The Cole Digest, August 9, 1995

Gentle Reader,

We're with L. Carol Christopher of my staff and she's telling us about advertising in the on-line world:

Newspapers flitting down the infobahn on-ramp will find that what and how they serve advertisers will affect how quickly they move into the fast lane. Even now, there are several business models on the Internet from which newspapers can choose when they elect to go electronic.

Among their choices are launching World-Wide Web sites/home pages; maintaining their own bulletin board service that also provides callers with access to the Internet, or offering content either as stand-alone or as part of a package offered by a commercial access provider, such Prodigy, America Online, Delphi or AT&T Interchange.

Services such as those offer a newspaper a different model for distributing both news and ads, as well as for handling the myriad complexities surrounding subscriptions and billing. Those are "big pieces of work" that the newspaper doesn't have to recreate, noted Jude Angius of the Los Angeles Times' TimesLink.

TimesLink, which provides the daily content of the Times and a cornucopia of other information, went live Oct. 26, 1994 on Prodigy. TimesLink subscribers can get to it through Prodigy, or, because Prodigy allows newspapers to have a stand-alone service, users can subscribe directly and never have to encounter Prodigy after their first on-line visit.

The stand-alone option lowers costs for on-line subscribers who aren't interested in Prodigy's other options. Either way, they have direct Internet access.

For now, TimesLink is running only liner ads in eight out of its 10 categories, all of which are fully searchable. The Times is looking at different possibilities for presenting real estate and business/financial ads that will advantageously combine both the characteristics of those ad categories and the nature of the medium.

"You can add value, especially with classified, and create more of a service out of these content areas," said Angius, director of multimedia publishing. "That seems to be an area we'd like to research and prototype a bit more, to focus on complete value-added functionality."

The Times is also trying to work out ways of gathering demographic data. "Reporting is a big issue," she said. "We've had to spend a lot of time evolving what we can collect and receive from Prodigy regarding use of the service."

Prodigy, though still proprietary, recently introduced a Web browser that will extend the potential reach of the Times and allow it to produce a home page complementary to its other products. Deirdre Eagles, acting manager and sales and marketing manager for the service, said she and her crew are looking closely at ways they can offer ads not only on Prodigy, but directly on the 'Net and in places such as a home page. She expects that the new Web browser will make that a lot easier.

TimesLink has a display advertising rate structure based on three criteria: the number of screens in the package, the level of interactivity, and the length of time that the ads are displayed on the service. Eagles said advertisers are surprised at the low cost of on-line advertising, but need some help adjusting to the difference in objectives between interactive and print marketing campaigns, between a broad-reach medium and on-line.

On-line, advertisers will be able to "put out information to subscribers and solicit feedback on new products, level of service. They'll be able to get e-mail responses directly from the consumers," she said. "That's something that you can't achieve with any other medium -- some accountability as to how things are working."

Next week: Do you know the way to San Jose?

Onward.

\dmc

[THE COLE DIGEST is written by consultant David M. Cole, editor and publisher of the industry newsletter THE COLE PAPERS. The DIGEST is made available to PressLink subscribers every Wednesday at no extra charge. Send comments by e-mail to cole@plink.geis.com. The COLE DIGEST is the property of The Cole Group, a California sole proprietorship. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of The Cole Group is prohibited. Copyright (C) 1995, The Cole Group. Opinions expressed are those of The Cole Group, unless otherwise noted.

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