Fred Wilson on 'The New York Times': Shut Down Business, Sports and Your Printing Press

(MoneyWatch)  My former Adweek colleague Brian Morrissey helpfully did a post earlier this week outlining Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson's Rx for The New York Times: to shut down all non-core competencies, such as coverage of sports and business; and to stop printing the newspaper entirely, partly as a cost-cutting measure and partly to get the company out of that newspaper mindset. Make a monumental leap into the digital world.

His argument is that, in the Web environment, those who focus on what they do well, do well. In that context, the Times would become the go-to place for government, world affairs, arts, and food. Mark Bittman meets Maureen Dowd meets A.O. Scott, I guess. Less reporters + no printing costs = success is the basic formula.

While interesting to ponder, Morrissey points out that it would never happen, and Wilson likely doesn't think so either. (He said these things in response to a question at the Conversational Marketing Summit earlier this week.) That creates a basic problem. The other problem is that Wilson's suggestions are on the negative, cost-cutting side of building a new business model; while some of his ideas make basic sense, newspapers should also be looking at missed opportunities that could turn into revenue.

In that vein, the most interesting business suggestion I heard concerning the newspaper industry this week was from ContentNext's Lauren Rich Fine, who recently presented a paper that suggested several overlooked ways that newspapers could be springboards for local and small businesses to get into the online market:

• Have newspapers build out their local online classifieds businesses, even selling ads around the ads. Though I didn't see numbers to support this, she contends that this business is still relatively undeveloped.
• Host the Web operations of local businesses, building out an online yellow pages. Though she wrote about this idea mostly in the past tense -- it had been tried by the Chicago Sun-Times at one point, but never got broader traction -- it also speaks to a need she sees for newspapers to become the online enablers for local businesses.
• Become the builders of the local online ad network business. Again, she feels that the current online ad network business doesn't fulfill local needs, and posits that newspapers' dominance in local markets could make them the go-to place for other content sites with a local angle, which could become part of each newspaper's network.

Despite the rise of Craig's List, she does have a point. Look around you and ask yourself if the dry cleaners, the pizza parlors and the nail salons in your town have any kind of online presence. If my town is any indication, they don't.