Get your personal and user-generated paper

A project now under way at The US Bakersfield Californian could give newspapers the ability to let readers easily create their own niche publications.

The International Journal of Newspaper Technology writes in its September 2008 issue about printcasting project financed by a grant from the Knight Foundation.

The Bakersfield newspaper is developing an interface that allows readers to customize publications containing content from participating blogs and newspaper Web sites. The result can be e-mailed as a PDF or printed at home or in the office.

Dan Pacheco, senior manager of digital products at The Californian, explains:

“What we know is that there are so many audiences that may not be as big as that for a newspaper, but there still will be a certain community that’s interested in that topic or organization… Maybe it’s about music and you can get a bunch of content from [The Californian’s Web site] Bakotopia, or maybe it’s about a certain craft or neighborhood news…”

According to Pacheco printcasting will also help newspapers capitalize on the continued appeal of print and allow them to reach local retailers wary of current print advertising models:

“If you look at a small niche interests that may have 5,000 people dedicated to that community, there could be a half dozen or more businesses that would love to reach them. Those types of businesses are not advertising in our larger print products and certainly not in our main newspaper because it’s too expensive and it would use their entire marketing budget in the span of a week.”

Pacheco says also that printcasting meshes with the current demand among consumers for products and services that meet their specific interests:

“The print world hasn’t been forgotten and when you see circulations go down it’s not that people don’t want to consume print. It’s more of a statement about the one-size-fits-all audience strategy that newspapers have pursued for so many years.”

Look at this graph showing how printcasting works:

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