Someone claiming to work for the Democrat and Chronicle sent me an email that was apparently circulated yesterday, touting the success of
RocPets.com. RocPets is a site where pet owners can post pictures and vote for cutest pet. Here are a few quotes:
As you heard at last week’s Publisher meetings, the newest addition to our audience product portfolio, Rocpets.com, is another Democrat and Chronicle
success story. This engaging Web site continues to grow audience – with
more than 500,000 page views to date. It’s truly amazing!!!
[...]
One of the strengths of the Web site is photos – in fact visitors have posted more than 1,100 pet photos so far! Click on one of the Galleries (Small Dogs, Large Dogs, Cats, Pets and Kids and Other Pets) to view the photos.
The memo is from Jim Fogler, VP for Marketing and Communications, and heavy user of the bang (!). Now that the journalistic frontier of pictures of kittens has been crossed, I'll bet RocBabies is next.
Comments
I know it sounds goofy, but you must remember that newspapers are also businesses. This can draw readers to the website and get them to link to the D&C home page, cars.com or pet classifieds. In theory this would not take anything away from news coverage. People pay big money for their animals, spend a ton on clothes (yes clothes), vet bills, food and burial plots. Being an old fashioned red-neck kind of guy it doesn't interest me, but I would bet that it will draw a ton of readers.
I agree - the D&C needs to make money, and paper newspapers have long done little things like this to boost circulation. I just hope that Jim Fogler spends as much time thinking about their newsroom as he does about their pet site.
I agree that they have to make money, but sometimes I wonder if they could make a lot more money if they put out a paper people respected.
The trouble with the D&C to me is that I read it and I wonder how much the bottom line figured into their reporting and opining. That makes me not want to read the paper. If I respected the paper, I might actually subscribe.
Rottenchester, I'd be careful if I were you, giving the D&C ideas and all. I can see them now, "RocBabies? What a fabulous idea!"
Next thing you know, they may get web-savvy enough to along readers to post videos of their pets too...
I think the question is: how did the D&C get by as long as they did without pictures of schnauzers? Or rather, without as many pictures of schnauzers? The mind reels.
It's a sign of the lack of direction in a company when you are effectively a monopoly and you can't seem to make a go of it without resorting to silliness. It would be one thing if there were, say, two papers of the same stature in Rochester vying for advertisement. But unfortunately, City has a long way to go to be any kind of competition to the D&C.
On the up side, I have it on good authority that they've hired a new webdesigner, so who knows? Maybe we can at least get updated frickin' RSS feeds and permalinked articles in our future?
Isn't it great the way our contempt for the D&C brings us all together, regardless of our political beliefs?
I have to admit this though: like Elmer said, this may make the paper money. The issue really is one of emphasis more than anything else.
OR: Yes, there's no question that pet video is the next frontier, after a management study group gives it the OK in mid-2008.
DFE: I believe that the new web designer is going to work on RocFurry. As soon as that site goes live, we will know that the circle has been closed, and the D&C and the Internet are as one.
Newspapers, including the D&C, are still very profitable. The problem lies in the fact that they are not achieving profit margins as high as in the past. Anything a newspaper does to generate revenue without hurting news coverage is a good thing.
Remember - the key word is profit margin, not profit.
You're right, Elmer -- from what I understand, the issue is going from 20% profit margins down to some lower number, which for a publicly-traded company like Gannett, is very painful. Their current stock price is reflecting the pain, as are the layoffs in newsrooms all over the country, including their flagship USAToday.