Media-press

Online media and the traditional press coming online were until recently separated by a blind barrier. The first ones were typed up by programmers or semi-programmers who knew hypertext markup languages ​​and other programming languages ​​used to build websites; the latter looked poor and strange, since they were not rich in such specialists. Online media were managed by the first representatives of the now fashionable profession of content manager (an editor with the primary skills of a marketer, advertiser, programmer, layout designer, designer, programmer, etc.); Until recently, the sites of the “paper” press were generally not managed in any way. Finally, the former occupied the first lines of network ratings in terms of the number of visits; and the latter, no matter how popular they were offline, played at best the role of the middle peasant in the online table of ranks. It must be said that this situation that developed on the Russian Internet was almost unique (compared to other countries). And wrong.

Almost all the major publishing houses of the “real world” at one time stepped on the same rake - they tried to take money for their products directly. That is, if you want to read the article, please pay a bribe, even if it’s a small one. And it doesn’t matter where the article comes from - from the current issue of the publication or from the archive, which usually has a completely different readership. Of course, the point is not that you shouldn't try to make a profit for every unit of labor invested. Both journalists and publishers deserve to be paid just as much as salesmen or pilots. However, for those who, by virtue of their profession, came to the Internet earlier (programmers, scientists, providers) and spent some time there, it was clear that the Network functions in a special way. And it is better to make money not from selling information, but from advertising that accompanies it, co-branding and other, somewhat more intricate things than direct sales. That is why the founders of virtual information projects were concerns, corporations, and even individuals working at the intersection of the computer and news industries. This is how Zhurnal.Ru appeared in Russia (members of its “first lineup” can now be found in almost half of the major media projects), Polit.Ru, Russ.Ru, Gazeta.Ru, Vesti.Ru, Utro.Ru, Deadline.Ru , Km.Ru and other publications that are currently successfully operating in the media market.

So, the “newspaper” niche in the online market, if not already fully occupied, is quite densely populated. The niche to which we will give the code name “news feeds” is practically occupied by two monsters - Rbc.Ru and Lenta.Ru. The first, although founded by the completely offline consulting company Rosbusinessconsulting, can rightfully be considered an online publication, because from the very beginning it was designed “for the Network” and did not and does not have any paper analogues. Lenta.Ru, which occupies an intermediate position between a news agency and a constantly updated newspaper, was created by the famous journalist and producer Anton Nosik as part of the FEP (Effective Policy Foundation), which is also not involved in offline publishing.

And what is the “ordinary” press doing in the meantime - after all, by now all national-scale publications already have their own properly functioning websites? We will not analyze in detail the situation of each publication here; we will only note that in general the situation with “normal” media is far from ideal, although it is gradually improving. For details, the curious can contact counter.rambler.ru/top100, where the network-wide ranking of sites is located, which, whenever possible, acts as an external audit of traffic. Many representatives of online publishing projects are even inclined to believe that now there is nothing to be afraid of - it is clear that the “online” press has won. It seems that they are only half right - only the idea won, and not its bearers. It seems absolutely certain to me that most of the successful online publications will be bought out within a year by offline news corporations, who have realized that simply posting articles on the Internet is not enough, they need to be adapted and “sold” to the reader using specific online techniques. At the same time, the “normal” press put itself in the position of catching up - during the time it took for its bosses to “get it”, the threshold for entering this business rose from practically zero to many tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.