In these tough, financial times, people will be looking for free and easy information. Usually, the local newspaper’s website is a great source of information. But with user generated content on the rise, it’s easier for start-up companies to gain a foothold in a market where newspapers once dominated.

It’s then that the “old media” companies sit back and wonder how they can compete with companies that have little overhead but yet remain some competitive to them. The answer is quite simply to disrupt the disruptor.

How do you do that? By taking your products and treating them as equals. Many in the newspaper industry feel that their newspaper website is basically the newspaper, but online. That’s where they fail. Their website could be much more, but because many in leadership positions haven’t had the foresight to plan for necessary enhancements, it gave the disruptors a venue to disrupt. Sites like CraigsList.org, Wikipedia and eBay.com filled niches that newspapers used to fill in their print editions. Now, it’s easier and cheaper to find things with more relevancy on these websites than it is in the newspaper.

Where do newspapers start?

They have to look at the jobs to be done. What do people in our communities need, not just from us as newspapers, but in general? And the bigger question is, how do we make money?

Here are a few initiatives that will put any media company on a path to grow revenue outside of their core product with minimal investment while engaging and involving the community:

I) Community Wiki
Imagine having a resource that would be the end-all, be-all for your community. Historical information about the immediate region, information about local government, maps tied into a business directory via a google or yahoo mashup and other local general information like phone numbers for the power company or what the average water bill is in the city all would be information that local residents would seek on a daily basis. The wiki would be open to be posted to by the community, with the understanding that if something isn’t correct that a correction should be submitted to the wiki administrator. Imagine all of the information that could be housed and sifted through on a daily basis and all the traffic that would result from it. The possibilities are nearly endless. The traffic could almost rival the newspaper’s website itself.

2) Niche publications
One way newspaper companies supplement their advertising in their newspapers is to create niche publications or magazines to offer targeted advertising opportunities. By why limit yourself by simply putting a crappy PDF of it online or simply just posting the articles to a template? These niche publications are directed towards specific segments of the population who like to discuss and share information between themselves. To not facilitate that is turning your nose at thousands of page views a month. Imagine taking articles from your niche publication and creating a social networking site, complete with polls, forums photo galleries and video sharing. You would then solicit feedback through the site and gain insight on what is and what isn’t working as far as content in your publication. Readers will come back and visit stories they’ve already read to see responses other have left. That increases site stickiness, which in turn increases page views.

3) Other Niche Sites
And why stop at niche sites based on publications? Mom-centered sites have sprung up in nearly every community over the last two years. Entertainment sites continue to drive traffic for young folks that want to spend money. Sports sites get rabid and passionate fans visiting all year long, often several times a day to get the latest nugget of information on their team. With the new AP rules that are in place, a niche site with information you already pay for can drive more traffic with less work. User generated content is huge, so why not facilitate it? If you don’t someone else will — in your community.

Of course, all of these sound great, but how do they get done? With a shrinking newspaper staff, it’s not a good idea to put this burden on them. Let them focus on the core product. A new position, even positions need to be created to facilitate these new initiatives. The right person would understand the technical and content sides of the product. They’d have to follow the industry and web 2.0 culture, and would have to have the right attitude to facilitate discussion and invigorate the community.

These are just a few examples.

If you are interested in finding out just how you can achieve these and more, I am available to discuss a customized road map on where to begin and how to sustain it.

We went to lunch today to celebrate my friend Kevin’s birthday. He chose Chipotle, located at 2921 Providence Rd in Charlotte, NC.

Chipotle cup. Innocent enough, right?

I ordered my burrito, got my cup and went to get my drink.

I put the cup under the Dr. Pepper fountain, hit the lever, and drink exploded all over my arm. Not thinking anything of it, I put my cup under the Coke and filled it with drink.

I enjoyed my lunch, enjoyed my drink.

It wasn’t until I got back to the office and I finished my drink that I noticed there was something at the bottom of my cup:

Chipotle mishap

The Nozzle had exploded and fallen into my cup, without my knowing.

Gross? Kinda. At least the nozzle looked clean.

Should I keep the nozzle? I haven’t spoken to them yet. They might need the nozzle back for their machine.

Still, kind of grossed out. If this kind of thing can happen to my drink, what could have fallen into my food?

It was late, I was tired and my dryer was broken.

I needed a heating element for it, or at least I thought. I’ve not had a lot of experience fixing dryers, but I’m a fairly intelligent person, can follow directions and can fix things if I know what is wrong with them.

So naturally, I think I’ll ride down to the local home appliance store, in my case that’s the Lowe’s Home Improvement store, to get the parts I need.

I waited for the only worker in the appliance section to finish two phone calls, then asked him where the dryer heating elements were, since I couldn’t find them on my own.

He gave me a card and said that they didn’t have them in stock, but that I could order it via the telephone. Looked like a Lowe’s card, I assumed it was Lowe’s since the guy represented it as such.

Made the trek back home and gave the company a call. Ordered the part, which ended up being ~ $65.00 shipped. Seemed high, but certainly was cheaper than buying a new dryer.

In a few days I got the part, replaced it, noticed the packing slip said “Appliance Parts, Albany NY”. Lowe’s is based out of NC, where I live. So I got to thinking, did Lowe’s take advantage of my customer loyalty? I trusted Lowe’s to give me a quality (and the right) part at a reasonable price.

The part ended up not fixing my problem, so as I should have done earlier, I did research online and found out that either the thermostat or the fuse could be the culprit of my dryer problems. And to my surprise (and disgust) Amazon said I can order both WITH a dryer heating element for a total of ~ $40.

I’d been hornswaggled.

I’m still not sure if this is just a subcontractor, since they tried to push other crap at me when I was making my order, or if this is a division of Lowe’s. I’m still researching that.

It’s my fault for not researching the prices online before I purchased it. I was tired, frustrated and wanted to get this ordered as quickly as possible so we could get our dryer up and running quickly.

I trusted Lowe’s Home Improvement – a mistake I will not make again. From now on, I will take the extra time to drive a little farther to Home Depot or Sears for anything I may need, just because of this horrible customer service incident.

Don’t make the same mistake I did.

You know, I can’t hardly stand going to the Mall any more. People have gotten to the point that the only way they could be more inconsiderate and rude is if they were to throw feces in your face as you walk.

1) scooting over – You’d think that people mastered this in grade school, but as many of us know, they did not. You know they see you coming, you know they see you also have no room, yet they don’t care if you run into the wall or store fixture. Why not?

2) impeding someone’s path deserves an “Excuse me” – What ever happened to “excuse me”? If you step in front of someone’s path, do it quickly, and say excuse me. NEVER walk out of a store blindly into incoming traffic and go against the grain. That is extremely rude.

3) stopping in the middle of the mall walking area – If you stop in the middle of the mall walking area – and I mean just dead stop and scratch your ass or to ponder what that moist feeling in your undies is, then expect to get run into. This is one of the more rude things you can do at the mall, and one of my pet peeves. If I’m behind you, you may get ran over by a stroller or two.

4) hogging the isle – We’ve all seen someone hogging an isle. Sometimes it’s a woman with a stroller or cart parked precisely in the middle of the isle while she looks at something 20 feet away, or sometimes it’s the pot-bellied middle aged man picking his nose as he tries to figure out which camera he likes best. The proper way to look at something is to pick a side and look. If you need a closeup, move in closer. Be aware of those around you.

5) reign in your damn kids – The mall is not a racing track, playground, or otherwise experimenting place for your 2-3 year old kids to act like wild animals. If you and your herd content to walk shoulder to shoulder as slow as possible, expect people to be pissed off at you and make nasty comments under their breath. If you do allow your toddlers to walk, at least hold their hands.

6) hold a door and don’t let it slam in someone’s face or sneak through it as they are holding it open for their pregnant wife – This has happened to my wife and I on occasion: Someone letting the door hit us nearly in the face/stroller (while the wife was pregnant no less) or you are holding the door open for your kids/spouse and someone jumps IN FRONT OF THEM to exit/enter the building. I don’t mind holding the door for you, but if you disrespect my family in that manner, I may even CLOSE it on you on purpose. Every time this happens, I can hardly believe someone would do that, but yet, it happens every-so-often.

The best thing you can do folks, is teach your kids respect and manners for others – even if no one shows it towards you, teach them respect. That is your duty. It is your duty also to be aware of your fellow shoppers and mall patrons.

“The A-hole just tastes funny”.

This ad was deemed “too racy” for some N.C. franchisees to broadcast.

Yesterday I posed the question via Twitter ( @bradthomas ) “would you pay to read your local paper online? be honest. if so, how much?“. Since I’ve also got my twitter account linked with my facebook profile, that question was also broadcast there as well.

Several of my friends, many of who have or still work for newspaper companies have weighed in:

“Nope, not at all. Free content is everywhere in the world, why would I pay for news I can find elsewhere?”

“hell no”

“no becasue you can read free stuff online anywhere, why pay”

“That’s a big negatory there compadre’.”

Brad Thomas: What if it were local content that nobody else currently covered?

“shoot, i can get that right here on FB for free”

“That’s the thing. For people to pay, it must be something they can’t get anywhere else. I think this will only work in certain communities, however. Take Fort Mill, for example. There are 40,000 people (mostly affluent) who live in the township and, despite there being three newspapers that “cover” them — The Observer, The Herald and the Fort Mill Times — none of them provide daily coverage unless something big happens. I think this would be a great place to experiment with a pay-only model. And I think it would work.”

“police here in winston shot a bear not 3 miles from my house and i found out about it on FB before any of the media reported it online….it would have to be hyper-local, community interest content, but i agree that it’s possible”

Brad Thomas: I think the only way I would advocate paying for local content would be if it was expert analysis or some in-depth investigative reporting. Perhaps exclusive, time sensitive content nobody else has. And even then, I wouldn’t pay more than a couple bucks a month tops.

“I agree. There are so many magazines now generating decent content from a community human interest level. Some are putting complete articles online. Anything’s possible, but…sure would be tough to pull off, I think.”

Brad Thomas: So, what we’re saying is — we’d pay for certain kinds of content — but for all intensive purposes, no, we wouldn’t pay for the content found in a daily newspaper. Right?

Brad Thomas: I’m being honest, there is currently no daily newspaper in North or South Carolina that I would pay to read online.

“I will never pay to read a newspaper online…”

“That’s the way to go. It’s inevitable. It doesn’t make any sense to give away free news. People will have to pay to read news in the near future.”

“It’s too late. There are too many places where people can get their news online for free. The TV stations are taking over in terms of traffic and there’s no way they’d ever try to charge for content.”

“Charging for news is committing suicide for anyone who tries it.”

“You pay for the paper, you pay for food, you pay for gas, why shouldn’t you pay for online news? Reporters work hard to get you those stories. Shouldn’t they get paid for their effort.

Many newspapers already charge for online content in Europe and it works great because people are willing to pay if the content of a story is interesting. It’s gotta be local and it’s gotta be exclusive. But charging for online content is the future whether people like it or not.”

” …except there are PLENTY of folks willing to do the work in getting the news to you for free. It would have to be something magical, unique and in high demand for anyone to be able to charge for it. I just don’t see anyone doing that. It would take an amazing group of folks and an amazing amount of resources to pull it off.”

What do you think? Would you pay to read your local paper — as it stands today — online?

From NBA.com —

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The price is $84 until November 11, $99.95 afterward.

The Carson Cougars had never won a game in their history. The Salisbury Post followed the Cougars through preseason and their first game of 2008.

Part 5 of 5

The Carson Cougars had never won a game in their history. The Salisbury Post followed the Cougars through preseason and their first game of 2008.

Part 4 of 5

The Carson Cougars had never won a game in their history. The Salisbury Post followed the Cougars through preseason and their first game of 2008.

Part 3 of 5