An Applied Scheme for Cross-Linking News Resources between Physical and Digital Editions

摘要

This paper proposes a guideline on how to link resources between physical and digital editions, along with a outline for applying the cross-channel links, based on Hill-scale trials at a Swedish daily paper, with feedback from the subscribers in two focus groups and questionnaires.rnEver since the introduction of digital newspaper editions in the early 1990's, newspaper publishing companies have made attempts to increase reader value and brand stickiness by making various, often ad hoc efforts to link articles in the physical edition to resources in the digital editions or vice versa - from raw URLs in the article margin, to devoting entire sections to links and sitemaps - often with poor results. Noteworthy, more channels have recently been added to the mix; RSS feeds and the emerging e-paper channel, making the issue more topical than ever before. Pre-study interviews with the two large daily Swedish newspapers papers showed that less than 15% of the paying subscribers for the physical edition, actually make their way to the newspaper's own website on a monthly basis. So for the newspaper organizations, there is a genuine interest to catch the paying subscribers' attention in order to strengthen the relation with their readers.