ViewPoint
March 2010

Verified Would Like to Welcome...

LP Gas
Questex Media Group, Inc.
Cleveland, OH
LPGas' editorial team covers the field, traveling thousands of miles each year to visit dealers, distributors and suppliers, and attend industry trade shows and conferences. They provide the most in-depth coverage of issues, trends, case studies and research reports in the propane industry.

Pest Management Professional
Questex Media Group, Inc.
Cleveland, OH
Pest Management Professional (PMP) magazine has been the editorial authority for the pest management industry for 75 years. PMP tailors its technical, applications, business, news and market trends coverage directly to its audience of owners/presidents, directors/general managers, sanitarians, supervisors and foremen at pest control, food processing, storage and warehouse companies and other commercial, institutional, industrial and recreational facilities.

Travel Agent Magazine
Questex Media Group, Inc.
New York, NY
Publishing every two weeks, supplemented with daily, weekly, and online delivery of news, supplier profiles, destination guides, marketing/sales programs and educational material, Travel Agent's portfolio of print and online products provide agents with the tools they can use to sell more travel, more effectively.

GPS World
Questex Media Group, Inc.
New York, NY
GPS World is the premier global media brand covering the dynamic world of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). GPS World's mission is to provide business and technical information regarding GNSS to executives, high-level corporate managers, project and engineer managers, product designers and manufacturers, researchers, and system developers around the world who need to incorporate global positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) technologies into their corporate strategies and operations to maximize profit and productivity.

Response
Questex Media Group, Inc.
Santa Ana, CA
Response reaches interactive and direct marketing professionals who are the decision-makers for the production of DRTV and interactive (ITV) programming. Response offers quality content focused on the industry's most important issues. The publication's editorial team actively participates in industry associations and features the Response Advisory Board comprised of a "Who's Who" of industry experts. Response takes the lead when it comes to providing quality, expert analysis of industry news, trends, strategies and more.

2010 Circle of Excellence Winners

Verified would like to congratulate the winners of the 2010 Circle of Excellence award.

The Circle is awarded to only those publications that have, upon rigorous independent review, been able to certify, document and demonstrate that they consistently meet the highest standards of audit excellence.

Congratulation to the winners! Keep up the good work!

Circle winners are entitled to refer to and publicly display the Circle of Excellence in the publication, media kit and other promotional materials along with the Verified trademark.

Please contact your Account Coordinator to receive your Circle of Excellence graphics or call Verified at 415-461-6006.

CJR Mag Study: Free Makes Money

Despite all the nay-saying about the prospects of free online content, magazine publishers who "give away" content for free online have a good chance of turning a profit, according to a new report and survey appearing in the Columbia Journalism Review.

On the other hand, the report notes that online publishing remains a chaotic, undisciplined arena for magazines, which have failed to establish uniform standards or practices for editorial matters.

The CJR survey gathered responses from 665 magazine editors, executives and managers from about 3,000 consumer magazines covering a range of circulations and frequencies, from weeklies to quarterlies.

Within this survey group, 68% said advertising is the primary source of revenue for their online publishing operations—and the number rises to 83% among sites that are actually profitable.

Some 65% of the profitable group said they offer their content for free, suggesting that a business model based on free content monetized with online advertising can succeed. Overall, however, just 33% of those surveyed said their sites were profitable, while another third said they were unprofitable. (The remaining third didn't know—a somewhat alarming finding in itself.)

Indeed, the findings were hardly all positive, and the bad news extended to editorial operations. According to Victor Navasky, a professor at Columbia University's journalism school and chairman of the CJR: "What the survey shows is that there are no agreed-upon ethical or professional standards and practices and that everybody is making it up as they go along." Navasky added, "We were dismayed, and in some cases depressed, by the survey's findings."

Among the less-than-ideal findings: 11% of respondents said there was no copyediting for online content, and another 48% said copyediting for online content isn't as rigorous as for the print edition. Furthermore, 40% said that web editors tend to be less rigorous in fact-checking, with 17% admitting there was no fact-checking at all under web editors.

© MediaPost Communications 2010

Events Calendar

2010 Maggie Banquet
May 7, 2010
Los Angeles, CA
www.wpa-online.org

Canada Newspaper Association Annual Convention – Ink & Beyond
May 13 – 14, 2010
Toronto, ON
www.can-acj.ca

Ontario Community Newspapers Association Spring Conference
May 14, 2010
Toronto, ON
www.ocna.org

FMA's State of the Industry
May 19, 2010
New York, NY
www.fmanational.com

SNA Audience Development Conference
May 19 – 21, 2010
Atlanta, GA
www.suburban-news.org

Community Papers of New England Spring Conference and Trade Show
May 22 – 23, 2010
Providence, RI
www.nenpa.com

If you have an event that you would like to announce, please send your information
to e-newsletter@verifiedaudit.com.

Newspaper Sites Most Trusted Local News Source

Newspaper websites are the most-visited and most-trusted source of online local news, according to a survey of 3,050 adult Internet users by comScore conducted on behalf of the Newspaper Association of America.

Overall, 57% of respondents said local newspaper websites were their No. 1 destination for various kinds of local information—more than all other online local news media combined. The survey also revealed high rankings for the trustworthiness of advertising on local newspaper websites.

Breaking local content and advertising down into various categories, 29% said newspaper websites were their primary destination for local news, 27% ranked them first for local sports, 26% for local entertainment, and 39% for local classifieds.

Setting aside duplicates, this comes to well over half of those surveyed. The proportion of respondents ranking newspaper websites as their primary destination for local content rose to 60% among college-educated respondents and 63% among well-to-do households.

The NAA noted that newspaper websites beat various competitors—most notably the websites of local TV stations—across the board in terms of trustworthiness as well. Local newspapers were chosen as the most trustworthy source of local news by 34% of respondents, compared to 23% for local TV news sites.

They also ranked ahead of local TV news sites in local sports (30%–24%), local entertainment (30%–20%), and local classifieds (42%–13%). For advertising in general, 36% said they considered local newspaper websites to be trustworthy advertising media, compared to 23% for local TV news sites and just 12% for online portals in general.

At first glance, newspaper websites seem to be sitting pretty, but newspaper publishers have struggled to monetize large online audiences at anywhere near the rate of their legacy print product.

According to the NAA, in the first three quarters of 2009, newspapers' online advertising revenues were still just 10% of their total advertising revenues—after a decade spent building online audiences and advertising programs.

© MediaPost 2010

Tips & Techniques: Email Newsletter Audits

An email newsletter audit is third-party verification of the volume of successful email newsletters sent by the publisher, the average distribution per send and the timeframe verified.

Audit Requirements

• Email server logs recording distribution of the email newsletter.
• Evidence of returned/invalid addresses.
• Evidence of the number of paid email newsletter copies distributed, including subscriber records, price paid, date paid and proof of payment. An "Nth" select will be chosen to confirm paid subscribers.
• Evidence of the number of free "opt-in" or requester email newsletter copies distributed, either by email request, hard copy request, telemarketed or from some other sources. An "Nth" select will be chosen to confirm opt-in or requester subscribers.
• Breakdown of the volume delivered for each issue from a summary report.
• Access to the subscriber database.

Key Definitions

Average Net Email Delivery
The average number of email addresses (SMTP) per issue receiving the newsletter within the audit period.

Delivery of Verified Email Address
Verifiable email address to which the email distribution has been delivered. Only distribution to addresses that have requested to receive the email distribution qualify for inclusion. Unsolicited emails sends cannot be included in the Total Average Net Email Newsletter Delivery.

Issues
The number of instances the email newsletter was published and delivered to the distribution list.

Opt-in or Requested
An opt-in recipient refers to when the individual recipient (a unique SMTP address) has personally made a request to receive the email newsletter. Total number of email newsletter copies distributed to opt-in recipients only. This may be in the form of an email request, a website request, telemarketed request or a hard-copy written request.

SMTP
A unique SMTP address that has been supplied with an email and that can be verified to an individual.

Undelivered
Email messages that did not reach a subscriber due to any of several reasons including invalid email address, temporary server problem, or unsubscribe actions (both hard and soft bounces).

Hard Bounce
A message that is undelivered due to a permanent error (e.g., the email address does not exist any longer).

Soft Bounce
A message that is undeliverable due to a temporary error (e.g., mailbox full).

Copies excluded from total average net delivery include back copies, opt-outs, returned email addresses and unsolicited distribution.

If you have questions about email newsletter audits, please call Verified at 415-461-6006.

Please send comments and story ideas to e-newsletter@verifiedaudit.com or contact us at:

Verified Audit Circulation
900 Larkspur Landing Circle, Suite 295
Larkspur, CA 94939-1758
415.461.6006
415.461.6007 fax