A quick update on my recent ever got pinged by your CEO? post, and some related commentary on online social media in the enterprise world.

Presumably by way of a forward-thinking PR department close to Deutsche Telekom management (indeed my employer), I recently received a LinkedIn invite to connect to DT CEO Rene Obermann.
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Business Week recently ran a telling article about the state of the German dailies industry.

The magazine argues – despite dropping ad sales overall – “special interest”-focused print media seems to do reasonably well in an otherwise hotly competitive marketplace for news.

Compared to many of its ailing US peers, popular dailies such as Berlin-based Bild apparently knew to focus on exclusive content, and embrace (rather than fight) innovation early enough to succeed. 

What’s more, Bild and other dailies managed to benefit from German readers’ somewhat slower flight to online media alternatives. Turns out, in an increasingly crowded field of German dailies publishers, readers seem to find solice in established print media brands they have known for years.

Still, competition remains tough; with increasing pressure not just from semi-professional and user-generated news sites, blogs, and online video, but also from at least 600 branded online editorials trying to compete for diminishing audiences and a shrinking ad revenue pie.

In the US a similar “doom-and-gloom” scenario persists, but the “pain” of market share loss felt by state-side newspapers seem more urgent compared to their German peers.

Seeking a solution to the mess, the Newspaper Association of America recently published its own state-of-the-industry stats, and, along with that, recommended 8 steps towards dealing with its own challenges of dropping circulation and ad sales.

Meanwhile, over in Germany, Bild intuitively took some of these recommendation to heart, yet went beyond its US peers’ 8-step plan.

Among other things, it partnered with Germany’s #1 consumer online portal, Deutsche Telekom-owned t-online.de, and later, started selling pre-paid mobile phone services at newsstands, right where its dailies sell.  (The service affords customers unlimited online access as long as they are reading bild.de online).

While the former provided instant traffic boost to its first branded online site, the latter helped to make up for revenue losses from ad sales moving to the Web. 

Of course, Bild is infamous for its daily coverage of sex and crime. Unlike in the US, nudity not a problem to the extend shown (think topless models on the cover looking for a date), maybe its the oldest trick in the book that does the trick for Bild.

I doubt this would be an option for Bild’s US newspaper publishing peers.

UPDATE:

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Today, the New York Times reported about BusinessWeek’s planned launch of BusinessExchange.

The Wiki-meets-social networking sites seeks to amalgamate professional and user-generated news into a new and (hopefully) successful online news experience.

Clearly this is BusinessWeek’s own attempt to fight off lagging ad sales from ongoing audience fragmentation and ubiquitous “anytime, anywhere” content competition.