The Personalised Newspaper – followed-up

As mentioned before there are some more details worth to mention on the first personalised newspaper. Niiu is a joint venture by the InterTi GmbH, a start-up company founded by two German students, and the German print service provider Reprotechnik Gruppe. Pretty much everything for niiu is outsourced. Printing is done by the Reprotechnik Gruppe at their Berlin site. A Swiss software company, Previon AG, is providing the composition software. The paper is distributed by a separate logistics provider to ensure early delivery (only the trial copies are delivered by post and arrive around noon).

Currently Niiu is priced at €1.80 per issue or €1.20 for students and as niiu is logically not available at any kiosk, the makers have to rely on some sort of subscription model. Instead on a traditional subscription model niiu launched a pre-paid system with several different packages. At first the point model on the web-site seems a bit confusing, but it is essentially a pre-paid model for a set number of copies. It is designed to cater for a young and mobile readership which does not know today where they will be in 6 months time. The aim is to have around 5000 subscribers by the first 6 months.

The printing costs for a single copy (24 pages) have been quoted to be €1. Add to that the cost for delivery, composition and obviously for the content. Niiu has a contract with each newspaper and online provider, in which there is a fixed license fee paid for every used page, as pages are taken one-to-one from each partnering newspaper. This leaves pretty little to cover the overhead and for profit. Niiu hopes to make this up by selling targeted advertising content on the (so far) 2 pages which are reserved for advertising sold by niiu – the only part which cannot be influenced by the subscriber. The idea is to provide targeted advertising depending on the demographics of each reader.

An obvious question centres on how newspaper publishers feel about Niiu and why they would allow access to their articles, when this could very well cannibalize their own sales. While some certainly think so, the majority of publishers approached by the niiu founders have embraced the idea and accepted licensing contracts. In theory, there is not much direct competition because it is targeted especially at a young audience, such as students, a customer group traditional newspapers struggle most to address.

This focus addressed some criticism as some media consultants state that students are not very receptive towards newspapers. InfoTrends research data debunks that myth as in a survey among students conducted last summer 48% of respondents stated that they have a subscription or frequently read newspapers. This is a much higher rate than the general population. InfoTrends will have a closer look at consumer preferences on publishing products in the upcoming report: “Consumer Media Preferences – The Future of Publishing Applications”.

The challenge for niiu in finding a sufficient readership is in my view less based on the concept, the target group or print & delivery, but in assembling the content. Picking sections from a group of newspapers is not real personalisation. It is obvious that taking content on a page basis does not lend itself to a more thorough personalisation. This would require a much more modular content. But so far the composition software is already struggles in bringing a spread article onto 2 facing pages in the niiu. So it can happen that a headline or image designed for a double page is split on a front and pack page. I already mentioned the lack of a table of content and too little opportunities to fine-tune the content. It looks like the personalised content still has some way to go.

Finally, the main differences to spot between a page reprinted in niiu and the traditional paper and which are apparent to the casual reader are:

• Niiu uses a smaller format
• The paper has a higher whiteness and is smoother
• There is some show-through apparent (if heavy coverage areas are on the backside)
• Finally, there are some text changes in the niiu edition compared to the standard printed issue, which is quite puzzling. Niiu seems to draw from a page composed earlier.

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