On To The Web

This is the last issue on paper of The Norfolk Boomerang, which next week is moving to the World Wide Web.

The new version of the web site — www.norfolkboomerang.com — is al­ready up. Last week’s issue of the news­paper appears in its entirety on the web site, and this one is also scheduled to go online in full.

The web site is free to all through Thursday, February 4, at which point the content will be available to subscribers at the same subscription rate as the current version of the newspaper: $36 per year.

In the meantime, you can check out the web site free of charge. We hope you like what you see and that you’ll support us by subscribing.

If your subscription has expired, we invite you to renew it and gain access to the web site. (If you don’t know your ex­piration date, send an email message to NorfolkBoomerang@gmail.com.) If your subscription is current, you have two options: Continue your current subscription using the web site instead of receiving a hard copy of the newspa­per;

or we’ll refund the remaining value of your subscription on a pro rated basis. (Send an email message to NorfolkBoo­merang@ gmail.com to inquire about ei­ther option.) But I hope you’ll keep going with us. We need you.

Frequently Imagined Questions

1. Why are you doing this?

Our ad revenue isn’t keeping up with expens­es. In the last year or so, since an already-shaky economy nosedived during the financial crisis in September 2008, we have seen some of our ad­vertisers

go out of business. Others have cut back on expenses, including advertising with us.

As a result, we need to cut our expenses. Our subscriptions have remained solid. To our subscribers: Thank you for sticking with us. The message we take from your continuing sup­port

is that a lot of Norfolk residents like having a local newspaper, like our newspaper in partic­ular, and want to see us keep going. We can’t keep going the way we have been going, though. Specifically, we can’t afford the expenses of printing the newspaper, mailing the newspaper, and distributing the newspaper. Our options are to go to the web or cease pub­lishing altogether.

2. I like reading a

newspaper on paper.

So do we. A newspaper on paper is the best medium. We’re not moving to the Internet be­cause we think a computer screen is superior to paper. We’re moving to the Internet because we have to cut expenses or else go out of business.

We can’t keep going the way we’re going in­definitely, because we aren’t getting enough ad­vertising to make money. But here’s the good news: Going to a web-only product decreases our expenses so much that we should return to viability quickly — If you come with us!

3. I don’t have a computer. How can I read your newspaper

if it’s not on paper?

Norfolk Public Library and the Norfolk Se­nior Center have computers available to the public. At the library you need a library card to log on. But using the computers is free. If you have a user name and a password for our web site — which you’ll get when you subscribe — you can read The Norfolk Boomerang from any computer in the world that is hooked up to the Internet.

That said, we know that some of you aren’t hooked up to the Internet and never will be. To you we must say goodbye, with regret. We’d prefer to keep printing on paper, but we can’t.

Thank you for sticking with us over these part four years. You made this venture possible.

And go get a computer!

4. Isn’t going online just another way of going

out of business?

No. The expenses drop so dramatically by re­placing printing and mailing with a web site that our business model that doesn’t work currently can work in the near future. We hope to move from unprofitability to profitability within a few weeks.

5. How can you make money with an Internet newspaper?

By going to the web, our business model changes dramatically. We still need and want advertisers, but we will rely less on them and more on subscribers. In short, we’ll rely less on where we have been coming up short — adver­tising — and more on what has remained strong through thick and thin — subscriptions. Our expenses will drop so much that we don’t need nearly as much revenue as we need now.

5. Will the web product be as good

as the current newspaper?

Our content will be at least as good as it is now in all facets and should be better in some, since we will be devoting less time to the nuts and bolts of putting out a newspaper on paper. In short: We plan to have all the content we have now plus more. The minus is that the newspaper (as we will still call it) won’t be on paper. That’s a draw­back, and we won’t claim otherwise. But the pluses are considerable. For one thing, online archives will be available to sub­scribers

who want to see past stories. We plan to update the web site more frequently than just once a week, so subscribers can follow devel­opment of stories and get late-breaking news. Some aspects of the Boomerang will resemble a daily newspaper more than a weekly newspa­per. (Though there will still be a weekly publica­tion.) With a web site we can not only inform you, but inform you on a continuing basis.

6. Why can’t your web site

just be free like most others?

Free web sites come in three varieties: a) Web sites that generate so many readers that they can make money solely from advertis­ing, like Google b) Web sites that are hobbies and don’t need to make money

c) Web sites that are funded by foundations or donors with deep pockets and don’t need to make money. We aren’t any of those. This venture needs to make money — at least enough money to sup­port the time our staff spends on the newspaper. To do that, we need paid subscriptions.

7. Can’t I get all the news I need on the web free of charge?

Not if it’s Norfolk news.

The larger newspapers in the area cover Nor­folk rarely. While their stories about Norfolk are generally available online, there aren’t many of them, and they don’t go into much depth.

We don’t mean to knock our colleagues — they’re regional news outlets and they need to ration their resources accordingly. As readers of The Norfolk Boomerang know, we’re intensely local. When something’s important to Norfolk, we tell you as much about it as we can.

7. What about NorfolkNet? NorfolkNet is a free online forum for Norfolk residents. It does an outstanding job of allowing residents to air their opinions and it provides snippets of life in Norfolk. But it’s not a news outlet. It’s a community forum. A news outlet requires a reporter. The Norfolk Boomerang is the only entity that has a reporter actually paying attention to the town of Norfolk. If you want to know what town govern­ment is doing, what’s going in the schools, what crimes Norfolk police are investigating and what emergencies Norfolk firefighters are tending to, The Norfolk Boomerang is your best source. 8. What happens if I subscribe

and you go out of business?

We don’t expect to go out of business. Frank­ly, our initial venture back in the fall of 2005 was a lot harder — starting a newspaper from scratch and needing nearly 1,000 subscribers in eight weeks to keep going plus advertising. The people of Norfolk came through for us and took our venture from nothing to viable in only a couple of months. It still stuns us when we think of it.

In our new web version, the expenses are so low that we only need a portion of our current subscribers and a fraction of our current adver­tisers

to come with us. (The more the merrier, of course, and we appreciate each one of you!)

But as in the past, we guarantee our subscrip­tions on a pro rated basis.

9. What if I’m not sure?

Go to our web site — www.norfolkboomer­ang. com — and see if you like it. We think you’ll find it easy to access, easy to read, and informa­tive.

Access to the web site is free for another cou­ple of weeks. Our first paid-access-only edition of the newspaper online is scheduled to come out Friday, February 5.

10. If I want to subscribe,

what do I do?

Go online to the web site and click on “Sub­scribe” on the lower left side. Then enter your credit card information.

Alternatively, send us a check for $36 to The Norfolk Boomerang, P.O. Box 620, Norfolk, Massachusetts 02056. If you send us a check, though, please send an email message to Nor­folkBoomerang@ gmail.com, too, to let us know it’s on the way.

11. What if I live

outside of Norfolk?

The new subscription rate is $36 for all sub­scribers, no matter where in the world you hap­pen to be. The newsprint version of the newspaper has a higher subscription fee ($48) than the in-town rate ($36), because it costs us more to mail the newspaper to out-of-Norfolk addresses. But the Internet doesn’t have roaming charges.

12. I have just subscribed or renewed my subscription.

What about the User Name

and Password?

We plan to send you an email message about technical details of accessing the web site next week. In the meantime, if you go to www.nor­folkboomerang. com, you don’t need a user name or password until after Thursday, February 4.

13. How do I advertise with

you if you’re a web site?

Ads will appear on the right side of web pages bearing content. If a reader sees a news story, the reader will also see the ads.

Our advertising rates, which were low to be­gin with, are about to decrease. We’re planning to start with introductory lower rates during the transition to the web. We also plan to offer click-through service, meaning readers can click through from your ad on our web site to your business’s web site.