Newspaper Web sites are growing fast, but the pace of change in the onlineworld is accelerating even faster, D. Colin Phillips, publisher of the Editor & Publisher Co. , said at theInteractive Newspapers '98 Conference in Seattle.
Newspaper Web sites are growing fast, but the pace of change in the online world is accelerating even faster, D. Colin Phillips, publisher of the Editor & Publisher Co., said at the Interactive Newspapers ’98 Conference in Seattle.
“The scope of the competitive landscape is even broader than any of us realized. El Nino has struck,” Phillips said. “In just one short year, we have seen a storm surge of new competitors roll over the media landscape to compete for ever thinner slices of what had been our business.”
Of the top 10 Web sites last year measured by ad revenue, only one newspaper site, USA Today, made the list at the very bottom, Phillips said.
Newspapers risk falling behind just when the Internet is on the verge of becoming a true mass media, he said.
“The online news and information business is exploding at a pace never seen before in the development of a new media industry,” Phillips said. “Current estimates are that the Internet will reach critical mass for general acceptance in around five years. It is already accepted enough to begin draining serious audience attention from our traditional media.”
As part of the recent redesign of its Web site, E&P has compiled a Media Links database that documents the accelerating number of news-oriented sites.
Some numbers from that database, which currently tracks about 8,000 sites, include:
However, in its first year of tracking city guides, E&P has identified 60 companies that operate multiple sites. Meanwhile, hundreds of other individual enterprises have launched standalone city guide sites in metropolitan areas across the country.
