John Einar Sandvand

Finding new digital revenue streams, but how?

John Einar Sandvand jes@aftenposten.no Twitter: @johnei

3

Morning edition

•!Subscription paper (>90% subscription)

•!Published Mon. – Sun. •!Ca. 240k circulation (2nd

largest in Norway)

•!Content •!National & int’l news

•!Arts & Leisure •!Editorials and

commentaries

•!Business

Online and mobile

newspaper •!No subscription

•!1,1 million unique users weekly

•!4th largest online

newspaper in Norway •!45k weekly mobile users

•!Newsletters •!Content from the morning

edition + original content

(e.g., oslopuls)

Supplementary

publications, e.g., •!‘A-magasinet’ included

weekly w/ morning edition •!Various specials (e.g.,

Executive Education)

•!Niche websites (e.g., E24, Norway’s largest business

site) •!Commercial inserts

•!Magazines (e.g., Innsikt)

Evening edition

•!Subscription paper (bundled with Morning)

•!Published Tue.. – Thu. •!Ca. 110k circulation (3rd

largest in Norway)

•!Content •!News/feature/utility

for readers living in Greater Oslo area

•!Eight super-local editions

(for neighborhoods within Oslo) distributed to all

households in Oslo weekly

Aftenposten’s product portfolio in brief

MOBILE

Norway: 7 national news sites

*

**

***

*

Weekly unique visitors – week 50, 2009

Aftenposten.no

•! User profile:

Higher

education, higher income

•! Most of the

content from

newspaper +

original content •! Separate

sites for travel

and Oslo guide

What to do?

2008

Minus

3 million

euros Revenues: About

9 million

2009

Minus

3 million

euros

Three step strategy for new revenue streams

Display ads Classified

ads User

payment

Developing more revenue streams

Ad-revenue ap.no

Mill. kroner

Display ads Classified

ads User

payment

1. Making our ad products work better

Developing premium ad formats

Premium formats: The T ad

Premium formats: Info sections

Premium: Behavioral targeting

2. Classified ads as new revenue stream

Display ads Classified

ads User

payment

Finn.no: Online classified success

Active job seekers Passive job seekers

There is an attractive No. 2 position

Using business news to attract

passive job seekers

Search in job listings

Upselling good

positions

Special deals with

recruitment companies

Adding context with job section

Same technique used with property

Coming up: Cars

and public

announcements

3. Develop user-paid services

Display ads Classified

ads User

payment

But how to do it?

Embarrasing discovery 1

We were very bad at selling our products online

•! Near impossible to discover the products

•! Cumbersome buying process •! Hard to find the products after you buy them

•! No efficient and simple payment system

•! Different login systems not coordinated

•! Very hard to put new products up for sale

•! Improvement projects not coordinated

First step: Build a customer frontend

New project: Online Sales and Service

•! Involves editorial, ads, subscription, IT,

business development •! Goal: Build a completely new frontend for

all sales and customer relationships

•! High emphasis on simple interaction and

user friendliness

•! Easy to add new products •! First version will be launched in May

Users will only pay for Unique Value

?

?

?

? ?

Creating Unique Value

Unique

Content

•! Content you don’t think

you can find anywhere

else •! Local, niche, experts,

etc

Unique

Convenience

•! Access in

specific

situations or areas

•! Extremely

easy to use

•! Flexibility

Unique Usefullness •! Content and services you

can use to reach personal

goals

•! How to’s, guides, weight

club, apps, tools, tests of

products, etc

Unique

Packaging

•! Premium presentation

and design

•! Selection of content, for instance personalization

or for niches

Unique Experience

•! Gives an emotional

attachment, entertainment,

social connections, etc.

•! Brand value, community,

entertainment, unique user

experience …

Unique

Convenience

Unique

Usefullness

Unique

Content

Unique

Experience

Unique

Packaging

Creating Unique Value

Unique Value for main products

Newspaper Unique

content

Unique

Convenience

Unique

Usefullness

Unique

Packaging

Unique

Experience

1980s Strong Strong Strong Strong Strong

Today Medium Strong Medium Medium Medium

Web site Unique

content

Unique

Convenience

Unique

Usefullness

Unique

Packaging

Unique

Experience

Today Low Medium Medium/low Low Low

Exploring three directions

Repackage old and/or make new

core content

Special services

and/or clubs

Mobile services and

apps

Some premises in our work

•! Must find products which serve the needs of our most

loyal users

•! General paywall for web site carries too big risks – at

least for now

•! Looking for products where some users pay for some

content/services

•! Digital products should build on and strengthen core

values of the Aftenposten brand

•! Only experiments will teach us what will work or not

Repackage old or make new content

Repackage old and/or make new

core content

Special services

and/or clubs

Mobile services and

apps

Projects for repackaging content

•! Revitalizing the e-paper

•! Digital archives

•! New digital versions of Aftenposten •! Niche products

Re-vitalizing the e-paper

•! New and

more user-

fiendly solution •! Make it

easier to buy

•! Market

campaigns

Digital archives as paid service

•! 150 years of history – and a unique position as

Norway’s newspaper of record

•! 1,7 million newspaper pages

User-friendly solution

Business model

•! Single day access

or subscription

•! Special campaigns for newspaper

subscribers

•! Considering

bundling with e-

paper •! Launch in

connection with 150

year anniversary in

May

New digital versions of Aftenposten

E-

readers? Tablets? Adobe

Air? Pay level

on site?

Our goal is to make paid digital versions of Aftenposten

offering premium quality and reader experience

Two very different e-reader roads

Based on e-ink

•! Kindle, Sony

•! Primarily book reading

tool. Excellent for text

and battery life

•! No color/interactivity yet •! Limited web browsing

•! Cheap devices

•! Most content paid

Tablets

•! iPad

•! Primarily multimedia

tool. Excellent for web

browsing, video, apps,

gaming, tools. •! Full web access

•! Higher prices

•! Lots of free content

Strong growth estimated

Content will be consumed

on many platforms

… and users will expect seamless transfer

Analyzing user situations

How do we serve users’ needs in

specific situations during the day?

How to produce?

Social media iPad

Copiers

Net TV

Tablets

Net books

E-readers Mobile API/Widgets

Print and web

Unknown

print

channels

Unknown

digital

channels

Embarrasing discovery 2

We had very little control

of our information

structure •! Not able to get a good

XML-feed out of our CMS

•! Editorial staff cheated on

meta data to achieve design

goals •! Information structure

mainly defined for print

•! Big trouble in delivering

XML-feed consistently

A cultural challenge

How to become a multi-product company?

•! A big mental shift in the organization •! Putting the content, not one end-product, in the

center

•! Content without metadata has no value

•! Challenges of organizing the work flow

•! Creating a culture of experiments

Special services and/or clubs

Repackage old and/or make new

core content

Special services

and/or clubs

Mobile services and

apps

Ordspill.no – online scrabble game

•! Free service

today

•! Extremely loyal users

•! Very long

user sessions

•! 72 % of users

under 40 years

Finding the good ideas

Mobile services and apps

Repackage old and/or make new

core content

Special services

and/or clubs

Mobile services and

apps

Apps

Hva skjer?

Søk I nærheten Inspirasjon

Appendix: An extra story of reusing content

Summing up 1

Display ads Classified

ads User

payment

Unique

Convenience

Unique

Usefullness

Unique

Content

Unique

Experience

Unique

Packaging

Creating Unique Value

Summing up 2

Summing up 3

Repackage old and/or make new

core content

Special services

and/or clubs

Mobile services and

apps

Thank you!

John Einar Sandvand

Mail: jes@aftenposten

Twitter: @johnei Blog: BetaTales.com