John Einar Sandvand

Good morning to the 2nd day of this INMA seminar Wifi “Pressen” access code: 33472244 Special thanks to

Finding new digital revenue streams, but how?

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

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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

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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