Web-to-print update

Using the web to bring content to the print medium seems to be a growing trend. I already mentioned in a previous post AlwaysOn's blogazine (with content re-edited from the AlwaysOn collective blog); Startlog's plan to use content from the thousands of blogs they host (Startlog is a Dutch blog platform) to create a magazine; several attempts by dailies and newsweeklies to repackage online content for suplements or columns (L'Hebdo, IHT, FT).  And I've profiled Notebook, the world's first print magazine that's completely user-generated (although they only publish pictures and captions, so it's a specific kind of magazine).

Now Il Sole-24Ore, Italy's financial daily, has started doing something similar, by calling for contributions from young people (16-25) to its Thursday innovation section Nòva: it's called OpenNòva; Switzerland's tabloid Blick is asking readers to send in pictures and news; and here comes a US bimonthly magazine - called JPG, that's their cover on the left - that plans to have amateur photographers compete to have their work showcased in their print publication (via Virtual Economics) - the best and most deserving content being selected by the users through the magazine's website. As Steve Yelvington comments:

It's human nature to compete for scarce resources. Online space isn't scarce, but print always is scarce. I wonder what use newspapers could make of this principle.

If they're smart, they can make a great use. Inviting people into their online information processes is relatively easy: but figuring out ways to leverage user-generated content and integrate it in the print products is more complicated. Yet, as all the examples above show - and I will add mine soon, I'm working on it - web-to-print is becoming a compelling model, despite the sneering of those who believe that print is dead (they should pay attention to a fact: online is growing faster, but print is still growing, too).

Comments

[Kimberley]

Fantastic story, thanks for the info.