Category Archives: New Media

Washington Post Launches New Blog / Wiki – Misses The Point

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The Washington Post Company (WPO) launched it’s newest online venture WhoRunsGov.com today. From their about page:

Who Runs Gov offers a unique look at the world of Washington through its key players and personalities.  Our site will feature profiles of a select group of government officials, including members of the new presidential administration, legislators, senior Congressional aides and committee staff, and experts at think tanks and interest groups who influence how policy is made.

For our initial site launch, creating and editing profiles will be limited to our editorial staff; in its second phase, our site will evolve into a moderated wiki.

I don’t see how this site can succeed in the face of competition from local competitors like Politico, national competitors like TalkingPointsMemo and international competitors like Wikipedia.org.  These three (and many more) are established and have great communities surrounding them.  Additionally, the mere presence of whorunsgov.com dilutes the already smallish pool of advertisers looking to get on politics sites.  Continue reading →

Belkin Paying for Good Reviews Using Mechanical Turk

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Belkin paying 65 cents for good reviews on NewEgg and Amazon? -from TechCrunch

Learn what Mechanical Turk is and how it works.  Here is a portion of the listing:

Positive review writing.

* Use your best possible grammar and write in US English only
* Always give a 100% rating (as high as possible)
* Keep your entry between 25 and 50 words
* Write as if you own the product and are using it
* Tell a story of why you bought it and how you are using it
* Thank the website for making you such a great deal
* Mark any other negative reviews as “not helpful” once you post yours

How about the way TechCrunch calls out Belkin employee Michael Bayard?  Is it bullying?  Is it fair game?

Beat the Press Panel Discussion – Comments on News Sites

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On comments on news sites -from Nieman Lab
Joshua Benton, Dan Kennedy, Joe Sciacca, and Callie Crossley discuss comments on blogs and news sites.  

Moderation of comments is by no means a site killer.  Heck, it helps build communities, communities which then police themselves.  In my recent interview with Metafilter founder Matt Haughey, Matt explains: Continue reading →

Nicholas Carr Interview on NPR’s On The Media

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Cloud Atlas – OnTheMedia.org

Once, your computer was a box you loaded with stuff that you had to buy and maintain. Increasingly, your computer is a doorway that simply gives you access to a wealth of free services, software and storage on the web – what’s known as ‘cloud computing.’ Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World From Edison To Google explains what the new paradigm means for convenience, privacy and the future online.

Nick Carr – Rough Type blog

Next week, I think I’ll be participating in a discussion about Google, inspired by Randall Stross’s book Planet Google, at the Talking Points Memo Book Club.

About: Nicholas Carr bio and wikipedia listing

Blogs: nicholasgcarr.com and roughtype.com

Will The Paul Mulshine Fiasco Steepen Newspapers’ Decline? – twitter #mulshine

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For the complete backstory read:

-Mulshine’s original anti blogger post on WSJ.com
-Metaprinter’s Paul Mulshine reaction here
-Jay Rosen’s reaction here
-instapundit’s reaction here
-A Blog Around The Clock’s thorough reaction here (you must also visit this site to marvel at his header image.  It is beautiful)

- any twitter reactions? tag them with #mulshine

Down to business now. So Paul Mulshine works for the Newark New Jersey Star-Ledger. For the sake of full disclosure I worked there my self until this June when I took a buyout from the pressroom. I’ve since received my MA from NYU, blog, and do consulting work. Mulshine wrote an Opinion piece in the Weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal which boils down to: bloggers are idiots, they aren’t real journalists. Continue reading →

LATimes.com Economically Sustainable? I don’t think so

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1. LA Times editor Russ Stanton at USC: “Stanton said the Times’ Web site revenue now exceeds its editorial payroll costs.”

2. Jeff Jarvis then writes, Can The LA Times Turn Off Its Presses?

3. Which is republished by The Huffington Post as, Jeff Jarvis: LA Times: Turn Off Your Presses

My M.A. Thesis which was just completed two weeks ago goes into great detail how general interest newspaper websites are not now, and will never be capable of generating economically sustainable revenue.  There is a huge difference between covering payroll expenses and achieving Economic Sustainability; Having a mechanism in place for generating, or gaining access to, the economic resources necessary to keeping the business operating on an ongoing basis. Continue reading →

Clay Shirky – “Don’t Worry About Information Overload”

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“There’s always a new Luddism whenever there’s change.” – interview by Russ Juskalian from Columbia Journalism Review -Go read this interview it is great!

from the interview, “What the Internet has actually done is not decimate literary reading; that was really a done deal by 1970. What it has done, instead, is brought back reading and writing as a normal activity for a huge group of people.”

That’s a great point, and one that newspaper and television owners, I suspect, are terrified of.  People are now “distracted” by doing things other than reading a newspaper or watching television.    

 -Go read this great interview!

MetaFilter Founder Matt Haughey Q&A – Including a Few Newspaper Answers

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Q&A with MetaFilter.com founder Matt Haughey. As Wikipedia defines it, MetaFilter is a community weblog whose purpose is to share links and discuss interesting content that users have discovered on the web. From personal use I know that Ask.MetaFilter.com is one of the most useful sites anywhere for “querying the hive mind”. Enjoy!

RI -“MetaFilter is one of the oldest (1999) online social sites. What keeps it going where others fail? (Author’s note, I think of mefi a as social site but only in the broadest of terms. Or rather, it’s become more social over the years (the first few years, there wasn’t all that much discussion on the posts, now the most popular posts have hundreds of comments)…”

MH -It has consistently grown ever since early 2000, when I think it hit enough of a critical mass to be interesting. As to why it keeps going – it probably has something to do with it being what it is first and foremost. When I think of other online social sites that come and go, they’re largely offshoots of some other service that didn’t fit quite right. MetaFilter has always kind of been its own thing and has stayed interesting enough to attract interesting people that continue to contribute to it everyday. Continue reading →

Why Do People Like Rachel Maddow?

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Rachel Maddow always thought she was an outsider. How did she become a star? -from Newsweek.com “Maddow’s partner, artist Susan Mikula, believes the “unlikely” label is just code for lesbian: “She goes from Stanford to Oxford to activism to radio, then TV? What’s so unusual about that? Is it because she is a gay lady?”

She is successful because she is engaging. She is her own brand. When she didn’t host the other night I was like, “where is she? did she get hurt? what’s going on?” I was actually concerned. Most other media personalities get lost in a small crowd.

This is the same reason I read Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman at NYTimes.com.

Who is the Wall Street Journal‘s most famous personality?
Is it Managing Editor Paul E. Steiger? No, he went to ProPublica…

Who is the Washington Post‘s most famous personality?
Is it weekly columnist Charles Krauthammer?

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Improving Time Spent On Newspaper Sites, Is It Important?

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Editor & Publisher reported on November 19, 2008 that “time spent at top sites still declining”.  You’ll notice that Drudge report, a link site which sends its readers away, isn’t even listed in their report but if it were would be Number One with 00:59:39 time per person (hh:mm:ss) go figure.  

Time per person is not the only or best way to measure the performance of a site.  There are many ways to measure website traffic.  WebAnalyticsDemystified.com is a great resource to learn more about measurement techniques and visitor engagement.  They have a Free white paper available for download HERE.  

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The TypePad Journalist Bailout Program – Newspaper Journalists Take Note

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The TypePad Journalist Bailout Program

Hello, recently-laid-off or fearful-of-layoffs journalist! We’re Six Apart (you know us as the nice folks who make Movable Type or TypePad, which maybe you used for blogging at your old newspaper or magazine) and we want to help you.

We’re a company founded by bloggers, and we’ve supported online journalism from the beginning. During a time when so many great journalists are worrried about losing their jobs, we want to do what we can to help. So we’ve put together a program to put you on your first steps towards independence.

The TypePad Journalist Bailout Program is FREE. But unlike the Fed’s financial bailout, this program will actually end soon. Just send us the link to your last piece for a newspaper, magazine or broadcast journalism venue to bailout@sixapart.com, and we’ll take care of the rest.

–Visit Typepad to learn more and good luck!

Amazingly, This Guy Still Doesn’t Get It

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“Say a high school kid who is a sports nut gets some local prep stuff online and tries to build a little business out of that… how could he direct traffic to it? He’d have to take ads out in our paper.” John Tompkins CEO News Media Corp. from an interview on InlandPress. Small, local newspapers do enjoy certain business characteristics and revenue opportunities that the larger papers do not.  I agree with this 100% though the opposite is also true.  The above quote reinforces a feeling I keep getting that older generations simply do not understand how younger generations are using Social Media.

Tompkins Bio Video

Tompkins Bio Video

This is particularly unsettling in the case of John Tompkins because he rose to such power at a very early age.  At 21 years old, “After borrowing money from family members and his bank, John purchased The Rochelle News Leader, a twice-weekly publication in Rochelle, Illinois.” -as quoted from the above video.

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The Future of Guerilla Advertising? MoveOn.org Hits A Homerun!

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Great Example of Viral Marketing by MoveOn.org

If i wasnt going to vote, I am now. Click to view.

If i wasn't going to vote, I am now. Click to view.

And the follow up letter days later.

Dear Robert,

Wow. Thanks to people like you, this nonvoter video has now been sent to over 6.3 million friends. It’s going out to more than 30 new people per second.

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Great Discussion About “Old” Editors Being Able to Manage The Newsrooms of Today

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I’ll just post this now and build on it later. Article is from:

The Knight Digital Media Center is a partnership of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The Center is funded by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Steven Smith departs and the question arises: Who should lead newspapers’ online transformation?

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VP Debate and Unique Newspaper Coverage

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The much anticipated debate between Palin and Biden went off without a hitch from either party.  Biden didn’t run his mouth and Palin didn’t talk about dinosaurs.  My interest was with how the news websites covered the event.  Many smaller and mid-sized newspaper sites didn’t mention the event at all on their sites.  This is their hyperlocal coverage in action I suppose.  The big newspapers did cover the event though.  Many had a live video feed, and live fact checking.   The following are some of the unique multimedia channels they used for reporting.   Continue reading →

NAA Launching Online Community, Colossal Waste of Time and Money

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Do we have enough community sites yet?

Too much social media?

A while back I was complaining that NAA didn’t have a Linkedin group on the community site.  I guess it was because they were too busy creating their own for their website NAA.org.  I think this is a colossal waste of time and money for NAA.  They need to be reaching OUT not in, for new ideas.  I was always taught that business happens OUTSIDE of your organization.

What does NAA hope to accomplish with this lead balloon?  According to the description of the community, everything it does can be accomplished with a simple blog and email account.  They have missed the entire purpose of an online community which, is to reach out to people outside your sphere of knowledge.

Ask.metafilter.com is one of the greatest sites that gets this right.  Please check it out.  And please stop building communities that are meaningless.

Continue reading →

New WSJ.com site, NOT a redesign!

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Given that technology and taste changes so fast, it is a wonder that websites change so little over time. I would say that after 2 years a site should be seriously courting developers for a new product and after 3 years without change readers are starting to wonder if you really care about them. If your site is 4 years old without extensive modifications, you are probably losing customers because the customer experience is so horrible.

I am happy to report that the new WSJ.com site is not a redesign, but a completely new experience.

As you can see from the before and after photos below, the new WSJ.com site is wider, minus a side bar, and less cluttered. My initial reaction is that I like it.

OLD wsj.com site

NEW wsj.com site

I go to log in and right away encounter a problem. On my Imac I cannot log in using Firefox. I can however log in using Safari. As soon as I log in I send WSJ a note using the comment feature about the problem and within 15 minutes the problem is fixed. Maybe it was me, maybe not, either way small glitch corrected.

The WSJ.com site is the only newspaper website I know which offers real online communities.  The Journal Community is where people post profiles, make connections, share news items, and form groups around their interests.  I set up my profile, which takes about 2 minutes, and peruse the categories for newspaper groups. There are none so I start one. Here it is. Please Join.

Newspaper Industry Group wsj

Exploring the site, I get lost in a series of links and have to hit the home button a few times to get my bearings. This should resolve itself after a couple visits to the site. I read a few articles and check out the comments section, video tab, interactive graph tab, and slideshow section associated with them. They are nice new features. I should mention that at press time, only paid subscribers can comment on articles and join the community. There is also a newsreel widget that can be downloaded or embedded into any blog or social networking portal.

A redesign takes what was before, moves stuff around, puts bells and whistles on it and calls it done. What the Wall Street Journal did was completely change the way people interact with their product AND expand on the capabilities of what can be done with a multimedia website. Aside from a few kinks that will be worked out in the next few days, I think the new site is a homerun.

How not to use Twitter… when technology and incompetence collide.

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The Rocky Mountain News tweets the funeral of a 3-year-old, Marten Kudlis, killed when a car ran into the ice cream parlor he was in.

I highly recommend newspapers using Twitter to build an audience while writing/ gathering a story for publication. I think it is great for on-the-scene reporting at breaking news events.

But what is the point of using Twitter at a funeral? This does not add to my self-actualization, it does not inform me or entertain me either. The online editor at the Rocky Mountain News needs to get his head examined for allowing this tasteless stunt.

The Reporter is Berny Morson. John Temple is the editor, publisher and president of the Rocky Mountain News. Links are provided to contact these people. No one has been able to reach these two for a comment at press time.

UPDATE 9-13-2008

John Temple attempts to explain his usage of Twitter for covering this funeral. He claims the following:

  • Helping the community by sending live feeds like for a road closing
  • The reporter was out of the way of the mourners
  • Major funerals are covered by TV and Radio
  • They’ve taken photos of dead babies (for the mother, with the mother’s permission) and had no complaints
  • “We must learn to use the new tools at our disposal”

The problem is that this was not a “road closing”. It wasn’t a presidential debate. It wasn’t done for the sake of the family.

Most importantly, The Rocky Mountain News should learn how to use Twitter before unleashing it at a kid’s (or anyone’s) funeral. You don’t have to be a newspaper editor to know that.

John, I’ve always thought that the purpose of a newspaper is to promote self-actualization by providing readers with quality information. Readers use that information to make better decisions on a wide range of topics, from which road to travel on (road closings), to which candidate to vote for. When readers find these interactions favorable over a period of time, then a relationship is cultivated and readers come to view your paper as a reliable source for news, information, guidance, entertainment, and advertising.

Not very long ago, the industry standard for revenue generated per subscriber was roughly $1000. It is easy to see why this is no longer the case. The product is no longer providing that level of quality, relevant, information.

Going From a Print to Online Only Business Model: Implications

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If a newspaper transitions (or wishes to transition) to an online only news source, it will sell off capital assets such as its pressroom, printing presses, mailroom equipment, and trucks.

  • Without replacing those assets, what are the long-term business and accounting implications? They eliminate the need to maintain that equipment. And they eliminate the need for people to operate that equipment. So they cut costs in this area.
  • What are your new assets? Employee generated content remains your only preexisting asset. Again, this is not new. Online applications and business processes, which can be patented, (intellectual property) will be your only new asset. Are you producing patentable ideas? Do you have such a capability in place?
  • Is that it? Is that enough? Can your intangible assets be amortized as efficiently as tangible assets depreciated? Can you borrow against your intangible assets as efficiently? Will a bank be willing to loan you money at the best rates with those assets as collateral?
  • Is your newspaper brand strong enough to support this new business model? You are no longer competing against local markets when you go online. You are now competing against every single website on the net for eyeballs. (of which there are 1.3 billion at the moment, thanks Allison)
  • MOST IMPORTANTLY, Your newspaper’s greatest capital expenditure now will be for extremely smart, productive people. Peter Drucker calls these people “knowledge workers” Expensive, finicky, brilliant, people who must put out brilliant content 24 hours a day to attract customers and advertisers.
  • How much will these knowledge workers cost?  How much money did you save by eliminating your printed product? Would it have been better to innovate your offline offerings within your community? Are you effectively serving your customers?

Adrian Holovaty & Rob Curley Hack the Newspaper – Video

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The following video goes way back to 2005, but I wanted to share before it’s lost forever. This is newspaper Innovation. It all started in Lawrence Kansas with Adrian Holovaty and Rob Curley.

These next 4 videos feature Rob Curley speaking on hacking newspaper databases using open source software. He shares his experiences with Lawrence Journal World, Lawrence.com, Scripps, and The Washington Post. I like his anecdotes and the applications he and his team develop. But where are the applications now? I don’t see them in wide practice at newspapers.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Newspaper on Mobile Phones – You Paid For What Now?

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First, the stats from wikipedia (not the best source I know):

An increasing number of countries, particularly in Europe, now have more mobile phones than people. According to the figures from Eurostat, the European Union’s in-house statistical office, Luxembourg had the highest mobile phone penetration rate at 158 mobile subscriptions per 100 people (158%), closely followed by Lithuania and Italy.[7] In Hong Kong the penetration rate reached 139.8% of the population in July 2007.[8] Over 50 countries have mobile phone subscription penetration rates higher than that of the population and the Western European average penetration rate was 110% in 2007 (source Informa 2007). The U.S. currently has one of the lowest rates of mobile phone penetrations in the industrialized world at 85%.

A recent article in The New York Times about newspapers on cellphones had this statement from, “Tim Repsher, who oversees Media General’s mobile products, said he chose Verve because he would not have to hire new staff members to figure out how to publish newspapers on cellphones. Mobile readership quadrupled in a year”

Now, my question is this. If you are already giving away content for free online, outsourcing delivery, partnering with Yahoo on ad placement and classified ads, and losing paid print readership without creating a new deliverable, are you still a newspaper? Or are you a collection of freelance journalists?

What if Media General had hired staff to develop a cell phone application? Their ROI would be higher. They may even have come up with an application to sell others. We’ll never know I guess. What is the cost / benefit of outsourcing a service you think is integral to the viability of your organization? That doesn’t make any sense to me.And as for “quadrupling the mobile readership in one year”, what does that even mean? Did you go from 1 person to 4? Tell us what your penetration in the market is.

Tell us what you really paid for…

How oh How can I advertise? Let me count the ways….

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There are so many ways to advertise, is it any wonder that newspapers are losing money? I put together the below chronology just too give my self a better idea of what is going on in the advertising world. Pretty incomplete I know, but It shows the major trends here.

  • Earliest – Word of mouth, Flyers, Hand-held signs, Calling cards, Public Relations
  • Early 1700′s Newspaper ads appear, Business cards
  • Mid 1700′s Magazine advertising appears
  • Early 1800′s Posters, Human billboards
  • Mid 1800′s Roadside billboards, Building billboards
  • Late 1800′s Yellow pages
  • Early 1900′s Radio, Coupons, Skywriting, Theatrical ads
  • Mid 1900′s Television, Telemarketing, Clothing ads, Electric signs, Corporate sponsorship
  • Late 1900′s Direct mail, Mobile billboards, Internet websites, Product placement, More corporate sponsorship, Electronic billboards, Bus wraps
  • Early 2000′s Viral marketing, Pay per click advertising, Email marketing, RSS feeds, Podcasts, Banner ads, Search engine optimization, Pop-up/under ads, Craig’sList, Angie’s List, Yelp, Yahoo locals, Google ad sense, Digital signs, Digital Billboards, Social Media

Email or comment to add anything to this list.

Dow Jones & Co. Amassing Online Business Units

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A sign of the times, Dow Jones & Co. publisher of 8 daily and 15 weekly community newspapers is shoring up its operations by buying online businesses which do not all require the use of printed paper to conduct business. In October of 2006 the company concluded its purchase of Factiva, an online news retrieval service. Today it agreed to acquire eFinancialNews Holdings Ltd. Included is efinancialnews.com a subscription based website and Private Equity a weekly publication which also offers training and events.

In 2004 Dow Jones bought MarketWatch. Here are the stats for the company today as it appears on their website:
“MarketWatch, Inc. is wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company, Inc. and is a leading provider of business news, financial information and analytical tools. The Company operates two award-winning Web sites, MarketWatch.com and BigCharts.com, as well as the stock market simulation site, VirtualStockExchange.com. The Company produces the syndicated MarketWatch Weekend television program and provides radio updates every 30 minutes on the MarketWatch.com Radio Network. MarketWatch also offers subscription products for individual investors, including the Hulbert Financial Digest suite of products, Retirement Weekly and ETF Trader. The Company’s MarketWatch Licensing Services group is a leading licensor of market news, data, investment analysis tools and other online applications to financial services firms, media companies, wireless carriers and Internet service providers.”

During this same period Dow Jones has sold six of its community newspapers.

Rich Zannino, chief executive officer of Dow Jones speaks of the sale.
“This sale and the pending acquisition of Factiva are the latest examples of our commitment to transform Dow Jones from a company heavily dependent on print publishing revenue to a more diversified company capable of meeting the needs of its customers across all consumer and enterprise media channels, whether print, online, mobile or otherwise”.