What old media does that the internet has yet to trump.

After all of my recent lamentations and dire posts, I do have something nice to say about the old guard media. TV and newspapers are still some of the best places for serendipitous content discovery. Flipping through the paper or turning stations can cause us to pause and notice things we might otherwise never encounter. The internet is quite the opposite. Users are often laser focused on their goal, and leave a site once they find it. This study indicates that users are even getting better about their focus.

Youtube and others have tried to foster some of this by showing videos that others are watching, but its still not ideal for discovery. Amazon and similar have taken efforts to filter their massive catalogs down to similar items for previous purchases. Social networks are full of information that is shared about the latest posting or activity of its members. None of these are quite as good as the old fashioned methods just yet.

Perhaps its part of the idiom, but I think that goes for the ads as well. Numerous eyetracking studies have shown how efficient users are at ignoring the ads on a content page. However, the ads are still part of the newspaper experience in print. It may be a focus group of one, but I'm more likely to notice something in print than online. Perhaps this is due to the irregularity of the layout from page to page, or the mode of my experience.

Note that I am not saying that print ads are more effective or less effective than internet ads. Poor measurablity in print makes the comparison difficult at best. There is some indication in studies by google and the NAA that they two may work together quite well, but the data could be self serving and thus biased.

I am saying that for newspapers to translate well online they should consider adding some of the best features of the print product that go beyond just the content. They need to aid in discovery in clever ways that go beyond "most read"