ITZPublishing

Journalism Online

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Cindy Rosenthal 917-226-0666


Journalism Online Links With ITZ Publishing to Serve News Publishers Pursuing New Online Revenue Initiatives

NEW YORK, June 26, 2009 — Journalism Online, LLC today announced that it has retained ITZ Publishing to lead its efforts in working with small- and medium- sized newspaper companies to maximize their online revenue opportunities. ITZ Publishing professionals in marketing and new product development will help these Journalism Online affiliate news publishers design marketing and packaging strategies for online subscriptions, micropayments and combined online/print subscription packages.

The announcement was made jointly by Journalism Online co-founders Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz and by ITZ Publishing founder Greg Swanson.  

“Greg Swanson and the ITZ Publishing team have been market leaders in developing breakthrough solutions for news publishers,” Journalism Online’s Co-founder Steven Brill said.  “We’re going to take that expertise and the company’s analytic strengths and world class tools and put them to work for Journalism Online’s affiliates across the country.”

ITZ, based in Portland, Oregon, will help Journalism Online affiliates assess their audience usage patterns in order to build pay strategies using Journalism Online technology to maximize these new, significant revenue opportunities. 

“There is an enormous opportunity for news publishers to generate subscription and other revenues from readers online, while still attracting a large audience of people accessing news for free and providing advertisers with significant opportunities,” Journalism Online’s Co-founder Gordon Crovitz said. “The marketing and data analysis expertise of ITZ Publishing will be especially valuable to publishers in retaining a large number of unique visitors and page views online while converting many free users to paying subscribers.”

“We’re pleased to join efforts with Journalism Online to help news publishers develop new products, strategies and revenue streams,” ITZ Publishing founder Greg Swanson said. “There’s no higher priority today for publishers than the creation of strategies to maximize subscription and other paid content revenue opportunities. Our company has a history of working closely and in innovative ways with publishers and we’re going to bring these approaches to this new partnership.”

About Journalism Online, LLC 
Founded in April 2009 by experienced media executives Steven Brill, Gordon Crovitz, and Leo Hindery, Jr., Journalism Online, whose services launch this fall, will enable news publishers to generate new revenues from readers and distributors for their digital content and to restore the optimal mix of circulation and advertising revenue necessary to finance original reporting and editing. Journalism Online is pioneering the effort to make the transition to a paid online model successful for publishers while giving readers easy access to the news they want, when they want it, on the web and through other forms of digital distribution. For more information visit: http://www.journalismonline.com.

About ITZ Publishing
ITZ works with leading media groups and publishers to develop and execute comprehensive online plans that build traffic and drive online revenues. Past and present customers include The Dallas Morning News, Media News Group’s Denver Post, Salt Lake Tribune and L.A. Daily News; The Philadelphia Inquirer; Swift Communications; Washington Post Community Newspapers; many independent newspapers; and non-newspaper clients including The Business Report, Folio Magazine and the National Retail Federation.

Impact Engine chooses ITZ as distribution partner

For Immediate Release: June 23, 2009

Contact: Ellie Krausova, 858.412.8531, ellie@impactengine.com

SAN DIEGO, CA --- Impact Engine, the advertising technology company that pioneered display-ad campaign performance optimization, announces a new partnership with ITZ Publishing Inc., national experts in online media strategy and sales. The partnership names ITZ as Impact Engine’s exclusive distribution partner to online newspaper and magazine verticals.

“We are pleased to announce the ITZ Publishing distribution partnership,” says Neil Greer, CEO of Impact Engine. “ITZ provides an exceptional network of relationships with online publishers and media groups that’s founded on their talent for delivering measurable results.”

Impact Engine and Portland-based ITZ Publishing will work together to deliver Impact Engine’s new advertiser self-service solution to newspaper and magazine publishers. The tool has attracted premier Yahoo Consortium members such as Media News Group and Lee Enterprises as well as other newspapers.

“This relationship leverages both organizations’ strengths,” says ITZ Publishing CEO Greg Swanson. “Impact Engine’s advertiser self-service offering and ITZ’ expertise in driving online ad sales should prove compelling to the publishing industry. We are pleased to join efforts with Neil Greer and his team.”

Impact Engine's advertiser self-service solution helps publishers scale their revenues even while facing reduced resources. The new toolset was developed in collaboration with industry leaders and is approved for use by the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium.

Impact Engine is certified as a third-party rich-media vendor by both Yahoo! and Google as well as hundreds of individual websites and online publications. The new solution requires no technical knowledge of Flash to create dynamic and effective ads, update content and creative, and report campaign metrics in real time.

For more information about Impact Engine and the partnership with ITZ Publishing, please contact Ellie Krausova at 858.412.8531 or ellie@impactengine.com.

ITZ and Belden launch paid-content analysis

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  Sept. 1, 2009
Contact: Greg Harmon,  415.566.4348                        
Contact: Greg Swanson, 503-241-3650
                       
ITZ AND BELDEN LAUNCH BENCHMARK ANALYSIS OF ONLINE MEDIA REVENUE INITIATIVES, INCLUDING FEES FOR CONTENT
The ongoing study will assist publishers in selecting new means of revenue generation by providing an industrywide comparison of sales strategies and their impact on total online revenues.

PORTLAND — ITZ Publishing combines its expertise in online media revenue with Belden Interactive research to launch a benchmark study, monitoring news media companies' online revenue initiatives. The ITZBelden partnership will maintain a database detailing companies’ revenues from all sources, including subscriptions, special sections, paid content, banner ads and others.

The database will be updated regularly, as media companies complete surveys of their ongoing and new revenue initiatives. In exchange for their data, companies receive customized reports showing how they stack up against their peers in revenues generated from individual initiatives and total online revenues.

Among the sources helping to feed the ITZBelden database is the American Press Institute, which is promoting the survey to its media members across the country. More than 1,300 companies have been invited to participate in the ITZBelden project.

In addition, more than 500 affiliates of Journalism Online, provider of an online content-payment system, is also contributing monthly updates on the impact of their pay-for-content initiatives on total revenues.

Belden CEO Greg Harmon and ITZ CEO Greg Swanson created the benchmark initiative to help publishers determine new strategies, responding to a changing media landscape. The Internet in recent years has impacted publishers’ audience size and composition, patterns of news consumption, advertising pricing and competition.

The ITZBelden analysis will make apparent the effectiveness of different initiatives being tested by news media companies and the impact of each on total online revenue.

"Publishers are innovating in every revenue category," says Swanson, ITZ CEO. "But the results of these experiments are not yet in. This database will provide online publishers a way to benchmark their own efforts against a very large number of their peers every month.”

An overview of results from the first ITZBelden surveys will be presented at an invitation-only API conference, Sept. 13-15, 2009, in Washington, D.C.

Portland-based ITZ Publishing is a leading voice nationwide in Internet revenue development for news media companies. www.itzpublishing.com.

Belden Interactive, based in San Francisco, specializes in audience research for Internet companies, with a focus on the news and information industry. www.beldeninteractive.com.

For more information about the surveys, contact Greg Swanson at greg@itzpublishing.com  , or (503) 241-3650.

Publications interested in participating in the surveys may contact Greg Harmon at itzharmon@gmail

Adicio

Strategic Partnership Provides Sales Help for
Adicio Classifieds Software Clients

Carlsbad, CA (July 6, 2009) – Adicio, the Internet’s leading developer of web-based classified advertising solutions, announced a new strategic partnership with ITZ Publishing, a national website development and sales training provider. Through the agreement, Adicio’s clients will be able to enlist ITZ Publishing’s services to assist their sales staff in online sales, or handle direct sales if clients don’t have an existing in-house sales team.
 
“The key to engaging print sales people in online sales is providing them with a clear understanding of what they are selling and what it is worth.” said Greg Swanson, CEO of ITZ Publishing. “Our sales training provides clients with a compelling value proposition that their sales people can explain and their advertisers will understand so they can meet and exceed their online revenue.”

The ITZ sales training program provides Adicio clients with independent audience research, consumer behavioral research, presentation tools specifically designed to increase the relevancy and impact of the research, the creation of sales collateral, including sample ads and proposals, as well as training in prospecting and appointment setting and direct sales by ITZ Publishing’s sales staff. Several Adicio clients have already signed up to participate in the ITZ service.

“This new partnership assists select clients with their online sales efforts and gives them access to valuable resources and sales staff at a time when media companies need it most.” says Tony Lee, Chief Alliance Officer of Adicio. “The fact that ITZ can provide feet-on-the-street sales help is very appealing, especially to smaller sites that are eager to receive direct sales support in addition to the many services we provide, including real estate, automotive, job and resume database platforms, full e-commerce functionality, Virtual Job Fair technology and targeted data aggregation.”
About ITZ Publishing
ITZ Publishing is a consulting firm that works with leading newspaper groups and publishers to develop and execute comprehensive online plans with a focus on building traffic and online revenues. Current active customers include Media News Group newspapers (The Denver Post, Salt Lake Tribune, LA Daily News), The Philadelphia Inquirer, Swift Communications, Wick Communications, Washington Post Community Newspapers and many independent newspapers. For more information on their services, please visit www.itzpublishing.com or call 503.241.3650 or 800.647.6917.
About Adicio, Inc.
Adicio develops interactive classified advertising software solutions for the careers, real estate, and motors markets, which serve the Internet’s leading media companies and web portals. With its award-winning technology and enterprise-class software platforms, domain expertise, and customer service, Adicio delivers a private-label application that seamlessly integrates within online classified advertising offerings, enabling clients to generate revenue and retain their brand while building and managing their online classified efforts. Clients can deploy Adicio’s software as a turnkey solution or customize Adicio’s application to leverage existing brand strategy and support online sales and marketing objectives. Adicio also powers CareerCast.com, a job search portal and JobsRated.com, where 200 jobs across North America are ranked based on detailed analysis of specific careers factors. For more information, please visit www.adicio.com, or call 760.602.9502 or 800.276.1332.

ITZ in the News

The Financial Times has emerged as one of the most successful newspapers to navigate the transition from a traditional, ad-supported business model to a model incorporating paid content and other diverse revenue streams.

"FT.com does not limit access to any particular piece of content, nor does it identify some as free and others as requiring payment. Rather than charging for content, the FT charges based on frequency of use. If you are an infrequent visitor to the site, you may never realize the site is not completely free," ITZBelden reported earlier this week in its new report, "2010 Paid Access Models: Practices and Profiles."

In the past two years, economic turmoil, eroding print circulation and a variety of other factors have prompted newspaper publishers across the industry to look at paid content, including charging for reading newspaper content online.

ITZBelden released the report, which focused primarily on paid online content and replica e-editions, earlier this week. The report was in partnership the American Press Institute, with information and support from Mather Economics and NewMediaHub.com.

ITZBelden estimates that of approximately 1,600 U.S. and Canadian daily newspapers, 60 percent have some paid access to their Web site (including e-edition replicas). The estimate is based on an ITZBelden/API Executive Survey from September 2009.

Some of these newspapers are having more success charging for online content than others. The report looks at more than a dozen newspapers, including Newsday, the Lima (Ohio) News, and The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash. It also analyzes multiple models, including paid online subscriptions and membership programs.

Of course, the model that works for one newspaper won't work for another. The demographics of each market and the audience for each publication's Web site will factor into these decisions. As the Financial Times has figured out, different audiences (fly-by readers versus heavy online users, for example) present different challenges and opportunities.

"It is unlikely that charging for access to news will be a solution for all markets. But charging for news is only one dimension of paid access. Charging for premium content, using paid content as a driver of new product development, partnering with deep niche content suppliers to develop new content channels, charging for services or database access are all emerging as potentially important revenue streams," according to the report.

Among ITZBelden's suggestions:

• Set pricing high to begin and work down, not the other way around.
  
• Implement approaches based on local market conditions. One-size-fits-all pricing and offerings do not exist.
  
• Provide for easy, "low-friction" transactions for low-frequency use - story, session, day and week-long access.
  
• Involve the marketing team in addressing objections to paid access.

Sources for the report included proprietary Belden Interactive local market studies, an executive survey produced by ITZBelden (in partnership with API) last year, executive interviews by ITZBelden and NewMediaHub.com's Alisa Cromer, data analysis by Mather Economics and and client-submitted information.

Clients who purchase the report ($500) will receive both a PowerPoint and narrative including case studies and analysis on payment structures, bundling practices, newspaper reach, paid content competition and more. To purchase the report, download this order form or contact Greg Harmon at harmon@beldeninteractive.com.

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Adicio Partners with ITZ to Offer Online Sales Services
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