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Newsweek’s got a problem (aside from the fact that it’s currently a publication in search of a buyer.) The company has a smart, adept digital arm. But the product that is getting the most positive attention right now doesn’t support any advertising. And it’s not directly attached to the company’s business model. It’s called Newsweek.Tumblr.com.

Newsweek is one of the few old media brands that has taken to Tumblr quickly and adamantly. The company has developed a friendly but snarky persona with Mark Coatney at the helm that is increasingly winning fans.

But Tumblr has no ad placements, and that voice is often lacking at the magazine’s monetizable products. With the magazine up for sale, the brand is currently taking a beating online. There seems to be a new satirical purchase offer popping up every day. Henry Blodget recently offered $1 to buy the mag. But as The New York Times‘ David Carr wrote this weekend:

“Unless someone is looking for a machine that makes money disappear very quickly, why would they buy Newsweek?”

That’s hard for any brand to take. And yet, Newsweel’s tumblr had a pretty great rebuttal. Today in a post titled,

Every Day is, Like, Sunday, the tumblr expounded:

“June already! Where does the time go? Nothing like an uncertain future
to telescope the hours. Remember, buyers: Bids are due Wednesday!”

This is not the tone that’s become expected from a stalwart weekly news magazine. Even Carr acknowledged it on Twitter:

Newsweeks v smart tumblr http://bit.ly/9hRS4R on state of play at mag, including push backs on my column http://nyti.ms/aDHyxE and Graham

Even as Newsweek struggles to find a buyer, the company is making leaps and bounds in digital. A newly unveiled website is both sleek and direct. Meanwhile, the company’s Twitter feed often strikes a similarly fun and irreverent tone. Take for instance, this recent tweet:

And yet, it’s hard to ignore that most of the interesting links in the company’s Twitter feed send readers not to the magazine, but to Tumblr posts.

And even that always chipper Tumblr persona doesn’t have the best of scenarios for the company’s future revenue options:

“We can think of a lot of ways! For instance, there’s the Time Inc.
model, in which costs are spread around a lot of publications. There
is, as Carr points out, the rich guy option. We’re thinking of starting
a Kickstarter account. Also, as our numbers do show, our losses have
narrowed considerably over last year, and we expect that situation to
continue to improve.”

Despite an impressive — and quickly improving — digital product, Newsweek still has to figure out how to sell more magazines
to survive. The revenue for digital ad sales is simply not strong
enough to support a newsweekly sized staff. Unfortunately, the prospect of “narrowed losses” isn’t enough to win over most buyers. At this point, the best Newsweek may be able to hope for is a buyer so impressed by the strides the company has made in digital that s/he thinks the staff can extend that makeover to the print side.

But at the very least, Newsweek’s Tumblr will go down fighting. Another Tumblr rebuttal to Carr’s Sunday column:

Carr: In the current digital news ecosystem, having “week” in your title
is anachronistic in the extreme, what an investor would call negative
equity.

Newsweek.Tumblr: This is a small irritant, but what the hell: So what? In the
“digital news ecosystem,” “Newsweek” is a better name than “Time” or
“People”; ever try Googling “Time”?

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Good news for paid content. The internet is closing in on television as a popular source of entertainment for consumers. According to a new study from Edelman, more people go to the internet for entertainment than ever before.

Those numbers still need to grow substantially for online advertising revenue to outpace the “digital dimes” that it currently earns compared to TV, but there is a bit of silver lining in terms of charging for online content. Consumers this year are more likely than ever to chose paying for content versus making personal concessions to access free content. That means media companies may be moving toward a reprieve from the “tyranny of free” online.

Edelman’s fourth annual Trust in the Entertainment Industry survey found this year that the internet isn’t just used for information searching anymore (shocker!). Edelman asked 1,000 18-54 year olds in the U.S and U.K. whether they considered the internet a source of entertainment. In 2009, only 27% of 18-34 said yes. In 2010, that number jumped to 42%.

Meanwhile, the internet is now the second most popular form of entertainment behind television in both countries. About 58% of Americans turn to the TV first for entertainment, followed by 32% who turn on their computers first. In the U.K., 57% prefer television, and 30% choose the web first.

Part of the reason for that digital entertainment growth is the uptick in social networking online. In the U.S., 73% of 18-24 year olds (and 61% in the U.K.) consider social networks as a form of entertainment. Meanwhile, 50%
(U.S.) and 56% (U.K.) of respondents aged 35-49 said the same.

Now if online video actually started to surpass television viewing we’d have an advertising game on our hands.

But perhaps more importantly in the near term, the study found that consumers now value accessibility of content over its price. In 2008, respondents valued free content above all else. This year, 65% of U.S. respondents said it was important
to access entertainment on a number of different devices, while 59% of U.K. respondents said the same. Meanwhile, 58% (U.S.) and 53% (U.K.) said they’d be
willing to pay for content if it was portable across devices.

Also, most consumers (89% in the U.K.) said they would not be willing to part with personal information, even if it meant receiving access to free content. Considering how much information consumers seem to give away online today with little concern, that number should be taken with a grain of salt.

However, respondents said that they were more willing to pay for content from entertainment companies they trust, and trust of entertainment companies was at a three-year high among those aged 18-34. In the U.K., 31% trusted entertainment companies in 2009, compared to 34% this year. In the U.S. trust is up 2 points to 34% as well.

Image: HikingArtist.com

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In today’s Start Me Up we hear from Karl Havard at

If you run a B2C startup and want a Start Me Up profile then please throw your hat into the ring by emailing editor@econsultancy.com.

In one sentence, what is pownum?

Pownum gives people a collective voice and enables them to share their opinions of organisations with others (and with the organisations themselves). In turn, organisations can respond should they choose to do so.

What problem does Pownum solve?

It gives individuals an authoritative voice that will be heard by organisations of any kind. In so doing they can bring about change in the way organisations relate to them.

It gives structure by collating people’s opinion and provides a meaningful score (the pownum rating) making it much easier for organisations to monitor and interact, as opposed to scouring the whole of the social web. And it aids decision making by providing the ability to compare organisations with each other.

If we achieve our vision of being the de-facto place on the web for everyone to go to offer opinions about any and every organisation, pownum will eliminate a large amount of the cost, time and effort currently expended on sentiment analysis and reputation management.

We also want to achieve certain charity donation targets. The people decide which charities are nominated and what proportion of the donations they receive.

When and why did you launch it?

We launched the website and iPhone app, officially, two weeks ago. We launched it because we wanted to introduce a ratings and review site that actually worked and has a real value to all parties. Also, a social network that did some good and seamlessly integrates with the existing and much more established social platforms of Twitter and Facebook.

Secretly – so not so secret now – we wanted to ensure the UK could also introduce an innovative and useful social platform onto the web, as opposed to everything coming from the US. That said, pownum can be used in whichever country people decide to rate from.

Who is your target audience?

This is going to sound really wide, but the target audience is the global general public as a whole. Anyone that has an opinion about an organisation and has access to the internet can use the site. If they are already using Facebook and have an iPhone then they are right in our current sweet spot. We will be introducing new mobile platforms and further site development will be an ongoing process.

Of course, people providing opinions doesn’t create any revenue, however with sufficient volume of ratings we’re confident that organisations (at least ones that care) will want to subscribe to their Right of Reply and engage in a meaningful dialogue.

The recent and most welcome tweet from @StephenFry, who thought pownum was a “good idea” has stimulated a lot of interest.

What are your immediate goals?

Our immediate goals are to build awareness and have people coming in and provide their opinions. We believe that people – once signed up – will begin to rate a couple of times a week (we’re not a Twitter or Facebook) so we need lots of people to register to start to have an impact.

The signs so far are really positive. Our immediate KPI is ‘Ratings’, followed closely by the number of sign ups; everything else is secondary to these. We know, based on the various measurement statistics (on- and off-site) that awareness is building amongst the corporate community and we’re looking to attract some more forward thinking organisations who will subscribe to their Right of Reply and be more proactive than reactive. This will enable us to start the process of charity nominations and voting, quickly leading to donations chosen by the people who rate.

What were the biggest challenges involved in building Pownum?

We both had a very clear vision of what the pownum concept was about. Executing it on the web and via mobile took a lot of planning. Marty, because of his background, is completely passionate about the on-site user experience and aesthetics, and Karl wants the site to be the best social sharing and search optimised site on the web.

Much debate, sometimes heated, took place. However, we feel we have something that is on its way to achieving those ambitions. The other challenge came from talking to people. The majority bought into the concept, where as a small minority (some quite influential) challenged it. They felt it would be just another “whinge” site and opinions would favour the negative. We firmly believe this is not the case.

Pownum is built upon being fair. It’s pleasing to see only after a couple of weeks that this is now starting to take shape, and actually a lot of ratings favour the positive. There’s still a long way to go, but we feel confident of proving the minority wrong.

How will the company make money?

The primary and initial model is based upon the Right of Reply subscription. Anyone can see what is being said on the site for free, but for organisations to be able to respond to ratings and communicate what they are doing/planning as a whole they have to take up the Right of Reply, which has an annual fee attached to it.

Naturally, the Right of Reply is completely free for charities and we’d encourage them to take this up. Half of all revenues will be put into a charity donations pot and we will ask people to nominate and vote on the charities they feel should benefit.

There will be no advertising on the site.

What is your pricing model?

The model for the Right of Reply is a very simple annual subscription. Current pricing equates to £5,000 / $8,000 per annum.

Who is in the team and what does it look like?

The team is currently Marty Carroll and Karl Havard. Joint founders and funders! And that’s it. Naturally, we have plans to expand the team overtime. We chose Codegent as our development partner and you can see the results of their work, we’re really pleased and this will be an on going relationship.

Where would you like to be in one, three and five years time?

Difficult. But being forced into time shaped boxes and focusing on pownum…

By the end of the first year, we’d like to have a constant frequency of ratings appearing consistently every few minutes.

In three years, we’d like to have become a household name and be the place where organisations go to to review and manage their reputation. We’re imagining conversations around the boardroom where the “pownum rating” is a regular agenda item.

And in five years time we, with the help of everyone, hope to have donated £10m to charity.

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I’ve yet to speak to any serious SEO that wouldn’t want a little more ‘link love’ to power a specific keyword position, a section of a site or a domain’s overall authority. So take a dash of customer insight, a pinch of target media knowledge, add a sprinkling of creative process and wash it down with some slick idea pitching, and the holy grail of editorial links can be yours (along with the natural search boost that comes with them).

Here’s a taste..

1. Interactive Video Content

Blog and specialist site owners love good editorial video content, so the fashion blogger community were going to love an interactive fashion show.

The creation of a digital catwalk meant that anyone that could not attend the event could watch the show from a virtual front row, while the ’hotspot’ element allowed viewers to click on any piece of clothing that catches their eye and instantly find out more information about the item.

(Watch the interactive cat walk video)

2. Badge Schemes

A “badge” scheme involves the creation and promotion of a graphic link that third party sites are encouraged or incentivised to embed. This is a fantastic tactic to tap into advocates of your brand for the benefit of your natural search campaign.

But why would people but a badge on their site?

• They are massive fans of your brand. They want other people to know this. For example, here is a badge scheme we’re promoting to customers of a water cooler supplier we work with:

• They are members of a group\club that you’ve created. Membership rules require the utilisation of the badge on the site. For example, a sportswear company offer free items of kit for running clubs for their members to test. In return for the kit the “official kit reviews” provide valuable independent reviews for the website as well as a link from the badge.

• They want to show off. For example, when we were fortunate enough to get a nomination from Econsultancy last year we were more than happy to place this badge on our site.

3. Feature Pitches

This involves developing exclusive content to a media partner. This is a tactic more traditionally associated with good old fashioned PR. However, as a link development tactic it’s just as much (or I’d argue even more) value than the equivalent ad value that is often used to show ROI on this type of work.

To get a feature your story has to be super relevant to readers, be of high interest and be exclusive to your media target. The more exciting the collateral you can offer, the better your chances are off securing coverage.

You’ll also need to know exactly who to speak to in order to pitch your idea. You’ll want to know who looks after the online editorial as these people are often different to their offline counterparts. Rather than scrambling around to find the right contacts mercifully there are excellent media contact databases like www.gorkana.com that do the hard work for you.

You might even find services like www.responsesource.com useful.  Sign up and you’ll get requests directly from journalists for you to contribute to a feature. This might be an expert comment, images, a case study etc.

A feature pitch of “Dressing for the Recession” captured The Telegraph’s imagination and they sent a journalist to interview our bespoke tailor client, giving them the chance to show off their expertise and showcase their suits. And…er… get a link from the Telegraph with some favourable anchor text.

SEOs: make friends with your PR Team, they are your best friends.

I think SEO is about to enter a creative era and shed the directory submissions and advertorial image of bygone link building days. It would be great to discuss these and any other examples the community would like to share.

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I’ve been comparing the two property search apps…

Rightmove

Rightmove already has a useful iPhone app, but rather than simply producing a larger version for the iPad, it has adapted the site to produce a smoother browsing experience.

The search screen has been kept simple, users can enter a postcode or location, or use GPS to detect their whereabouts, before selecting properties for sale or rent. The results page is the most impressive feature of the app:

Users can browse the search results by moving them left or right with their finger, and the images and price details are helpful when deciding whether to click for more details.

Filter and sort options are provided to narrow the scope of the search, and these can be applied before or after the search:

The property details pages are useful too, with relevant email and telephone contact details for the estate agent, basic details about the property and a range of photos, while the location has been plotted via Google Maps:

Primelocation

The Primelocation iPad app is quite different to Rightmove’s. It can only be used in landscape view for starters:

The search functionality is minimal; you can only search by postcode or location; the app doesn’t use GPS.

The results are displayed in a spiral format, and users can spin it round to see different properties, though only one is highlighted at a time. The arrows on the right can be used to find cheaper or more expensive properties:

This is a confusing and not very useful way to display search results, and the lack of any kind of filtering or sorting options means that the numbers of search results for some locations are completely unmanageable.

If you search on a London postcode for instance, then you might have more than 100 properties, and no means to narrow the selection. This lack of filtering options is a major omission which makes the app unnecessarily difficult to use.

Click on a result and you can see a preview of the listing and some photos, but you need to go to the Primelocation website to see more.

In fact, since the main website has the advanced search and filter options that are missing from the app, it makes more sense to bypass the app and head straight for the main site.

Conclusion

There isn’t too much competition here; if users want a usable and useful property search app for the iPad, then Rightmove is the clear winner. It works intuitively, it looks good, and provides the tools and information needed for effective searches.

By contrast, the Primelocation app seems to have been designed without even though for the user experience. While the spiral view of search results may be flashy, it does little to help the user to find a property that suits them, and the lack of any kind of filtering and sorting options renders the app almost entirely useless.

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While it may be a complex process to involve yourself as a brand in a general community forum where your product may be discussed, review websites offer structured platforms on which to respond to the critiquing of your products.

Finding reviews

There are a wealth of websites which offer reviews online, so it’s important to concentrate your efforts:

• Think about your online distributors and which of these provide the ability for customers to post reviews.
• Place yourself in your potential or current customers’ shoes and simply Google your product name appended with ‘reviews’ to see which sites and reviews are most visible.
• Research popular niche community websites interested in your industry which contain specific review sections. It is important to check that a website is happy for you to respond to reviews before proceeding.

• Look at the referring site traffic report in your analytics packages to establish whether any review sites are driving visitors to your site.

Embracing negative reviews

Whilst it may be disheartening to see negative reviews appearing in your search, remember that it is the open honesty of reviews which makes them so valuable to and popular with consumers.

Companies, like people, all have bad days and responding to negative reviews with honest answers is what people will respect the most. This may seem like a radical approach to some companies, but it can ultimately lead to the defining of a brand’s reputation online.

Scott Weavers-Wright, of successful children’s online retailer Kiddicare, a website which has made its mark through providing honest customer reviews of all its products, has embraced the social experience in this way. He says:“You’ll find five-star ratings and one-star ratings for our products and we’re just as honest with our own service. You can rate Kiddicare and again there are negative reviews there too – though we have a 96% service rating from our customers so you’ll have to work hard to find one, but they’re there!”

Kirsty Uminski, of consumer review website ReviewCentre.com, suggests that rather than viewing negative reviews as something that weakens your brand, they can be used to strengthen it by allowing you to improve your offering and demonstrate how important your customers are to you by speaking to them directly.

When is a review not a review

Before responding to a review, consider why the customer has written it. If they have provided a negative comment without constructive criticism, it may be that they simply want to “rant” and are not interested in entering into a constructive conversation around their complaint. In these situations it is more beneficial just to listen.

Remember that most readers will not find such comments useful and will often see them more as a reflection on the reviewer than the brand. Instead, they are likely to pay more attention to reviews which clearly and objectively set out what they have and have not liked about a product. These are the reviews you should focus your attentions on.

Structuring your response

As a brand, you should assume that all constructive, negative reviews are designed to help readers find the best product for their need. If your service or product has been criticised, this criticism should be taken as an opportunity to improve or explain. In general, structuring your response in the following way is advisable:

• Apologise. This means that you have thought about the effects this problem may have had on your customer base and that you regret this; in other words that you care!
• Explain. Tell the user honestly why this has happened so that they understand the issue. Anyone who has been stuck on a train will vouch for the fact that just knowing why a problem has arisen makes them feel more informed and in control of their situation.
• Solution. Inform the customer that the problem is being addressed internally. If you are currently unable to resolve the issue, make this clear so that they do not have false expectations which will create more negative feedback. In such situations, being as open as possible is the best policy.

Kirsty at ReviewCentre.com says that being accusational or aggressive will only serve to make you look bad to the reader. However if you feel that a review on their particular website is untrue and libellous, they encourage you to talk directly to staff to mediate between yourself and the reviewer.

Be grateful for the good

Whilst it is important to respond to negative reviews, occasionally recognising positive reviews demonstrates that as a company you are interested in talking to all of your customers, not just those who could potentially harm your reputation! Taking the time to say thank you to your satisfied customers will increase goodwill around your brand.

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Filloux cites two major problems: poor design, and the process by which
online ads are bought and sold. With the former, he points to the
popularity of ad blockers as evidence that online ads generally “act as
repellents to readers.” With the latter, Filloux notes that “most
technology aspects of the advertising business have slipped out of the
hands of those who were supposed to own them.”

Sure, there is no shortage of horrid banner ads and generally uninspired campaigns, and there are plenty of things to complain about when it comes to how ads are bought and sold online, but does that mean that digital advertising is “lousy“, as Filloux states? Of course not.

There are numerous ways to dissect Filloux’s argument, but I’ll take the easiest: return on investment. It’s a phrase that, somewhat surprisingly, Filloux doesn’t mention once in his piece.

Advertising isn’t about innovation and technology, nor is it about imagination and design. At the end of the day, the purpose of advertising is to sell products, services and ideas. Sure, innovation, technology, imagination and design can all be important components of effective advertising effective (and they usually are), but in and of themselves, they don’t move the needle.

When it comes to selling, it’s pretty darn difficult to call digital advertising “lousy.” There’s a logical reason that businesses collectively spend billions of dollars on search, display and CPA advertising every year: many of them are making money from their digital advertising initiatives.

Using the lowest hanging fruit — search advertising — as an example, Google recently estimated that, on average, AdWords advertisers generate $2 in revenue for every $1 spent on AdWords. Furthermore, Google calculates that the total return on investment is $8 for every dollar spent. For those who don’t like estimates, it doesn’t take too much effort to find numerous case studies from real businesses that are using AdWords to drive revenue.

Search isn’t alone. Long written off, recent studies hint that even the lowly display ad may do more to boost sales than previously thought. Last year, for instance, comScore announced that studies it conducted showed that online display ads were “on par with TV advertising” in driving purchases of CPG products.

Given all of the quantitative evidence that online ads can be effective, and the fact that a growing number of businesses are voting with their wallets to allocate more of their advertising budgets to digital, it seems somewhat foolish to brand digital advertising “lousy.” That is not to say that Filloux doesn’t make some valid criticisms of it. Digital advertising isn’t perfect, and there will always be plenty of room for improvement.

But for those involved in digital advertising, it seems far less constructive to have an academic discussion of all the negatives. Instead, we should be focused on identifying what works and finding ways to build scalable campaigns that deliver ROI. Businesses that advertise successfully do this in every medium, and nobody should expect the internet to be any different.

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