It’s not often I introduce a new word into the world of communications. Well, I’m going to now.

Have you noticed that many local newspapers are called the “Echo” in some form? There’s Exeter’s Express and Echo, and The South Wales Echo, and many more across Britain. I can’t ever recall a national called by a variation of it, though.

So “Echo” is probably the best single-word describer of a local newspaper. It’s a pity that most locals seem to be a dying breed, or soon will be. The costs of printing and distribution are overwhelming even the “river of gold” of small ads and classified advertising.

Where Craigslist led the way in America, so many British locals are being gradually replaced by online alternatives.

Now imagine a hybrid between a quality blog and an Echo — online, of course. What would you call it? An Eclog, naturally.

That’s not to be confused with an eclogue, which is a poetic pastoral dialogue. The Greek origin of the word means “selection” or “pick out”, which is rather apt, I think.

Here at Syntagma Towers we have spent the last three months creating a new business. It will shortly produce the world’s first Eclog: Devon & Cornwall Online. You will find it on a screen near you in June.

May I suggest you rummage through your loft and find all those forgotten objets d’art you might want to flog to the good people of the West Country of England.

Alternatively, if you are a solicitor, accountant or estate agent, you may like to advertise your services locally. If a tourist, letting agency or general holiday company, it will not harm your interests to book a presence on the English Riviera, bearing in mind that the site will be visible across the country and may well become the first port of call for people wanting to vacation in the area.

Other Eclogs in the pipeline include, Somerset (with Bristol) and Dorset (with Bournemouth). In fact, there’s no limit to the possibilities.

So here’s to the Eclog, a brand new feature in the news and views industry of British publishing.

John Evans

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The internet is dead and boring according to Mark Cuban, internet A-lister, venture capitalist and TV impresario. He believes it has become a “utility” and therefore a bit like electricity or water — yawn-inducing!

As always this kind of argument concentrates on the medium not the message. For example, ten years ago childrens’ books were dead in the water — today’s kids are “visual”, brought up on screen games and videos. They couldn’t get into textual stuff at all.

Then the Harry Potter books arrived on the scene. Not only did they revolutionize the sales of children’s books, they also hugely boosted another old medium, the movies.

We’re always saying here in Syntagma that the medium is boring — it should be. All mediums should be unobtrusive, allowing creativity to flourish. The message is the thing. Find exciting new content and even the most ancient technologies, like books, magazines, television and film, come to life in a splurge of fresh excitement and initiative.

The internet is a platform. At present, there’s nothing to match it as a pipe for instant content. Most content is rubbish, of course, but the opportunities are there for anyone who can grab the public’s attention or imagination.

The medium is not the message. The message allows the medium to thrive. Quality content makes the internet valuable. Find that, and you’re in business.

As part of our ongoing upgrade and improvement of the network, we now have a new feature in the sidebar :

The 38 sites in the network are listed by topic instead of by name, and sorted into broad niche groups. The aim is to create a menu rather than a list, and to make it easier for visitors to find what they want.

It still needs a bit of tweaking, especially on the loading side. We will be rolling this out across all the other sites in time.

The three experimental portals are now positioned below the contents menu, and will be subject to further changes and extensions over the summer.

Feedback would be welcomed — as always.

We’ve been looking carefully at the Syntagma network over the early summer, thanks to Gerry Reynolds, a business consultant specializing in the retail sector. Like all such exercises, much of what emerged was already known to me from the experiences of the past two years, but two thoughts in particular were illuminating.

Gerry’s first insight, which I was aware of, is that the online content business is a small margin trade — unless you’re prepared to invest heavily ($20m). By that he means that there are few big payouts for individual sales — i.e. of ad space. Big bucks have to be accumulated over time from small sum payments.

Drawing on his retail knowledge, he likened the business to little corner shops, which make margins of around 2 percent. To make that sort of business pay it has to be run almost around the clock. Most small shops are owned by immigrant groups and open between 8am and 10pm. Moreover, they are family run, with the kids roped in for shelf stacking after they’ve returned from school. Teenagers and grandparents also take turns behind the counter.

The owner may also import exotic foods from Asia or elsewhere and wholesale them to other outlets. Other shops may be opened in different parts of town. Everything is optimized to lift that slim margin to an impressive return.

Similarly, a digital (blog) network needs quantity and variety to make the business pay. For example, some of our sites do well on text link ads, selling out in a couple of months. A few are Adsense magnets drawing clicks from heavy, regular traffic. Others attract different types of advertising, while one or two specialize in affiliate sales. Often you simply can’t tell until you try.

The attraction of multi-domain networks is that they can contain a variety of advertising magnets, which allow many fingers in different pies.

All sites need time to mature, of course — around 18 months — before they reach their potential and start contributing to the pot.

Rarely will one site make a living salary for its owner. It does happen, of course, usually for quirky, semi-commercial blogs which catch on for reasons known only to visitors, or sites using below the radar techniques for hoovering up Adsense clicks.

By accumulating sufficient inventory in the right niches, and optimizing it for profitable trading, network owners can make a good living from the business. In some isolated cases, they can even sell off the company for seven or eight figure sums, but that should not be taken as read for the vast majority.

So, that’s one of Gerry’s insights : the need, like corner shops, to work with low margins through quantity, while not compromising on quality. A hard call, and only for the determined. But does anyone think it’s easy winning a gold medal in the Olympic Games?

Another aspect of the business our consultant stared hard at was the use of branding. He looked at our basic brands and assessed their worth.

On his advice we closed down our Allusionz network magazine last month as it was going nowhere. The brand last in, Moneyizor, has already overtaken LifeTimes, but is slightly behind Phi still. It could end up in front of both.

However, one brand stood head and shoulders above the remaining three, and it’s not hard to guess what it is : Syntagma. The whole network should be pulled together more tightly like a drawstring, he suggested, to emphasize the Syntagma brand, while retaining the three subsidiary brands as “sections” of one online publication — with their own portals as now — instead of separate “magazines”.

It makes a lot of sense, and marks a retreat from the long-list method of presenting a network, which we partially moved away from with the network magazine concept. It’s simply the logical next step along the same path.

We’ll be working on this project over the rest of the summer.

There are other profitable elements in this package too, but those are confidential and for my eyes only.

I’ve long been writing here at Syntagma about the “wide” version of blog networks developing into a “deeper” model more in tune with print newspapers and magazines.

This has been the basis of our “network magazine” structure over the past six months. However, I’ve not yet had the time to develop this concept as I originally set out to do. That is still to come.

We now have three broad niche “magazines” with the next stage pulling them together into one online publication, albeit distributed between multi-domains and topic verticals.

I’ve just read Scott Karp over at Publishing 2.0 — writing from the opposite direction — in which he puts the case for print newspapers converting their online presence into multi-blog networks and it certainly rings a bell with me. This convergence is undoubtedly the way forward.

A single “brand” umbrella title, with print credibility, utilizing the flair and flexibility of weblog software by employing a range of contributors, amateur and pro, while maintaining the standards, professionalism and sense of mission of the best newspapers, is clearly the future of news journalism and commentary, especially for local content.

Quote : “What’s becoming clear is that blogs are now the organizing principle for newspapers’ original online content. And these are ‘real’ blogs, i.e. driven by one or two individual bloggers, with (often active) comments, RSS feeds, the whole nine yards.”

In other words, the weblog software platform is capable of far more than we normally expect from “blogging”. It’s capable of a full range of journalistic output, linked through the tools used by the top blog networks and the quality and depth associated with the best print newspapers and magazines.

Maybe there are three tiers of journalists at these blog network “newspapers”:

1. Full-time reporters and editors, who ensure breadth of coverage, quality and standards, and public mission
2. Paid freelancers who write on a regular basis, but not full-time — these can be stay-at-home parents looking for supplemental income, retirees looking for extra income or to keep busy, college students, etc.
3. “Witness” reporters (avoiding “citizen journalist” on purpose), who contribute to the reporting effort when they witness news in some form.

As I wrote here recently, “The medium isn’t the message, the quality and form of the writing, or broadcasting is. Good reportage is just that, wherever it appears. So is commentary. So is any other form of expression. We’ve been confusing the medium with the message for too long — since Marshall McLuhan in fact.

For example, some newspapers incorporate an occasional poetry spot, where decent poets can publish their verses. Does that make the poet a journalist? If writers use blog platforms to publish the kind of article that could easily appear in a broadsheet paper or specialist magazine, does that make them bloggers?”

What is certain is that this convergence is moving fast — look at any of the online newspapers as example. Print titles are crossing over between platforms to give their audience a richer, and more updated, service than ever before.

Will the print format disappear eventually? Only when the online experience matches the depth and utility of a major print publication.

I suspect print will be with us for quite a time yet.

Pramit Singh, an “information professional working in New Delhi”, has written an interesting piece on blog networks over at MediaVidea.

Trawling through various opinions and scenarios, the main emphasis of the post is on the downside risks and problem areas of digital networks. Many of these points have been aired on other sites, not least on this one.

Here’s the take on Syntagma : “In fact, one blog network, Syntagma Media, which had more than 50 blogs, cut down on all redundant blogs and ended up with just 3 sites, which are now being run along the Engadget model – as magazines.”

That’s not quite accurate since we still have 55 sites. We’ve simply packaged them around three (soon four) portals under a concept we call “network magazines”. It does worry me that some intelligent and otherwise informed individuals can still get this wrong. But then maybe that’s a positive outcome. If visitors now see our inventory as three magazines, rather than a collection of “blogs”, that indicates that the system is working.

Even b5media gets a bit of excessive pidgeon-holing : “B5media specializes in Celeb blogs.” Whatever happened to the other 13 channels?

The fact is, the average surfer is not going to grasp your wonderful arrangements and system concepts while flicking through your inventory. When people who know the ground get it wrong, though, some head-scratching is clearly in order.

It is good to be reminded of these points from time to time, obvious though they are. One thing I’ve learned since coming into this business is that quality of traffic is preferable to tidal waves of Digg- or Slashdot-type invasions. Some of our low trafficked sites make more money than our highly visited ones. The secret of success is not to close down the bigger sites, but to divert specific segments of the tidal traffic flows onto the higher-paying inventory — and that’s the basis of our network magazine theory. It does work too.

There’s one simple principle that’s always drummed into new entrepreneurs : it’s no good making wonderful products if you can’t sell them. This is why our Retailz USA portal will be a step change from what we’ve done before, and will introduce a wholly new concept of managing, producing and presenting content online. What we are dreaming up is nothing less than a revolution in the portalization of commercial content.

Network magazines Mark II will be far in advance of the original concept of blog networks. In fact, you’ll hardly recognize it.

My print publishing business, Dial Publishing, is currently in exploratory talks to buy a small, but established print publisher of nonfiction books. This is still at the confidential, due diligence stage, so no names or pack drill.

If the buy comes off it will bring a solid backlist of steady sellers to Dial’s inventory, plus a fund of experience and connections impossible to create overnight. Dial Publishing is a totally separate business from Syntagma Digital Limited, which is our digital publishing company.

These events have ballooned out over the Easter period and have led me to reflect on the essential differences between print and digital publishing. With 20 years of print experience and two years of digital publishing behind me, I’m only now beginning to see the wood from the trees.

Let’s state from the outset that we’re talking profitable projects here, not worthwhile artistic efforts which gain critical acclaim but lose money — they are more in the province of personal blogs. In the commercial sphere, it’s the money that determines the outcome in both cases, as always.

Digital and print publishing are surprisingly complementary over a range of possible output. Speaking very generally, the money in digital publishing is in :

Bite-sized reports on events and products that command large-scale interest.

Most essay-type sites don’t make any money at all. The way still to earn income publishing online (not social networking) remains in a few mega-niches : finance, automotive, gadgets, gossip and miscellaneous products and services. Looking across Syntagma’s 50-60 sites the ones with large numbers of text link ads stand out a mile. That’s a very good test of financial viability. All our projects going forward focus on these areas.

The gold in nonfiction print publishing comes from :

Lengthy exposition and detailed information on essential topics and useful techniques.

Most writers find one of these branches easier to accomplish than the other. Just a few may be good at both.

So, in terms of cash and results, there are two discrete environments — print and digital publishing — to work with. Both are capable of bringing results, but the need to consolidate and move on is ever present, especially online.

Other Considerations
To succeed in digital publishing you need to play the market and its highly volatile readership with a certain degree of cunning. Traffic is driven by keywords and buzz — what we used to call “word of mouth”, but now in a different context. To win online you have to get down and dirty with search engine optimization and a measure of gaming of the system. Google benefits too, so there’s real scope for the dark arts here.

Some people don’t really like that aspect of digital publishing — I confess to being a bit chary of it myself. However, to win a war you have to kill people. There’s no other way.

Print publishing is much more congenial to anyone with scruples, although the scope for shenanigans is increasing by the day, especially as the number of titles being published grows beyond the public’s capacity — and wish — to purchase. Content and reputation count above all in today’s busy marketplace.

Complementarity
If you indulge in both arms of publishing, what are the cross-fertilizations you can call up to improve both businesses?

There are many, but in brief :

* You can sell books online and use websites for publicity.
* Books can contain a list of web addresses to get a new audience logging on.
* Multiple cross-references can drive traffic both ways.
* Websites can provide an introduction, while a book develops the whole picture.
* Books can refer readers to websites for more up-to-date information.

These are real benefits and, used smartly, can make a great deal of difference to success on- and offline.

The convergence of digital and print publishing is therefore more of a complementarity than a merging. That the same people are now often doing both is a sign that a mature marketplace is developing which successfully crosses the seemingly large ravine between the two outlets for publishing.

Which, though, potentially yields the bigger return on investment?

That will have to be left to another post, so stay close.

I’ve long been an advocate of the convergence of print and pixel formats. Each has something to learn from the other, and, despite the insistent claims, the online world will not replace print in a clean sweep any time soon.

Despite the obvious limitations of long text pieces online, there’s yet another outbreak of print-death fever going around. Tim O’Reilly has heard whispers that the San Francisco Chronicle is in “serious trouble” and is laying off journalists and staff. Dave Winer wades in with a thoughtful contribution, while Robert Scoble trumpets, “Newpapers are dead”.

The problem with that kind of headline is that this is a complex situation with many variations and possible outcomes. Certainty is not an option here.

Newspapers have been in trouble as long as they have existed. I can name a dozen national titles that went out of business in Britain in the 20th century. It happens — all the time. One failure doesn’t necessarily signal the end of an industry.

Most UK national newspapers now put their whole output openly on websites. They break news online and follow up in later print issues with in-depth analyses and commentary. They also give away DVDs and lottery cards with the print version and have a sizeable magazine-type feature-set aimed at specific demographics. Not many of their customers want to turn their computers on to access all of that when they can buy it in a convenient print bundle for around a dollar while they’re on the move.

As newspapers become more like daily magazines, with retrospective analysis of news already broken on TV and online, urban populations are still buying print products in large quantities. The evening papers, for example, are bought by returning commuters to make their homeward journey a little more bearable and to catch up on the stories of the day. Local papers are increasingly the glue that binds the inhabitants of towns and villages together.

What is actually happening is a convergence, not a replacement. Increasingly print publishers are becoming digital publishers, while maintaining their print operations. Imagine the major titles — the FT, WSJ, NYT, or Times (London) — without their immensely prestigious paper versions. They would lose considerable traction in the marketplace without them.

We forget at our peril that most people like the reassuring feel of a “real world” product in their hands. They go online for certain types of information, but relax with a book or magazine.

Breaking news is covered better on 24-hour news channels than on websites or blogs. Immediacy is the USP here. Fiction is a pain on-screen. Long, complex, nonfiction is easier to handle in book form, and some subjects are presented far better in print than they are on the internet.

What we’re seeing is a weeding out process that will result in rapidly-changing information migrating online — as it already has — while considered analysis will appear in hybrid formats for different audiences. More reflective, longer-term material and fiction will still remain predominantly the province of print formats and subsequent dramatizations.

It’s often forgotten that new technology has transformed the print world too. On-demand book printing, from disc in tiny batches, is already changing the face of book production and will continue to do so.

Can anyone tell me why a wealthy society shouldn’t support many communications formats to their mutual advantage?

The first of our much-trailed retail portals is set for lift off around May/June, following the launch of our newest network magazine, Moneyizor in April.

The first of the two currently-planned shopping-based extravaganzas is titled, RetailzUSA, and, as the name implies, is targeted firmly on the world’s biggest retail market.

We have a raft of webtitles ready for the off and are adding more as we go. We shall also be inviting outside sites to join at some stage.

The U.S. version will be followed by a UK portal — ShopShapeUK, probably towards autumn.