Web is web, and print is print
Print and web are different media that need different content. SALINA CHRISTMAS wishes that business publishers understood that
AS A B2B web editor I am helping colleagues adapt to web journalism; some have been on NUJ “writing for the web” courses.
The problem is not the writers, but the way companies are organising the copy. In their eagerness — or panic, rather — to embrace the web, executives simply want to put content tailored to fit the newsletter or magazine formats straight onto their sites. No distinction is made between print content and web content.
Then they wonder why they don’t make money on either. If the copy is the same on both, people won’t pay for the periodical, and the advertising-driven website will get no ads; in the current economic climate advertising money is hard enough to come by as it is.
So after all the efforts in migrating to digital, publishers find themselves screwed big time.
Managers, either non-journalists, or worse, journalists who have not written a single news article due to promotion, or over-promotion, for years, can’t seem to move beyond arguing with sales over which revenue model is appropriate.
They hardly consider the possibilities of the different modes through which their customers access information. There should be good reasons why subscribers pay for the newsletter, and why they visit the website.
I subscribe to Wired magazine because it offers a design and journalistic experience which I don’t find on its website. The print product is a pleasure to read, beautiful to look at and wonderful to touch. I look forward to each issue because I know it will look totally different from previous editions.
I also love wired.com’s techie blogs and the interactive information it offers that is completely different from the magazine.
Web and print are different formats that need different content that can support each other and reinforce the same brand.
I’m not an editorial director. I am not a publisher. I don’t have an IDM diploma in web marketing. I am just a web editor. But if I can suss this out, why can’t the bosses?
Is a decently laid out print product so expensive to do, and a multimedia-rich website so cumbersome to run?
The problem in business publishing is not the lack of resources they go on about, it’s the lack of imagination, and the chain of hierarchy which does nothing but slow decision-making.