Well, the cat's finally out of the bag. For the next two years, I'll be working on a Knight News Challenge grant-funded project for The Bakersfield Californian called Printcasting. And I can't wait to get started!

The idea, proposed by myself, Justinian Hatfield and Mary Lou Fulton (my colleagues in the Californian's New Products group), is called Printcasting. We think it's the next logical step in the evolution of local news, and has great promise to revolutionize how local consumers and advertisers relate to local media.

Printcasting will make it possible for anyone to create a local printable newspaper, magazine or newsletter that carries local advertising – all for free -- by pulling together online content from existing sources, such as blogs, and combining it with local advertising that matches the content.

Through web software that we will build, an aspiring print publisher won’t need any technical knowledge, design skills, software or even content to create printable publications. If you’re passionate about a local interest – which could be anything from a local sports team to a local hobby like fishing – and you have an Internet connection, you’ll be able to set up your own publication in minutes.

New editions will automatically be created as PDFs (Adobe's Portable Document Format) and sent to readers in e-mail. This is similar to a Podcast, which uses RSS feeds to send out new MP3 files -- thus the term Printcasting.

The beauty of this idea is its simplicity. All a publisher will need to do is choose which blogs to feed into his or her publication, pick a publication template, and choose how often new editions should be sent out. Local readers will then be able to search and browse for Printcasts that match their interests, read and subscribe. Every template will be optimized to look good on both home printers, and larger-run presses.

From a purely gee-wiz, altruistic level, I'm hoping that we can use Printcasting to bring back the Zine explosion of the 1990s. The desire for ordinary people to create their own print products has been around for decades, and in my opinion the first real push into what we call "user contributed content" today started with the advent of desktop publishing tools. The Internet and, eventually, blogging, eclipsed that movement, but it never went away. I see Printcasting as an effort to bridge the gap between local user-generated content online and local distribution through print -- a logical evolution of what the Californian started with The Northwest Voice. But now, instead of just letting people contribute to our publications, they can participate in the role of the publisher themselves.

But there's another motivation for doing this. At the Californian we've discovered that even though consumers are moving online and using social networking tools -- both those provided by us, and others like Facebook -- the local advertisers aren't moving as quickly. I used to think this was a matter of education, but I think it's more than that. Local advertisers like to see their ads in the physical world, with people coming into a store with a printed coupon in their hand. And they like to walk down the street and pick up one of our various niche publications -- many of which contain content which was contributed by regular people online -- and see their ad on page 3. This is why The Northwest Voice, which is powered by stories readers post online, still generates most of its revenue from its print edition.

So this creates a conundrum for us, and most local media companies. We know that most of our revenue growth as a company is in niche publications. We have 10 print-online hybrid brands in Bakersfield now about everything from young downtown hipsters to local parents. The challenge? There are thousands of other niche interests that we haven't even begun to tap into.

For all these reasons, the other aspect of Printcasting is about revolutionizing local niche advertising in print. We will give local advertisers a way to find Printcasts that match their target demographics and interests, and then create targeted print ads online. They’ll only pay for the ads that run in Printcasts that we know are delivered.

This is exactly what many local advertisers who can’t afford the one-size-fits-all daily newspaper are looking for. They want to get a specific message out to a specific type of consumer, and they only want to pay for the ads that reach their target users.

Who Gets That Money? We plan to share ad revenue with everyone who contributed to the success of a Printcast publication.

For example, if content from your fishing blog appears in a Printcast about fishing that has a $10 ad in it, you’ll get a portion of that $10. And if you’re the one who decided to create a Fishing magazine, you’ll also get a cut. The rest will go toward the bottom line and ongoing maintenance of the network.

A lot of this may sound far-fetched, but we've done our homework and we know it’s possible . All of the content is out there already thanks to the explosion of user-generated content in recent years. In Bakersfield, California, where this concept will be road-tested, we’ve already identified 1,000 locally focused blogs, and we know that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Each of those blogs has an RSS feed that allows content to be extracted and used elsewhere. RSS allows us to capture and flow content into PDF templates on the server without any ongoing work by the publisher. This is similar to how a Podcast works, but instead of sending out MP3 files, we’ll be sending out PDFs with fresh local content.

Then, there are several open-source tools that can generate PDF documents on the fly on a Web server.

It was only a matter of time before someone decided to bring those tools together and market it to local consumers. Call it reverse publishing, rss-to-PDF, or something else, but we believe it's the future of print publishing.

We plan to allow other types of advertising to appear in Printcasts, too. There are already a few experiments out there that let businesses create self-serve advertising in print, including Google, Yahoo and others. And we know that there’s a lot of remnant ad inventory – both national and local – that is looking for targeted placement. We hope to find ways to feed ads from other platforms like these into Printcasts.

The other advantage for a newspaper company in particular, but which really applies to any company that has printing capabilities, is that it's a more efficient way to create and monetize local niche publications. Printcasting will make it possible for newspapers to serve many more niche audiences in print without needing to dedicate staff to every niche interest. Considering the thousands of niche interests in any one city, leveraging a local community's desire to participate in media is the best and, in some case, only way to do this effectively.

We also think we can use revenue sharing as a carrot to improve quality. Several times a year, The Bakersfield Californian will choose a set number of Printcasts to mass-print and distribute. This will be in our best interest because we'll be able to run our own ads in them, in addition to any other targeted advertising we may find. Contributors to those specially chosen Printcasts will get a cut of that revenue, too.

Among the people who may want to use Printcasting are people with an idea for a new local publication (now they can get one going for free); community organizations that want an easier way to produce their newsletters; or even a local newspaper like The Bakersfield Californian that wants to create niche publications from existing content. In phase 2 of this experiment, we'll reach out to these audiences and promote the Printcasting concept.

We have two years to complete this project, but it will roll out in three phases. Our first major deadline is roughly 9-10 months from now, when we plan to launch the first version of Printcasting in Bakersfield, California. We will spend 9 months promoting the product and fine-tuning the tools. Then, in the last six months, we will sign up five other sponsors (newspapers, print shops, etc.) in other cities to launch Printcasting there.

And after that? You will be able to help decide where Printcasting goes next. Under the terms of our grant with the Knight Foundation, all News Challenge projects must be developed as an open source product, meaning that anyone will be able to download and use the software for free. All of the tools, documentation and learning will be available for anyone to use under open source GPL and Creative Commons licenses.

For more information, please see this presentation, which was submitted along with the original proposal. Or go to Printcasting.com, an interactive space we'll use to solicit and share ideas and provide updates on the progress of this project.