How weekly Stern attracts 5 million readers per week to click its online edition?
In the online world of weekly news magazines it is two kinds of editors. So-called traditional ones whose might be excellent print editors but actually have difficulties to understand that it is not OK if website is “dead” (not updated) for a week or if it is only copy-paste version of paper mother. And in this business it is other, still rare, kind of editors which eventually gets what all welcomes – increase of income attracting more unique users every single day. Dr. Lutz Kinkel, deputy editor of www.stern.de, explains why online editions and clicks are so important even for the second largest German magazine with circulation of roughly about million sold copies.
Kinkel: Now days as a big magazine you need home page for your personal image, to communicate with the users and to penetrate younger people. Previous generations were focused on print magazines and newspapers, younger generation is heaving a wild mix of media in which the SMS, computer games and internet play important role. So if you do not want to lose these readers then you have to have home page. Clicks are the sort to say coin you are paid. In Germany we measure the clicks in a way you can say how much you have unique users. In the case of stern.de it is 5 million users which are coming every week. If you have a lot of unique users you can argues with this advertisement guys saying “We are even bigger than normal print magazine.”
Is it any other benefits for Stern magazine?
Kinkel: Home page is also used as platform for distribution of the magazine. You can subscribe and for publisher it is extremely comfortable because usually you have to go from door to door showing the magazine and to pay a hell lot of money to people running around and here it is sold simply by home page.
Cost free culture is in the heart of every internet user and print magazines, expecting more profit in a future, already invested millions to create online editions. Startup investments have not been repaid and in the most of the cases online editions are not profitable. Is it the case with stern.de?
Kinkel: As fare as I know, as editor, we are now days sending money. But income is definitely increasing and it is increasing on a range let say 20 maybe 30 and sometimes even 50 percent a year. If you count your fingers you can easily say OK it needs two maybe three years, but then stern.de will generate certain profit. So on in all we are financially dependant of Stern magazine but stern.de has own business development. You can not take guys from print, because they do not know what to integrate in online business.
What is uniqueness of stern.de comparing with its main competitors - Der Spiegel and Focus?
Kinkel: Der Spegel has the largest home page of the all German magazine, but what we are trying is to integrate a lot of photos. Stern.de wants to be visual leader and to entertain people with good design and photostrechen (photo and small information about it). We find out that users enjoy it very much – it is short, very quick, visual and people do like it. From same reasons we also do tests concerning the knowledge, for example about big ships. Users usually have about 20 questions, multiple choices and when they complete it feedback regarding their knowledge.
How much blogging is interesting for Stern.de readers?
Kinkel: Stern blogs is something we tried on our home page inviting journalists from print magazine and other writers to write for us diary. Wee have big variation of topics. Some are concentrated on computer games, others on exotic places telling Germans hove people in Laos and Vietnam live. But I have to add that only blogs which are exposing the person itself are successful. Blogs wich are dealing with relationships,love, plain daily life. Blogs which are very intimate and personal are the stuff which is a drug for readers. Problem with our blogs is that they are written by journalists which are not willing to expose them selves as a private persons.
The most of the content on stern.de is free. Do you have anything, like access to archive, that is available to users only if they pay?
Kinkel: Archive are for free, but it is small part which should be sold. For example, Hans-Ulrich Jörges. He is writing every week a commentary in the print magazine and it is really important because he is very influential as the leading political journalists. If you want to read on home page his commentary you have to pay one euro. But, as far as I know the business it doesn’t work that good, because in internet everybody expect to get everything for nothing. Also on http://view.stern.de, one of the sites which belong to Stern user can for certain amount to buy space, publish photos and post comment. It is high successful. Everybody can see all photos for free. It is like competition between users – Who got the best? Some of the photos are picked and published in a print magazine and it is a sort of kick that your photography could be published in magazine like Stern. I think that is why this project is highly successful.
Behind the small heart icon in witty placed navigation bar, next to search option, stern.de offers, for 100 euros membership in Parship. Is it so lucrative to offers dating services?
Kinkel: It is a independent dating agency and we just provide this small symbol on our home page so that users can click on that and you can get some money. This is it – a form of advertising, little bit hidden advertising.
Thanks to:
Frank Chickowore, Zimbabwean journalist for editing
Mongkhon Vongsam-ang, Lao journalist for photo
Pecanje čitalaca
O tome kako privući pet miliona čitalaca da svake nedelje kliknu na onlajn izdanje njuz magazina, za NIN govori dr Luc Kinkel, zamenik glavnog i odgovornog urednika elektronske verzije nemačkog “Šterna”
Nemačka je epicentar fudbalske groznice zvane World Cup 2006. od koje se očekuje i da pogura lokalnu ekonomiju... Istovremeno, Nemačka je i zemlja magazina (oko 6000!), čiji urednici trenutno uglavnom trljaju ruke sabirajući koliko evra će uzeti od oglašivača. Koliko će ko trljati ruke zavisi i od toga koliko je para i truda prethodnih godina uloženo u sopstvena on-lajn izdanja.
Prema podacima Verband DeutcherZeitschriftenverleger, prošle godine je oko 271 miliona evra potrošeno da bi se razne reklame i baneri našli na sajtovima nemačkih medija, što je skoro 11 puta više nego 1998.
Dr Luc Kinkel, zamenik glavnog i odgovornog urednika http://www.stern.de (onlajn izdanja Šterna), u intervjuu za NIN objašnjava zašto su onlajn izdanja toliko značajna za jedan od najvećih nemačkih nedeljnika sa milionskim tiražom. Na početku razgovora naglašava:
- U današnje vreme svaki veliki magazin mora da ima home page, svoje elektronsko izdanje, zbog imiya, ali i komunikacije sa čitaocima... Pogotovo ako želi da privuče mlađe čitaoce. Prethodne generacije su bile fokusirane na magazine i dnevne novine. Mlađe generacije imaju na raspolaganju divlji miks medija – od SMS-a do kompjuterskih igrica i interaktivnih mapa. U njihovom svetu Internet ima veoma važnu ulogu i ako ne želite da izgubite ove čitaoce morate da imate svoje elektronsko izdanje. I to ne bilo kakvo, već odlično. U slučaju Šterna govorimo o pet miliona korisnika nedeljno koji dođu na naš sajt.
Zašto su “klikovi” na sajtu značajni?
- U Nemačkoj su „klikovi” na sajtu novčić koji vas hrani. Njima merimo uspešnost, tako
da tačno znamo koliko jedinstvenih korisnika (unique users) imamo na sajtu. Ukoliko imate puno jedinstvenih korisnika, možete da se ubeđujete sa ljudima iz marketinga i oglašivačima jer uvek možete da kažete: “Mi smo čak veći od normalnog štampanog magazina.”
Kakve koristi od toga ima Štern koji se štampa na papiru?
- Sajt se takođe koristi i kao platforma za distribuciju magazina. Preko onlajn izdanja možete da se pretplatite i na Štern na papiru, što je izuzetno ugodna pozicija za izdavača. Pre ste morali da odvojite mnogo, mnogo para kako biste platili ljude koji su trčali na sve strane, sa magazinom u ruci, i ubeđivali ljude da se pretplate. Preko sajta pretplata je jednostavnija i brža, a to je ono što današnji čitaoci traže.
S jedne strane, u srcu svakog Internet korisnika je da ono što želi dobije besplatno, a, sa druge strane, mediji su investirali milione evra očekujući profit od onlajn izdanja. Većina nije uspela da povrati uloženo, tj. nisu profitabilni. Da li je to slučaj i sa stern.de?
- Ono što znam kao urednik jeste da mi trošimo pare, ali se i profit definitivno povećava. Stopa rasta je otprilike između 30 i 50 odsto godišnje. Čak i ako, kao ja, niste mnogo spretni sa brojevima, na prste možete da izbrojite koliko vam je godina potrebno da povratite uloženo. U našem slučaju mislim da ćemo za dve, možda tri godine moći da kažemo: OK, sada stern.de generiše značajan profit. Sve u svemu, mi smo još finansijski zavisni od Šterna, ali imamo svoje ljude za razvoj biznisa.
Šta je ono što razlikuje stern.de u odnosu na konkurente kao što su “Špigl” i “Fokus”?
- Špigl ima najveći sajt od svih nemačkih magazina, ali ono što mi pokušavamo jeste da integrišemo mnogo fotografija. Stern.de želi da se nametne kao vizuelni lider i da privučemo čitaoce dobrim dizajnom i odličnim foto-galerijama i foto-reportažama na sajtu. Otkrili smo da korisnici u tome uživaju jer je kratko, brzo i zabavno.
Gotovo sav sadržaj na stern.de je besplatan. Da li postoji nešto što naplaćujete, recimo pristup arhivi?
- Arhive su besplatne kao i sve ostalo na našem sajtu. Jedini izuzetak su komentari Hansa Ulriha Jergesa. On svake nedelje piše za print magazine i svi ga smatraju veoma značajnim i uticajnim novinarom. Mislim da nije preterano ako kažem da je jedan od vodećih političkih novinara u Nemačkoj. Ako želite da pročitate šta je on napisao, morate da platite jedan evro. Međutim, koliko znam, ovaj biznis ne funkcioniše najbolje jer, kao što ste rekli, svi na Internetu očekuju da dobiju sve – za dzabe. Takođe, na, jednom od sajtova koji pripada Šternu, korisnici mogu za određeni iznos da kupe prostor na kome mogu da objave svoje fotografije i komentare. Ovo je izuzetno uspešan poslovni model jer svi mogu da vide sve slike besplatno, ali objavljivanje fotografija se pretvorilo u neku vrstu takmičenja ko je najbolji. Povremeno izaberemo najbolje fotografije i objavimo ih u papirnom izdanju, što je dodatni motiv za korisnike da odvoje novac.
SERBIAN VERSION published in NIN issue 2894, 15 Jun 2006
