01 May 2009

Mark Cuban tackles the demise of newspapers


The latest post on Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban's blog is about how newspapers can become financially sound again. His answer? Credit cards.

Newspapers want to charge for content, or really, anything and everything they can. In order to do so, you need to get the customers credit card on file. NO ONE , and I MEAN NO ONE is going to go through the hassle of entering a credit or debit card in order to buy their first penny, nickel or dime article. It’s far too much hassle. Even using PayPal is a hassle.

You need to get reader’s credit cards on files and start being the baby Amazon of your local area.

He makes some good points. Here are some ways to become the "baby Amazon" of your local area:

We have negotiated for a special price on the Disney DVD release of The Jonas Brothers DVD. Have it on your doorstep at 5am the morning its released, for the low , low price of $17.95. Our advertiser, Dallas Flowers is offering a mothers day special of a dozen roses for $19.95 if you pre order from DallasNews.com/mothersday and pay with your EZ PAY.

I like it. Local newspapers should use their advantage of being local. They've already let the "information is free" cat out of the bag, and now it's time to move on to other areas of commerce.

It'll be interesting to see what papers, if any, attempt to use this model.

1 comment:

Amy said...

Yeah...good luck with that. They'd have to change their advertising/financial structure- and changing structure isn't something they've been good at historically. Hence, the decline of newspapers...I really hope they do, but even if they drastically revamp everything, I just can't see something like this making enough of a dent/change to turn around newspapers.