Convener: Richard Anderson

Recorder: Jim Shaffer

Initial attendees: Christine Saed, Asalea Blalock, Stephen, Peggy Kuhr, Mike VanBuren, Bill Densmore, David Johnson, Chris Peck, Martin Reynolds

NOTES:

Granular?? RA: Means markets of 30-50,000, defined around geography (his market for Village Soup) “Where we call home.”

Revenue sources now for VS:

Sale of links
Sale of ads targeted to specific profiles
Sale of mass ads

Sale of packages to local businesses

$19.95/yr – “Business Enhanced Listing” (Regular listing is free)
Link to businesses’ web site from VS
Menus or other content hosted on VS
Free classified postings
Yearly contract rate in weekly print product

$25/yr per “slot” for classified listings

$39.95 for service which allows posting of comments on website plus copy of the weekly, plus notification of breaking news

What didn’t work: Sale of reader/user subscriptions

Question to Mike: Would it be feasible to ask foundations to subsidize community websites? Mike: We don’t usually hand out $$ unless we can get something covered that we want covered.

Village Soup numbers:

Market, two counties, 50,000 population
Web site started in ‘97. Weekly tab started in ‘03. (Web site came first!!)
Paper 6,000 controlled circ.
Revenue $2,000,000, Expenses, same. (Expect break even this year)
Of this revenue, 25% due to website. (This is 5x what a typical newspaper-based website pulls in.)

Village Soup has some content unique to web while some is unique to print. Most common to both.

Peggy, Chris: Referring to “Web 2.0,” MySpace” & other “relational” sites, do you see any of that potential for VS? RA: Not yet. Not for our market.

Bill D: Sees four types of revenue/investment models:

1.Ads. (Shaffer: Three types. Bi-lateral (classified), targeted unilateral, mass)
2.Subscriptions for content (RA: Hasn’t worked for us.)
3.Volunteer, ala Public Radio
4.Mission-based investors

Chris P: Suppose you bundle ads and content, like newspaper special sections, and sell the whole publication to a business or industry? Others: Hmm. A new model!!

Rich: We also sell tickets and get a fee. Also have an auction site.

Chris P, quoting Elizabeth Osder from Yahoo: Yahoo will provide a platform/template for free for individuals or businesses to self publish. Yahoo will sell the national ads and allow the local operator to sell local ads.

See Missourian “Sunday eMprint.edu” —VERY well designed e-publication
Section tabs on right margin
Function tabs at bottom margin
Click on classified picture of house for sale, the pix changes to interior shots.
Layered ad content – can’t do with print.
Story jumps, but ads stay put.

Result:  Missourian could sell R/E ads O/L where they couldn't sell print

JS: The site technology will continue to get better, and it will become more common to sell O/L where print didn’t work.

CP: But the classified sites don’t support journalism

JS: True. Journalism adds no value to classified, but journalism does add value – creates markets —for the one way ads.

11:15 Attendees: Mike, Chis, Stephen, Asalea, Christine, Pam, Bill, Richard