Thank you for the comment. We certainly do not want to “rush to reach the future” in advance of the market, and leave generations behind. And, as I often say, I think there will always be a role for print, broadcast and websites. I am still looking for ways to better integrate these products into a local information ecosystem. I think that will make the products stronger. Or, in another way of saying it, while we do not want to be ahead of the market, pushing where it is not ready to go, we do not want to be stuck only in packaged products.

Thanks for contributing to the conversation.

Chuck

I think you bring up some good points and I agree that the industry is moving in the direction you see it moving. But I think it’s moving that way in the same way we are moving toward landing a manned mission to Mars.

While the generation that is in its 20s and mid-30s (and the ones to follow it) might be moving toward instant, electronic content, you still have at least a couple of generations that depend on that daily print product, with it’s “outdated” delivery methods and content for much of it’s daily news. At my age (52), I would be lost without a physical daily newspaper. As a high school coach, my athletes and their families would be lost without actual physical clippings of their activities.

In the case of much of the oldest living generation, they aren’t even computer literate (or barely), and while mine is, we still primarily depend on the printed product for the “complete story.”

I fully agree that, for survival and future growth, the company needs to start planning for the day that the print product and regular TV news broadcasts become outdated. But for now they — to a big part of your consumers — are highly important. Before you start making wholesale changes, I hope you think about that fact. It would be tragic to see two whole generations thrown to the curb in a rush to reach the future.

If time allowed, I’d like to talk one-on-one with thousands of Eastern Iowan’s about their needs. I’d like to view their media habits. I’d like to ask probing questions about their habits. This is what is really needed. It is this information at the micro level that help us translate the users needs into an integrated system of products that Chuck refers to in a previous comment.

I’ve always had a high interest in understanding human behavior related to media usage. I’d like to start this massive data collection project to help guide us to where we need to go. Is there enough time in the day and days in the week to tackle this beast? We need to find the time.

Thanks for the feedback. I guess what I am saying, for clarification, is that it should not be a prerequisite as a consumer to give us all of their information before they can get to our content. I can get on board with that.

With that said, having specific information that is voluntarily given to us by said consumers provides us with a better network to provide targeted content. Not just in reported content, but targeted ad’s as well. Just knowing the mood of a consumer doesn’t tell me how old they are (Unless they are grouchy, I could confer that they are old!). I just want to make sure that when we build a local network, we don’t find ourselves in an awkward position down the line of wishing we had more information. Its never a bad idea to get as much information as possible, even if we don’t know what to do with it yet.

As we have discussed, focusing content creation on the product in the first instance is too limiting. If, however, we focus content creation on truly making a topic accessible to the community, we have more options as that information is highlighted in products, and individuals access it directly, without going through products.

There are many issues to be resolved as we create the local information network. I do think that those who think that knowing lots of demographic information about an individual helps deliver relevant content are not thinking specifically enough. And, people are nervous about sharing significant personal information. However, allowing each individual to “tune” their device according to their location, intent and mood, so that our stream of content results in highly relevant information to that individual is the best bet.