I work dev for a newspaper-dot-com that gets ~5M monthly uniques. If you were at a (local) newspaper-dot-com, and you had that built-in audience, I'm curious: What would you do with it?
Ask HN: What would you do with a newspaper-dot-com's built-in audience?
1–10 of 36 posts
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with a newspaper-dot-com's built-in audience?
#2Build a local deals engine a la groupon.
Yah this is obvious, but the reason that this works so well for newspapers:
a) Newspapers have a built in sales force to sell local merchants on the concept.
b) Newspapers attract a hyper-local audience and building a list of people interested in local deals is a money printing asset.
c) Newspaper execs, consumers, and merchants are familiar with the model so it's not a hard sell to anybody.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with a newspaper-dot-com's built-in audience?
#3Write an article system that allows for multivariate A/B testing, performs multivariate regression and "decides" upon the version of the article that converts best. Then use that data for subsequent articles to suggest changes that convert better.
eg. {Wall Street Lays an Egg|Stock Market Crash 1928}
Today, {Chief Economist|Fed Chief|Money Czar} decided...
The system would randomly pick changes to the article and as it had more data it would more often pick the options that convert better. So lets say it found that "Wall Street lays an egg" and "Money Czar" converts best, then in the future when it sees Chief Economist the software could suggest that using Money Czar converts better and automatically add it as an option.
eg. Chief Economist -> {Chief Economist|Money Czar}
If you can get demographic information, lets say from facebook, then you're really golden as you can offer a service that will tailor an article to a demographic, or conversion goal. eg. articles that convert for car ads, or articles that convert for teenagers. With 5 million uniques you would probably have enough facebook connect users to get decent demographic data. Heck, if you had the facebook data you could tailor the article to the demographic profile of the user, so the system would use the general profile for unknown users and once demographic info was available would re-tailor the content. Put an API on the service and then charge a cent per milli "tailorized" articles.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with a newspaper-dot-com's built-in audience?
#4[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with a newspaper-dot-com's built-in audience?
#5Build a local deals engine a la groupon. Yah this is obvious, but the reason that this works so well for newspapers: a) Newspapers have a built in sales force to sell local merchants on the concept. b) Newspapers attract a hyper-local audience and building a list of people interested in local deals is a money printing asset. c) Newspaper execs, consumers, and merchants are familiar with the model so it's not a hard s…
You beat me by a minute :)
I think the best thing about this is that it doesn't cannibalize their classified ads in the way that many of the obvious things to do with 5M local hits would. Also, a newspaper lends credibility that a pure web play wouldn't have with merchants.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with a newspaper-dot-com's built-in audience?
#6Build a local deals engine a la groupon. Yah this is obvious, but the reason that this works so well for newspapers: a) Newspapers have a built in sales force to sell local merchants on the concept. b) Newspapers attract a hyper-local audience and building a list of people interested in local deals is a money printing asset. c) Newspaper execs, consumers, and merchants are familiar with the model so it's not a hard s…
[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with a newspaper-dot-com's built-in audience?
#7Write an article system that allows for multivariate A/B testing, performs multivariate regression and "decides" upon the version of the article that converts best. Then use that data for subsequent articles to suggest changes that convert better. eg. {Wall Street Lays an Egg|Stock Market Crash 1928} Today, {Chief Economist|Fed Chief|Money Czar} decided... The system would randomly pick changes to the article and as…
Would you mind defining conversion?
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with a newspaper-dot-com's built-in audience?
#8Build a local deals engine a la groupon. Yah this is obvious, but the reason that this works so well for newspapers: a) Newspapers have a built in sales force to sell local merchants on the concept. b) Newspapers attract a hyper-local audience and building a list of people interested in local deals is a money printing asset. c) Newspaper execs, consumers, and merchants are familiar with the model so it's not a hard s…
Our local TV station has done this and has promoted it heavily via on air commercials. It looks like it has given a good boost to their floundering local craigslist knock-off.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with a newspaper-dot-com's built-in audience?
#9Write an article system that allows for multivariate A/B testing, performs multivariate regression and "decides" upon the version of the article that converts best. Then use that data for subsequent articles to suggest changes that convert better. eg. {Wall Street Lays an Egg|Stock Market Crash 1928} Today, {Chief Economist|Fed Chief|Money Czar} decided... The system would randomly pick changes to the article and as…
Would you mind defining conversion?
I'd assume clickthrough to the article.
Re: Ask HN: What would you do with a newspaper-dot-com's built-in audience?
#10Write an article system that allows for multivariate A/B testing, performs multivariate regression and "decides" upon the version of the article that converts best. Then use that data for subsequent articles to suggest changes that convert better. eg. {Wall Street Lays an Egg|Stock Market Crash 1928} Today, {Chief Economist|Fed Chief|Money Czar} decided... The system would randomly pick changes to the article and as…
Would you mind defining conversion?
In general from a lower value activity to a higher value activity. eg. from a reader of the paper to someone who clicks on an ad