BLOG.CUCLISPR.COM: Recent Comments

Comment on Can Social Media Save a Local Park?: Save Shollenberger Park Case Study

seo — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:29:28 GMT

Thanks for sharing the story of the park! You are so correct that internet social networking ads an entire new dimension to community organizatoin. I think society is just learning to think in terms of how many different ways the internet can offer opportunities for society.

Comment on Survey Shows Readers Won't Pay for Online News

Gina Cuclis — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:47:57 GMT

An update to respond to my question about how is the PD going to keep up? Yesterday it launched a new website that seems designed to build an online community of folks interested in local politics: http://www.watchsonomacounty.com. This is a move to have a conversation with politicians and local political insiders. Check out the twitter feed scroll on the home page of local political tweeters. You'll see @ginacuclis.

Comment on Survey Shows Readers Won't Pay for Online News

Frank Simpson — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:00:26 GMT

By pure chance I happen to be interested in the subject of stores scanning drivers' licenses for certain purchases. In additiion to the usual real world "field invesitgations" I ran a few quick searches on Google. Guess what? There was a lot of information on the topic--mostly from bloggers reporting on their real life experiences. Very little, so far, from the traditional media sources--print or otherwise.

So is this a sign that bloggers & social media are the wave of the future??? Not sure that is a "good" thing but it does seem to be a possible direction at this point.

Comment on Survey Shows Readers Won't Pay for Online News

Dan Lyke — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:45:02 GMT

Thanks, that's what I thought. So the advertiser portion of the costs of supporting an incremental online reader should be far more than the costs of supporting an incremental paper reader.

I'll dig deeper on the "they don't work" on online ads. Google seems to disagree, as do a bunch of web comics and similar sites I read that are advertiser supported.

I see two reasons for "they don't work" from the ads at newspaper sites I read:

First is that the style of the ads is the sort that I actively don't read. The pop-ups, or the ones that clamor for my attention by changing the layout of the screen, are worth actively blocking. I don't, but I definitely don't click on anything that tries to make itself deliberately intrusive.

The second is the issue of measurement: I talked to a guy once who sold coupons, and he said that the first sale was easy, setting up the first sale so there would be subsequent sales was super hard because he had to prime the merchants to expect that there'd be a somewhere <1% response rate.

I think these two things feed on each other: Advertisers haven't thought about or haven't been educated about what the response rate for print really is (do you really expect 50% on a paper with circulation of 30k?), so when they're told there have been 50k impressions and they've gotten 10 click-throughs they should be ecstatic, not bummed.

But as I said, I'm going off without having read the report, I'll try to get to that.

Comment on Survey Shows Readers Won't Pay for Online News

Gina Cuclis — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:43:17 GMT

Dan,
Thanks for your question and comments. I can't give you figures, but the main costs of producing the news is in personnel. To pay professional reporters and editors is the same. Paper, ink and delivery make print editions more costly.

Advertisers don't like online ads, because they don't work. There's data in the PEW report about how online readers ignore ads.

Comment on Survey Shows Readers Won't Pay for Online News

Dan Lyke — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:26:46 GMT

Anyone have some hard numbers for relative cost of printing hardcopy vs relative cost of publishing on the web?

My suspicion is that the problem isn't that readers aren't willing to pay for the news, they haven't been for years. I believe that advertisers (the real customers of newspapers) are unwilling to pay for online readers.

And they "why" of that has, I think, some more interesting answers.

Comment on Emotion Battles Cost Over Which Sonoma County Drug Treatment Programs to Save

Golden Rule — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:01:54 GMT

I think that we can start saving some resources by trying to eliminate the wastefulness that occurs in our government. I know, NO KIDDING! But seriously let's take, for example, the amount of paper that is used on a DAILY basis by government (executive, judicial, AND legislative) organizations and really figure out how much of that we're wasting...bet we find some money that can keep places like these open!

Cheers!
-Booker
www.goldenrule.com

Comment on Can Social Media Save a Local Park?: Save Shollenberger Park Case Study

Web Design — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:17:29 GMT

Interesting article. It was amazing to me how the Obama campaign made use of up and coming social media tools. I would go so far as to say it had a lot ot do with the win. It will be really fascinating to see how the next presidential campaigns use these tools, after they have had four years to think about the advantages!

Comment on New Ownership Keeps Sonoma Valley Sun Newspaper Alive

Gina Cuclis — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:35:02 GMT

Thanks Frank for being a Petaluman interested in Sonoma Valley's community newspapers.

Comment on Will First Woman Administative Officer Improve Sonoma County's Communication Style?

Residential Treatment Centers — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:58:12 GMT

Hope there will be changes made in this institution. Veronica Ferguson will surely be one of the most outstanding individual that the sonoma county is waiting for.

Let us think on the positive aspect and let see her achievements made in the institution.