1. 1. Google: 128 million unique visitors
2. 2. Microsoft: 123 million
3. 3. Yahoo: 116 million
4. 4. Time Warner: 108 million
5. 5. News Corp.: 79 million
6. 6. eBay: 66 million
7. 7. InterActiveCorp.: 65 million
8. 8. Wikimedia Foundation: 57 million
9. 9. Amazon: 55 million
10. 10. NBC Universal: 51.2 million (estimated unduplicated audience after Weather.com acquisition)

Mmmh.. very interesting. In the ‘old days’ there were only traditional conglomerates like Time Warner and Disney on this list. Now you’ll notice online retailers like Amazon, auction platform eBay and open source encyclopedia Wikipedia. By the way: Where is Disney? Also noteworthy: With the acquisition of Weather.com, NBC will push the New York Times, the largest newspaper company on the Web, off the list…

My take: 1. Newspaper must learn to embrace Google instead of fighting it. Plus: They won’t be able successfully monetize their content on the World Wide Web by themselves in the long run (the Big G is already too dominant in online advertising). 2. I am sure these comments by Eric Schmidt weren’t exactly consoling for the old media managers.

His assessment was pretty devastating back then:

“The American media produce a product of very poor quality. Its information is not reliable, it has too much chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost immediately, and it’s sold without warranty. It’s flashy but it’s basically junk.”

Now, 15 years later, the online magazine Slate caught up with the writer and published a very interesting piece of Crichton’s current opinion of his predictions, titled “Michel Crichton, Vindicated”.

Bottom line: He still believes that the “old media” will be fossilized. “I doubt I’m wrong; it’s just too early,” Crichton said.

Slate writes:

“Crichton believes that we live in an age of conformity much more confining than the 1950s in which he grew up. Instead of showing news consumers how to approach controversy coolly and intelligently, the media partake of the zealotry and intolerance of many of the advocates they cover.”

My take: I mostly agree with Crichton. The journalistic quality of mass media is poor, the concept of their “talking points” is based of sensationalism and old-fashioned marketing philosophies. Their business model is outdated (they lost their role as content and distribution gatekeeper a long time ago – without substitutes). The real conversation about relevant topics happens on the web (in blogs, forums, activist and other non big media websites), where the MSM is trying hard to catch up with the new technology and radically different information and communication world – and become part of the conversation.

So does the “shoddy mass media deserve its deadly fate”, as Crichton wrote in his Wired essay in 1993? I think, as the “junk news” provider moves to the World Wide Web, there is a good chance that traditional newspaper can continue to be successful for what they’ve been famous for a long time ago: In-depth reports, intelligent op-eds and comprehensive analysis of complex topics.

Plus: A couple a articles which are a must-read if you’re interested to get some more insights about the status quo of the mass media:

- Slate: Chronicle of the Newspaper Death Foretold

- Economist: Who Killed The Newspaper?

- The New Yorker: Out Of Print – The Death And Life Of The Newspaper

And as a bonus – two old media watch websites:

- Newspaper Death Watch

- Magazine Deatch Pool

What do you think? Are old media really going to die? What are their chances for survival? And: what news resources do you trust in the digital age?

I usually ask back: Well, doesn’t your marketing department promote your newspaper in ads, TV commercials and on billboards? Are you sure that’s well spent money in the digital age? And why shouldn’t you spend your advertising money where the eyeballs of your readers are – the world wide web?

Conversations like these remind me of what Marshall Simmonds, Vice President of Search Engine Marketing at the New York Times, told the audience at the “Search Engine Conference” in San Jose in 2006. A great article on Search Engine Watch summarized his experience to teach the (old-fashioned) journalists at the Times SEO as follows:

The newsroom, however, is an uphill battle. A prime example is the evolution of headlines, which itself earned a dedicated New York Times article ‘This Boring Headline is Written for Google.’ For Simmonds, this means explaining consumer speak and search patterns on a daily basis. “It isn’t ‘A Marriage Made in Heaven’, but a ‘Treo 700,” he said. The newsroom doesn’t always take such advice kindly. “They will be damned if you will teach them how to write. They see the writing on the wall and they see where it is going,” he concluded.<

The New York Times is not only the best newspaper in the world, but it also understood the importance of Search Engine Optimization way before their competitors. Thanks to Simmonds.

According to Search Engine Watch, “the audience quickly learned that Simmonds is not only a search expert, but something of a change management guru. His ability to overcome ego and cut through old school turf wars has become one of the greatest case studies in search engine marketing.”

The changes have been indeed significant: In order to be indexed by the search engines with its entire content, the NYT opened the archives, got rid of a online subscription model and also made the op-eds of their ’star’ commentators Friedman, Dowd, Rich etc. accessible to everybody, improved the internal linking structure and added bottoms for social bookmarking (Digg, Facebook, Mixx, Yahoo Buzz), among others.

The result is evident: The New York Times (as well as About) has experienced an impressing increase in visitors from search – a stunning 108% growth in the last 12 months alone (see chart above).

With its early adoption and these improvement – does it mean NYT is the SEO king among the newspaper in the U.S.?

Answer: It depends. A quick keyword research I did shows that the paper is number one in the Google SERPs for search terms like “breakings news New York”, “find newspaper article online” and article newspaper technology”, but only ranks in the Top 10 for (crucial, I think) keywords like his home turfin

If I would would just search for “news” (search volume: 637319, according to Keyword Discovery) – which of the major news companies outperform their competitors.

Here is the Top 10 list:

1. CNN
2. MSNBC
3. Google News
4. Fox News
5. ABC News
6. Yahoo News
7. Cnet News
8. CBS News
9. NEW YORK TIMES
10. USA Today

P.S. As the description of this blog indicates, I am very passionate about topics at the intersection of Journalism and Search Engine Optimization. I believe that it is crucial for “Old Media” to incorporate SEO into their online strategy in order to survive and be successful (again) in the digital age. To be continued…