How IOL could beat News24

Without that much trouble, or even that much investment, www.IOL.co.za could overtake News24 as South Africa's top website.

In part, one can make this kind of claim because IOL is still the country's second largest news website – despite their best efforts to drive away users with their shoddy design and lack of online know-how.

The reason why IOL is still hanging in there, and also the reason why they could improve so much, is that they have certain fundamentals very well in place.

The fundamentals

Probably the best thing that IOL has going for it is the relatively high amount of exclusive content the site gets from the newspapers in the Independent group. This gives the site a massive edge over News24 when it comes to things like columns. (almost invariably IOL's columns are worth reading, whereas the blogs that News24 presents as columns tends to be of a much lower standard.)

As mentioned in previous posts, all the news sites have access to the same wires. So, what gives one's content the edge over an other's, is the exclusives. IOL 1 – 0 News24.

This is not to say that IOL can take it easy. Indeed, none of the local news sites have really managed to leverage their relationships with newspapers with any great success. This is of course partly due to the fact that SA newspapers tend to be reluctant to share too much content with their online partners.

Still, the growth is online, and any company that ignores this will fall behind.

Apart from their exclusive content, the other thing that counts in IOL's favour, is the fact that they have built up a substantial user base. This, and the ability to refer people to the site from their newspapers gives them a lovely platform to build from.

Why they are losing ground

The most obvious problem with IOL is that the layout and design of the site is terribly out of date. Compare for example to a site like www.guardian.co.uk .

The problem however goes much deeper than just the basic look and feel, since the whole way in which the site is constructed and laid out feels clumsy and counterintuitive. Links to IOL Sport and IOL Parenting right next to each other? And announcing this week's column by YYY, and not mentioning what the column is about? Please, these are really basic things.

Possibly worst of all, is the poor editing on the front page. As a test, visit www.iol.co.za and see how many spelling or typing errors you can spot on the front page. I've done this a few times, and the lowest score so far is 2.

Underlying all these issues, there seems to be a lack of enthusiasm and understanding for the online medium - or maybe just a lack of resources, in which case the lack of enthusiasm and understanding is located higher up in the management hierarchy.

Note: This lack of online know-how is also illustrated in the sites failure to develop its community aspects. But I wont go into that here.

What needs to be done

The good news, is that things can be fixed quite easily. A proper, from the bottom up, re-think of how the site is structured, along with a clean modern redesign will do wonders.

Add to that a few high quality web editors and some creative people to keep things fresh, and a combination of wires and quality content from the newspapers will take care of the rest.

Of course, for any of this to happen, people higher up in the Independent group will have to start taking IOL.co.za more seriously.

As always, it will come down to vision, or a lack thereof.

News24's Achilles heal

www.news24.com is the most successful South African website by some margin. Yet, their domination may not necessarily last that much longer. Some weaknesses in their offering and some more astute competition could swing things.

The good

To start with, it should be recognized that News24 is doing a number of things very well. Possibly the most important of these, is the way in which they have managed to build the News24 brand. There is quite simply no other brand that gets close to what they have achieved.

In terms of their offering, their biggest asset is the speed at which they publish news. Crucially, this makes it a site you can visit a few times a day and see very different content each time. It also means that they are usually first with breaking news.

In addition, some of the content that flows in from Fin24, Health24, and there other partner sites also adds value. This is a good example of how sites can feed off each other to their mutual benefit.

The threat

One of the major potential problems with News24, is their relative lack of exclusive content. Most of what they run comes straight off the wires – i.e. nothing prevents other sites from running exactly the same content. And, indeed, you often find the same stories on News24 than what you do on the other news sites.

The ideal model seems to be wire material combined with exclusives. The problem with News24, is that their exclusives are generally not of a very high standard.

Some good stories do make it onto the site from Fin24 and so on, but on the whole there is really very little to complement the wire material. And in particular, some of their columnists are embarrassingly poor.

Better leveraging of their partnerships within the media24 group and the 24 sites more generally seems to be the obvious solution. And in addition, simply buying more good writing could also help.

Keeping up

Whereas the MyNews24 section seems to be doing reasonably well, News24 hasn't really managed to make things like videos and blogging work for them.

There is for example nothing that compares to something like mg.co.za's "Thought Leader" section, or the Guardian's "comment is free."

Whereas some of this may be due to the way in which the 24 sites are structured, it certainly limits the offering and compares badly to mg.co.za and thetimes.co.za.

Turning into a tabloid?

Another point maybe worth noting, is that News24 seems to have shifted their focus to more of a tabloid style of news coverage.

Things like celebrity news and trashy sex columns are getting a lot of exposure. These are of course easy ways of driving your traffic up and may indeed suggest that the focus is shifting to more of a mass market rather as opposed to the more serious readership of thetimes.co.za and mg.co.za and even something like Business Day.

As a result, something of a disconnect is developing between Fin24 and News24. And this disconnect may well be exploited by sites who can offer both solid financial and general news coverage.

The verdict

The strong brand and the momentum of the whole media24 online offering should keep News24 ahead of the competition in terms of traffic for the foreseeable future.

Yet, the fact that 80% plus of their offering can be reproduced with a wire subscription and a few people to code and load must be of concern.

And with sites like mg.co.za and thetimes.co.za managing to combine wire material with superior exclusives, the threat is very real. While mg.co.za's focus will remain a bit of a niche, the wider appeal of TheTimes could make it a real competitor.

The Times considered

www.thetimes.co.za may be one of the newest players on the local scene, but they may well end up being the big online story of 2008. If anyone is ready to challenge News24 and IOL's domination, it is the times.

So, what are they doing right

The first and most obvious thing that makes the Times stand out is its ultra modern layout. It is the only of the local websites to keep up with international trends – compare for example to www.guardian.co.uk and www.timesonline.co.uk, both of which had redesigns last year.

Why exactly these three-column layouts are working so well is unclear. They do however manage to squeeze a lot in without letting things feel cluttered.

The site also does a good job of integrating podcasts and video. And, even though the quality of the video does some times disappoint, they are presenting it in a better way than any of their competitors.

In terms of the real meat of the site, the Times are also quite solid. They have the wires pretty well covered and they do get some exclusive content from the paper.

Still, more exclusive content would boost the site immensely. With all the news sites building their offerings around stories from the wires, it is the exclusives that make sites stand out.

In the Sunday Times and its daily version, thetimes.co.za has a very strong partner to leverage for this kind of content. If they can source enough exclusives through this channel, their offering will really make the likes of news24 pail in comparison.

Another obvious strength is the "Times" brand. It is quite impressive how the site reinforces the brand identity. The feeling is one of a pretty serious news website, but nevertheless an interesting one. This has a lot to do with the fact that they do not chase hits with trashy or tabloid style stories.

Indeed, with news24 seemingly adjusting their focus to a more tabloid-like/mass market audience more serious news readers will be left looking for their news elsewhere. As things are going, the Times are ideally placed to snap up some of those readers.

Another impressive thing about the Times is how they link to official documents – reports, court papers, and the like. The ability to link to content and to provide extensive background information for those who are interested is one of the most powerful things about online media. Really, it isn't that hard to do.

Even though some of their articles to elicit quite a number of comments, thetimes haven't quite nailed the community side of things. Something like the Guardian's "comment is free" section or mg.co.za's "thought leader" section may be the solution.

Either way, thetimes.co.za may well be the big growth story of 08. They already tick most of the boxes and if they can expand on that with more exclusive content and a stronger community element, the sky is the limit.

Iafrica analysed

Though still one of South Africa's top 15 websites, www.iafrica.com has been in a steady decline over the last few years. And even if there actual numbers haven't fallen, they certainly haven't grown at the same rate as their competitors.

So what is up with one of SA's oldest online destinations?

The good

The best thing about iafrica is that they are producing some unique content. They seem to have a number of good writers and editors on their staff, which suggests that things may well be turned around without too much changing of personnel.

The bad

As a brand though, iafrica is coming across as very unfocussed and outdated.

This may, in part, be due to the sites roots as a portal, and it is still very much being run as such. At any time, the front page contains a wide variety of stories in a wide variety of tones leaving the user with no sense of coherence or brand identity.

You never get the feeling that you are on a serious news site, as you do on News24, nor does the business section feel as focused as Fin24.

Compounding the lack of focus is the sites cluttered and outdated layout. If you know your way around the site this may not matter, but new users will simply go somewhere else.

Most of the time less really is more when it comes to good online design.

And tying into the outdated design is iafrica's failure to successfully make use of the latest technologies. Allowing people to send in some pictures are fine, but where is the vibrant blogging community, and why is it not possible to post comments underneath articles?

The way forward

As a brand, the "iafrica" label may be doing more harm than good at this point. To revive its flagging fortunes, a clever bit of rebranding may be needed – maybe roughly based on the media24 model – split iafrica up into say PrimeNews, primeMoney, PrimeSport, and so on.

With each of these new sites developed from scratch, with clean functional designs, and with all the necessary bits of Web2.0 functionality added where appropriate, things can very likely be turned around.

Whether any of that will happen is doubtful. More likely, iafrica will keep drifting on the remaining momentum for a few years, riding out the steady decline until someone finally pulls the plug.

It will be a pity though.

Right now iafrica as a whole is less than the sum of its parts. But with a clever bit of rebranding and rethinking a lot of unmet potential can be unleashed.

What this is about

The online media environment in South Africa is alive with possibility.

Even though Media24 is dominant at present, there is a lot that their competitors can do to catch up. Whether they do, or not, will depend in large on their understanding of online media and willingness to invest in the right technologies.

It is really all their for the taking. But, whether anyone is astute enough to do so remains to be seen.

The idea with this blog is to keep tabs on the fast moving race for the clicks and page-views of our local internet users.
So, to start with, I will over the next few posts analyse, in turn, a few of the major players on the local scene.