Admaven has a nice writeup and interview with the CEO of local startup The Printed Blog, which aims to print and distribute hyperlocalized blog content twice daily in cities across the country. Chicago, San Francisco, and New York are the first cities it is launching its unique newspaper. Its business model revolves around selling advertising at rates appealing to small businesses: $15-$25 per ad.
The challenge here seems to be how to get the newspaper in enough hands to make it profitable. Newsstands, vending boxes, and subscription fulfillment didn't come cheap for old media. It remains to be seen if this newly minted startup can pioneer a new approach.
The advantages of the typical online business model which consist in cashing in on free content may give PrintedBlog a commercial advantage. However, instead of handing out the physical print (and lose a good part of that advantage), would it not be efficient enough to distribute flyers and may be place daily ads in local papers driving people to the online version of the publication?
You can also deliver the headlines, paired with ads to mobile phones, have a 'mobi' version of the blog and link with Facebook in the quest for more traffic from mobile devices. A combined headlines-widget with Facebook could do the trick and keep people posted about what's going on on PP as well as on their Facebook account...:-).
With $15 000 per day you can do a heck of a lot advertising for your site and attract many more readers in a shorter time than with costly handouts, which advertisers may appreciate as well.
In any case, I wish success to the dynamic team from PrintedBlog!
Yorgo Nestoridis
YORGOOpublishing.com
Posted by: Yorgo Nestoridis | February 05, 2009 at 04:35 PM