Will Podcasts become more popular than newspapers?

Newspaper companies are enduring the shift with difficulty, as people go from reading print newspapers to getting their classified advertisements and news articles on the Internet. The Newspaper Association of America doesn't have much to worry about, just yet, since newspaper websites continue to expand the advertising revenues of readers. So if individuals are not reading the newspapers in print form, at least they might be receiving the news online from the same news source, albeit via newspaper podcasts.

Although newspaper websites have been around for at least a decade, they've often failed to innovate, and have been chiefly used for allocating the same print stories online. However, times are indeed changing, as they are realizing they're going to have to do much more online if they plan to compete with the Television network and cable TV news sites, international newspaper sites and top-rated newspaper podcasts of Yahoo and Google.

The question is do the grandfathered-newspapers have what it takes to get involved in the Web 2.0? A recent survey from a Washington PR agency studied the Top 100 U. S. newspaper sites to find out which newspapers offered blogs, paper s podcasting, story comments, RSS, reader forums and bookmark features.

Out of the Top 100 U. S. newspaper sites, 80 of those newspapers have blogs. Of those 80 sites with blogs, 67 sites allow readers to comment on the blogs. The report notes that the Boston Globe's immense blogging actually encourages reader participation as well as interaction between citizens, reporters and journalists. Blogging is so ubiquitous, that nine of the Top ten, as well as nine out of the Bottom ten newspapers, offer blogs.

Unlike newspaper blogs, greater media podcasts are occupied by a minority of Top 100 newspaper websites, exactly 31 of them, via papers podcasting. The trend is much stronger on larger sites than the smaller ones. For example, six of the Top ten newspaper sites have greater media podcasts, while only two from the bottom 25 have podcasts. This discrepancy might be due to the extra production demanded of podcasts against blogs as well as the novelty of a news podcast.

Out of the Top 10 0, 61 news podcast sites offer video on their websites, which is a fairly strong number. However, the Bivings Group didn't reveal whether that video was AP video or an original video captured by the newspaper staff, or video submitted by its readers.

Out of the Top 100, 76 sites do have RSS feeds and practically all of them offer feeds for specific sections of the site. None of these feeds, however, are full-text feeds and not one of them have advertisements within the feeds.

Discuss the future of news with respect of podcasts and news papers.

The Bivings Group explains that they are basically using RSS like an email alert system, as they are notifying people that something new has been posted, but still attempting to push readers to their own websites. Moreover, while the newspapers are indeed using RSS, they are not yet permitting readers to read full-text in their own RSS readers without dropping in on the newspaper's website online. Maybe newspapers fear that by using the RSS feeds and p ermitting individuals to read entire newspaper articles with this technology, fewer people will actually visit the websites of podcasts and news.

Over time, it's likely that newspaper sites might see the value of offering podcasts and news with advertisements, as more people begin using the RSS feeds and favor to read articles inside the news reader.

Only 23 of the Top 100 U. S. newspaper websites require people to register so that they can have the opportunity to read news podcast articles. That seems extremely low and perhaps it's a sign that the websites don't have faith in the veracity of individuals giving their personal information online. Instead, the websites might depend on certain behavioral ads that are served according to the websites the individual has visited recently.

Only 19 sites afford readers to comment below each article, and only seven websites offer either internal or external bookmarking features. The low number on reader comments is a huge contrast to the 63 sit es that let individuals comment on blogs and greater media podcasts. It's possible that it could be an issue of resources and the time it takes to regulate comments on stories. Maybe it could be the vulnerability of editors and reporters who have no desire for reader comments on their stories.

As for social bookmarking, that seems to be no problem for newspaper sites. People bookmarking their podcasts and news stories would generate more readers. Whether the individual reader prefer blogs or newspaper podcasts, the traditional print newspaper as we know it is gradually becoming extinct.

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