Provided a business and market intelligence strategy session to the MSN team on news publishing best practices, with a focus on news aggregation and the value of web analytics in understanding user behavior. Key findings:
- Google and Bing are the “real” home pages, because they are the main entry pages to a news site.
- A traditional focus on “having the most features” is not necessarily a competitive advantage.
- Independent research sources like PEW and Nielsen can provide valuable insights into user acceptance of important issues like paywalls and brand loyalty.
- News sites (and journalists) tend to focus on “breaking news,” disregarding the fact that some older news stories may continue to attract consumers for several weeks.