ViewPoint
May 2010

Verified Would Like to Welcome...

Mountain Times
High Country Media, LLC.
Boone, NC
The Mountain Times is a 26-year-old free weekly newspaper distributed across the High Country of North Carolina. The Mountain Times publishes two separate editions each week, one covering Watauga County and one covering Ashe County.

Power Equipment Trader
Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc.
Montgomery, AL
Published 10 times per year, Power Equipment Trade maintains a large dealer circulation by covering the latest trends and developments in dealer business management and operations, while also covering the latest power equipment products and technologies for dealers to showcase.

Timber Harvesting & Wood Fiber Operations
Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc.
Montgomery, AL
Published six times per year, Timber Harvesting & Wood Fiber Operations encompasses in-wood operations, including logging, trucking, land clearing, biomass processing, fiber procurement, timberland ownership and related association activities. The magazine primarily serves the U.S. market, supported by an editorial staff that has more than 100 years of combined experience writing about this industry.

American Salon
Questex Media
Cleveland, OH
American Salon has been the beauty professional's choice in a continually evolving and powerful industry for 133 years. Serving as the industry conscience, American Salon not only reports on but also helps shape news, trends and solutions. It engages its audience by giving them access to exclusive, business-building information in print, online and through events.

American Spa
Questex Media
Cleveland, OH
For more than 10 years, American Spa magazine has been a one-stop destination for spa professionals. Reporting on the newest trends in the industry, the magazine invites readers to explore the dynamic spa world and share what is vital for success.

Golfdom
Questex Media
Cleveland, OH
Golfdom strives to educate and entertain golf course superintendents (those in the golf industry who maintain the courses) through content that underscores utility and provides practical information to help them in their careers.

American Printer
Penton Media
Chicago, IL
American Printer has served senior executives in commercial printing since 1883. Through the print magazine, targeted e-newsletters and its interactive website and online products, American Printer offers coverage of management, prepress, post press and industry news to the largest body of management-level commercial printers in the marketplace.

Oil Heating
Industry Publications, Inc.
Parsippany, NJ
For 88 years, Oil Heating has played a significant part in the creation, continuation, modernization and viability of the home heating oil industry. Today, it continues with original editorial on management, industry issues, regulatory events, service and installation and operations written for the executives of heating oil and HVAC companies across the U.S.

Mobile Metrics

The use of mobile is different and new for many publishers. With the use of mobile browsers increasing, publishers and their advertisers have increasingly sought to have mobile metrics provided by in independent third party. Having an understanding of mobile analytics is a step in maximizing the return they get from this channel.

Traditional web analytics, such as Omniture and Google Analytics, don't work well for measuring mobile. While these analytics tools rely on JavaScript tags, mobile browsers do not reliably support JavaScript. Cookies, another measurement method, is problematic because most phones don't store cookies and those that do, will often delete them when the phone is turned off or the browser session ends.

Measuring mobile is not easy because of the diversity of technologies involved, and the rapid development of the industry has created a myriad of devices, communication protocols and requirements.

However, mobile can provide a wealth of information for publishers and advertisers. The types of statistics that can be provided include:

• Bandwith – total, average per visit, total per file type
• Hits – average per visit, number of downloads, page view breakdown
• Visits – entry page, average duration, click paths, referring search engine
• Visitors – browser type, user age, operating system
• Handset – make, model, screen resolution
• Mobile Operator – country of origin, operator name
• Geo Location – country of origin, RDNS lookup

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, an overwhelming majority of Americans (92%) use multiple platforms to get news on a typical day, and 26% of all Americans say they get some form of news via cell phone. The research firm IDC estimates that 40% of all Internet users worldwide have mobile Internet access.

A new report from Borrell Associates predicts that mobile advertising and marketing will grow to become a $57 billion market in the U.S. by 2014, representing a cumulative annual growth rate of 84% over the next four years.

Newspapers First Ad Rep Firm To Close

Newspapers First, one of the leading national advertising sales rep firms, is going out of business June 4, according to Editor & Publisher. The demise of Newspapers First is a sign that despite signs of a broader economic turnaround and some glimmers of hope at big newspaper publishers, the newspaper business is still in dire straits.

The firm represents newspapers with a total audience of 21 million during the week and 29 million on Sundays, covering the top 125 DMAs, including The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Miami Herald, Detroit Free Press & News, Cincinnati Enquirer, Houston Chronicle, Phoenix Republic, and Denver Post.

Newspapers First offered advertisers customized, geotargeted campaigns, taking advantage of just-in-time delivery to execute ad placements in contextually relevant editorial environments. It specialized in targeting lifestyle segments and niche demographics, as well as database marketing, product sampling and online advertising. (Newspapers First reached an aggregate Web audience generating more than 1 billion page views per month.)

Created by a consortium of newspaper publishers, which came together to combine their national sales forces over a number of decades, Newspapers First can be viewed as a bellwether for falling national print ad demand.

Last July, the company downsized its staff by almost half, according to Editor & Publisher. CEO Bob Termotto said the decision to close the company was prompted by the adverse business environment, adding that the newspaper business "needs a new direction," especially in "how they're going to handle national advertising."

According to the Newspaper Association of America, total national advertising spending has plunged 46% from a peak of $8.1 billion in 2004 to just $4.4 billion in 2009. The last ad spending forecasts from Magna have total newspaper ad revenues continuing to decline through 2015.

© MediaPost Communications 2010

Events Calendar

International Society of Weekly
Newspaper Editors Annual Conference
June 23 – 27, 2010
Richmond, KY
www.mssu.edu

Tri-State Press Convention,
Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee
June 23 – 26, 2010
Tunica, MS
www.2010tristate.com/

Retail Marketplace 2010 Conference
June 28 – 30, 2010
Boston, MA
www.magazine.org

The Magazine Mobile Imperative
May 26, June 23 and July 21, 2010
www.magazine.org

Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Annual Convention
July 15 – 17, 2010
Toronto, ON
www.aan.org

West Texas Press Association 80th Annual Convention
July 15 – 17, 2010
Odessa, TX
www.wtpa.org

Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association Summer Conference
July 15 – 17, 2010
Salem, OR
www.orenews.com

Native American Journalists Association
July 21 – 24, 2010
St. Paul, MN
www.naja.com

Independent Free Papers of America Revenue Summit
July 30 – 31, 2010
Minneapolis, MN
www.infpa.com

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

New Privacy Guidelines Would Be More Strict
Than Self-Regulatory Standards

On May 4, 2010, more than one year after announcing plans to introduce new privacy legislation, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), the House Energy and Commerce Communications, Technology, and the Internet Subcommittee Chairman, along with Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, unveiled a draft of a new proposal to regulate online behavioral targeting.

The draft bill would require Web publishers, advertisers and other companies that collect data about people to notify them about the practice and obtain their consent.

The proposal also would require that publishers that collect data in order to serve ads on their own sites allow consumers to opt out of the targeting. Ad networks that track users across a variety of sites would have to obtain users' opt-in consent, unless the networks allow people to access and revise their profiles. Some companies that serve targeted ads, like Google, Yahoo and BlueKai, already have this feature.

The bill also would include provisions requiring mobile phone users' consent before their location is shared.

Some portions of the proposal appear particularly controversial. For instance, any requirements that publishers or other "first-parties" allow opt-outs of targeted ads on their own sites mark a departure from current self-regulatory standards as well as the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines.

Mike Zaneis, vice president of public policy for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, said the organization hopes that any proposals "would recognized a strong first-party carve out from behavioral advertising restrictions, just as the FTC's own principles and the cross-industry principles do."

He adds that the IAB hopes that any proposal "will not be overly proscriptive, but rather allow industry the flexibility to innovate and discover new and more effective ways of providing consumer notice."

In general, industry guidelines and the FTC say that web companies that track people as they surf the web in order to serve them targeted ads should tell consumers about the practice and allow them to opt out. Tracking people within a single site for ad-serving purposes isn't usually seen as raising the same kinds of privacy concerns as tracking them across different sites.

Privacy advocates also likely won't be satisfied with the bill. Jeff Chester, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Democracy, criticized it for appearing to endorse the same basic notification and opt-out framework as current self-regulatory standards. "The notice-and-choice model doesn't work," Chester says.

Chester's group–along with 10 other organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Consumers Union and the World Privacy Forum—sent a letter to Congress on Monday urging it to enact sweeping online privacy protections. Among other proposals, the groups say that websites and ad networks should only be able to use data about consumers for 24 hours after collection unless they obtain users' opt-in consent.

© MediaPost Communications 2010 (with additional information from Ad Law Access)

Tips & Techniques: Verified Contacts

Below is a list of Verified contacts and their roles.

You will be interacting with these contacts during the auditing process. Names and phone numbers of these contacts are available on our website at www.verifiedaudit.com.

Accounting: Our accounting department is your primary contact for any inquiries regarding your account balance, charge or credit transactions, invoices and other financial questions.

Sales: Our sales department provides general information about the auditing process, audit fees and audit agreement. They can also provide you with information about additional Verified services such as website audits, reader surveys and distribution verification.

Audit Manager: The audit manager provides information and education to our clients. They handle questions about audit guidelines and Verified's policies. Audit managers conduct audit scheduling, manage field auditors and provide audit findings.

Account Coordinator: The account coordinators provide general client services. They conduct training on our systems, are available for questions and serve as a liaison between the publisher and the other Verified staff.

Auditors: The auditors are responsible for conducting the audit itself. During the audit, they will request documentation, review materials and discuss any problems or corrections necessary. They will also offer tips on improving your record keeping and making the audit more efficient. Our auditors are an invaluable resource.

If you have any questions about who to contact at Verified, please call us 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