Ad sales. Without the sales staff.

Writing for Nieman Journalism Lab, Michael Andersen looks at Flyerboard, which offers online publishers and businesses self-serve advertising. Click over to Boston.com’s Your Town page for Newton and see an example of Flyerboard’s handiwork on the left rail. The image in this post is from the Houston Chronicle website, Chron.com.

Beyond advertising revenue

UPDATE: USA Today regrets not charging for its iPhone app.

Paul Bradshaw, who writes for Online Journalism Blog, says forget about making money from online content (which is what USA Today recently announced it will be doing with its digital edition) and focus instead on value-added services:

Bradshaw’s points about newspapers needing to build new revenue streams is echoed in this post from John Temple, former editor and publisher for the Rocky Mountain News:

I don’t think the industry can get there if all it does is try to hold on to its legacy revenue streams and its legacy business. One thing that concerns me is that newspapers don’t seem to be working with local businesses to help them find their own foothold on the Internet and at the same time possibly place themselves in the middle of transactions. This might enable them to find a new revenue stream they couldn’t have tapped before.

And here’s just one example, provided by the Center for Strategic and International studies, of a news outlet that is going beyond advertising for its income:

European companies have also been finding creative ways to thrive in a changing media environment. Norway’s VG Nett, which is affiliated with the popular Norwegian tabloid, Verdens Gang, rivals Google in Norway and has a profit margin of nearly 30 percent. It does this through charging for services such as a $90-a-year weight-loss club, a pay-for-upgrade social networking site and streaming soccer games.

Reinventing the newspaper

I know what you’re thinking (cause I”m clairvoyant like that): “Not again. Not another post on how to save newspapers.” Ah, but this one is pretty darn good, tapping into the wisdom of 10 experts who offer advice on how to keep the presses rolling. Here are a few of the highlights:

On reinventing the core product:

Leonsis: [Develop] a core competency in ad sales so that the organization can represent other local media companies to build scale and create mini advertising.com-like businesses in each market.

On the audience for newspapers:

Mutter: Editors and publishers need to adopt a zero-based, market-driven approach to what they do. They need to learn to ask their readers and nonreaders what they want—and then respond creatively to the answers.

On the role of the print product:

Hall: Print is good at the things the Web is not good at—watchdog, explanatory, enterprise, narrative storytelling. The two media complement one another. One is the flowing river, changing constantly; the other is the rock on the shore, fixed and solid.

On reinventing the newspaper to work in concert with online offerings:

NYT's Sulzberger on adding value for businesses

Caught this little nugget from New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.’s keynote address to Stony Brook University last Thursday. In light of my previous post on new revenue-generating initiatives for newspapers, this passage from Sulzberger’s speech struck me as particularly relevant and validating:

We must engage in a deep and realistic examination of the value we add for marketers, of the services that we offer today to support that value, and of the new services we will need to offer in the future. We must invest in creating the skills and competencies to accomplish these things.

Newsosaur's prescriptions for newspapers transitioning to an online model

In his final installment of “Making the Print-Digital Transition,” Newsosaur Alan Mutter offers a list of things the newspaper industry needs to do now if it is to regain financial well-being.

In his previous posts, Mutter looked at why newspapers need their print editions, especially if they want to build an online following of readers and advertisers.

Now, the Newsosaur provides a get-well-soon recipe: