What Rolling Stone Should Have Done to Capitalize on the McChrystal Story & Why Print Needs a Pay Wall - Steve Blacker - MediaBizBloggers

1. While Rolling Stone scored a major media coup with "The Runaway General" interview I doubt their newsstand will achieve the dramatic jump it would have 20 years ago. Sad to say, no major new profits will occur from either newsstand or advertising as a result of this major story.

2. Because Rolling Stone management was operating as if it were 20 years ago no major planning was initiated on how to make money from the article on Rolling Stone's own Web site or any other new media platform.

3. Everyone who saw the TV interviews, etc. and had an interest in the story either has already read it for FREE on Politico or Rolling Stone's own Web site. To show how out of touch a major magazine can be with today's new multi-platform Digital business model; Politico.com was showing the full article before Rolling Stone was featuring it on it's own site.

4. It was obvious that this story was going to be a major blockbuster. What could have Rolling Stone done? First off, it should have created a Digital strategy as follows:

5. They should have legally protected their rights to the article and not made it so easy for Politico.com or any other site to be able to feature any portions of the article.

6. As the TV interviews and other media coverage broke, and millions of people were made aware of the article; Rolling Stone should have dominantly promoted access to the full article on its Web site but in an innovative way.

7. Rather than providing free access to the entire article, Rolling Stone's Web site should have just promoted highlights and a pay for view opportunity to read the entire article. Rolling Stone could have easily charged a one time access fee that equaled its newsstand cover price - and people would have gladly paid it. This should have also been promoted via cell phones and anything else that could have become available.

8. Without giving away the content major advertisers should have been approached to buy advertising on both Rolling Stone's Web site once the article was promoted and within the article itself. Sure something like this has never been done before but that's what new media is all about --creating new profit centers by innovative marketing.

9. When I printed the article from the Rolling Stone Web site it was 12 pages long. Imagine if a few ads had been interspersed?

10. Until print learns what Rupert Murdoch already knows; you can't give away your content for free, new media will stay an elusive and frustrating challenge for print. Magazines must create a pay per view access model; especially when they break high impact stories.

Steve's new book You Can't Fall Off The Floor - The Insiders' Guide to Re-Inventing Yourself and Your Career chronicles his 50 year career working for over 25 different companies with 189 lessons learned and insider tips from Gayle King, Cathie Black, Chuck Townsend and 28 others; Blacker is still going strong today as a partner in Frankfurt & Blacker Solutions, LLC. His web site is blacker-reinventions.com and e-mail address is blackersolutions@aol.com

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