A hundred years ago in 1974 I was a full-time daily newspaper reporter fresh out of school. Salary: $5,400/year. Best job I ever had. But, other than blunt stale data points like subscriber sign ups or cancellations and inclining or declining ad rates, no one, especially me, had any idea whether anyone was actually reading what we wrote. Or why? When? In what order? My long-experienced miserable mean managing editors that I idolized operated on instinct or habit.

Some recent posts here have been interpreted to mean that these days I am anti mainstream media. Here, for example, on the 13th, Rich at Copywrite, Ink attempts to fathom what to him seems like my ambiguity on the matter. He's right. There are lots of reasons, but I'm really trying hard to stay on message lately, as in one message at a time and in something less than 6,000 words.

Today's message is simply this: I don't know how long mainstream hard copy based newspapers, for example, can endure and compete not knowing what online properties can know about the audience being increasingly sought by both. I don't know how they serve up content that they know is good and even more importantly, I have no idea how they will continue convincing advertisers that the ads are being seen. You know, no ads, no newspaper.

it isn't clear to me that everyone over the age of 23 really understands this

New media hipsters get the following, but I'm going to say it anyway because it isn't clear to me that everyone over the age of 23 really understands this: Thanks to analytics in general, and especially to an astonishing new product called Clicky, which famous Steve Rubel turned us on to, and that was well-reviewed here by Todd Zeigler in theBivingsreport, know-nothing dummies like me know a ton about our readers:

We know if they are new or returning; when they arrive; from whence they came via the Internet and how they found us; how long they hung around; what stories they saw; in what order they roamed the various stories and other items offered on our property, and generally physically, what part of the world they live in. We know how many in total arrive by the minute, hour, day, week, month and year. We know which days favor certain stories or posts of any kind. We know if long is better than short. We even know what kind of software and browsers our readers use, which I guess is like knowing where gramps sits and upon what when he reads the paper? Basically, on our blog we have our very own Nielson ratings machine with real-time, all-the-time, anytime hard data feedback. Maybe unless you've been a writer all your life the miracle of all this is missed?

Never mind the argument that a newspaper isn't a blog and vice versa. I know that. They're different. But both seek readers. My only point here is that online media with analytics has an overwhelming advantage when it comes to knowing what readers like, why, when, where, how often, to what length, in what order and so on. I'm nostalgic about newspapers. But in this day and age I wouldn't have any idea how to sustain the life of a traditional, establishment, hard-copy, hand-delivered, subscriber-based, door-to-door metropolitan daily to people and households about which so little is known when it comes to reader habits and preferences.

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