Newspapers are one of the most inefficient products on the planet. Companies spend thousands of dollars every edition to print pages and hand deliver them to subscribers who just throw them in the trash bin.

The truth is not everyone reads the sports section. Not everyone culls the stock pages. Not everyone needs a printed TV book. So why do we send them to everyone?

Potential cost savings might eliminate the need to cut other resources. Newspapers have considered axing the daily stock listings in print because most people can get them online. Newspapers have considered cutting the printed TV book to save money.

Instead of cutting the whole thing, newspapers should send these products only to the people who still want them.

And let's not forget that reducing demand for newsprint reduces the cost of newsprint. That's a very good thing considering newsprint is such a massive part of the annual budget,

Tomorrow's entry: If you let me choose, I will let you help me

It is usually a veteran editor who makes the argument against the “a la carte” news idea. “If readers are allowed to subscribe only to the news they want, they won’t get the news they need,” or so the thinking goes.

The fear is readers will be too independent for their own good. The opposite is true.

Whether it’s Amazon.com, iTunes or TiVo, users always end up more dependent on the service, not less. Amazon.com is well known for suggesting books to customers. TiVo suggests programs it thinks you might like based on what folks like you watch. NetFlix does the same. So does iTunes. All of these are wildly successful modern businesses.

By giving the reader what they want, trust is built. The newspaper that gives its readers choice of content will then be expected to do what it has always done – tell us about stories we didn’t know that we needed to know.

Every subscriber should receive the ‘A’ section, complete with the most important stories of the day. It’s the rest of the alphabet that should be opt-in.

Tomorrow's entry: Create more products

When a new section doesn’t have to be sent to every subscriber, it becomes easier to create new products. It becomes less costly to experiment. That means the newsroom can be more responsive to the laws of supply and demand.

When subscribers to the Sports section increase, so should the page count and the ad rates. If only a handful subscribe to a Society section, then there should be only a handful of pages and lower ad rates. Each section should operate under its own P&L; statement, adjusting page count, staffing and ad rates to respond exactly to the market’s demand.

And there’s nothing that says every section must be daily. If the market can support only a weekly, introduce the new Theater section as a weekly. Maybe the newspaper offers both a weekly and daily Ticket section. Let users decide which suits them.

In the end, the newsroom will be able to increase coverage for popular sections. Or a small staff can maintain a niche section. Coverage increases during a time when the market is forcing cuts.

And newspaper ad rates can serve both low and high-end advertisers.

Tomorrow's entry: Feeding the junkies, and paying for it

The Zoning By Interest business model lets newspapers take a lesson from cable companies and other modern content providers.

TV junkies buy more TV channels. But news junkies get the same amount of news as everyone else, and pay the same amount. Zoning by interest means newspapers can finally profit from news addicts.

Subscribers choose from a set of packages. For example, basic service might include the A-section plus two additional sections. Premium service might include four additional sections. Gold service offers six sections. Or, choose unlimited service.

Tomorrow's entry: Next steps

Obviously this report doesn’t have all the answers. Questions abound.

Would a newspaper like this comply with ABC standards? What kind of equipment exists to deliver a personalized newspaper? How does this affect Accounting? How does it affect the way advertising is sold? What sections would the newspaper add?

The next step is to investigate. Convene a team of believers to answer all the questions. When a clear picture emerges, then decide whether the benefits outweigh the costs.

What if we change nothing?

Young people are our future readers and that has newspapers concerned. But the problem isn’t that young people have some aversion to printed paper, as some arguments imply.

The problem is newspapers haven’t responded to their concerns with any significant change. Tweaking coverage or adding younger voices in the newspaper isn’t the sole solution; it’s the easy one we hope will work.

Truth is newspapers need to take a dramatic step. Newspapers need to recognize the hard lessons from studies that show disinterest, from newspapers with declining circulation, and from every other ugly fact.

If newspapers choose to ignore the hard facts, there is no reason to believe the studies will change or circulation trends will suddenly reverse. These problems can be fixed.

What everyone truly wants is a newspaper that appeals only to him or her. That’s truly a modern format for the modern mainstream.

National advertisers have repeatedly told this industry that they wish for some easy way to advertise in the medium. One that doesn’t require navigating the disparate staffs and processes they find at the nation’s hundreds of newspapers.

And that’s why Google will be successful if it sticks to its newest plan to sell ads directly within the pages of newspapers.

Google’s program could be a new source of revenue for newspapers. Or, it could further erode newspapers’ local advantage, as the online AdSense program has done.

We’re all so proud of the local relationship our newspapers have with advertisers, and we point to that as our best (if not only) competitive advantage when competing with the likes of AutoTrader for ad sales. But if we outsource this relationship, then the newspaper loses its last competitive advantage.

Continuing down this path means that eventually all local and national advertisers will use Google (or some other proxy) to place ads. And because Google controls the relationship, it can decide how large of a cut it takes from each sale.

Newspapers must acknowledge the brutal fact that using proxies to sell ads means our local relationship with advertisers is lost. And that’s OK, if we’re prepared.

Newspapers must be careful as they develop this program to ensure that Google is treated as a new employee, not as a partner. If Google is simply another ad rep, then the newspaper still decides how much of a commission each ad is worth, same as it does for any employee.

This is vital as this “open source” advertising sales model progresses. Newspapers must ensure that other proxies can easily begin competing for your ad sales. Perhaps Microsoft will start its own ad network. Perhaps a group of hotshot sales reps will team up to sell across multiple newspapers.

Bottomline is be ready for what happens when more advertisers say they’re on your site or in your newspaper, but no one in your building sold the ad.

Tomorrow’s entry: Or, do Google one better.

A new program called Flex, from Macromedia, changed the way we present the election results at HeraldTribune.com.

Please take a moment to explore the presentation, which feels a lot like an application and less like a newspaper graphic. I’d love to get some feedback.

Reaction from readers was 100 percent good. One woman said it was the best results presentation she’d used online. It was the reaction within the newsroom that was more mixed, with some folks preferring a more traditional approach.

The election tool was created by the same duo who built IBISEYE.com. It should go without saying that I’m lucky to work with such talented folks.

Here in Sarasota, the U.S. House race is so close that a recount is underway. And there's some question about the large undervote seen in some precincts. This graphic, also made by the IBISEYE.com folks, shows the precinct-by-precinct vote breakdown using Google Maps and Flex graphics.

What Google is on the precipice of teaching us is a new business model.

Google isn’t as interested in selling advertising on its own site as it is in selling ads on everyone else’s. It wants to be the one-stop shop for buying ads anywhere, including your local market.

So my suggestion, for the rebellious among us, is to out-AdSense them. And then one-up Google in a move they’ll refuse to match.

First, recognize that Google’s right. Advertisers do want one business they can use for placing all ads. To put it in terms from the Innovator’s Dilemma, it’s a job that advertisers need done for them.

With the future creation of open-source advertising standards, anyone will be able to sell any ad, anywhere. In fact, sounds like the perfect slogan: “Any ad. Anywhere.”

Newspapers should be the local proxy. If someone wants to sell shoes in your market, then the newspaper should be where they go to place local ads. Set up an ad network like Google AdSense. Local Web sites can post your network ads and get paid per click. Local newspapers can print your ads and get a portion of the revenue. Same goes for local broadcast programs.

To participate, the content-provider will be required to supply demographic information about its audience. That gives the newspaper robust knowledge about the local market and how to best use each product to connect advertisers with buyers.

Newspapers will gain a new position of expertise and a new competitive advantage over Google. Here comes the one-up. For high-end advertisers, the job of newspaper reps becomes creating a campaign from scratch and selling it to the advertiser, much like advertising firms do now.

It will be fruitful for newspapers to act as advertising firms because eventually that’s what their new customers will want.

Your goal is becoming the local expert on how to buy premium space, how to create an effective campaign across multiple media. Be a boutique in person and a one-stop shop online for the local DIY advertiser.

First, I have to disclose that I’m a Times Select subscriber despite having vowed never to sign up when they built that paid wall. But, heck, they gave me Times Select for free with my subscription to the weekend paper.

Why am I so against paid walls? The folks at Editors Weblog say it best by boiling the issue down into a simple metric.

Before the paid-wall came into effect, the day’s editorials were regularly listed as the most popular stories on the site, sometimes for days or the entire week. After TimesSelect launched it became extremely rare to find Maureen Dowd or Tom Friedman on the list . . .

Journalism matters only when people read it. Any business model that hinders market penetration should be a last resort. My guess is the Times folks see the paid model as a necessary evil. I just disagree.

The ads surrounding the copy make plenty of money already, and the articles could make more if allowed unlimited market penetration.

When a news commodity is as consistently popular as the Times columnists, don’t charge people more to read it, charge advertisers more. Let’s not forget the basics of newspapering. Don’t raise the price of the newspaper because more people are reading it. Raise the ad rates.

In earlier posts, I’ve warned about the impending consolidation of coverage. And here’s a real-world harbinger.

The managing editor for the Winston-Salem Journal was faced with the need to cut his budget. And when looking around the newsroom, he saw the same thing all of us do. Duplication of efforts. So the Journal’s film critic and NFL writer were laid off.

Local film critics for national movies are a vestige of different times. For most markets, there’s no local angle to Mission Impossible 3.

Reassign your reporter now, before it’s too late, to something that might attract new readers. I wonder what the Journal’s managing editor would have covered if he had reassigned that film critic a year ago.

Maybe you’re the film critic. Don’t wait around for this same fate. Convince your editor to use wire copy so you can cover something else. Because when it comes time for the editor to look around the room for cost savings, your beat needs to be local and indispensable.

Sports writers, listen up. If you’re not writing something more than the game story, then you’re next. An editor can get that same gamer from the wire.

Features writers, if what you’re covering is on the wire regularly, then your beat isn’t local enough. Food is a national topic. Travel is a national topic.

Business writers, you’re not immune either. Prominent media types are already advising newspapers to “outsource” all types of coverage.

Death by a thousand cuts. A slow death is happening as newspapers lose writers. Don’t let positions get cut because you didn’t have enough foresight to realize they were being wasted. Maybe circulation declines wouldn’t be so steep today if we’d ensured every beat in the room was local, and couldn’t be replaced by wire copy.

For the reason cuts alone won’t save newspapers, read my comment on Steve Yelvington’s post about outsourcing.

CraigsList lets readers post explicitly racist, homophobic and otherwise disgusting ads for housing. It does nothing to stop these posts. And the court just ruled that CraigsList has no legal obligation to stop any outright discrimination.

I understand why there can’t be a legal obligation to prevent these posts. Such a law would significantly curtail social networking’s recent explosion and probably bankrupt a few new business models.

But isn’t there a moral obligation? I’d quickly say yes if it weren’t for the nonexistent backlash from outraged users.

Perhaps users appreciate CraigsList helping them avoid replying to a crazed, racist person’s ad for “roommate wanted.”

What I do know is that if a newspaper ever printed those same CraigsList ads, the paper would field angry phone calls all day long. Much lower expectations for CraigsList.

Users seem to understand that CraigsList is an involuntary messenger for all types of people, racist and otherwise. They don’t blame the messenger because of an assumption that CraigsList isn’t capable of weeding out the bad stuff.

In his initial response to the lawsuit, CEO Jim Buckmaster took a surprising approach, belittling the complaints and praising CraigsList as a fountain of equality. He praised the flagging system and a link to housing rules that they call an “education” program.

Would have been nice if Buckmaster acknowledged that no system is perfect and that they’re working to make their’s better.

I hope that despite not being diplomatic, CraigsList is actually working on improvements.

Perhaps the recent use of its site to crackdown on the sex trade should be an eye-opener for CraigsList that flagging and education alone aren’t enough to maintain the “very highest moral high ground.”

That’s how CEO Jim Buckmaster described his Web site in response to a lawsuit that said racist postings for roommates and apartments are routinely allowed. He praised its system for reporting bad posts as the answer to the problem:

Discriminatory postings are exceedingly uncommon, and those few that do reach the site are typically removed quickly by our users through the flagging system that accompanies each ad.

But something in that flagging system isn’t working perfectly if Seattle police can post ads that catch prostitutes and ensnare Johns.

And I don’t think the problem will be solved if CraigsList just creates another “education” page, this one explaining to users that prostitution is wrong.

eBay has an entire staff dedicated to tracking down corruption. Wikipedia has volunteers fixing errors. I just think CraigsList should be trying harder instead of using the law as an excuse to rest on its laurels and do nothing more.

In earlier posts, I inferred that Craigslist’s only methods for eliminating racism and prostitution from its Web site are a flagging system and “education” pages. But it turns out there’s one other way – charging users.

Here’s how the San Diego Business Journal reported the new charge for job ads in that market:

According to Craigslist spokeswoman Susan MacTavish Best, the fee improves the quality of postings by discouraging abuse of a free service. “All changes to the Craigslist site come from user requests and that includes when and where we charge for ads,” she said. “As a CL site becomes more and more popular, it makes it time consuming for users to wade through repeat postings and spam-like ads.”

First, when did Craigslist start calling itself CL? Anyway . . .

My guess is Craigslist charges for ads in each of its largest markets only partly because it wants to curtail spam. It doesn’t hurt to make money.

San Diego isn’t the first place where Craigslist charges. San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City came first. And when ads aren't free, there are consequences.

Upon initiating those fee structures, Craigslist officials admit that the sheer number of job postings fell significantly in those markets, but insist the overall quality of postings increased.

All of this begs the question – and this is a real question – is it OK for newspapers to sabotage Craigslist?

Your responses are welcome in my next post.

Newspapers are losing millions of dollars to Craigslist. Lost revenue leads to layoffs and budget cuts. So, I have to ask, is it OK to sabotage Craigslist?

Seriously. It’s an option. So we should at least discuss it.

What’s stopping newspapers from hiring someone to post spam all day long? Or, what stops us from flagging legitimate posts until they’re automatically removed?

Craigslist has proven that when faced with spam, its only defense is charging users to post ads. So why allow Craigslist to usurp market share by masquerading as a free service only to later reveal its paid model? Why not even the playing field from the start? With spam.

Newspapers could use the money they’ll inevitably lose by competing with a free site to hire a lot of people to launch a spam offense.

Obviously, sabotage isn’t the high road. But it’s a road, and it works, right?

This isn't to say I advocate sabotage, just healthy debate. Comments are welcome.

On Monday, newspaper Web sites got an indication of whether they’re efforts to brand themselves as outlets for local shopping are working.

The Monday after Black Friday is one of the year’s biggest days for online shopping traffic.

Coincidentally, online traffic for newspapers has traditionally been pretty dead throughout the whole Thanksgiving period. The implication is that although users go online in huge numbers, they don't visit the newspaper site.

That should have changed this year, if the business folks were right.

Driven by the allure of new revenue, most of the largest newspaper sites have launched comprehensive “shopping” sections. Readers had a lot of time to get acquainted with these new services during the past year. But I doubt they are very interested.

Check your shopping stats. If there isn’t a spike in usage, the section is failing. If there is a spike, the section is on the right track.

Most shopping sections are failing when judged by this measure.

Instead, most shopping sections are judged by the amount of money they make. Advertisers are often part of the section only as a forced upsell. That creates a lot of empty revenue.

It's time for the pundits to put up or shut up, as they say. Show us the stats. Anyone have solid numbers to backup opinions on what you all think is working and what isn’t?

Said Philip Meyer, Knight Chair in Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:

"Things are so bad in the newspaper business today that I am inclined to root for all sorts of radical experiments that I would have opposed before. The industry has been too cautious in the past and needs to increase its rate of risk-taking. Citizen journalism might not work out, but it is worth trying."

If only it didn't take loss of market share and drastic budget cutting to make this industry less risk averse. But it does.

Too often we assume that everyone in the newspaper understands its slow march toward bankruptcy. But the truth is reporters and editors need constant reminding that things aren't going well financially.

The most powerful reminders come in the form of regular reports on circulation, revenue and revenue goals. Newspapers need more transparency in financial reporting if they truly want the people in the newsroom to wake up, and fast.

I've heard many a journalist complain that they already realize things aren't going well. Telling them over and over doesn't help, they claim. But I disagree. Remind them until they do something about it.

“Web monkey” work might not be glamorous or all that fun. It might be really early in the morning or really late at night. But I resent any implication that it’s not important.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be waking up just before 4:30 a.m. to do some of that monkey work. And I contend it is legitimate journalism.

Headline writing is extremely important online. The one line of text needed to make someone click is often not the same as the line needed to make a single-copy sale.

Writing good summaries to lure people into stories takes thought. The Poynter Institute has done eyetrack studies on how people read these things, for Pete’s sake.

Making sure all of a story’s elements – the headline, subhead, photo, caption, fact box, links, extras – are presented in a professional and usable way requires knowledge of what is usable.

These are the basics of good online journalism. And professors and students should not deride this type of work simply because it is repetitive.

The morning update isn’t part of my job anymore; just filling in tomorrow. But my first job was cutting and pasting every story from the newspaper into an online content management system. I worked well past midnight until it was done. And each day, before starting my cutting and pasting, I worked on improvements to the site. I learned about coding. I did other stuff.

As I said on Journalistopia, employees should not resign themselves to becoming only a cut-and-paste expert. And managers should respect them enough to provide new challenges. But let’s not forget what is learned by doing the so-called “monkey work.” Let’s not pretend a monkey could actually do a good job.

Here's a worthwhile internship, if you're looking.