northwest Voice

First “citizen journalism” initiative by a U.S. newspaper Spring 2004

People write articles that are printed & home delivered. Kids’ accomplishments, recipes, local

issues. While content comes from Web, most revenue

is still from the printed publications.

Triggered a wave of similar initiatives across U.S.

http://bakersfieldvoice.com

Local Business Directory

Bakersfield’s Inside Guide Provides a page / profile for every local

business in town, and lets consumers rate and review based on their experiences.

It’s a directory, and a social network Consumers can also become a “friend” of the

local business, opening up the possibility of direct marketing to VIP customers.

It is much easier to sell advertising on local business profiles than on personal profiles.

And let’s not forget the impact on day-to-day journalism

Bakosphere: Newsroom revolution

Newsroom reorganized to be “web first” for everything.

News department heads, now “team leaders” with groups of reporters, post reporters’ stories to the Web in blogs as they come in.

Reporters converse with readers as they blog. The readers help direct focus of the stories.

Night copy editors focus on polishing headlines and other fine-tuning, rather than raw story posting.

Newsroom revolution

Newsroom revolution

Newsroom revolution

Newsroom revolution

Summary

The Future is Niche One product cannot serve all interests. You need

many, and your local community wants to help.

The Future is Everywhere One medium cannot serve all needs. You must have

a presence in every medium used by your community.

Print has a role in a niche strategy (Printcasting).

And … print can even be part of your digital strategy, if you let it.

The Future is Now! It’s no longer a question of whether people will

move to digital media. They live there. Do you?