Paul Lomax is a man on the move: in two weeks he leaves his job as head of online for GMG Regionals to becomes Dennis Publishing’s first chief technology officer and, somewhere in the middle of that, flies to Canada to get married. Lomax, who spent almost a year at GMG and was previously a digital exec at IPC Media, has no time for the FT.com-style “walled garden” approach charging for news but, as he tells me in an interview, people will still pay for consumer content both off- and online.
–Sceptical on paywalls: “I’m not a huge believer in paid content in terms the FT are talking about, when it comes it news. But there is content out there that is valuable, scarce, niche and useful,” he says. People will pay for online and printed content, but “it’s all about the way it’s packaged up” and not necessarily via a simple web access fee…
— Content on demand: For example, one thing Lomax is already planning is increasing the company’s product spread to allow users to create their own printed and online mags. The company uses Elvis, CMS software from Evolved Media Solutions that quickly brings together publishers’ print and online content on a specific topic, to create its range of one-off “bookazines“.
They retail for £5.99 and £9.99 in print. But Lomax says the potential is also there for users to choose, buy and print their own magbooks, either in physical, delivered format or using Dennis’s own page-turning technlogy as used in its Monkey online mag, possibly using print-on-demand sites like Lulu.com. It’s unclear what discount or incentive users would have to print their own versions of content they can either get for free online or may already haave read in magazine form.
— Project Latitude: It’s all part of an internal Dennis drive codenamed Project Latitude which is investigating news ways to monetise content. “Print has been the primary focus for it so far — online was a consideration — but the next stage is to make sure that it’s truly media-neutral, looking at mobile platforms and the e-magazines like Monkey too.” It remains to be seen what other revenue-generating initiatives the Latitude project has thrown up, but Lomax reveals that, as part of the project, Dennis will next week re-launch PCPro.co.uk as the first stage of a company-wide revamp of its sites using a new in-house CMS.
— Dennis’ digital health: London-based Lomax says the main reason he’s on his way is personal: he has reversed long-term plans to move to Manchester permanently in favour of staying in the big smoke. But he admits Dennis’ healthy digital income was a factor: “That was what attractive, it is incredibly healthy. Surprisingly it’s mostly in display as well.” The company doesn’t officially release online revenue figures, nor does Lomax divulge the figure, but Felix Dennis has said he expects the company to make 40 percent of its revenue from online this year.
— GMG saw it coming: The recession and long-term pressures have had devastating effects on regional publishers including GMG Regional, but Lomax argued that GMG did to some extent see it coming: “If you look at the GMG annual report from two or three years ago, if you hid the date you’d think it came out now. In 2007, the economy wasn’t in such a bad state but we were prepared for it and cost savings were in place then. It just happened a lot quicker than we expected.” Disclosure: paidContent:UK’s parent company ContentNext Media is a wholly-owned subsidiary of GMG’s Guardian News & Media.
— Local papers’ advantage: Despite the cuts, Lomax says there are positives to come out of the turmoil for GMG Regional, particularly its local weekly titles across Greater Manchester moving in to MEN Media’s HQ: “Obviously there is a disadvantage to that, but online the reduction in duplication and making the web part of workflows, we’ve really seen the benefits of that.” He says it’s misconception that MEN Media posts all its content online — currently only some local paper stories make it — and hopes that connecting with local readers online can counter the genuine anger many folk feel at the papers leaving their towns.

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