People-Powered Magazines

The Bakersfield Californian   Independently owned for 140 years. 110

years in one family.

  The only paper of its size in Bakersfield (60,000 daily circ., 277,000 readers weekly).

  Recognized around the world for risk-taking and innovation.

  My focus for 5 years.   Social networking & user-contributed content

What is Printcasting?   Knight News Challenge project that will

democratize print publishing process.

  Two year grant -- now one year in.

  First site (Bakersfield) launched in March, in partnership with The Bakersfield Californian.

  Additional cities starting this summer.   Already talking with two large newspaper companies.   Maybe yours could be next?

Two Key Objectives

Let anyone create a printable magazine.

No software or design skills required. You donʼt even need your own content.

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.

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Make a magazine like this …

… or this …

… or this!

Milestones   Now

  Pilot program in Bakersfield, California

  June   E-commerce and ad revenue share launches

  Summer: Begin national rollout   Open “city hubs” for 15-20 geographical areas   By December, identify & assist up to 5 local

partners

  Spring 2010: Open Source

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   Right now, ads are free. (Paid ads to start soon.)   Revenue will be shared with every participant.

  60% to publishers.They can mark up ad rates to cover print and marketing costs.

  30% to contributors.Proportionate to content use.

  10% to the network.To cover our costs (e.g. bandwidth, servers) and ongoing improvements.

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, and the library!

  Local businesses.   Realtors, garden shops, bike shops who already position

themselves as experts in a field. Their advice is good content.

  Small businesses that canʼt 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.

Why Print, and Why Now?   Top questions from digital media people:

  “Why are you investing so much in print when the printed newspaper is dying?”

  “Why are you focusing on print, which is expensive, inefficient and not very environmentally friendly.”

  “The web is the future. Why are you focusing on the medium of the past?”

Primary Reason: Revenue   Itʼs a natural way to grow

audience and revenue together.

  Social Networks Grow Audience.   On 8 sites, we have 53,000 user profiles

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

who we didnʼt reach before 2004! Remember: Bakersfieldʼs population is only 300,000.

  Print Ads Pay the Freight.

Ad Rate Comparison Month-long Web site banner ad: $0.38 / thousand (industry average)

Biweekly Magazine full-page ad: $20 / thousand (open rate)

Remember, the exact same content appears in both! But without the Web site, the content in print would not exist, and/or it would cost much more to produce, thus cutting into profits. Print and online work together as one hybrid product.

Print Still Drives Most Revenue   Social nets with print

components are effective, but only the print side generates significant revenue.

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

  Online-only brands struggle to make anywhere near as much as those with print.

The Revenue Paradox

Bakersfield Businesses TBC Customer Base

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

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

Look at the Base!

Bakersfield Businesses

We need to be here. Self-serve advertising is the only scalable way to reach these businesses.

We are mostly here.

More Reasons   2. “Stuff” Matters to Locals

  Locals pick up printed products when they’re relevant, even if (and especially if) they also use the Web site.

  3. Relevance   Readers prefer more relevance and choice, something the

Internet excels at. We’ve found that as you increase relevance and choice in print, people continue to read.   And contrary to what some journalists want to think, community

content is often preferred, depending on the topic.

  4. Efficiency   Customized niche “printable” content costs less, and is better for

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

Demos

  Demo time!   You can also use the open beta at

http://www.printcasting.com

Home page

Registering content   Easy for bloggers. No blog? We set one up for you.

Video: Make a Printcast   Letʼs make a gardening magazine! Click below to play movie)

Video not playing? Click here: http://vimeo.com/3369997

Video: Self-serve advertising   Letʼs make an ad! Click below to play movie)

Video not playing? Click here: http://vimeo.com/3370015

Outreach in Bakersfield   We hired a part-time marketing evangelist in Bakersfield.

  Reaches out to bloggers, organizations and government groups to show them Printcasting.

  “Blogger brunches,” training sessions, booths at events.

  Meets with local clubs at college campuses and high schools

  Thank participants with T-shirts, mouse pads, pens and reporter notebooks.

  Basically all the local grass-roots stuff that only a newspaper would do!

Some Early Adopters   A local writer is using Printcasts to

publicize her poems and short stories.   “Weekly Passion Activator”

  The Kern County Library   Wants to publish book reviews, event

calendars and community information.

  Downtown Business Association   Will get downtown businesses to blog their

event calendars, then pull them into Printcasts that they hand out from trolleys.

  Political Parties   Interested in using Printcasts for newsletters

that share regional clubsʼ content.

Other Newspapers Can Benefit   A newspaper, or any company with content and

printing expertise, can participate in many ways.

  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 canʼt afford to pay a writer or freelancer? Pull from bloggersʼ content, and still keep the majority of the ad revenue.   Donʼt worry, reporters. You probably arenʼt writing this kind of niche

content right now anyway, so itʼs not competing with your job.

  Monetize existing content: Have great niche content that you canʼt monetize with your existing products? If another publisher uses it, you get a portion of their ad revenue.

Partnerships, year 1   Weʼll create “city hubs” for partnersʼ cities

  For example: http://cityname.printcasting.com

  Partner creates Printcasts for those cities to seed the market, and registers its content online   Partner sets ad rates for its own Printcasts (via a markup)   Partner keeps most of the revenue from its Printcasts   If citizen publishers use partner content, some of that goes to the

partner -- just like for any citizen publisher.

  Partner promotes Printcasting locally   By registering its content and encouraging publishing, the partner

helps its community while also helping itself. The more publishers that use the partnerʼs content, the more revenue it gets.

Questions?   Let me know if you have any questions,

thoughts or feedback!

  Dan Pacheco   Sr. Manager of Digital Products   001 303.465.5560   dan@printcasting.com

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

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