Opinion
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  The Coke campaign effectively short-circuited the usual mechanics of communication. It undoubtedly stroked people’s egos. But, I believe, its success stems from the fact that it directly and automatically affected people’s behaviour, rather than doing so indirectly by shaping attitudes.
- Best ads from Super Bowl 2012
  
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- How to debunk media myths
  
  In this post, UWS’s Ullrich Ecker, John Cook and Stephen Lewandowsky argue that cognitive science can help PRs form strategies in managing media misreporting.
  
  A growing cohort of commentators has bemoaned the descent of contemporary political “debate” into a largely fact-free zone.
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- Does Gina Rinehart’s bite of a chunk of Fairfax make her an oligarch?
  
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- Gillard's Australia Day crisis
  
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- The biggest cock-up I made in business
  
  In this guest post, Chris Savage urges agency staff to live the brand.
  
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- Hey Groupon. Thanks for fucking up email
  
  In this guest post, Daniel Monheit warns that group deal overload is devaluing email marketing
  
  Email marketing used to be fabulous. Back in the heady days of 2010, brands would work hard to build up well qualified databases, upon which they’d bestow carefully crafted correspondence filled with information, offers and incentives. The recipients, of course would be delighted: “Oh look! An email! From one of my favourite brands! And it’s 40 cents off at Woolies this week!”.
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- Share a Coke with… the moronic masses
  
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  The headline, “Coca-Cola puts people’s names on bottles in ‘Share a Coke’ campaign”, though hated by any self-respecting sub-editor, was loved by Google. And in rushed what can be politely described as the public.
- Assumptions kill creativity
  
  In this guest post, Gual Barwell disagrees that the sales success of the Old Spice social media campaign was overstated.
  
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- The SMH's readers (are wrong) editor
  
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- The emperor's new fragrance: Old Spice’s campaign failure
  
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- How reliable are radio ratings?
  
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Daily online newspaper launches in Adelaide

The Fairfax-affiliated Independent Weekly has launched a daily online-only newspaper in Adelaide.

Previously the publisher had produced a daily html email with around 20,000 subscribers, but has now switched to a platform from technology firm Realview designed to mimic the newspaper experience. Adelaide’s only print daily is the Adelaide Advertiser, owned by News Ltd.

Indaily is closer to a newspaper feel in terms of layout, although the ads have the same rich media capabilities of a web site, and the publication can also include video.

The five-year-old Independent Weekly is owned by Solstice Media and is a member of Fairfax Digital’s regional network. It also contains some Fairfax content.

MD Paul Hamra said: “What subscribers now receive is aesthetically akin to the print addition, but with all the immediacy, interactivity and response provoking mechanisms that make web environments so powerful.”

The Realview platform is also being trialled as part of the new Audit Bureaux of Australia’s Web Audit Service.

June 10th, 2009 at 1:44 pm

Comments

Lizza
10 Jun 09
2:55 pm

Hmmm, interesting, except what’s the point of having a web-based news source if you can’t have the most up-to-date information on a topic? The best part about getting news from the web is that it’s so current and easily updated, but as the Independent Weekly has to put the stories into layout and then upload it onto Realview they have to deal with similar time constraints that a printed publication has to deal with. So I don’t think they’re really taking advantage of the web medium.

Then again, maybe there is a lot of potential in this format and I just can’t see it.

What do people think in general of papers/magazines that mimic the printed format online?

Fitzroyalty
10 Jun 09
3:17 pm

craptacular

Sportzilla
10 Jun 09
3:36 pm

Looks to me like the layout can be readily templated and up to date stories would be loaded in time for whenever the thing was going to be released. Magazines are going this way by the bucket load in the US because advertisers want to be able to represent print campaigns online, which websites can’t support the same way this kind of format can. The images and video support for each story is better integrated in this kind of concept, it connects the reader more readily to the story. Websites are full of videos that don’t have anything to do with the main stories on the page at all and don’t add any value to the headlines.

Lizza
10 Jun 09
3:56 pm

Hey Sportzilla, interesting take. What are some of the magazines that you know of that are doing something similar? I’d be keen to take a look at them.

Most of the magazines I’ve researched in the US are moving towards a totally different business model. They’re increasing the cost of the publication to the subscribers so that they don’t have to rely solely on advertising revenue and then using the web in a totally different way ie they are not treating their site as an online version of their magazine. And they are not giving away content for free on the web that comes in the magazine.

Carl Panczak
10 Jun 09
3:59 pm

This is a pretty massive FAIL.

The only conceivable reason I can think of for launching a Flash based newspaper such as this is because it’s targeting an elderly demographic who relate better to the old school newspaper format.

Other negatives are poor accessibility and no search functionality.

SMac
10 Jun 09
4:14 pm

I don’t think it is Flash based – I think HTML! Have seen some really cool stuff from this company – RealView! It is fully searchable and trackable as it is web based. And if it is now also auditable it is a complete package deal hey!

Lizza
10 Jun 09
4:43 pm

Issuu has provided the same thing for publishers for years … and it’s free.

Sportzilla
10 Jun 09
4:45 pm

Hi Lizza, looking at the website of the service provider it looks like they are publishing for a lot of different magazines but I am not sure how many of them are using it the same way that the Independent Weekly is – they seem to have taken it to a bit of a new level – check out some of the back issues, they have developed animations to support some of the news stories, it’s just eye catching but not in your face like some web ads can be, which is something I loathe.

Publishing models here have already changed – look at the business that emerged from iSUBSCRIBE. I wonder if using a format like this means publishers can pick up more online subscriptions and maybe keep the subs revenue in-house?

Carl – Depends on what basis you call it a fail – if advertisers are supporting it and readers are engaging with it and it paid for itself, it wouldnt be a failure would it?

MediaChick
10 Jun 09
5:02 pm

I’ve just been checking out this story, as a media buyer I know that more and more titles are going down this path. Some digital titles claim good numbers but I’m not prepared to buy as there is limited support to verify the publishers claim. I wouldn’t look at any print or digital publication that wasn’t audited. End of story.

Wozzmedia
10 Jun 09
9:26 pm

NNRrrrrr…..dont think so!!

Malbino
10 Jun 09
10:39 pm

I dont get it either?

Old style paper online was available in 2001.

But maybe I’m missing something too.

Clydescope
11 Jun 09
9:35 am

Old style paper with an old style business model? I think what this is is new style paper with video and interactive ads with a new business model. I think when Murdoch states newspapers will be digital within 10 years maybe it will look something like this?

sportzilla
11 Jun 09
10:26 am

Lizza – I’ve been scouting around this this story came out and there are other companies that have flip book software. Looking at the article again and the sub story about the ABA’s Web Audit Service, I guess the main difference is the Independent Weekly will now be able to get official audit figures on the readership of its digital publications? I’m not sure any other digital publishing service out there has automated an auditing service through the CAB before?

Ben
11 Jun 09
10:54 am

feels clunky – it might work on a portable device but doesn’t on a laptop

Lizza
11 Jun 09
2:41 pm

sportzilla – yeah the main difference does seem to be the CAB service. It’s a good extra.

sportzilla
11 Jun 09
9:04 pm

Ben – . I’ve subscribed now because I am interested to see how the publisher evolves this and I want to keep track of which advertisers are using it. I work from a laptop and I haven’t had any issue with it – what was happening when you checked it out?

Nic
12 Jun 09
9:34 am

I love it. There is flash content but it’s good content, a daily, local editorial from a very articulate and engaging editor, and the journos are constantly updating stories both in the publication and on the Independent Weekly’s website. It leaves other online news offerings for dead in terms of feel, digestible reading and relevance. Check it out! http://www.indaily.com.au

Ben
12 Jun 09
11:22 am

sportzilla – technically it works … for me as a reader it just feels awkward and doesn’t really make me want to read the content. maybe it lacks the skin articles and sensationalist content of the main digital mastheads that keeps my attention.

Rod
13 Jun 09
12:48 am

Hey Nic, hope they give you a pay rise over at the Indy for your post.

mike
13 Jun 09
11:17 am

Hang on Mumbrella is a media and marketing site isn’t it?

Did you see the way the display ads were working on indaily?

Eyecatching but not annoying, there for the viewing, both directly and subliminally.

I’ve never seen so many ads so well displayed on a site.

And since the content is categorised according to subject, advertisers can target their readers…

Everyone is pointing out how online sites don’t earn enough ad revenue to run a newspaper. This could be a way around it…

Isaac
19 Jun 09
10:53 am

There’s some merit in what they’ve done, but they’re still going about it in the wrong way. Such news sources shouldn’t be trying to replicate the “turn the page” and “two facing pages” parts of reading a physical newspaper or magazine – by default the text is too small and the zoom-to-read functions are a bit awkward. On top of that, unless I’m mistaken, they can’t really track attention to an individual article, but then again that might reduce the downward slide to the “Amazing photos of Miranda Kerr” tripe we get on News Ltd sites.

What is worth replicating though is the inclusion of multimedia and the variety of ad/promo placements which you don’t always get in a standard template-driven news site. But the reason things have evolved in the way they have is that it’s cheaper to paste content into an article template than it is to create a fairly custom layout per page.

The best solution IMO will be the one that combines the best of both approaches and it could be done economically through provision of maybe 10-15 layout templates, and some concept of reading through a publication rather than just scouring a list of headlines. Rather than facing-pages and page-turning mechanisms, there’d be a stronger previous/next navigation – more so than “Next page” which is all most multi-page articles have now.