When it comes to online media, there are many metrics and means to measure the efficiency of any given website and the entirety of its elements in reaching its target audience. There are currently four media measurement standards: ad-centric, browser-centric, site-centric, and user-centric. Heated research and technical debate rages on about which of the last two more prominently used standards are best. Thinking about how much the Web and online media has evolved nowadays, it’s becoming somewhat of a challenge to pinpoint print media’s place in the grand scheme of things. What with the grand scheme revolving around fast-paced and dynamic technological progress.
Is Print Media Dying Out?
Even the minds behind The New York Times admitted to accepting the eventual disappearance of the printed version of the classic newspaper. One day, if our current trend of Web-related technological advancements continue, virtual media will replace virtually all print media, pun intended. But in the interim, print media’s role has shifted from being the primary means by which companies reach out to their audiences, to being one of two not necessarily competing means.
At first glance, the rift between online and offline media seems unbridgeable. In fact, since the Web boom, as much as 60% of new magazine titles don’t even reach their first anniversary. No print media can best Web media especially in the ease and convenience they afford.
New Focus: A Unified Front to Extend Reach
But don’t shed tears for print media yet, because though almost everything print media can do Web media can do and make accessible faster, easier, and even less expensively, statistics show that online efforts alone don’t achieve much.
The main concern for any sort of media is to reach out to its audience and deliver a message. Print media’s reach is consistent and isn’t drastically affected by any numerical increase in pages, inserts, or any additional printed material. In fact, only frequency can greatly alter the reach of print media. That is, the more frequent the media is released, the more it reaches out.
Web media can reach out more effectively not just with an increase in frequency, but in gimmicks and new tactics that go with the rise and fall of vogue. However, both the reach of print and Web media can’t compare to the reach of both of them used in tandem.
A New Mission: Expand Reach
Even in discussion of Web-based media measurement, print media is not left out. Only in understanding the metrics of Web media can print media better work to complement its Web counterparts. The converse is also true. If both versions of media wish to maximize a company’s or entity’s reach to better communicate messages to a wider range of audience, they need to understand and work with each other.
[...] When it comes to online media, there are many metrics and means to measure the efficiency of any given website and the entirety of its elements in reaching its target audience. There are currently four media measurement standards: ad-centric, browser-centric, site-centric, and user-centric. Read more… [...]