Newspaper ABCes
Soaring online user figures offer solace - and challenges
Jemima Kiss
The Guardian,
Monday February 25 2008
Even given meteoric online readership trends, January's results from the ABCe are remarkable. The Mail Online's unique user numbers increased 165% year on year to 17,903,172. In the same period, Telegraph.co.uk increased 65% to 12,348,706; Sun Online grew to 13,322,535, up 40% from January 2007, and Times Online increased 39% to 15,087,130. Guardian.co.uk remained the highest traffic website with 19,708,711, a rise of 26% year on year.
Beyond the headline figures for the five newspaper websites that publish their monthly traffic data through the official industry auditor, however, the online data is characteristically complex. As much as the results will provide some comfort to newspaper executives watching their print sales ebb away, they also present a challenge to news organisations now publishing to a global audience.
Of the Mail's online audience, a staggering 72.3% - or 12.9 million users - are outside the UK. Those of both Sun Online and Times Online are around 62%, with the Guardian and Telegraph around 56%.
Most news sites have concentrated on their UK audience because that is where their commercial operations are focused and advertisers are comfortable. Few sites have established deals with localised advertising firms to roll out more relevant and valuable advertising, although Reuters last week started selling ads that will be seen by guardian.co.uk users in the US. Stephen Miron, managing director of the Mail on Sunday, said the majority of the Mail's overseas web traffic comes from the US.
"Clearly we think there is huge potential to monetise and explore the other side of the Atlantic, and we're analysing how we can do that," he said. "The UK does showbusiness and entertainment exceptionally well. We're more honest and don't have the same agenda as the US media."
Miron said that there hasn't been an "aggressive push" of the site's content, with no money spent on search engine marketing or stories designed to fit with the most popular search terms each day. Instead, he says, the site has pushed to the forefront without even trying to "put its foot flat to the floor".
Mail Online's dramatic traffic increase has intrigued the rest of the industry, who have watched its unique user figures accelerate since it started publishing its results through ABCe in August last year. The site's entertainment-led stories and celebrity picture galleries are driving much of the growth. Stories on the decline and occasional rise of Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears, along with the death of Heath Ledger, were big hitters, alongside the rest of the Mail's core Femail stories on Kate Moss, dieting and makeovers.
Sun Online has seen a similar sensation, with its video of Amy Winehouse allegedly smoking crack cocaine contributing to 9m video views last month. Sun Online's editor, Pete Picton, said the site's brief is to focus on the UK for the same reasons as the Mail - although last month, nearly 4 million people overseas viewed the site's showbusiness coverage alone.
Picton credits the site's showbiz editor Simon Rothstein with a big push on the stories that have international appeal. "The Sun should be on as many platforms as possible and, by the same token, theoretically, the Sun brand can be leveraged outside the UK. Showbiz is an area where lots of stories are global."
Online coverage from the Sun and Mail's sites competes with influential celebrity blogs such as PerezHilton.com and TMZ.com. Despite having the resources of a big news operation, it is still hard for the papers' sites to compete with the blogs' agility; TMZ reportedly has a team of 20 writers, while Sun Online has a full-time showbiz team of two. Does the site need to become more niche to compete with these sites? "The Sun is not about being niche," said Picton. "We go for the big stories that will be big traffic drivers."
For Times Online, Telegraph.co.uk and guardian.co.uk, many of those big stories have involved the US presidential primaries. As well as operating in the highly competitive UK newspaper market, sites are now competing with broadcasters, web video sites and blogs, and also with US news sites.
On Times Online, coverage of the presidential race has rarely been out of the site's top 10 stories. Editor-in-chief Anne Spackman said the site has seen those stories surge in both the US and the UK. "US readers come to us because we have cracking good stories, and we get those because we are so competitive with each other. That competitive climate means we get stories that no one else has. We also have that British voice that they respect."
Guardian.co.uk now has a Washington-based newsroom that allows the site to cover the elections round-the-clock, and, according to director of digital content Emily Bell, the site has the high-end readership of the New York Times in its sights.
The market for quality coverage is as strong as ever - but, despite strong growth in international user numbers, publishers have barely begun to expand the infrastructure of their businesses in a way that allows them to capitalise on this growth. With user numbers still far from saturation point, this is an issue that will only become more urgent.
Monday 25 February 2008
Pakistan bans YouTube over anti-Islamic film clips
Associated Press
The Guardian,
Monday February 25 2008
Advertising guide
License/buy our content
About this articleClose
This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday February 25 2008 on p16 of the International section. It was last updated at 11:10 on February 25 2008.
Pakistan's government has banned access to the video-clip website YouTube because of anti-Islamic movies posted on the site, an official said yesterday.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority told the country's 70 internet service providers that the popular website would be blocked until further notice.
The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a PTA official said the ban concerned a trailer for an forthcoming film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. The film portrays Islam as a fascist religion prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.
The unnamed official said the PTA had also blocked websites showing the controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The drawings were originally printed in European newspapers in 2006, but were reprinted by some papers last week.
The PTA urged internet users to write to YouTube and request the removal of the films, saying that the authorities would stop blocking the video-sharing site once that had happened.
Pakistan is not the only country to have blocked access to YouTube. In January, a Turkish court ordered the site to be blocked on account of video clips that allegedly broke the law by insulting the country's founding father, Kemal Ataturk.
Last spring the Thai government banned YouTube for four months because of clips regarded as offensive to the country's revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
Moroccans were unable to access YouTube last year after users posted footage critical of Morocco's treatment of the people of Western Sahara.
Associated Press
The Guardian,
Monday February 25 2008
Advertising guide
License/buy our content
About this articleClose
This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday February 25 2008 on p16 of the International section. It was last updated at 11:10 on February 25 2008.
Pakistan's government has banned access to the video-clip website YouTube because of anti-Islamic movies posted on the site, an official said yesterday.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority told the country's 70 internet service providers that the popular website would be blocked until further notice.
The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a PTA official said the ban concerned a trailer for an forthcoming film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. The film portrays Islam as a fascist religion prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.
The unnamed official said the PTA had also blocked websites showing the controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The drawings were originally printed in European newspapers in 2006, but were reprinted by some papers last week.
The PTA urged internet users to write to YouTube and request the removal of the films, saying that the authorities would stop blocking the video-sharing site once that had happened.
Pakistan is not the only country to have blocked access to YouTube. In January, a Turkish court ordered the site to be blocked on account of video clips that allegedly broke the law by insulting the country's founding father, Kemal Ataturk.
Last spring the Thai government banned YouTube for four months because of clips regarded as offensive to the country's revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
Moroccans were unable to access YouTube last year after users posted footage critical of Morocco's treatment of the people of Western Sahara.
Tuesday 5 February 2008
Google shares fall to six-month low
Google: perceived by some as 'the next Microsoft' because of its monopoly of the search market. Photograph: AP
Google's share price has dropped below $500 (£254) for the first time in six months as investors grow concerned about increased competition from Microsoft's potential merger with Yahoo.
The hostile bid overshadowed Google's earnings statement last week, with investors focusing on profits that fell short of expectations despite a year-on-year rise of 40% for 2007 to $4.2bn.
Wider concerns about the US economy and a slowdown in advertising - which accounts for 99% of Google's revenue - had pushed the firm's share price down to $495 by the close of business in New York last night.
But the Gartner research vice-president, Andrew Frank, predicted that Google would remain market leader even if the Microsoft takeover of Yahoo - which would create a mass of online services known as a megacloud - went through.
"Microsoft views the megacloud business as part of its top-level strategic goals, but also likely realises that it is unlikely to ever top Google in advertising and search," Frank said.
"However, advertising and search are excellent potential cash flow generators. Microsoft must stay engaged in this area to diversify its revenue and limit Google's expansion.
"Microsoft must 'take the fight to Google's neighbourhood' while limiting the drain on Microsoft management," he added.
Google shares peaked at $741 in November and some analysts had speculated that the search engine giant was well on the way to eventually reaching $2,000 a share within 15 years.
Back in October, Henry Blodget on the Silicon Alley Insider blog said the company's growth would be strong as long as it "continues to eat the lunch of not only every major media company on earth but also the lunch of many technology companies".
Writing yesterday, Blodget said Google was perceived by some as "the next Microsoft" because of its monopoly of the search market.
"Google may not intentionally be exterminating competition with the same zeal that Microsoft once did, but it turns out that search is a natural monopoly.
"And Google's lifeline to Yahoo (in the form of an Eric Schmidt call to Jerry Yang) resembled not so much a gesture of Valley solidarity as a heavyweight wrestler momentarily taking his foot off a prostrate rival's throat."
· To contact the MediaGuardian newsdesk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.
Google: perceived by some as 'the next Microsoft' because of its monopoly of the search market. Photograph: AP
Google's share price has dropped below $500 (£254) for the first time in six months as investors grow concerned about increased competition from Microsoft's potential merger with Yahoo.
The hostile bid overshadowed Google's earnings statement last week, with investors focusing on profits that fell short of expectations despite a year-on-year rise of 40% for 2007 to $4.2bn.
Wider concerns about the US economy and a slowdown in advertising - which accounts for 99% of Google's revenue - had pushed the firm's share price down to $495 by the close of business in New York last night.
But the Gartner research vice-president, Andrew Frank, predicted that Google would remain market leader even if the Microsoft takeover of Yahoo - which would create a mass of online services known as a megacloud - went through.
"Microsoft views the megacloud business as part of its top-level strategic goals, but also likely realises that it is unlikely to ever top Google in advertising and search," Frank said.
"However, advertising and search are excellent potential cash flow generators. Microsoft must stay engaged in this area to diversify its revenue and limit Google's expansion.
"Microsoft must 'take the fight to Google's neighbourhood' while limiting the drain on Microsoft management," he added.
Google shares peaked at $741 in November and some analysts had speculated that the search engine giant was well on the way to eventually reaching $2,000 a share within 15 years.
Back in October, Henry Blodget on the Silicon Alley Insider blog said the company's growth would be strong as long as it "continues to eat the lunch of not only every major media company on earth but also the lunch of many technology companies".
Writing yesterday, Blodget said Google was perceived by some as "the next Microsoft" because of its monopoly of the search market.
"Google may not intentionally be exterminating competition with the same zeal that Microsoft once did, but it turns out that search is a natural monopoly.
"And Google's lifeline to Yahoo (in the form of an Eric Schmidt call to Jerry Yang) resembled not so much a gesture of Valley solidarity as a heavyweight wrestler momentarily taking his foot off a prostrate rival's throat."
· To contact the MediaGuardian newsdesk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)