With ad rates having dropped considerably since the onslaught of the recession, many web publishers have felt the sting of declining advertising rates while at the same time seeing their business models stagger in the face of declining revenues. "That," says Piddington, "created some great opportunities."
"Technology alone is not the answer, but there is ample opportunities to combine publisher sites in a network approach that would streamline operations while cutting costs," Piddington explained.
The trick, explained Piddington, is to find the right properties where key management will not only stay in place but add to the whole in building a network approach to web publishing.
While newspapers have been folding in the face of ever declining circulation, their adaption to the Internet still leaves them vulnerable in the face of an ever-changing web landscape. The few that have adapted to the Internet well enough to find value in their web properties still cannot generate sufficient revenue to replace their print publications which supported operations. Magazine publishers are even worse off having relied upon local ad sales as subscription rates decline and their websites remain under utilized.
Even the Associated Press has come up against their core newspaper members who are finally beginning to question whether AP is a member-driven organization or competing against them in their own markets.
"One only has to look at the deal AP, Reuters, the Canadian Press Association and AFP struck when they entered into a deal to display their content on Google News' site. When that agreement became affective, oddly, months after being signed, Google dropped hundreds of publishers' content dubbing it 'duplicate' content on the very day the agreement was enforced. While that traffic wasn't much, for those AP member publishers to have their 'member-owned' source replace them - even when the stories themselves were AP produced, it affected those publishers dramatically at a time when every unique visitor mattered the most," said Piddington. "To that end, there are lots of opportunities to develop content partnerships."
Note: Piddington completed the formation of a holding company on May 13, 2009: http://worldcitypress.com where he then went on to acquire three online news networks and more. Please visit that site for further information.
