All sounds very similar to YouTube right? It is, except you can purchase a VidCall number (USD29 per annum) that you advertise and provide to your audience. With this number your audience can dial it into either of the phone applications and your content will appear. There’s no cost to your audience because the number is not dialed, its simply used as a search tool to pull your content through the internet.

It’s always great to see innovation, especially in the online video segment as this is one of the most popular and fastest growing. However, VidCall are basically competing with Youtube and trying to charge a fee for this. Can they successfully do this? Perhaps, but you need to remember that users can market their  YouTube channel @DoubleBayProperty for free.

Also, there should be a mobile phone website so any phone browser with internet access can view content eg m.youtube.com not just those with an iPhone or Android phone.

It is pointless, however, to replicate the same images and deliver the same message in all collateral. Taking a still photograph of a room, and then slowly panning across the same room is just that.

Pointless.

We run the risk of (a) Insulting the audiences attention and (b) Boring them senseless. Cinematography and photography have unique qualities; you can’t shoot a panoramic ‘stitch’ of a city skyline in low light on video without going to awesome lengths in post production.

In the same instance, a still photograph cannot record the sound of a city street. Just like we need different copy for print and online ads, we need to think differently about how we apply this media in the new medium.

Watching somebody use an ipad for the first time is an enlightening experience; it is not just down to the tactile nature of these screens but the very vibrance of the display.

And these screens are only going to get better; Apple calls it Retina. By developing pixels 78 micrometers wide for the iphone4, Apple engineers were able to pack four times the number of pixels into the same screen size. (http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/retina-display.html)

With richer more tactile displays, there’s a need for a much richer experience.

I believe the focus now needs to turn to what form this content takes on, and how best Agents and Agencies can use it. In the world outside real estate, every TV ‘ad’ is driven by a Creative; an idea to shoot too. This idea compliments the print campaign. The message is the same. The approach, radically different. Today, we have new companions (tactile, smart, mobile devices). And on the horizon, there’s 3D.

As suppliers, we need to think outside the square and not just dish up the same old, same old stills and pans and dolly moves.

We need to think about creating richer, more immersive experiences. As Clients, Agencies and Agents need to demand we start bringing these creatives to the table. As the hardware changes around us, the creative has to evolve.

Guest Author: Brett Clements from Platinum HD

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For new subscribers to Business2 – here are the previous stages.

Diagnosing your online position (warts and all) – Stage One

Constructing your perfect online real estate media platform – Stage Two

Without a doubt from my experiences real estate agents have little to no – understanding about what exactly defines an online business. Today, they remain a tangled online entity boasting a website with very little traffic and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – the lights are on and nobody is home. Direct online communications are next to non – existent simply because they are reliant on consumers finding them, as against actually delivering then driving online customer communications. Easy to fix so long as you are prepared to lock – up this online market.

Not only are you providing purchasers the best online service – more importantly offering vendors a stand-out real estate media platform. One that you created and paid for (I say this because real estate agents struggle using their own monies to invest in technology) hopefully your online platform model of choice will now  exceed your competitors too! Stop following the market – time to lead it.

Allow me to elaborate on that –  have you read – “Digital Marketing – Strategies for Online Success”? A great and easy read by Godfrey Parkin – a must for your online library (it’s now in mine).

“There is little point in building a website or fine – tuning your e -marketing tactics unless your strategy is right in the first place. To build a competitive strategy to capture the loyalty of your online consumers requires re – thinking your vision for your business from the ground up. It also requires an intimate understanding of what this online environment is all about, from the perspective of your business, from your competitors’ point of view, and particularly in the eyes of your target customers as individuals. Without those insights, you cannot begin to put together a digital strategy that has any hope of succeeding.”

So let’s best sum up where your real estate agency presently sits.

“The answer is that most businesses have an increasingly fuzzy vision of what their future should be, so their tendency is to clutch tightly to the past. As the world around them changes faster and faster, the future becomes even more blurred and uncertain. Without a bright light to head toward, they feel safer not to move away from their fundamentals and put their efforts into shoring up their defences. Those companies that do stumble forward usually head in the direction that they have always followed, tactically groping their way through fog, turning to dodge obstacles and grasping at opportunities reactively as they fly by. Without a vision, they have no idea where they are headed. Without a vision, they cannot put together an effective strategy.” Sound familiar?

“So why, are the brilliant examples of how it should be done so few and far between?” I’m not suggesting that our online strategy is such an example – rather this is what we do – with success.

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We have five non – negotiable online services that we adhere to on a daily basis. It is imperative that your online platform must strive to deliver so that you can claim this all very important point of difference over your competitors.

1. The largest online database within your demographic area – be proud that your online media platform connects to more buyers and vendors. Our proof is that we display on our homepage our subscriber sales to our online business which presently sits at $952,234,220.

2. Without using Google AdWords – use intelligent Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) methods where your agency appears at number one position organically on all Google keyword searches within your demographic areas.

3. Write a weekly e – newsletter, send out daily email alerts, provide weekly data on the sales that have been recorded within your demographic area. Each week send out your upcoming open for inspection lists. Provide subscribers the ability to choose exactly which online communication they want to receive. Keep branding your business online.

4. Get a blog going – move with the times. Each comment adds another page to your website as well as on Google which drives your SEO. TAG keywords that appear within your e – newsletter as we try to add at least – 100 new pages to our website on a weekly basis. When you sell or lease a property keep the link live as the more live links on a website the greater SEO. We are over 3,000 pages and rapidly chasing down 4,000 pages.

5. Be relevant – not irrelevant. Use technologies don’t refuse it. Religiously translate your enquiries and open for inspection lists to connect to your online model. There will come a time (and it is happening now) where vendors and purchasers are restricting online communications from agents – where research has identified no more than five (three is the average) and that includes property portals.

When a successful online agency advises a vendor let’s launch an online campaign with a two week marketing strategy before having to commit to a much more expensive print campaign – guess who will win every time?

As Godfrey Parkin said“there’s a very simple, powerful, burning light that all of us need to keep in focus: properly used, the internet frees customers and marketers from the constraints of time and space, which in turn unleashes personal communication and experience – sharing on a scale unprecedented in history.”

Our online communications are very up close and personal – how are yours? When you start digging at your online foundations make sure you use a developer that really knows what they are doing they are few and far between.

And to refer back to the title of my post back in April, has it come crashing down to Earth like a huge white elephant, or elegantly applauded in as yet another Apple master stroke?

Before I answer that I’ll come clean and admit that I got one on the day they launched.

The Good

1- They are an extremely good presentation tool. Visually everything just comes to life on the screen. Keynote (Apple’s version of PowerPoint) can do some wonderful things and smart Australian companies will be working on some presentations for this tool and rolling them out to their sales force as I write this. If (like real estate agents) you’re presenting one-to-one, or one-to-two, there’s no better tool.

2 – The size “just works”. I was struggling to see where it would fit in the market if you already had a small laptop and an iPhone, but as soon as I saw one I instantly got it. The size is perfect. It’s not (as I feared) just a laptop without a keyboard. It’s small and slim enough to be a genuinely different product.

3 – As with all Apple products, it’s intuitive. It’s interesting that many of Apple’s products don’t even come with an instruction manual.

4 – It’s not all about fancy games and funky Apps. This thing has got some business grunt. Apps I downloaded on day one included; Pages, Numbers and Keynote (Apple’s version of Microsoft’s Word, XL and PowerPoint), as well as PDF Viewer, GoToMeeting and an App called DocsAnywhere, which enables you to sync the documents on your PC or MAC with your iPad, via iTunes.

5 – For the iPhone owners amongst you, some of the features you already know and love just work much better on the bigger version.

6 – It’s fast, particularly in WiFi mode, but it seems pretty slick in 3G as well.

7 – Battery life, the Achilles heel of the iPhone, thankfully the iPad doesn’t suffer the same problem.

The Bad

1 – You can only do one thing at a time and can’t jump around from one application (or program) to another like you can in Windows. If you want to quickly dive out of “something” to do “something else” for a few seconds, you can’t without closing the program you’re in.

2 – You have to get the WiFi/3G version. If you get the cheaper WiFi only version you’re wasting your money, as the device will not be anywhere near as mobile as you need it to be. Think iPod Touch (WiFi only) versus iPhone (WiFi/3G), there’s just no comparison.

3 – Touch screen keyboards are just not that great.

So, the verdict? For this industry I think they’re a great investment for an agent, assuming that you (or your business) is prepared to work hard to create the tools that will make the iPad really blossom.

A win for Apple I think.

Firstly, I have to confess that I’m in love with the Apple brand. The iPod is one of the best consumer inventions in memory and, from a person that used to feel pretty cool in my teens using a yellow, waterproof Sony Walkman (yes, I pre-date the Sony “Disc”man) it’s amazing how quickly I became reliant on my iPod. I took it everywhere and looked forward to a morning run so I could use it.

As you can imagine, the iPhone blew my mind, and continues to amaze me almost every day. I break into a cold sweat if I forget my iPhone. The iPod and BlackBerry are now gathering dust in the spare room, waiting until I get around to putting them on eBay.

I’m now seriously considering buying a MAC for home. Why? I have no idea. As a marketer I’ve just been sucked into the vortex, and I just want one. Every time I switch on my PC at home I’m secretly hoping that it’s broken so I can justify the new purchase to my fiancée (who I know secretly wants one as well).

So, to the eagerly awaited Australian launch of the iPad. Apple’s website is positioning this product as “A magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price.” I’m a little sceptical.

Really good marketers are masters at finding a gap in a market and creating a product or a service that exploits that gap and fills the void. Exceptional marketers take that one step further and develop a product or service to fill a void that doesn’t even exist, and then create the gap via clever marketing. Before you know it, nobody can understand how they lived without what you’ve invented.

However, in launching the iPad I wonder if Apple has just got a little carried away. As one of the most powerful brands on the planet are they forcing a product onto us that we just don’t need at all?
Apple is telling us that you can conveniently; surf the web, watch videos, download and use apps, flick through photos, manage your diary and emails. All of these things you can do on your MacBook and iPhone. I struggle to see why you would buy this product if you already have the iPhone, and particularly if you also own a MacBook (Apple speak for a laptop).

Will this product revolutionise the way that we consume information and, in turn, how we do business in the real estate sector?

Here are some ideas on how the product “could” be used:

1. Listing Presentations. Laptops can be a little intimidating in the lounge room, some agents suggest that they can create a barrier between the prospective vendor and the agent. Maybe a touch screen tablet will soften that a little.

2. Property Searches. Some of our offices have MACS in reception, enabling the public to drop in and browse our website. The novelty of using iPads could work well.

3. Capturing Information at Open Homes. With the right software (that plugs directly into you database) it would be pretty handy to record not just buyer details, but buyer feedback on an iPad during open homes.

I’m still a sceptic, but I’ll let you know when I’ve bought one (which will probably be early May by the way).

Even the prestigious New York Times has fallen on hard times and in the same year as picking up 5 Pullitzer Prizes last year for journalism, the second highest yearly haul by one paper in history, they also received a cash injection by Mexican Billionaire Carlos Slim Helu of $250 million dollars just to keep it afloat.

Now the New York Times is probably no different than the vast majority of newspapers out there. They were simply overrun by the internet in the early days and their attempts to play catch up have in general been far from successful.   Leading newspapers have all invested very heavily in slick websites that in many cases generate huge traffic,  but they have failed to capture enough online advertising revenue to support the massive expense of running a newspaper.

So when advertising does not cover the running costs the next revenue source to consider is the readers themselves. But here is where the problem lies as consumers are loathe to pay for something on the internet at the best of times. There are many things that are working against  the newspapers charging for content. There seems like an  endless amount of  other sites that offer the same news for free so the perceived value for news content is very very low. The rise of blogging has increased the amount of opinion based content on the web and there is only so much time a consumer can spend reading.

But the biggest hindrance to digital newspapers has been that readers are bound to their computer. You can’t take your computer out by the pool, or during morning relief visits, at least not without some significant discomfort and space issues.

This is where the Apple iPad kicks in. Now all you Apple fans better skip to the next paragraph because firstly I have to say that nothing that the iPad brings to the table is revolutionary. In fact they are tackling a market place that others have literally failed at capturing for years as there have been full blown tablet pc’s for quite awhile and even lesser powered internet tablets in recent years. So if the iPad brings very little over others before it then what has caused all this fuss. It’s the Apple flavour…. the brand….. the user interface!  Apple can make it look cool and just the apple name will get it into people’s hands and once there they will love it. All in all I reckon they will have a massive success on their hands!

Tablets to date have seen very little takeup by consumers and have been very limited to niche business markets. In fact one of those niche markets for tablet pc’s in the US is real estate agents for the very reasons that Greg mentioned in his article on how the iPad could be used for the real estate industry.  Agents in the US have been using tablets successfully for years and according to recent tech surveys in the US tablet pc use amongst agents is increasing rapidly.  But to date, Microsoft and the hardware companies have failed to capture the consumers interest in tablets. At the CES Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas recently Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer failed to get much interest in the HP tablet he showed the crowd. In contrast, Steve Jobs from Apple has had the world talking about the iPad since it was announced last month.

Overnight we have consumers around the world salivating over a tablet pc.  Apple can do what everyone else has struggled with and make it look cool and trendy.  When it launches you can bet the system will be slick and super fast. Like the iPhone Apple may cripple some more advanced functions to ensure the general usability remains  very high. The iPhone cannot  do true multi tasking, applications widgets can’t be placed on the home screen and the security is a nightmare for developers such as an applications cannot change system settings based up on gps input.  The hardware and software can do it but all quite easily but at the risk of stability and speed.  As an example if the iPhone was allowed to multitask a user may open 10 programs which could slow their iPhone to a crawl but they won’t blame themselves for pushing it beyond its limit, they will blame the iPhone for poor performance.  So Apple just does not allow it and whilst a few will complain of being constrained by Apples limitations placed on its products the vast majority will love the speed and usability.

The iPad has eReader software built. Because it operates on backlit screen technology like a computer screen I can’t see it taking over from the likes of dedicated digital e-ink screen readers for novels. An e-ink reader such as the Amazon Kindle has no backlight which eliminates the eye strain allowing you to read for long periods at a time and is why Amazon and other dedicated ereader manufacturers chose the e-ink technology. Backlights also suck battery power so whilst an iPad’s battery life is measured in hours an e-ink based reader is measured in weeks  Last year there was over 3 million eReaders sold and that is expected to at least double this year.  Our household now has two e-readers and I know of 8 that were purchased by friends after viewing having a play with one of ours.

Novels could really only be consumed in comfort on the iPad over short reading periods which is fine for those on a bus, or a flight this is not going to work for most readers. But unlike reading a novel, newspapers and magazines are normally only read over a short period and the iPad appears to be the perfect marriage for digital newspapers.   E-ink technology is only just moving in to colour but because of the limitations of the technology itself the pages will only ever be static. In contrast the screen of a tablet pc is just like a computer screen and you can view and zoom in on high resolution pictures and video embedded into the articles. So the eReader software on the iPad is great and would make an excellent platform for reading a digital newspaper but even better are custom applications purpose built for the iPad such as the one released by the New York Times to provide an ultimate newspaper experience. The best of both worlds!

You can bet that with the consumers interest in tablet pc’s on the rise that other manufacturers will now jump on the bandwagon and be developing similar consumer orientated models. Because the iPad and its tablet predecessors and soon to follow clones offer an excellent mobile reading solution that seems perfect fit for the digital newspaper the media corporations might finally be able to instill a sense of value into subscription and paywall options and start generating some of that desperately need revenue.

The possibilities for real estate advertising over such as delivery method is absolutley mind blowing. High resolution images, audio and even video tours embedded into your ad and direct linking to your website as the reader sips on a drink poolside may soon be a reality. If they want to stay relevant, and some would say even stay alive, the likes of News Corp and Fairfax have to seize  on this opportunity and develop solutions that the public would be happy to pay for.  Finally old media could properly leverage the new media  they have been trying to tame for years and we as agents could jump on for the ride.

It’s a big step for them to take if they hope to convert from a print to a digital medium and only time will tell. The massive media corporations around the world might be behind in the fight but do they have the second wind and the will to battle to the bell? Media executives around the world will be watching the  New York Times like a hawk but the first stage of success will the public’s acceptance of the Tablet form factor.

Would you pay for a digital edition of your local newspaper if you could view it on something like the iPad? I know I would, its just the price that may be the issue! It stands to reason that if readership was again on the rise  and a new cost structure based on a digital delivery method then agents spending on newspaper advertising would return and the media executives would not have to feel so guilty taking those big bonuses.

Whilst a lot of these things I mentioned can already be done using a laptop, with the recent launch of the Apple iPad and the low entry price for their product, I can see that there will be a large number of potential uses for the iPad for real estate agents.

Just like a restaurant could use the iPad for taking orders or displaying their menu, real estate agents can use the iPad to demonstrate how professionally they can present a potential sellers home, show comparable sales and create a marketing campaign digitally.

The pricing of the iPad means that Apple have provided an affordable way that an agent can make their company appear more high tech out in the field.

Here’s 10 Ways That Real Estate Agents Could Use The iPad…

• Use it for digital listing presentations

• Show property photos and videos in high definition

• Visit websites for doing CMA’s and show other related sites

• Create a Demo Individual Property Website for a client right before their eyes

• Instant database entry at open homes

• Get directions
  

• Show off real estate iPhone apps on a larger screen
  

• Portable client management

• Show details of current listings to buyers on the run

• Checking email enquiries & setting appointments

The launch of the iPad also provides an insight into where Print Media is heading. The iPad is going to make it a better reading experience for people to get their news digitally, which will ultimately have an effect on the physical distribution of printed newspapers.

Local Press may not feel the same affect for a while, but it certainly could have an impact in the amount of physical printed local newspapers distributed long term.

My hope was that the introduction of digital readers like the Apple iPad and Amazon’s Kindle may help to bring the real estate print media prices down to a more affordable level for agents and sellers, but unfortunately it may actually increase.

With the iPad, the newspaper experience will become more engaging, plus the digital newspaper will help to drive more website traffic across to an agent’s website than the printed version ever has. Whilst physical distribution will be down, the electronic distribution of newspapers could explode via the iPad & advertising space will become more popular, hence more expensive.

Whilst I see some great uses for the iPad for real estate agents, there are some developers who feel that Apple could have gone a lot further with their development, eg here’s 8 Things That Suck About The iPad.

I’m sure Apple will include a number of these extra features to the iPad very quickly, just like they did with the iPhone.

But for now it looks like they have made something that is very appealing to the majority of people & have priced it affordably enough that the iPad should end up becoming just as popular as the iPod and the iPhone.

While agents will have to wait to get their hands onto an iPad, over the next few weeks there is a perfect opportunity for agents or franchise groups to prepare a digital listing presentation in time for its delivery.

If you can think of any other uses for the iPad I’d appreciate any other thoughts or ideas.

Disclaimer: I am the director of a company that provides Individual Property Websites for real estate agents.

Meet reporter John Brinkwater, Motoring Expert, Religious Affairs Reporter, Political Correspondent, Pet Expert and Love Guru.

How funny it is that Rupert and the newspaper industry will now turn to the same journalistic stocks and plead with them to save their companies. We will now see the newspaper industry invest in generations of reporters- apparently giving you stories you will want to pay for – I just love the irony of it all.

Rupert can do it!

If the idea is to simply provide the same articles online as you find in the printed version it will fail and Rupert knows this, the online version has to be so much more than just a newspaper, it has to be a an extension of the newspaper and the audience that newspapers serves, it has to be a digital world that involves its readers so much more.

Here are some things that the online version will need to be if it is to succeed.

Rockstars
Journalists will now become Rockstars, meet Miranda Devine and Peter FitzSimons, two journalists with strong opinions, loyal followers and equally loyal antagonists. People read articles from these journalists because they either want to believe them or want to disagree.

Today, they write articles for the Sydney Morning Herald, tomorrow they will be thrust into a new limelight, they will have their own Rockstar page, you will be able to see all of their articles and even have them read to you, you will be able to see them give video responses to some of the readers letters and every so often they will be online to chat to a group and discuss the days article.

Beat Journalists
We will also see the return of the beat journalist, the gritty no hold barred reporters that infiltrate the seedy side of town, those that provide a social commentary on the streets we live in. We will see new stories that go deeper into our political spectrum and spit in the face of any reference to any word ending in ‘gate’. We will see editors screaming at them to finish the story or come up with something quickly (like in every movie depicting a journalist) and we will see real news items ‘breaking’ rather than some petty rubbish at an Iguana cafe.

Forums
We will see real forums like http://fora.tv/ and real talks like the ones found at www.ted.com. A hot news topic of the day could end in a weekly forum at SMH’s offices, beamed online to a participating audience. We are not talking about International happenings we are taking about real local issues. Whether it be about building developments, education, social services, sport, religion, health or politics, people are interested in forums about local issues.

Talks are a different thing, however there are brilliant people every single week jetting into Sydney, Melbourne etc that we would want to listen to like Christopher Hitchens or Britney Spears, who of course, in a world first could ‘lip sync’ a speech!

Immerse your audience
I disagree with Miranda Devine about a lot of things, I also agree with her some things, although I would say I am more passionate about the things I disagree on (I think we all are – you never see people marching with signs ‘I am pretty happy about public transport). I have even written to her (Miranda) once or twice explaining why I disagree with her.

But I want a website where I can voice my opinion, no mater how wrong I might be. I also want to create my own little world that others would explore, I might wish to become a little bit of a journalist Rockstar myself. I can chose any article to respond to from my ‘Dashboard’, I can write it, create a video response and even an audio response. I might even want to become a reporter myself and give the option for advertisers to advertise on my page on SMH as it becomes more and more popular and share in the revenues with the newspaper. When I join, I choose my areas of interest ranked 1 – 10 and my page rebuilds giving me the information , news, videos, forums, goods and services that match my interests. I can write, buy, sell, promote anything from this page!

Devices
All of this should be available on any device I choose, desktop, mobile or on the move with any one of the tablet devices (Kindle) we will see hitting the streets in the next few years.

Advertising
The advertising in online newspapers has to get smarter and get local. Newspapers currently rely on big advertisers and this is just dumb and is one of the major reasons they are hurting.

If I am sitting at my desk in Bondi, the advertising on the page for the most part should be local. If I am reading the Age Newspaper on my Kindle passing through Footscray the advertising should be about the area I am in. If it is around dinner time the advertising should be about restaurants, pubs, live music, theatre etc. It should also be about my tastes, I would be happy to provide non deep personal details to get what I want.

If newspapers can build a smarter platform for advertisers they can engage advertisers to the local level, opening up billions of dollars of extra revenue. It also has to be built to work for the advertiser, it has to be built around set micro payments and it has to be 100% automated.

I should be able to log on as a Mosman Realtor and see an article about homes in Mosman and click a button to place an ad on that page for anyone reading it within certain suburbs and certain demographics. It should only cost tens of dollars per day!

Mashups
Open your newspapers up, open your databases, let the development world come in and play and you will open up so many ideas at the base. It absolutely amazes me how scared and dumb these organisations are. You only have to look around the web to see how much innovation comes from mashups.

Ideas Vault
Finally, here is the all important ingredient. Invest in ideas. Incumbent media companies have got themselves in so much financial trouble because they thought they could simply buy ideas. They have to set up teams within their organisations that only answer to the board. This small team of 10 programmers, 2 designers and one manager would just build stuff, anything, they would be allowed access to any information and would just be an ideas vault. Some things would make it and some wouldn’t but by investment a few million each year in this team, they can avid catastrophically costly purchases of the past.

If the online newspaper is to successfully move to a paid for subscription it has to be so much more than just a newspaper. I think it can be done, bit I don’t know if the current leaders of big media are smart enough to do it.

Much has been written about newspapers and their demise. We have all read stories of how newspapers are bleeding all over the world and in cases like the Los Angeles Times (and The Chicago Tribune) filing for bankruptcy in the United States, not to mention that our own traditionally profitable newspapers are slowly losing profits and revenues.

Change
However, Rupert Murdoch had gone on the offensive and has spoken of the possibility of newspapers charging for access to online content, he has also flagged the possibility that newspapers could be delivered only in digital within 10 years.

In the last few weeks the heavyweights of the newsprint world gathered in Chicago to come together to launch a group offensive against free content.

Today newspapers only push a certain amount of information directly to their websites and hold back on unique investigative information and journalism until after it has appeared in the print versions, I can understand this, but it is not sustainable.

Newspapers have to return to their roots to survive, they have to understand that the reason the majority of people read their content, is because it is unique not because we want to hear a, (we can get that anywhere).

Organisations like Fairfax and News Ltd over the past 20 years have invested more in sales and marketing and less in investigative journalism and this will end with the digital newspaper revolution.

Skepticism
Newspapers believe people will pay for this content but I am skeptical for a number of reasons. The first being that newspapers have invested less and less over the years in investigative journalism and more and more in marketing and sales. Secondly the classifieds have been bleeding to death because online just kills it in so many ways (content, days on market, accessability). This has been one of many factors in the demise of print and many newspapers have just resorted to tacky journalism trying to reach a younger audience whilst alienating their base.

Light
However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. The Kindle device has proven that even an ugly little black and white wireless reading device can be popular and profitable. All it needs is for a company to enhance this offering and take it to another level (cue Apple and its touted color reader) and we have something that all newspapers need – a vibrant competitive wireless newsreader market.

Real Estate
This is your digital newspapers, so digital newspapers will allow agents to deliver targeted listings with branding, digital newspapers will give you a canvass to work with and allow you to brand your agency around your listings (you hope), unlike traditional newspapers – digital newspapers will allow you to carry a wealth of property information and local sales data alongside those listings.

Subscriptions
So why would we pay for this? You still buy magazines don’t you? Wireless Readers will demolish the gossip/celebrity magazine industry but it will revive the newspaper/unique content industry because we WILL pay for this – but only to a level.

Wireless Readers will be thin, light, color and black and white and have 6 – 10 hours battery life, they will serve a number of purposes but digital newspapers/ebooks, email, web will be the primary market.

The price? $9 a month? That’s about the money, it is all about volume – and newspapers will actually see a revival and in the cases of companies with quality journalists, a good news reputation and content like Fairfax (Sydney Morning Herald – The Age) will thrive, whereas papers like the Telegraph and the Herald Sun will stick to the print versions longer and die a slow death (blue collar)

Fairfax will eat News Limited in Australia for breakfast for another reason, classifieds. News Limited pretty much owns the tacky side of print in Australia and only has one newspaper it can be editorially proud of, The Australian. As for online classifieds, it has realestate.com.au and even that has a limited shelf life given its damaged reputation amongst the industry and agents.

Summing Up
The future of digital newspapers will be all about journalism and content as we can get all the other stuff elsewhere. It has to be about what made it successful in the first place- quality journalism – quality investigations, matched with quality content.

Throw in online classifieds and a brilliant interface and you have a winner. I pay for content today (software design website) , but they only own me only as long as the provide quality unique content ($7 per month).

So sit back and enjoy your newspaper with your coffee because it is nearing its end. No? You might think this, but just imagine if print newspapers lost just 10% of its readers to digital, now think about the fact they are already bleeding $ on print as of todays readership. Now you see it

It may take 5 – 7 years but it is coming! Your thoughts?

But has anyone actually sat back and said, ‘hang on – if so many people are spending so much more time online and are not watching as much TV and listening to as much radio, then why are the figures not telling us this?”

This is because in my opinion the whole way that these things are added up are simply wrong. As an example, I had a little get together last week and I asked a few questions to the 15 guests at a BBQ.

1. How often do you watch TV?
3 people said they never watched TV at all, but sometimes hired a DVD. 4 people rarely watched TV, 3 people told me they watched TV every night and the remaining 5 told me that their TV habits have changed so much and that they watch much less TV than they did only a few years ago.

2. How often do you listen to radio?
6 people never listen to the radio, 4 do only on the way to work (in their car) and 5 listen to a couple of shows in bed at night.

3. How often do you buy the newspapers?
3 never do, 12 always buy the Sunday Papers, 8 buy that Saturday papers as well (and all of these 8 mentioned the property guide) but only 3 purchased the midweek papers.

4. Use the Internet?
14 people use the Internet everyday. 1 uses the Internet every other day and all use the Internet for researching property. In fact 12 told me they look at property at least 4 times a week online.

Now all I can say is that I think companies should really do their own research, I have to say that of all of my friends are pretty much free thinkers and as much as I hate the term (a little left). But it does tell me that all of the research that goes into TV viewers each week is a little pathetic and hardly a true indication of who actually watches TV.

The problems everyone has is that so many companies make money out of TV, Newspapers and Radio advertising and these same companies make very little out of Internet advertising that it makes it hard for large companies habits to change. The last companies I would trust as far as spending my money on marketing would be advertising agencies or ad buyers.

It simply comes down to results and they will vary from city and region, but do not trust just what you are told, do some research yourself. There are a few Google Adword specialist companies out there and one of the bloggers on here does this kind of work.

I would suggest pulling some kind of advertising from another sector, if only for a month or a week and place a little money into marketing your won website through a Google Adwords campaign, you may be pleasantly surprised!