People-Powered Magazines

About Me

Former journalist, now product manager / startup guy

Working on Internet products since 1995 Denverpost.com prototype (1994) Washingtonpost.com launch team (1995-98) Community product management at AOL (1998 – 2004) New product development at independently-owned Bakersfield

Californian newspaper company (2004-present) And now, Printcasting

Knight News Challenge

5-Year, $25 Million grant program for digital open-source projects that support local news and information.

Printcasting was one of 17 winners in 2008 with a 2-year, $837,000 grant.

Year 3 winners unveiled in June.

All cod is open sourced at end of grant period.

Learn more at http://newschallenge.org

Accolades & honors

Stories in The NewYork Times andBusiness Week

2009 Knight-Batten Award

What is Printcasting?

Knight News Challenge project that democratizes print publishing process. Objectives:

Let anyone create a printable magazine.

No software or design skills required. Use your own content, or remix content from others.

Make print advertising easy, fun & affordable.

If you can e-mail or post to a blog, you can place ads that appear in printed magazines.

1

2

Make a magazine like this …

… or this …

… or this!

Easy targeted ad tool

Advertisers click a button, fill out forms, enter credit card and they’re done.Ads start at $10 per edition.Publisher can mark up rate.

Print, Online & Mobile

Every Printcast has an automatically generated “Microsite” that’s promoted from the masthead. Mobile version of microsites is coming soon.

Why is this important? Today’s fragmented media world means you

must give people what they want, when they want it, and where they want it.

We can finally give advertisers one, simple way to reach people in the medium they prefer. Print, online, mobile are all automagic.

Local partner

MediaNews Group’s Targeted Publishing Group experimenting with using Printcasting as a niche publication creation engine.

To support this, Printcasting.com now includes city pages that focus on specific markets.

SF Bay Area Los Angeles Denver/Boulder

Interested? We’ll be partnering with more local content organizations.

How Printcasting Works

Content comes from participating bloggers, news sites with RSS feeds.

Choose feeds, layout and frequency. PDF magazines are created automatically and sent to subscribers by e-mail.

Local businesses create and purchase ads online. Prices are affordable due to niche focus. Everyone gets a cut!

Print and distribute publications with promise. May be a publisher, or a print provider or newspaper.

All Participants Share Revenue

Every category has a base ad price which publishers can mark up.

Revenue is shared with every participant.

60% to Printcast publishers.Covers printing costs and helps fund their operations.

30% to content contributors.Proportionate to content use.

10% to the network.To cover our costs and ongoing improvements.

Why Print, and Why Now?

Experience with niche social networks in Bakersfield show that it’s a natural way to grow audience and revenue together. On 8 sites, the Californian has 53,000 user

profiles (20% of market) with 3,618 blogs. Added 100,000 individuals to our

audience who we didn’t reach before 2004! Remember: Bakersfield’s population is only 300,000.

Print ads pay the freight.

Print Still Drives Most Revenue

Social nets with print components are effective, but only the print side generates significant revenues to sustain editorial operations.

Most revenue comes from print ads in magazines that feature user content.

Online-only brands struggle.

Capture the “Long Tail”

Bakersfield Businesses TBC Customer Base

In Bakersfield, 65% of businesses have annual ad budgets under $10,000.

But only 39% of the Californian’s current advertisers have ad budgets under $10,000.

Look at the Base!

Bakersfield Businesses

Growth opportunity is all here. Self-serve advertising is the only scalable way to reach these businesses.

Most ad revenue comes from here.

Other Reasons

Print finds you in physical space Locals pick up printed products when they’re relevant, even if (and

especially if) they also use the Web site. It’s part of your environment.

Print can be relevant if you make it relevant We’ve found that as you increase relevance and choice in print,

people continue to read. The Internet excels at this, but so can print if you rethink it from the ground up. And for people who don’t want print, there’s the microsite and mobile.

Print is now efficient, and eco-friendly Customized niche “printable” content costs less, and is better for

the environment. Digital inkjet technology is making Print on Demand more affordable.

Progress so far

Off to a good start: 529 registered users 280 publications with 1,365 editions

Average 4.8 editions per publication

332 feeds with 6,037 articles from blogs, and: Top stories from The Denver Post More on the way (The Washington Times?)

Global audience

Publishers come from all over the world 23 countries, 28 states

But also from nearby 172 pubs from the U.S.

Printcasting is Ideal For …

Local thought leaders. Especially local bloggers. If you have an RSS feed, you can make it

available to Publishers in 2 minutes.

Local community organizations. Clubs, schools, neighborhood associations, churches, etc.

Local businesses.Realtors, home repair businesses, bike shops, etc. that already position themselves as experts in a field. In this case, the Printcast itself is the ad, but it contains valuable content.

Small businesses that can’t afford standard newspaper ads due to the cost of reaching tens or hundreds of thousands. Now they pay only for a niche audience of a few thousand.

Examples of early adopters

Realtors

Hyperlocal bloggers E.g. Andynoise

Small niche publishers

One “partner Printcast”

Andynoise Local cross-country

running fanatic. 29 editions of his

blog’s Printcast Plus, 15 different

magazines (one for each high school).

We’ll print his first edition to hand out at local races.

Feedback, and our response

Early adopters want more control than we anticipated. So we’re going to give it to them. “Create Edition” flow will let you hand-craft each

edition with stories you choose.

Publishers want to choose ads, versus having advertisers choose their pubs. Requires a different pricing approach. Advertiser subscriptions for # ads / month. Pay per performance.

Existing companies can benefitAn existing publisher with good local or topical content can participate and reap financial rewards thanks to revenue sharing.

Publish: Create Printcasts that use your own content, and you get to keep most of the ad revenue (60-90%).

Lower costs of content : Want to make a niche magazine, but can’t afford to pay a writer or freelancer? Pull from bloggers’ content, and still keep the majority of the ad revenue.

Monetize existing content: Have great niche content that you can’t monetize with your existing products? If another publisher uses it, you get a portion of other publishers’ ad revenue.

Questions?Let me know if you have any questions, thoughts or feedback!

Dan PachecoFounder303.465.5560dan@printcasting.com

Try Printcasting yourself: http://www.printcasting.com

Join our global community! http://community.printcasting.com