The Daily Beast: New Approach to Old Media?
November 2nd, 2009
The Beast is run by publishing industry heavy-hitters Tina Brown and Edward Felsenthal, former editors of Vanity Fair and The Wall Street Journal respectively. Brown explains the lack of advertisements in this way, “At this point, in this first phase, we’re only focusing on the content and building the audience.”
The Daily Beast is indeed gaining market share by providing compelling content from A-list contributors like Meghan McCain, Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice. According to a New York Times article, The Daily Beast had reached three million unique visitors per month as of September 2009. While this still trails far behind New York Times and is only a third of the traffic Huffington Post receives each month the gestational period of The Daily Beast is over. It is ready to be monetized.
With old timers like Brown and Felsenthal calling the shots, one might expect The Beast to be run in the same way as many old media companies: traditional advertising units (ala VanityFair.com) or paid content (ala WSJ.com). But the opposite is true. I can assume they have seen the same thing I have: the dotcom boom turned into a bust when advertising dollars ran out; and the publishing crash of the late 2000’s is being fueled by banner-blindness and out-of-date advertising techniques.
With a focus on creating quality content, The Daily Beast has stealthily integrated advertisements within engaging content areas. Often the home page will include a custom advertisement in the dynamic lead on the home page. The search box is sponsored by Ask.com, with a tiny, unobtrusive logo next to the search button. From a design perspective, The Daily Beast is innovative. They are not using the same templates for every page, giving the reader the feeling that something is unique about each channel page. They include much of the newest thinking on page content features and page layout, typography that is easy to scan and editorial features that reflect a modern person’s distaste for information overload.
The Daily Beast is also innovative in seeking alternative revenue models. Beast Books is a new venture that leverages The Daily Beast brand. It is an alternative revenue model, in partnership with Perseus Books, that seeks to publish e-books on a shortened timeline. Perseus is paying The Daily Beast to cover the cost of creating books. Perseus will distribute the titles and split the revenue with The Daily Beast.
Big media is dying. Many great journalists are losing their jobs. Everyone in the publishing business is trying to figure out how to make reporting lucrative again. The Daily Beast may be looking at a red sky, trying to gain market share in an old vertical, but they may have the answer we all seek. Their innovative approach to monetizing content creation and distribution is getting readers’ attention.
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Works Consulted
“The Daily Beast.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 18 October 2009, 05:55 CST. Wikimedia Foundation, Incorporated. Web. 29 October 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Beast.
Kramer, Staci D. “Tina Brown’s Daily Beast Starts With A Growl, Not A Roar.” PaidContent.org. ContentNext Media Inc. 05 October 2008, 8:01 EST. Web. 29 October 2009. http://paidcontent.org/article/419-tina-browns-dailybeast-starts-with-a-growl-not-a-roar/.
Rich, Motoko. “Daily Beast Seeks to Publish Faster.” The New York Times. The New York Times Company. 28 September 2009. Web. 29 October 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/books/29beas.html?_r=1.
Saba, Jennifer. “EXCLUSIVE: Huffington Post Passes WashingtonPost.com in Unique Visitors, in September.” Editor & Publisher. Nielsen Media, Marketing & Arts Group. 15 September 2009. Web. 29 October 2009. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004022708.
