Next, the rest of my soliloquy about pay walls, registration, metered content, online advertising and generating and protecting good local content.

This paragraph summarizes the industry's "outrageous fortune": Advertising Age recently reported that while newspaper websites reach more than one-third of all U.S. web users but "their share of all digital advertising is much smaller than that - and declining." The magazine quotes PricewaterhouseCoopers as reporting that newspapers' share of digital ad revenue has fallen from 16.2 percent in 2007 to 11.4 percent in 2009 and is heading for 7.9 percent in 2014.

Advertising Age had these good words to say: "...Advertisers trust newspapers to provide safe, sober environments for their brands and ... marketers want newspapers' authority to rub off on their ads." But the gap is closing.

Newspaper cost per thousand ad rates in April were $6.99, compared with an overall average of $2.52. But non-newspaper news sites - Yahoo News, MSNBC.com and Examiner.com - are closing fast, and averaged $6.14 CPMS in April, according to ComScore.

Aggregators - led by the behemoth Google but followed by many others (such as Topix and Fwix) - became players simply by indexing news generated by others, mostly newspapers.

So, many of us in the industry are looking at solutions.

1. A key effort is to understand and block aggregators from using content generated by newspapers from being used by aggregators to compete with newspapers. At TownNews.com, we work hard - in coordination with newspapers - to identify and block aggregators who pirate content from newspaper websites. This is an ongoing project with moving targets. U.S. copyright law is a potential ally in this fight.
2. Registration tools are being implemented for many reasons. Registration information potentially helps newspapers sell more (and higher-priced) targeted advertising. Registration also helps curb abusive language used by consumers commenting on news stories. And, registration can generate lead lists that can help the newspaper target potential customers for subscription products.
3. Pay walls are being used in hopes of growing circulation revenue.For some 250 years, newspapers have been funded by a combination of advertising and circulation revenue, and pay walls are an effort to restore that formula. Pay walls are also being used to protect traditional print circulation revenue.
4. Metering is being tested (and implemented) at online newspapers around the world. Metering allows newspapers to permit readers to access a limited number of stories (or page views) before a registration form or a pay wall appears. TownNews.com is one of several companies that have developed this technology, but we openly admit that tech savvy folks can trick the registration or pay walls. (This is true of all the technology we know about.) Still, we think the technology is worth pursuing.

Technology is secondary to content. Media critic Ari Rosenberg contends that "great content should be purchased. Inferior content should be voted off the island." For many years, newspapers made a fortune in advertising and circulation based on content produced by others (and delivered by wire services). That content is largely inferior, and is getting voted off the island.

During the current Great Recession, newspapers slashed their newsrooms and hurt their best asset, good local content. Rosenberg said that "by lowering the level of commitment required online, publishers lowered their own value."

I spent 14 years as editor/publisher/janitor of a weekly newspaper. We had a loyal, even dedicated readership that willingly (and some even eagerly) bought subscriptions because they wanted a good newspaper covering their community.

Weekly newspapers, I believe, have a higher level of loyalty from their readers because the weeklies produce all local content (as compared to dailies who filled their news columns with wire copy). Readers will support (and even pay money for) good community news coverage. Most people understand the old saying "there is no free lunch."

If newspapers - in print and online - produce great (mostly local) content they can charge readers and advertisers. If newspapers continue to - in Rosenberg's words - "lower their own value," no amount of technology can save them.

Now is the time to "take up arms against a sea of troubles." That means producing better products, which readers and advertisers will respect and support.

To not change, in Shakespeare's words: "Makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of."

(Marc Wilson is general manager and founder of TownNews.com. He's reachable at marcus@townnews.com.)

First, my apologies to Bill Shakespeare. Next, the rest of my soliloquy about pay walls, registration, metered content, online advertising and generating and protecting good local content.

This paragraph summarizes the industry's "outrageous fortune": Advertising Age recently reported that newspaper websites reach more than one-third of all U.S. web users but "their share of all digital advertising is much smaller than that - and declining." The magazine quotes PricewaterhouseCoopers as reporting that newspapers' share of digital ad revenue has fallen from 16.2 percent in 2007 to 11.4 percent in 2009 and is heading for 7.9 percent in 2014.

Advertising Age had these good words to say: "...Advertisers trust newspapers to provide safe, sober environments for their brands and ... marketers want newspapers' authority to rub off on their ads." But the gap is closing. Newspaper cost per thousand ad rates in April were $6.99, compared with an overall average of $2.52. But non-newspaper news sites - Yahoo News, MSNBC.com and Examiner.com - are closing fast, and averaged $6.14 CPMS in April, according to ComScore.

Aggregators - led by the behemoth Google but followed by many others (such as Topix and Fwix) - became players simply by indexing news generated by others, mostly newspapers.

So, many of us in the industry are looking at solutions.

1. A key effort is to understand and block aggregators from using content generated by newspapers from being used by aggregators to compete with newspapers. At TownNews.com, we work hard - in coordination with newspapers - to identify and block aggregators who pirate content from newspaper websites. This is an ongoing project with moving targets. U.S. copyright law is a potential ally in this fight.
2. Registration tools are being implemented for many reasons. Registration information potentially helps newspapers sell more (and higher-priced) targeted advertising. Registration also helps curb abusive language used by consumers commenting on news stories. And, registration can generate lead lists that can help the newspaper target potential customers for subscription products.
3. Pay walls are being used in hopes of growing circulation revenue. For some 250 years, newspapers have been funded by a combination of advertising and circulation revenue, and pay walls are an effort to restore that formula. Pay walls are also being used to protect traditional print circulation revenue.
4. Metering is being tested (and implemented) at online newspapers around the world. Metering allows newspapers to permit readers to access a limited number of stories (or page views) before a registration form or a pay wall appears. TownNews.com is one of several companies that have developed this technology, but we openly admit that tech savvy folks can trick the registration or pay walls. (This is true of all the technology we know about.) Still, we think the technology is worth pursuing.

Technology is secondary to content. Media critic Ari Rosenberg contends that "great content should be purchased. Inferior content should be voted off the island." For many years, newspapers made a fortune in advertising and circulation based on content produced by others (and delivered by wire services). That content is largely inferior, and is getting voted off the island.

During the current Great Recession, newspapers slashed their newsrooms and hurt their best asset, good local content. Rosenberg said that "by lowering the level of commitment required online, publishers lowered their own value."

I spent 14 years as editor/publisher/janitor of a weekly newspaper. We had a loyal, even dedicated readership that willingly (and some even eagerly) bought subscriptions because they wanted a good newspaper covering their community.

Weekly newspapers, I believe, have a higher level of loyalty from their readers because the weeklies produce all local content (as compared to dailies who filled their news columns with wire copy.) Readers will support (and even pay money) for good community news coverage. Most people understand the old saying "there is no free lunch."

If newspapers - in print and online - produce great (mostly local) content they can charge readers and advertisers. If newspapers continue to - in Rosenberg's words - "lower their own value," no amount of technology can save them.

Now is the time to "take up arms against a sea of troubles." That means producing better products, which readers and advertisers will respect and support.

(Marc Wilson is general manager and founder of TownNews.com. He's reachable at marcus@townnews.com.)