May 17 2008
Newspaper gets award for business directory
So now, down in the states, they’re giving away prizes for things I did four years ago for a small community paper up north. The Spokesman-Review (this announcement from Editor’s Weblog calls it the Spokane-Review, but it’s not) got an award for Most Innovative Business Model from the International Newsmedia Marketing Association (INMA) for its “free business directory that judges said showed the potential for a disruptive business model that taps into newspapers’ unique strengths: established commercial relationships with local businesses and trust with local audiences.”
Absolutely this is something that every newspaper that serves a particular geographic region should be doing. It goes toward the paper’s ability to “own” the web in its area. They should also be using the directory to monetize other portions of their site, particularly search. Oh wait, they’re still using a lame Google-driven search widget. Pretty hard to monetize that, then.
The Editor’s Weblog article says “it does fit within the range of services that a newspaper should offer: helping readers and users to access local databases and relevant information about their community’s businesses.” Exactly. Anything and everything that you can database and then use in mashups with your other content in other parts of your site should, even must, be done.
The model – make it free, then upsell it – is also exactly right. Having a business directory (or any kind of directory) where businesses have to buy in makes the directory worse than useless. Nothing is more useless than an incomplete or out-of-date directory.
I did this four years ago, and nobody gave me a prize. Still, I’m glad that newspaper organizations are starting to recognize the importance of doing things on the web that couldn’t be done in the paper.
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