We want a ‘new media’ approach to the Vancouver Olympics so that people can have a ‘behind the scenes’ view of the Olympics as an experience not just a standard audience view point because people are demanding greater and greater access that we are able to deliver.
—Mission Statement
Read all about their efforts at the Vancouver Project blog.
Amazon plans big screen Kindle: Textbook margins are the real aim not saving newspapers -from ZDnet
Editor in Chief of ZDNet, Larry Dignan convincingly writes that the new Big Screen Kindle’s are designed and marketed to serve the $8.6 Billion college textbook market.
Looking to Big-Screen E-Readers to Help Save the Daily Press -from NYTimes
“…it is Amazon, maker of the Kindle, that appears to be first in line to try throwing an electronic life preserver to old-media companies.”
Will Anybody Buy The New Large-Format Kindle? -from wired
Wired is owned by Conde Nast who is owned by Advance who owns many newspapers like the Staten Island Advance and Newark Star-Ledger so this is an interesting take on the situation. Where’s the market demand?
Alan Rusbridger at the Institut für Medienpolitik in Berlin on April 22, speaking on the future of journalism and explaining how the Guardian opened up its site to a wider pool of contributors.
Alan Rusbridger on the Future of Journalism from Carta on Vimeo.
Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger’s (@arusbridger) sharing some thoughts.
Please note the additions to the panel. This Event is Free. Be sure to RSVP!!
The NEW, New Journalism
As newspapers and magazines downsize themselves into oblivion, the blogosphere asserts its power. Digital tools like Twitter and Facebook are redefining how bloggers report and comment on the news, turning the Web into a giant, hyper-connected networking system. Join us to learn how traditional journalists must adapt in order to seize new opportunities.
Matt Winkler, Editor-in-Chief, Bloomberg News
Rachel Sterne, Founder & CEO, GroundReport.com
Mark Egan, Bureau Chief, New York and Northeastern United States, Thomson Reuters
Matt Cooper, Contributing Editor, Portfolio; Editor at Large, Talking Points Memo
Moderator: Rachel Sklar, Director, Abrams Research; former senior contributing editor, The Huffington Post
WHEN: Tuesday, April 28, 6:30 to 8:00 pm
WHERE: NYU, Abbe Bogen Faculty Lounge, 11th Floor, Kaufman Management Center, 44 West 4th Street (at Greene St.)
TO REGISTER: Please visit www.cencom.org, OR email info@cencom.org OR call The Center at: 212-686-5005
Data via Marketing Charts and Hitwise
“What does your audience want from you – and do you know what they will pay for?”. -from PWC
Many newspapers have not honestly asked themselves this question because if they did they would be the largest creators of business websites in their DMA. As a consultant I work with local business owners to do things like build / rebuild their websites, add their sites and business to listing sites like Google Maps, Yahoo Local, Yelp and others.
Newspapers should be doing this, not me. It should be a big, growing part of their revenue stream. I know of only one newspaper doing something close to this and that is Cox Ohio publishing. Here’s an excerpt from a quick interview with Internet General Manager Ray Marcano from Cox Ohio Publishing explaining more.
End America East Session Follow up with Ray Marcano:
RI- Looking forward, what will your main revenue streams be?
RM- Direct sales not tied to print / classified upsells. Our direct sales are up 30% year over year.
RI- Tell me about your Ad Studio business. When did it launch? Who is using it? Is it a major revenue stream?
RM- We started that business in 2008. Our biggest customers are media companies outsourcing to COX for ad design. It is a significant new revenue stream.
RI- Is an online only presence like the what the Seattle P-I did anything your company has considered?
RM – No because our product is thriving, that’s not to say we don’t have stand alone online sites because we do have 937moms.com and activedayton.com
RELATED:
Free Advertising Ideas For Newspaper Publishers
Part 2 More Advertising Ideas For Newspaper Publishers where I talk about setting up an advertising fair for for courting local businesses.
Second Street Media Solutions Owners Matt Coen and Doug Villhard Discuss Upickem online contesting platform.
Outlook for newspaper publishing in the digital age | 2009 report -from PWC.com (pdf)
56 page report on the outlook of the industry ask lots of great questions the industry should be asking itself like “What does your audience want from you – and do you
know what they will pay for?”, many newspapers have not honestly asked themselves this question because if they did they would be the largest creators of business websites in their DMA.
Newspaper Outlook 2009 Related Video (sorry PWC doesn’t allow embeds at this point).
Wikipedia Founder: How To Save The Newspaper Industry -from MediaPost.com
News is widely syndicated — and that’s one reason why it’s difficult to charge for the content, Wales said. “If you went into Google News and didn’t see 600 copies of the same story, but just one, that one could make money — and spreading it everywhere doesn’t make sense”.
I personaly feel that newspaper are too worried about damaging their credibility and cache to just give up something like the sports section to local sports nuts, but if phased in properly I can see it working. Look at Seeking Alpha (I’m a contributing media writer, though I haven’t contributed anything in a while) as a model. I don’t know what their balance sheet looks like, but I know that people trust the site enough that it has formed partnerships with companies including Yahoo! Finance, Dow Jones MarketWatch, E-Trade, and CNET. The company is backed by Benchmark Capital, a firm that funded eBay.
The key to launching successful user generated content and sections is #1 visibility: Get the authors in front of lots of people and they will usually do their best to look good and do good. #2 selection: Get the most enlightened and fanatical users onboard. #3 strict enformcement of guidlines: to give readers a sense of security.
But Robert, you just laid into Topix in a recent blog post for being a big useless, flame war inducing, data dump. That site is user generated. Yes, and one of their big problems is ignoring rules #1-3 above. When Wales said “give up”, he was refering to newspapers’ attempt to move their business model online. Clearly the internet paradigm demands new models and revenue streams.
UPDATE: 04/25/2009
Kenneth Lerer delivered the following speech at the Columbia Journalism School Annual New Media Lecture Series on Thursday, April 23, 2009
How We Got Here and How We Get Out of Here
——————————–
Nicholas Lemann, Dean of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, cordially invites you to
the annual Hearst Foundation New Media Lecture
Thursday, April 23, 2009 (6:30-9 pm)
Columbia Journalism School
116th St & Broadway (#1 train to 116th St)
Join us to hear Kenneth Lerer, co-founder and chairman of The Huffington Post deliver an important lecture about the media industry:
“How We Got Here and How We Get Out of Here”
6:30-7:00 pm – reception – drinks and light food
7-9 pm – lecture + Q&A (dessert will be available after the Q&A)
No charge; no RSVP required; all are welcome. Continue reading
“In general, I have very little time for Scoble, and true to form there are about six things in the first half of this alone that make me want to beat the stupid out of him with a shovel. But there’s also food for thought in there this time.” -lifted from a delicious note
Here is the offending article: The newspaper industry just gave away another free meal, er Twitter: do they have any left? -from scobleizer.com
What isn’t explored in Robert Scoble’s article, or maybe what isn’t understood by the author of that article, is that when a disruptive technology comes along, The Internet, in this case, little to nothing can be done to prevent seismic changes in business practices. Mark Federman sums this up way better than I can. Here he is talking about Marshall McLuhan’s famous line “the medium is the message”. Continue reading
The Bakersfield Californian joins The Virginia-Pilot as early adopters of the Alan Jocobson inspired news platform, TweenTribune. Both newspapers are using the site to revitalize their moribund NIE programs. The platform is web based, safe for kids, NIE compliant, and monetizable. If that is not incentive enough to consider it, the Audit Bureau of Circulations will cease to count NIE newspaper copies as a form of paid circulation in the beginning of 2010. The TweenTribune sites will fill that need.
Though TweenTribune is a niche site for kids, Alan’s concept focuses on newspapers publishing many “community of interest” news sites rather than a single geographic community newspaper website. Currently, this is a more common strategy for magazine publishers and blog networks, but the idea is to publish many independent niche news sites to focus readership, drive engagement and command higher CPM’s from advertisers.
In an email with Alan he emphasized that newspaper publishers are interested in the TweenTribune platform as a model for lots of niche sites – “…the number we’re throwing around is 1,000 sites. They want to use TweenTribune to test the efficacy of that strategy”. Continue reading
Dernbach to Address the Government’s Role in Sustainability
Highlights:
1. The size of the United States’ GDP requires a more active involvement in sustainability by its citizens and its corporations along with the federal government.
2. Dernbach’s work within both state and federal government has given him a unique expertise in creating environmental law and sustainable practices.
3. Dernbach to discuss ways and means to accomplish sustainability goals in his keynote address at The Green Media Conference, June 9 in Washington, DC.
MERCER ISLAND, WA – April 15, 2009 –John C. Dernbach, Distinquished Professor of Law at Widener University Law School and editor of Agenda for a Sustainable America, will be the afternoon keynote speaker for The Green Media Conference, June 9 in Washington, DC at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. Professor. Dernbach will be discussing the role of the government and the United States in general in creating a sustainable world.
QUOTE: DON CARLI, CONFERENCE CHAIR AND SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE INSTITUTE FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUNICATION Continue reading
‘Hyperlocal’ Web Sites Deliver News Without Newspapers -from NYTimes.com
“They rely on pulling data from other sources, so they really can’t function if news organizations disappear,” said Steve Outing
“In many cities, the local blog scene is so rich and deep that even if a newspaper goes away, there would be still be plenty of stuff for us to publish,” said Adrian Holovaty
In a brief twitter exchange with @steveouting he revealed that the single quote in the NYT article is out of context of a long conversation he had with the NYT reporter. So there is no battle between the two. Having read his blog and articles for a long time, I believe him, but the NYT set up his quote and the entire article as a battle of old versus new.
In my interview with Montclair, New Jersey news blog Baristanet.com, cofounder Liz George sees no problem blogging without newspapers. See the excerpt below. Continue reading
I’m proud to announce that Metaprinter has been named a media partner reporting SustainCommWorld’s Green Media Conference on June 9th in Washington DC. Metaprinter founder and senior writer Robert Ivan (hey, that’s me) will be on location, live blogging via twitter and updating daily at this blog. Email Robert to set up an interview or to showcase your innovative new product or service. Readers are also encouraged to send me questions, comments, and suggestions: Robert at metaprinter dot com OR twitter.com/metaprinter. Follow the #GreenMedia hashtag for event updates on Twitter.
Learn…
How Sustainability can save you money. What Sustainable products and services are available now. Why Sustainability gets you new business and helps retain current customers. Check out Conference Program and Pre-Conference Workshop. Continue reading
Xconomy’s first-ever Forum on the Future of Mobile Innovation in New England will be held Tuesday April 7, 2009.
One can’t-miss highlight of the forum will be a “fireside” chat with Rich Miner, who brought the Android platform to Google and was recently named general manager of the new Google Ventures, and Sandy Pentland, the MIT Media Lab luminary who leads the Next Billion Network for mobile entrepreneurs and has been using mobile digital sensors to study social signaling between people. (Pentland just published a book on that subject, Honest Signals).
This looks like a great event for anyone in the Boston area on Tuesday. Especially considering Mit’s Next Billion Network states, “Within the next three years, another billion people will begin to make regular use of cell phones, continuing the fastest adoption of a new technology in history”.
Really Interesting Group is a multi disciplinary organisation working in post digital design. Partners work independently or collaboratively and share resources across the group. We collected some things from the internet we thought would work well on paper and we made it into a newspaper with a limited edition run of 1,000.
You can read more about the project and see some great photos via noisydecentgraphics blog.
Really Interesting Group from This Happened – London on Vimeo.
I stumbled upon this through http://www.thishappened.org/ which I normally would just tweet or bookmark on delicious and move on, but it was just too cool to skip. I love the design of their printed newspaper. The lines are so crisp and clean, “I wanted to avoid it looking like a newspaper that a designer had been let loose on. Graphics every-fucking-where. Something you might see from a bad brand”. Objective accomplished!
What about the font Robert? Well, “The brief was to be able to read it in bed without glasses on. So I wanted the type to be biggish and nice and clear”. Mission Accomplished! The American newspaper industry could have used these types of designs a while back. I know redesigns won’t save an entire industry, but maybe the few surviving newspapers will take some design cues from this project?!
Microsoft Office Labs vision 2019 (montage + video) -istartedsomething.com February 28th, 2009
When Microsoft decides to imagine the future, it never fails to impress. Not only do you have some of the smartest people envisioning what’s possible, but they also invest so much into communicating these ideas through sights and sounds which the production value can be compared to most blockbuster sci-fi films.
Below is a montage of the full 5minute Microsoft video. At the 30 second mark you see someone reading an electronic newspaper. Check out the full video at the link above. In that video, newspapers appear at 4:20 and go till 5:10, worth the wait to see their vision of the future of news. Microsoft’s vision does not include citizen journalism or beatblogging or whatever else you want to call it. In their vision, technology hands the power back to big companies and the rich people who can afford their products. I didn’t see any screen shots to indicate this electronic newspaper technology was cheap or designed to be consumed by the masses, just some rich white guy in his Jetsons house.
How Japanese Newspapers are Trying to Save Themselves -from ReadWriteWeb
“I am in a dying industry,” said Kenichi Miyata, a senior editor and writer at the Asahi newspaper, a daily with a circulation of 8 million. “Young people do not read newspapers, and our population is getting very old very rapidly.”
The best part of this article though is lengthy comment #7 by Yuya Saito who goes on to explain the news consumption by the youth of Japan. It is important to note because the large aged population of Japan is a good indicator of future trends in the USA. I want more first hand info about Japan’s news consumption.
The Bivings Report Has Their Top Ten Newspaper Website list up and I can’t agree with one of them so below is my own top 5 list. I don’t discriminate on size, blog, news, paper, country, whatever. These are just ones I think hit home runs. Enjoy.
1. The Las Vegas Sun – I would say that this is THE BEST newspaper site in America however, it is not a traditional newspaper. Only a smaller version of the site is printed and distributed, as an insert, in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Still, this site kicks ass. It utilizes multimedia news reporting throughout the site, not just features. If you visit the site often, you’ll notice the front page layout changes every day, there are no rigid templates. The site uses Django and the Ellington CMS to do this as well as the genius of Rob Curley.
It has been rumored that this site will become completely cash flow positive in late 2009 / early 2010. That would make it the first general interest news site that I know of which is economically sustainable. Continue reading
Left to Right: Susan, Matt, Jeff, Nick, some lady’s head, Andrew
The Future of News – Panel discussion
If we accept that media will never return to its pre-Internet form, what lies ahead for news? How will we use current and future digital tools to craft and disseminate information? What lessons can publishers of all types learn from the news industry’s digital transition? A panel of media experts will discuss these topics and others in this forward-looking session.
Wouldn’t you know it, my recorder failed during this event. Below is what I could jot down. TOC will have a video up soon enough and I’ll embed it here. Some key topics mentioned by the panel members:
Andrew Nachison (We Media)
-Everyone is media, there is no more “the” media.
Jeff Jarvis (Buzzmachine.com)
-Books could have done what Google did, linkable, searchable, etc..
-Google has better technology than any newspaper.
-An online model has yet to be invented / discovered which will support an entire news industry
Nick Bilton (The New York Times R&D Labs)
-Google and Microsoft are not content providers, they aren’t good at it.
-NYT is working on “smart content” customization technologies to help readers parse out content of interest to them.
-NYT publishes over 600 articles per day.
-All we talk about is business models, business models, business models. Something has got to give.
Susan Mernit (People’s Software Company)
-Knight News is helping find the future.
-Some hyperlocal is working like Baristanet and WestSeattleBlog.
-trusted locals will report foreign affairs, no more costly foreign bureaus.
Matt Thompson (Reynolds Journalism Institute)
-Introduces the term “micropatronage” at least neither I nor Jeff Jarvis ever heard of it before.
-News sites must develop a community for micropatronage to work, like the examples Susan gave. Continue reading
2:00pm Wednesday, 02/11/2009
The Future of News
Location: Broadway North (6th Floor)
Andrew Nachison (We Media), Nick Bilton (The New York Times R&D Labs), Jeff Jarvis (Buzzmachine.com), Susan Mernit (People’s Software Company), Matt Thompson (Reynolds Journalism Institute)
What the Panel will discuss:
If we accept that media will never return to its pre-Internet form, what lies ahead for news? How will we use current and future digital tools to craft and disseminate information? What lessons can publishers of all types learn from the news industry’s digital transition? A panel of media experts will discuss these topics and others in this forward-looking session. Read more.
-I will have info / interviews linked to below.
-Twitter #TOC for general news
Follow me on twitter.com/metaprinter
UPDATES: FEB 11, 2009
Long before anyone had heard of the Internet, early home computer users could read their morning newspapers online … sort of. Steve Newman’s 1981 story was broadcast on KRON San Francisco.
Last line is funny. “the new tele-paper won’t be much competition for the 20cent street edition.” Oh sweet irony!