What RevenueTwoPointZero participants thought about RevenueTwoPointZero
It’s been four days since Saturday’s RevenueTwoPointZero conference, in which 29 industry brains gathered to brainstorm a new working business model that might support journalism. And it’s been two days since the prototypes were unveiled.
There’s been some interesting feedback on the prototypes at the R2.0 web site. Be sure to check ‘em out, attached to individual posts or aggregated in the column on the right.
The best comment we’ve seen so far, though, was by my wife, Sharon. She dutifully read every word and then asked me at dinner:
So, who’s in charge of selling all this to publishers?
Who, indeed? Heh.
What are the thoughts of the folks who participated in Saturday’s R2.0 event? Six of them shared a little time with us this week…
—
Patrick Cooper
USA Today
Q. What was the most interesting new thing you learned at the RevenueTwoPointZero confab on Saturday?
A. The idea of treating digital advertising as content seems obvious, but it’s amazing how rarely we explore it. As an industry, while we respect, design and interact with advertising, we’ve largely yet to apply the lessons learned from pursuing readers editorially. We can certainly keep a separation between editorial and advertising while using the lessons of each to inform the other.
Q. What do you think is the single biggest hurdle we face over the next year or two?
A. Half a year ago, I would’ve said sorting and taming the human information wave we’ve introduced over the last decade. Now the biggest hurdle has to be innovating amid cutbacks. With the digital shift a lock apart from the credit crunch, we have to position ourselves and be ready to show our change when the economy turns around.
Q. Who impressed you the most Saturday? R2.0 was a team effort, but who would win your Most Valuable Player trophy and why?
A. The organizers, Matt Mansfield and Alan Jacobson. They’d put in a great amount of thought and coordination ahead of time, and that planning allowed the teams to get off the blocks quickly.
Q. Quick preference: Do you favor free or paid online content?
A. Free.
Q. Quick question: Do you tweet? Why or why not?
A. I do, but I read much more than I write. I mostly enjoy it for personal use, to touch base with friends, but I like how it can serve work purposes when necessary. It was great for following reactions both inside and outside the Rev 2.0 event as we worked.
—
Steve Dorsey
Detroit Free Press
Q. What was the most interesting new thing you learned at the RevenueTwoPointZero confab on Saturday?
A. I had a good idea that a room full of focused, smart people could do a lot in a single day — but I was impressed with just how much critical thinking and rapid concept build-outs everyone came up with. I was also reminded how good it felt when you first see an emerging idea — there’s sort of a V-8 moment when you realize something is possible, or perhaps even easy, and there’s a need for it, and — Ta-da – why wasn’t someone already doing it? There were a couple of those moments.
But if I had to pick one thing in particular that would be usable right away — if you asked me to invest my own money in only one of the solutions that came out of Saturday — I’d have to pick the classifieds work. The simplicity of I want / I have paired with the much-improved user interface really push beyond the experience users currently have anywhere else that I’ve seen.
Q. What do you think is the single biggest hurdle we face over the next year or two?
A. I worry that it might be too late already to turn around. If it’s not, I think the biggest hurdle is the old guard still resisting new thinking, new ideas and new processes. The best ideas can come from anywhere but there has to be room and an environment for them to arrive into and grow from. There has to be a willingness to fail in order to learn more, faster, so we can succeed.
Q. Who impressed you the most Saturday? R2.0 was a team effort, but who would win your Most Valuable Player trophy and why?
A. There’s really no way to rank one person’s contributions over another. There were many important roles all around the room. It was a great team of all-stars and I was just happy to be there offering help and support. One of the coolest things that happened Saturday was there were no ranks or titles, no time for egos — just ideas and prototyping. Concepts survived based on their relevancy and function alone.
Q. Quick preference: Do you favor free or paid online content?
A. Free content. I think there’s a universal expectation that content will be free. I think we need to focus on better online advertising experiences to happen once we have users’ attention. I also think we need to consider different kinds of relationships between editorial and advertising — we have to move beyond the idea of selling space (like column inches) and into areas of relationships between users and clients. I also think many people would be willing to pay for added functionality, but not for content.
Q. Quick question: Do you tweet? Why or why not?
A. What is this Twitter thing, anyway? (I tweet, therefore I am.)
—
Chris Krewson
Philadelphia Inquirer
Q. What was the most interesting new thing you learned at the RevenueTwoPointZero confab on Saturday?
A. The best concept we tossed around was simple: Ads as content. What if people wanted to see them, rather than the alternative?
Q. What do you think is the single biggest hurdle we face over the next year or two?
A. Staying alive.
Q. Who impressed you the most Saturday? R2.0 was a team effort, but who would win your Most Valuable Player trophy and why?
A. I really liked Jay Small, but then I knew going in that I would. I was most impressed by some of the younger programmers and designers; in my group. Yuri Victor and Mary Spect [both of Gannett] were very bright. The wireframe wizard in our group, Wesley Lindamood [of USA Today] was awesome as well.
Q. Quick preference: Do you favor free or paid online content?
A. I prefer ad-supported online content to ‘paid.’
Q. Quick question: Do you tweet? Why or why not?
A. I tweet, because I think it’s neat.
—
Kristen Novak
USA Today
Q. What was the most interesting new thing you learned at the RevenueTwoPointZero confab on Saturday?
A. Hmmm… I’m gonna have to keep thinking on that one… but I don’t think that having a takeaway as an individual was ever the goal.
Q. What do you think is the single biggest hurdle we face over the next year or two?
A. Finding a working business model that supports our role as content producer (journalists) — and get smart about technology and how to use it.
Q. Who impressed you the most Saturday? R2.0 was a team effort, but who would win your Most Valuable Player trophy and why?
A. I think the entire team deserves the MVP. Teamwork is key in these types of conversation and working in small groups only reinforced that.
Q. Quick preference: Do you favor free or paid online content?
A. Free — It’s the internet… But, one of the most interesting questions was looking at this in mobile format… I am very likely to pay for an “app” but not for the content within…
Q. Quick question: Do you tweet? Why or why not?
A. Yes… it’s the mini-blogging thing. Blogging gets involved whereas tweeting let’s you make quick notes… and I think it also reaches a broader audience.
—
Yuri Victor
Gannett
Q. What was the most interesting new thing you learned at the RevenueTwoPointZero confab on Saturday?
A. RevenueTwoPointZero wasn’t about learning; it was about acting. It was about making big debates null.
Ads are content? Yes. Done. No more learning, no more debating, it’s time to act. If ads are content, then we need to focus not only on the ad, but how the ad affects the user. We needed to find the pain. If a user searched for the ad, did the user find the ad? No? Pain. If the user, clicked an ad saying “Get 20% off,” was the user taken to a quickly printable coupon? No? Pain. Could the user easily find how to get 20% off if the user ignored ads? No? Pain.
Let’s fix it. Act.
A lot of people said, “We don’t have meetings like RevenueTwoPointZero at my company?” Some people said they’ve never had a meeting like RevenueTwoPointZero. Others said their meetings are filled with debates, filled with ideas that go nowhere, filled with nothing.
If I learned anything, it’s that news organizations can be agile, we can innovate and execute in conjunction. We acted in a day. On a Saturday, nonetheless.
Q. What do you think is the single biggest hurdle we face over the next year or two?
A. The biggest hurdle news organizations face over the next two years is the same hurdle every company everywhere always faces: The art of doing nothing. Being nothing. Being complacent and stagnant and ordinary. So many ideas center around improving old revenue models for new mediums. Our information networks can regenerate the same armageddon of inventory, but until we solve what to do when people can’t or won’t advertise, we won’t save the news. To survive, we must diversify, not just mediums, but focus. If we innovate now, if we execute now, now now, we make the hurdles ordinary.
Q. Who impressed you the most Saturday? R2.0 was a team effort, but who would win your Most Valuable Player trophy and why?
A. There were no egos at RevenueTwoPointZero. Ideas came from everyone. But if anyone deserves the Most Valuable Player trophy, I’d say Matt Mansfield. The man has a secret talent for bringing like-minded people together to act quickly.
Q. Quick preference: Do you favor free or paid online content?
A. I favor free online content. Stop me there.
Q. Quick question: Do you tweet? Why or why not?
A. I tweet. Tweeting is my point for quick feedback, gaining ideas, contributing ideas and #LeWar.
—
Jon Wile
Washington Post
I preface this with I was only there until 1 p.m. because I had to work…
Q. What was the most interesting new thing you learned at the RevenueTwoPointZero confab on Saturday?
A. I don’t know if I learned this, but it was definitely re-enforced. Web sites aren’t making money in accordance with page views online, and why is that? Well, a big reason has to do with journalism driving the advertising model. But what if we switched it around and let the advertising model drive the journalism. Example: Build ad positions first on a home page that enable the advertising folks a better chance to sell the product, then build the journalism around that.
Q. What do you think is the single biggest hurdle we face over the next year or two?
A. Making money on the internet.
Q. Who impressed you the most Saturday? R2.0 was a team effort, but who would win your Most Valuable Player trophy and why?
A. Alan Jacobson and Matt Mansfield. Alan’s abrasive personality was perfect to push people past their comfort zones and get to things we haven’t seen before. Matt, well, he is just Matt. He’s the smartest guy in the room and understands print, online, marketing and advertising all so well. They were a good 1-2 punch.
Q. Quick preference: Do you favor free or paid online content?
A. Free. Paid content doesn’t work.
Q. Quick question: Do you tweet? Why or why not?
A. I do tweet (@jonwile). I like Twitter because I can keep up with my friends and get all sorts of news feeds (Romanesko, NYT, LAT, etc.) pumped into my iPhone at all times. Makes it easy to stay connected and informed.
Our thanks to those who responded.
We’re looking forward to the next steps with RevenueTwoPointZero. Find the project’s web site here.