Read A Paper Lately?

When was the last time you held a newspaper in your hands? I mean, held it to…read? I’m not talking about using a paper to blot us some spill in your garage, or to train the puppy, or to keep that spray paint from getting all over the place.

I’m guessing you haven’t really read a newspaper in the past two or three months. If so, you’re not alone. By most – if not all – measures – the U.S. newspaper business is dying. Except for a few major players, newspapers are bleeding money and ink all over.

The contrarian in this doomsday scenario is, most notably, The Wall Street Journal – which, by the way, has the very best newspaper app for Apple’s iPad (I wonder if the WSJ owner, media savvy Robert Murdoch, has any Apple stock?).  I’ll predict here that the WSJ will succeed, long-term, as an entity. They’ve leveraged their content all over the place, and even have the audacity to (gasp) charge customers to read their columnists and features.

Most of the print industry, though, will probably go under or just fade away slowly to irrelevance…IF it doesn’t take its cues from Mr. Murdoch and go digital.

Sample data points from a recent study the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show the dire circumstances of the American newspaper business, especially when compared to other countries:

• Fewer than half of all adults in the United States regularly read newspapers in 2008, compared with 96 percent in Iceland.
• Advertising contributed 87 percent of newspapers’ revenues in the United States, compared with 53 percent in Germany, 50 percent in Britain and 35 percent in Japan.

In light of such stats, I wondered how much longer the industry can survive here in the U.S.

Some industry veterans are decidely pessimistic about the viability of newspapers. Here’s a site for laid off journalists to offer their “parting words” of wisdom about the biz. There’s even a website where you can donate to…

• advance the search for a support system for the kind of serious public interest reporting that our democracy requires, and that is now so threatened.

Wow.

These thoughts were prompted by some news reports, and also by my need to renew my subscription to…The Wall Street Journal. Yeah, the print edition. I am one of the few people I know of who still read a newspaper – an actual PAPER – every day.  Started this daily routine when I was about ten years-old. Not quite ready to stop reading a paper.

Are you?

A Lot Of Radio

I saw this factoid and thought it was pretty interesting.

According to a story in Themusicvoid.com, Pandora’s managers recently said that Americans listen to about 20 hours of music a week and radio listening accounts for 17 of those hours.

If true, the iPod hasn’t (yet) killed radio, not even a little.

Have A Tweet Plan?

No, it isn’t a multi-marketing scheme. It is just a common-sense, think-ahead, plan to grow your Twitter influence – and to use it wisely.

Check it out here.

If you like that advice, consider following me. It is the kind of practical stuff I try to bring to the Twitterverse on a regular basis.

Okay, that shameless self-promotion is over…

Gen Y: Some Stats

Here are some selected stats about Generation Y, that huge demo of 18-29 year-olds,  from a recent MediaPost blog entry:

• Three-quarters have created a profile on a social networking site

• One-in-five have posted a video of themselves online

• Nearly one-in-four have a piercing in some place other than an earlobe, about six times the share of older adults who’ve done this

If you aren’t sure what to make of this, check out the entire MediaPost article.

Bye Bye Birdie?

“Facebook, yes. Twitter, no,” he said.

My oldest son, a college student, told me today he has taken some drastic measures to manage his social media use. Like, shutting down Twitter. That’s fine, I can understand that. He did so because he didn’t see the utility of the tool, and he also found it too distracting. It isn’t that he sees no value in the micro-blog/news and info burst that is Twitter. Rather, he doesn’t care to engage in reading – or sending – tweets. He has other things to do, bigger things (like big reading lists and papers, and people, too).

I thought this was interesting, since I’ve been reading some things lately that indicate Twitter is tending to be an older person’s tool (apologies to the “older” 30s readers).  There is research that younger web users are not flocking to Twitter (pardon the pun):

8% of Internet users ages 12 to 17 use Twitter, but…73% of wired American teenagers use social networking sites (like Facebook)

Anecdotal evidence from other parents affirms what my 18 year-old son has told me: Young adults “just aren’t into Twitter.” Sure, they use Facebook, but not Twitter.

I’ve yet to really figure out the reasons for this. But I’ll admit that I’ve got a little voice inside my head that tells me they might be right here. “Maybe you’re fooling yourself about all this Twitter-mania. Maybe it isn’t ‘the next big thing’ that you hoped. Maybe you’ve been an early adopter on a losing technology/tool.”

Now, I’m not ready to give Twitter up yet. And I’m not suggesting that Twitter users don’t have other things in life, and so they waste hours a day broadcasting the littlest activities and thoughts.

I tweet a fair amount myself, although I am hardly a power user.  And I think the benefits of Twitter are here to stay, much like this writer in the New York Times.  At times I do wonder, however, if there’s going to be a positive, lasting effect to the time spent on Twitter.

Now, don’t share my self-doubts with my wife, please. She already disdains much of the web’s offerings, and I don’t need to validate any of her assumptions.

I’m not ready to say, “Bye bye, Twitter.” In fact, I’ll be tweeting a link to this post! But if you have thoughts – either way – about Twitter, I’d love to hear them.

Social Media Is great, But Does It Work?

With all the buzz these days about social media, have you ever considered how you can determine if your Twitter feed is really worth maintaining? Or if that company blog is important enough to continue? Does this great new world of interconnectivity (is that a word?) really work?

Here’s an article which captures 100 different ways you can measure the effectiveness of your social media effort. For instance, here are a few of the items listed:

• Downloads

• Uploads

• User-initiated views (e.g., for videos)

• Ratio of embeds or favorites to views

• Likes / favorites

• Comments

Check out the entire piece, and I’d especially point out the comments at the bottom.

Reaching Gen Y

Here’s a thoughtful, engaging conversation about how to reach Gen Y – what they value, how they relate to the messenger AND the message. Takes about 20 minutes, and the interview begins around the 3:20 mark. The stats alone make it worth your while, although there’s much more here.

Gen Y Mom and The Zen Tech Warrior

Want to reach your audience? Know who they are, what they do and where they are. Here’s an article about everything from the Gen Y Mom to the Zen Tech Warrior.

Money quote:

Brands must keep pace with consumers with a presence at every stage of the conversation (where they can respond, not react) and formulate a Web reputation strategy to manage viral insurrections. They also should be developing their content and other strategies across all platforms: mobile, digital, out-of-home, broadcast, broadband and social media.

So much to learn!