Why ESPN is the worldwide leader in delivering to its audience

Recently I had the opportunity to attend the 2010 ESPYs (in Los Angeles) as presented by the Disney-owned sports institution ESPN. Like most everything ESPN does, minus "The Decision," ESPN spares little to no expense in putting on the biggest show possible with events tied to its name.

Better than anyone else, ESPN has a greater understanding not just of its audience, but its audience expectations. ESPN takes its brand and its reputation deadly seriously.

While it is easy to get up for the big events such as the ESPYs or the ESPN created X Games, however, ESPN is at …

Up in the air with only an iPad: what happens when a Road Warrior leaves his laptop behind?

Let me establish my road cred. There isn't any official "Road Warrior" certification, but if there were I believe I would qualify. I've flown more than a million miles over the years and belong to every hotel, airline and rental car reward program known to man. My million miles pale in comparison to the 10 million that George Clooney's character claimed in Up in the Air .

To be clear, I'm no George Clooney - check my blogger's mug shot for proof - but an upgrade to first class remains one of life's great joys. Last year I earned quasi-Clooney …

How to enrage 10 million subscribers in 150 words or less

Let me begin by stating the obvious: my name is Blaine Sundrud (notice the byline above). Also, to demonstrate that I am not afraid to tell you who I am, allow me to say that I work for Digital Technology International . My phone number is +1 801 853-5000. I am a consultant for the news industry. For fun, I do woodturning. I play World of Warcraft .

I am one of over 11 million people worldwide who subscribe to be part of the World of Warcraft's virtual community. For those of you who do not know Warcraft, it is …

Bylines and bottom lines: what newsrooms can learn from Yahoo

Although I don't get invited to as many journalism class discussions as I used to, I don't take any offense. Usually, I was the one guilty of offending.

Often I would challenge these budding journalists to think of their work in a much different way than they were taught in college. I would simply ask each of them to take stock in the beat or work they were doing for a newspaper. The question they needed or need to ask themselves is, "Is what I'm doing adding or detracting from the bottom line of my newspaper?" If the answer is …

Content, the Killer iPad App

I was at the recent INMA Tablet Summit in Oxford. It was a sell-out, an illustration of the buzz that the latest "must-have" device from Apple, the iPad, is generating in the news business.

First, step back a while. It is not the telephone that makes the iPhone so popular, it is the content - the abundance of low cost (or free) apps. The touch screen user interface is pretty sexy too, as is the consistency in the user experience. The same success is likely to occur with the iPad if these lessons are learned.

The iPad may end up …

Live from New York: Events as the new marketing platform

Forget tablets. "Live" is the hot new platform!

The value of live events as a powerful marketing platform was an unexpected theme throughout the INMA World Congress in New York .

We heard success stories from Sweden to India with events ranging from a Bruce Springsteen concert, underground city tours to a major cricket tournament. The big takeaway was that newspaper-driven live events expand brand awareness, deepen reader loyalty and drive new revenue.

I love my new iPad, but it has a ways to go to match those metrics. Here are three "Live from New York" examples:

• Johan Othelius of …

Why we fight: Karl Schnibbe and newspapers

Karl Schnibbe, age 86, passed away this week.

He is the reason I believe in publishing today.

Schnibbe was 17 years old in Nazi Germany when he and his two friends, Helmuth Heubner and Rudolf Wobbe, decided that the German people must be told about the terrible things the Nazis were doing to their Fatherland. The three companions listened to clandestine BBC radio broadcasts and were horrified to learn what their government was doing without telling the German citizens. Fear was everywhere and people disappeared and were never heard from again.

Heubner convinced Schnibbe and Wobbe to follow him on …

I want a FastPass line for my Newspaper

I am 40 years old (at least for the next few couple months)

This means that I am right between the young "All I do is Twitter all day" generation (which they really don't... Twitter, I mean) and the more mature "I liked my New York Times when the pages were black and white and smeared on my fingers" crowd. So while I am not about to start telling people to "get off my lawn," I still need coaching from my son on who the last airbender really was.

But I found out last week what I want out of …

RoboReporter - Just like RoboCop only without the witty dialog

Ok, file this under "are you kidding me?" Two weeks ago, Scientists from Tokyo unveiled their latest Robotic creation: RobotReporter (Thanks to Dana Midby for calling my attention to this one).

Without repeating the entire article (which is translated from the original Japanese , for those of you who read Kanjii), the creators really think they are on to something here. The robot (I will call him Murphy ) has the standard robotic bells and whistles: built in Seqway wheels to get around tricky press rooms, laser range finders to make sure you don't bump into Helen Thomas , Spy …

Blogging in the Middle Ages. What's old is news again.

I admit I was not giddy with expectation when the blog craze hit in the mid ‘90s. Web logs-their name shortened to the nifty-sounding "blog" -seemed to me just a different type of web page, one with periodic news updates, like a diary. What I failed to grasp was that the blog was not a new technology, but a new do-it-yourself model for news dissemination. It was new, at least, for the Internet. For the print world, the blog is a very old concept-one that led to the birth of newspapers themselves.

A print equivalent of blogs can be found …

Get Personal. It Pays.

Five years ago you most probably did not imagine that today millions of people would be walking around with the power of the iPhone in their pocket. Now we are to have the iPad. What will be next?

Think five short years into the future. You log on to your trusted information source. Yes, ‘your' personal source with news, entertainment, stocks - and advertising - delivered to you in the format you want, on the device of your choice, at any time, anywhere. Not only that, it is exactly the information that you wanted to receive. Time is money. You …

The Audacity of "Nope"

Pick up a newspaper. Today's word factory publishes paragraphs like these:

"According to the press release from Zerstorer Inc., 'We are fully compliant based on the audit conducted.' "
"In a statement released by Press Secretary Obfusman, 'The prime minister is away on a fishing holiday but wants to reassure citizens on this matter.' "
"Speaking from a prepared statement, Goalie Menteur said, 'Regarding the events of the past few weeks, I have put them behind me and will move forward. I ask that you respect my privacy.' "
"While Senator Ladro was unavailable for comment, his office reassured us …

Thanks, but I'll stay on the stagecoach

My fiancé and I recently moved from St. Paul to the Los Angeles area for her job. We had a leisurely drive across the country, stopping to hike in the Grand Canyon, but still somehow managed to arrive a full week before our moving truck. That meant camping out in our own apartment with an air mattress and paper plates. Well, at least we'd brought out laptops along in the car, so we'd have internet access, right? Wrong-Verizon fumbled the order and it would be a week before they could have a guy come out to hook up the DSL. …

Newspapers - in a Funny Old World

Turning Content Into Cash

I have just returned from Hyderabad, India, where I attended the WAN-Ifra World Congress and Editor's Forum .

Mark Hollands from the Pacific Area News Media Publishers Association in Australia made me smile when he shared a text message that he had received during the event; it read: "It's a funny old world when the "Ah Ha!" moment of a conference is when someone suggests that they should charge - yes money - for their product."

The value of online content was a recurring theme.

The move toward paid content online has started for real. Rupert …

Can the Fosbury Flop inspire newspapers to make it better?

In October 1968, with The Beatles' Hey Jude topping the charts, Dick Fosbury topped the Olympic field in Mexico City where he took the gold medal and set a new Olympic record at 2.24 meters (7 feet 4.25 inches). I'm fairly sure that Dick wasn't the 5th Beatle but there is a common thread that I never saw until last week. Let me explain. While in Liverpool for Outlook 2010: INMA-OPA Europe Conference , I expected to hear about The Beatles and I wasn't disappointed. I got the full Fab Four immersion between visits to The Beatles Story museum and …

Proven wrong about the cloud

I have always said that I know three things to be true, so with my apologies to William H. Macy :

1) Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone,
2) There is no difference between Good Flan and Bad Flan, and,
3) You cannot run Adobe Creative Suite apps remotely.

Turns out I was wrong on the last one.

It is a mistake that can easily be forgiven. Let me explain why I was previously convinced of that fact.

For many years DTI (and to be fair, our competitors as well) struggled with the concept of how to handle remote users. Rich …

While Asia newspaper readership grows, with it grows journalistic responsibility.

Many of today's business leaders, not only in the media, are experiencing a frightening loss of control. Seemingly stable businesses collapse while recently unknown companies challenge entire industries.

Printed newspapers have lost the majority of classified advertising to ‘upstart' online classified sites - much as free newspapers ‘stole' classified ads under the noses of their more expensive paid-for rivals, before building the significant circulations that enabled them to successfully compete for display ads. Traditional paid-for newspapers then acquired their free competitors - just as today they are acquiring, as well as launching their own Web sites. It reminds me of …

Before the good times return, focus on newsmedia, CRM, content values, new marketing, and audience engagement beyond journalism

I have in front of me three strategic priority lists from:

- One of North America's leading media companies.
- One of Europe's leading media companies.
- The INMA Board of Directors for 2010.

Everybody seems to be circling around a few key themes, so let me bring them together in one location.

The "how" of newsmedia: First, INMA changed its name two years ago from "newspaper" to "newsmedia" and explained to the world why this was necessary for us and the companies we serve. We spent 2009 explaining what a multi-platform newsmedia company might look like. In 2010, we …

Does Loyalty come with rewards?

How do you treat your most loyal subscribers? Do the customers that have been with you more than 8 years have any additional benefits over those that just started 6 months ago?

As a frequent flyer, I look forward to the occasional upgrade to first class and the option to select an aisle seat for free to ensure a more comfortable ride. I am extremely pleased with the free flights and hotel stays associated with the hotel and airline programs.

Does your newspaper offer special rewards for the most loyal customers, free access to online content, free access to achieves, …

There ought to be a law...

(or "Why investigative journalism needs to step up...")

Last week, my buddy Aaron and I went through a rite of passage in Utah called the Concealed Weapons Carry permit class at Rangemasters right down the street from the mother ship . They ran a fabulous class and in the shameless hope of getting free range time, I will be happy to recommend this course to anyone. After 4 hours of safety indoctrination, fingerprints and prison mugshots, Aaron and I are now certified by the great state of Utah to stick a nine-mil in our sweat pants and feel superior to …

What's in a Name?

I gave my children traditional first names as a middle name. I wanted something unique and individualistic, something that wouldn't damage their self-image or be downright disturbing-think "Blanket Jackson", Michael's bundle of joy, or " Diva Thin Muffin" , child of moniker-destroying Frank Zappa.

I developed my child-naming theory so that they could be recognized by their name-hopefully on a law degree, as a publisher's sweepstakes winner, as a multiplatinum recording artist, etc. - without being singled out because of it.

So, I picked out six great first names and gave them to my three children.

Fast forward 20 years... …

Full Contact Politics

I love community dialog, but I have to admit that I am concerned about the direction of public discourse since the advent of free-for-all talkback forums. A brief review of talkback from any site (my personal favorite: www.sltrib.com ), will reveal a sad truth... lots of people are talking, few are listening.

This can create an interesting problem (opportunity) for sites looking to build audience and increase time on site, as it seems to draw in people who only want to shout rather than discuss.

Before we can find a solution to this problem, we need to identify the source. …

Can E-Reader Devices Bridge the Gap Between Print & Web?

Now that Detroit dropped home delivery down to 3 days a week and Seattle Post-Intelligencer will go 100% web-only in 60 days if the paper doesn't find a new owner, should we be looking seriously at e- Reader devices such as Amazon's Kindle and Plastic Logic's 8.5" X 11" version. Can these e-Reader devices bridge the gap between print and web? What type of person will use the e-Reader device?

I'm currently a hybrid subscriber and that works well for me as a person that travels. I receive my paper electronically 6 days a week and receive a printed product …

With a little help from our friends

I am often pleased and surprised by the helpfulness, enthusiasm and ingenuity of our customers. This week's laurels go to Micky Hulse, ace web chap from the Register Guard . I was in Nigeria a few weeks ago (more of that in later issues) with a dreadful internet connection and a lack of time. I was a bit stuck as my favourite image gallery (SmoothGallery) didn't work with jQuery that was already being used for the web templates. I fired off a quick email (actually it took ages to send but I don't want to spoil the narrative flow) and …

Oh no, they didn't!

Village Voice is one of the great iconoclastic news outlets today. They made their mark covering the news stories that other more reputable publications felt were not "fit to print." One look at the photo essay on the "Idiotarod" (no that is not a misspelling), tells you all you need to know about the fun that group has.

Well, looks like they got their hands caught in the cookie jar when it comes to padding their online usage stats.

Ed Kohler from thedeets.com , just broke the story about two Digg users who have been systematically "Digg-ing" front page articles …

If it's Tuesday, this must be Poughkeepsie (You're not in Kansas anymore when the road kill is possum)

Traveling through this great nation is nothing less than an exciting adventure. From sea to shining sea, the United States is a brilliant array of wide-open skies, wide-open spaces and wide-open opinions.

From the laid-back approach of the West, and the fast-paced style in the East, America provides us with choices rich and diverse enough to satisfy any appetite. Sky-scraping structures, small-town football games, a corner market and beachfront huts give each area a unique sense of culture and history.

For all this country's vast diversity, however, sometimes it all looks the same. A recent road-trip has allowed me to …

Guilty Pleasures: Computer Books get Computerised

I was in Provo Utah a few weekends ago (too sore to tie a plank to my feet & jump off a mountain again) and found myself in the computer section of a rather pleasant bookshop complete with on site coffee - heaven for this road warrior.

The problem I always have is what to buy, especially considering the luggage weight limit when I have to fly home! When it comes to reference books, I have found that you never really know if they are any good until you have finished them. So far I have learnt to avoid those …

"It Sucks to be Me..."

The Rocky Mountain News closed after 150 years of printing some excellent fishwrap. I won't go into a diatribe about what it means to us. I am a firm believer that there is a light at the end of this tunnel and we just have to survive long enough (months not years) before we get there.

But I was drawn to an excellent piece of journalism in the Columbia Journalism Review, " Rocky Mountain, Bye "

Rather than give their own spin on the events, the CJR allowed individual staffers the chance to express what it meant to them personally. …

Audience-centric model driving newspaper transformation

As a former newspaper publisher, I can empathize when a newspaper's bad news is on their own front page. "Bankruptcy filings", "Revenues down", "Classifieds dying". Amid all the economic doom and gloom, the plight of newspapers seems to have a special ironic place in the news. When you go behind the headlines, too much debt from highly leveraged acquisitions is the root cause. Beyond the balance sheet, we have been slow as an industry to change business models and business processes to adapt to online opportunities.

Newspapers' process-centric approach is understandable. Producing a unique daily product requires a precisely choreographed …

Inventing the Cardboard box

Act I: The World is my Oyster

I play World of Warcraft . I am not a hardcore player, but I enjoy the game (If you thought, "Armory Link, Please," here it is ). As much as I enjoy the game, I enjoy the forum sites that discuss the game. For those of you who think, "How weird is that," may I remind you that most of us here are involved in the news industry that makes its money analyzing whatever it can find .

Part of the reason I love the forums is to find out how different people …

A Few Good Customers

Sitting here, waiting for the doors to open on the final day of Nexpo... oops, sorry, mediaXchange , I am reminded of the words from A League of their Own when Jimmy Dugan sarcastically tells the team, "Let's get out there... dozens of people are waiting to see you play..."

Crowds here are so sparse that vendors outnumber buyers 40 to 1 based on the informal survey conducted by a content vendor who was willing to buy a yacht for anyone willing to sit and listen to his pitch (actual ratio of vendor to customers is not yet published). The …

Le Tour de France

A huge marketing extravaganza

In my last posting I reported that I had heard at a WAN conference that those newspapers reporting increases in circulation were focused on high quality content - and marketing.

Yesterday the Tour de France travelled through the village in which I am fortunate enough to live - on the stage from Le Cap D'Agde to Perpignan. The riders are preceded by ‘le caravane' - a flotilla of sponsor vehicles that ‘entertain' the crowd gathered along the route. I realized that they were all from B2C companies, providing such essentials as washing powder, telecommunications, food and …

Cost cutting, wrist slitting or a new direction?

Transforming the business model

It is clear that media companies need to reduce costs to cope with the drastic declines in advertising revenue. Worse yet I read about newspapers getting rid of all of their graphic designers, nearly eliminating their copy editors and telling the reporters to copy edit their own stories, and slashing their news staffs .

How can you cut out the most essential ingredients of quality news gathering and expect to have a product readers will still want?

I read about some companies deciding to modularize and standardize their editorial layouts, so they can use the same …

Talkin bout my demographic

When I first heard The Who 's song My Generation in 1970 on the Live at Leeds album, I knew they were was really talking to ME about MY generation. Pete Townsend's lyrics were an anthem about youthful rebellion and defiance of the older generation. The line "Hope I die before I get old!" has a whole different meaning when you think you're immortal. What teenager couldn't relate? So, let's fast forward almost 40 years and I find that my own teenage son completely embraces the message of My Generation as his own. It gave me this strange feeling of …

How Mine Magazine lost me on Highway 101

I got Mine but it wasn't all about me. Let me explain. A few weeks ago I posted a blog " Sushi pizza for an audience of one " where I wrote about signing up for a free, personalized MINE Magazine subscription. dqjm2raeyw I qualified to receive 5 issues of a Lexus-sponsored semi-custom magazine with content from Sports Illustrated , Golf , Money , Time , Travel + Leisure , InStyle , Food & Wine and RealSimple .

I receiveddqjm2raeyw my first issue in the mail - just a day after a personalized email of apology from Wayne Powers the …