<VV> COMMUNIQUE' direction

airvair airvair at richnet.net
Sat Apr 14 11:17:57 EDT 2007


Great post. You summed the situation up well. Now if only we had some
numbers crunched to provide some indicators as to which direction we
should take. That would be the next logical step, so the board would
have an idea as to what to do. Without those numbers, one could only
deal in abstract supposition.

Personally, regardless of WHAT direction CORSA takes, I will always want
the entire CC content in print form, if for no other reason than for
historical documentation. I think that as time goes on, having data only
on electronic form might lead to its being lost, or at least becoming
less accessable (to me, anyway), at some point in time. Call me
old-fashioned, but that's ok.

-Mark

Arjay Morgan wrote:
> 
> I have been reading the threads involving publication of the
> 
> COMMUNIQUE'either in its pesent form or via one of the two styles of Internet publishing. or both.
> First off, I don't have a dog in this fight, but I would like
> to pass along some trends in the newspaper publishing industry,
> of which I am very familiar.
> 
> Here in Tampa, Mother Trib has laid off 700 workers and dropped
> three county editions just so it could concentrate on its
> Internet operations. This, after the company found the ad
> revenue in the broadsheets was declining and it was gaining on
> the internet products.
> 
> The same is happening at another newspaper I'm involved with,
> the Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, PA. Same deal, a shift from
> traditional ink on paper to electrons on a screen and same reason,
> advertisers preferred it, hence, more money.
> 
> Granted, the Communique' is not a newspaper, but is , instead,
> the published magazine for a special interest car club. However,
> it does, to a certain extent, depend on advertising. Through
> automated ad placement schemes like AdWords and DoubleClick
> it would seem there is a way to increase revenues to the club
> with little expenditue of time and/or bandwidth by making the
> magazine at least in part web-based.
> 
> As for making in password protected, hence exclusive to the paid
> membership, that may well be the wrong business model. An
> alternative may be to make the bulk of the magazine open to all
> as 'bait' to get new members under the tent and keeping some portions
> such as classified or super techie articles reserved to members.
> 
> The pitfall to be avoided at all costs is to cut the print  order
> to the point where volume discounts disappear and the print
> version gobbles up the profits from the web version. Uncalculated
> is, of course, the value of increasing the membership through the web-spawned
> interest of new owners/fanciers.
> 
> Web distribution has the ability to 'push' content to readers
> and potential readers, which is the opposite of 'pull 'em in'
> strategy presently in place.
> 
> Finally, the Corsa demographic is skewing older and older and
> there is a drumbeat to get newer owners into the club. Fact is,
> the newer generation is attracted to internet offerings, and
> it always makes more sense to go where the fish are than to
> coax the fish to where you are.
> 
> I would hope this little white paper would reach the eyes of
> the Board of Directors and serve as yet another nudge toward
> the electronic way of doing business. I just wanted to make
> the organization aware of the new paradigm that seems to be
> taking over the publishing industray and, putting out the
> Communique' is certainly publihsing.
> 
> Arjay Morgan64 monza convert



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