Newspapers own less than 1 per cent of the time spent online in the US. This is in strong contrast to the situation in Scandinavia. In fact, Norway’s largest newspaper site, VG.no,  have more page views than any newspaper site in English, despite the fact that only 4,7 million people live in the country.

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The June numbers from Nielsen and the Newspaper Association of America are indeed very low, at least if you consider that USA does have more than 300 million inhabitants, of which 195 million  are defined as web users by Nielsen.

Here are some of the numbers:

• Only one in three users – 70 million – visited a newspaper site during June. I repeat: One in three!
• Newspaper sites generated 3,5 billion page views and 597 million user sessions
• Nieman Journalism Lab points out that this amounts to 0,69 per cent of the total page views among web users in the USA. 0,56 per cent of total time spent online was spent on newspaper sites.

Now let us compare these numbers to Norway, a country of 4,7 million people (or about 1,5 % of the US population). According to TNS-Gallup there are 3,4 million monthly internet users in Norway above the age of 12. In no other country people have read as many newspapers as in Norway, and the habit of trusting the media companies has been transferred online.

Numbers can not automatically be compared: In Norway web traffic is measured in terms of daily and weekly number of visitors, while Nielsen uses monthly statistics for American sites. It is also difficult to estimate how much of total online time is spent on newspaper sites. Let us still make a try, though.

Here you find the weekly statistics for week 31:

Note that this list only includes the largest Norwegian web sites, and not numbers for international sites like Google, Facebook and YouTube.
Top of the list is vg.no, which is the web site of Norway’s largest newspaper. With 2,9 million weekly visitors, or close to 90 per cent of Norway’s monthly web users, it is no less than a dominant position.

To put it in perspective: VG.no during this week alone had twice as many page views as nytimes.com in the whole month of May, according to numbers from Comscore.

But you also find a number of other newspapers on the Norwegian top web list: Dagbladet.no (1,7 million UV), Aftenposten.no (916.000 UV), Adressa.no (313.000 UV), Bergens Tidende (306.000 UV) and DN.no (275.000 UV), as well as  a number of sites that are primarily offering news content from media companies: NRK.no (1,9 million UV), Nettavisen.no (864.000 UV), ABCnyheter (574.000 UV), E24.no (483.000 UV), Klikk.no (447.000 UV) and DinSide.no (401.000)

Times of India recently claimed to be the top English language newspaper web site in terms of page views, again citing data from Comscore.  Next on the list were the sun.co.uk (142 million), nytimes.com (124 million),dailymail.co.uk (73 million) and washingtonpost.com (61 million).

Multiply page view numbers in the list above by four to get an estimate of monthly traffic and you will see that all top three Norwegian newspapers, – VG, Dagbladet and Aftenposten – would have made it to this top five list from Comscore. That is, if they had been published in English.

Again: Let me remind you that Norway is a country of only 4,7 million people. The dominant position of the newspaper web sites thus is quite impressive.

So why are newspaper web sites so strong in Norway compared to the USA?

I will not go into a deep analysis, but just quickly point out three contributing factors:

• Less competition in small language areas like Norwegian. There will simply be fewer businesses with the power to build strong web sites with lot of original content and users will have less choice.
• Norway has enjoyed the highest newspaper circulation per capita in the world. Even as circulation now is dropping, the media companies are very important in people’s life. This habit has been transferred to the online world.
• Norwegian newspapers have been very offensive in building a strong web presesence early. Editors have deemed it important for the long-term survival of their companies  to take a leading role in presenting content on the web. This involves strong emphasis on interaction with readers. In fact, a significant part of VG.no’s success is the social network Nettby, which is extremely popular among Norwegian teenagers.

The New York Times appointed a new social media editor – Jennifer Preston -  this week. On Twitter suggestions for how the NYT should use Twitter poured in. Here are ten of the best suggestions she received:

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When words came out about the new appointment Jennifer Preston’s Twitter account (@NYT_JenPreston) had zero – yes, zero! – updates.  From the outside one could wonder why a person who seemed to be very passive in using social media herself was given such an important position.

Yet Jennifer Preston has been a quick learner. She started out by asking: “How should @nytimes be using Twitter?” And suggestions have been pouring in. For some of them Preston has responded. She has also promised to sum up what she considers the best ideas.

As this topic should be of interest to any media company I have compiled this summary of some of the suggestions Preston have received during the week:

• Participate in conversation. Ask questions, but make sure you interact. (@mattsingley)
• Let us follow specific reporters in the field, even as they gather info for their stories (@wac6)
• Personality matters. We want bloggers who like people and are naturally curious. (@hearthouse)
• Put a “Tweet this” on all of your articles (@CatherinVentura)
• Post shortened NYT urls with each article so people know the source is NYT (@rar624)
• Create and standardize hashtags on breaking news (@rkellett)
• Get feeds that are individuals commenting on stories and participating in the dialogue, not just headlines and links. (@undeadgoat)
• Monitor Twitter for complaints (@jronaldlee)
  
• Use it to break stories -all your reporters should use Twitter (@televisionsnow)
  
• Let reporters twitter about all the questions there was no time to investigate and spur discussions (@gwbstr)
  

In other blogs:

• BeatBlogging: How should NYT and established news orgs use social media
• ReadWriteWeb: NYTimes appoints social media editor
• PaidContent: Don’t fix what isn’t broken – and do a lot of listening
• Steve Buttry: New York Times social media editor off to a sociable start
• MediaPost: New York Times new social media editor works her beat
• FishbowlNY:NYT’s new social media editor sees potential in journos using Twitter
• Nieman Journalism Lab: NYT appoints Jennifer Preston as social media editor

Here is Living Room 2.0 – New York Times‘ vision of how the news site content on the work on your living room wall. It is another video which Nieman Journalism Lab has recorded from the R&D Group at New York Times. Some great and fascinating experiments here. Also find the video “The future of advertising”. Read more at Nieman Journalism Lab.

Earlier videos from New York Times R&D department:

• New York Times 2.0 – report from the lab
• Preparing for a future across platforms

Here is the video about the future of advertising.

New York Times R&D Group: The Future of Advertising from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

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This video shows how the New York Times is envisioning how its content can be shuffled across multiple devices. Through an application called CustomTimes they plan for the user to be able to switch between a tablet, television or even watching the content in the car. Really fascinating!

This is the second video in a series from Nieman Journalism Lab. You find a lot more information on their site.

New York Times R&D Group: Shuffling the news among multiple devices from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

Also read: New York Times 2.0  – report from the lab

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Here is a fascinating video from New York Times R&D group about how they look at the future of news. The video has been produced by Nieman Journalism Lab. You can read much more at their site. Recommended.

New York Times R&D Group: Newspaper 2.0 from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

New York Times‘  alternative home page with links from other sources is a step toward a new potential role for media companies – as aggregators of content.

By choosing Times Extra, you will not only view NYT’s own stories, but are also given en number of links to relevant stories from other sources.

For bloggers this is really no big deal. Bloggers have done this for a long time – and modules showing relevant content is common on many blogs. BetaTales, for instance,  is using a service from Sphere to do this.

Yet it is rather radical for a major newspaper like NYT.  Traditionally media companies have been thinking that they should focus on their own content in competition with other providers.

But sharing is caring. More and more media companies find that they need to show an open attitude in order to have their readers come back again and again.

New York Times explains that the company wants to become “a destination for compelling journalism, not only by the New York Times”.

That is a pro-active attitude, even though it remains to be seen to what extent the algorithm behind Times Extras is able to serve really relevant content to its readers, as Mashable points out.

My guess is that we will see many more similar services from media companies in the years to come. Even large media houses can no longer live in isolation from the numerous conversations going on in the blogosphere. Readers expect to be served with all relevant content at the same time, not only what the web site’s own journalists have written.

In the same way media site probably will also to a much larger extent connect to the big social networks, for instance by including users personal news feeds on the news pages of the media site, as we have discussed before.

After all, roles are changing in the newsroom and journalists must take on new tasks.  To sum up this post, I recommend you to read Paul Bradshaw’s piece “Model for the 21st century newsroom”, in which he identifies “Aggregator-Sub” as one of the new journalist roles.

Extra background

On an extra note. New York Times is aggregating the links through its own company Blogrunner. Her is an interview Beet.tv did with Blogrunner’s creator Philippe Lourier:

The New York Times is fading away, claims marketing guru Seth Godin. And he offers six suggestions for how big newspaper companies can ensure they have a strong future online as well.

“Great people on an important mission, but their footprint is shrinking and the company is losing stock value and cash and power and the ability to have the impact that they might”, writes Godin.

New York Times – and most other similar media companies around the world – must redefine its role.  And to do that, companies cannot continue to be run by managers who want to protect the old business and not develop new models.

Here are Seth Godins six suggestions for what New York Times should do to act forwardly, and not only defend its past:

1. 1 Use their influence and brand to enable users to spread their content. Why did not New York Times build Wikipedia or start Yelp.com?
2. Leverage the op-ed page and spread important ideas Why does New York Times not hire great columnists in much larger numbers?
3. Build a permission asset Build thousands of small silos or micro sites.
4. Keep score The New York Times bestseller list for books used to matter. Used to. But it is no longer trusted referee in the digital world. Why not?
5. Stringers Hire many more semi-pro freelances, each with a blog.
6. Create new platforms for advertisers

Is it to late for New York Times and similar media companies? I don’t believe so. NYT still has unique content and the power and skills to collect and present information in a professional and sophisticated way. Yet it it dangerous times. The position of many newspaper houses is weakening by the day.

Many media bloggers, like Mathew Ingram, have commented on Seth Godin’s article, mostly in praise of his thoughts.

Canadian technology writer Mark Evans presents the following suggestion:

This may be a crazy thought but what about the NYT acquiring Twitter now that Twitter appears to be in play? With three million unique users and a growing reputation as a tool to distribute and consume content, could there be a fit between the NYT and Twitter?

Steven Hodson at The Inquisitr agrees that the old media is loosing ground, and he adds:

It is safe to say though that without these two cornerstones – reputation and authority – no one will last; new media or old. It is the loss of those two things that I think is the greater failure. A failure that we in the world of new media must always remember or we too shall find ourselves replaced by something newer and better.

Markets change. Innovate or die, concludes the blog Eat Sleep Publish.

As the technology develops, media companies are also searching for new and interactive ways to cover the big issues. That includes displaying readers emotions on the issues.

“What one word describes your current state of mind”, asks The New York Times as they present a tag cloud of readers’ minds. Readers are invited to write one word or select from a list.  They are also asked to indicate wheter they support Barack Obama or John McCain.

The results are presented dynamically as readers write the words: “Hopeful, anxious, proud, emotional, nervous, giddy, inspired, tired ….”

It really is a good example of how news media are trying to interact with their readers when covering the big issues.