Media Evolution – Hear the Roar

Mel Taylor, media consultant extraordinaire, believes firmly that newspapers have a strong and promising future. His impressive background includes newspaper (Calkins Media) , radio and television. He keeps up with what is happening in all media and knows and understands the latest technology and tools to evolve community newspapers into robust and successful multimedia communication firms.  Mel and I first met at last year’s Kelsey ILM:07 Conference and we’ve kept in touch pretty regularly ever since. His blog, www.meltaylor.wordpress.com is one you should bookmark or subscribe to and return to on a regular basis.

Mel recently shared two very important things with me, one a document, the other a service he’s been offering to newspapers that I think other community newspapers would be wise to take him up on.

The PDF document  is called Newspaper Next 2.0: Making the Leap Beyond Newspaper Companies.”  This  February 2008 report is the result of a year-long study by API (American Press Institute) to find the tools and processes that would help newspapers evolve and thrive in the future. You can access and download the report here .

Mel Taylor works with newspaper companies to help their advertisers understand the Web and its advertising and marketing possibilities.  He calls it Web 101 for Local Businesses, and it makes so much sense. It’s Taylor’s belief, and mine as well, that if local businesses understand what the Web can do for them they’ll be much more apt to use it for their business advertising and marketing. Of course, your newspaper bringing those lessons to the local companies will put you front and center locally as the good neighbor that helped them and the “experts” they should turn to for their Web advertising. Read here about what Mel Taylor produced for two newspaper companies and their advertisers.