MediaShift’s Mark Glaser published a list of tips to help struggling newspapers adopt “alternative business models.” It’s well worth a read. Here are some highlights.

Blog Networks

“Blog networks aggregate blogs written by staffers, freelancers and readers,” Glaser writes, and these blogs generate more page views that can be monetized with targeted ads, especially if the blogs are focused on specific topics like sports, health or politics. Glaser says that having in-house “seems to be a better strategy so far than aggregating or selling ads on outside blogs.”

 Classified Networks

Glaser sees partnerships between newspapers and online sites such as Oodle or Yahoo HotJobs as an important trend to counter the impact of Craigslist and other free services. He cites SFGate’s Kaango-powered classifieds and the New York Post’s Oodle-powered Market Place. Still, “It’s hard to imagine newspapers catching up to Craigslist and other free options online just by partnering with outside firms. They will need to super-charge listings and add extras galore — some they can charge for — in order to entice people back.”

Crowdfunding

By this, Glaser means asking readers to make direct payments to support a journalist in writing a particular story or covering a beat. Several bloggers have done this successfully – Chris Allbritton raised reader funds to send him to Iraq and Ana Marie Cox got reader donations to keep her on the 2008 campaign trail. There is even a startup called Spot.us that is raising money to pay for specific story pitches and then offering them up to newspapers and other media outlets. Nevertheless, Glaser suggests this may be more appropriate for freelancers rather than mainstream reporters.

Customized Papers

Print is far from dead, Glaser says, despite recent moves to online at The Christian Science Monitor and newspapers in Detroit. New technology can create hyper-local editions of print papers. Glaser mentions a Brazilian paper that let readers design their own front page, which was then custom printed with the paper and delivered to them (it was sponsored by Nissan). Still, Glaser describes these as “stopgap measures.”

Hyper-Local Ads

Newspapers have set up both special hyper-local editions online and in print. Glaser says the most successful have been reverse-published print editions at Northwest Voice in Bakersfield, Calif., and Your Hub in Denver, where the best online content is printed in special editions with print ads. To really make this work, staffers need to work the neighborhoods and stress community involvement.

Local Portal

One road to success maybe to combine news with local guides including entertainment listings, restaurant reviews and directories of local businesses. Glaser recommends giving establishments a free basic listing and to upsell premium services. Glaser points to Vegas.com, which has helped financially support the advertising-free print newspaper, the Las Vegas Sun. The downside: to succeeds, these newspaper-local guide hybrids will have to beat indepdendent players like Yelp as well as the local Yellow Pages and alternative weeklies.

Multimedia Ads

Audio podcasts and video reports from staffers have a lot of growth potential and are ways to bring in new types of online advertising. Newspapers need to make sure the video ads aren’t too intrusive and that video content is worthwhile for viewers. Ensuring high production quality is tough, especially for smaller papers.

Niche Sites

Niche sites work well online where it’s not just about filling in print holes in terms of what can be run. Some of the most common online newspaper niche sites are for mothers, providing user-generated blog content and ads for diapers, kids’ clothing and retail outlets. Competition includes non-newspaper niche sites like BabyCenter

Paid Content

Charging for content has been mostly unsuccessful online. The New York Times dropped its TimesSelect as did the Los Angeles Times with its CalendarLive site. Both publications gave up on those paid content initiatives. The Wall Street Journal is the shining example of where a paid content wall can work. Newspaper sites continue to charge for archives but this too may change with Google’s archiving initiative.