Posts Tagged Digital
Two news sites to watch
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Newspapers, Radio, Television on November 6th, 2009
Everyone knows that media sites - particularly newspapers - are struggling mightily to find the right Internet business model, one that will sustain them as print continues to decline and digital becomes more important and no longer viewed as an interesting appendage, as it has been by too many in the recent past.
Anyone who cares about the value and integrity of news and its importance to our everyday life is pulling for each newspaper, television station and radio station to figure it out. Not all will. And at those who don’t, the “cut-expenses-until-we’re-profitable” model won’t work, because there will be nothing left to cut.
It will take more than a sharp budget knife to succeed.
While we are rooting with vigor for media sites to find that elusive model, keep an eye on these guys: www.sdnn.com and www.texastribune.org .
The first one - ww.sdnn.com - is San Diego News Network.
Take a look. It looks feels and acts like a “traditional” news site (whatever that means these days), but if you spend more than a minute there - and you should spend many minutes there if you’re interested in the future of local digital news - you will be satisfied with not only its completeness, but its fun feel, and its very, very community-centric approach. For an example, navigate to The Good Squad on their site.
The San Diego site was the first of an ambitious rollout plan. The second site is www.swrnn.com. It just launched, covering Southwest Riverside, California. Next is Orange County.
The goal is news sites in 40 U.S. and Canadian cities over the next 30 months.
The local news network sites reside under the U.S. Local News Network banner, a company founded by local technology entrepreneur Neil Senturia. He has built a strong staff, including President Chris Jennewein, a long-time newspaper-focused digital expert who has been in digital so long he could argue with Al Gore that HE actually invented the Internet.
Even if you’re not interested in San Diego, their site is worth watching.
Same for the Austin-based site, The Texas Tribune.
The site is a non-profit, doesn’t accept ads and exists on the support of donations and sponsors.
It’s run by former Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith, with backing from venture capitalist John Thornton.
It’s a political journalist’s dream site, loaded with serious articles and insight into the game of Texas politics. In a state with a rich and storied, and sometimes sordid, political tradition, it’s got the right topic to cover.
Time will tell on both.
But in a traditional news environment that has focused on regurgitating print for so many years, these sites may have something to teach others.
Let’s take a look at the Fast Flip side
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Newspapers, Technology on September 16th, 2009
Sometimes the road to new habits and new technology is littered with temporary bridges and make-do paths, products with a very important but very short shelf-life, and products that fill a gap until a better idea comes along.
Is Google Fast Flip one of these, or is it the start of something much bigger?
In a media industry that focuses on every piece of info, trivial or not, press coverage of Fast Flip the last few days has been middle of the road, respectable but not overwhelming.
The New York Times wrapped up Fast Flip nicely in its article. PC World and Mashable provided similar coverage.
Google’s Fast Flip is basically just a new way to view the news. Google has 39 partners, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, Cosmopolitan and Harper’s Bazaar.
Give it a try. Click on an article and flip through the article, a la traditional media. There are ads on the pages, and it’s a revenue share with the partners.
Maybe it’s a short-term play, has a comfort level for some and bridges the gap for others. Maybe it’s a keeper.
And maybe - just maybe - it doesn’t need a lot of analyzing. It’s just another way to read, and whenever that happens, it’s good.
Also, not a bad thing that Google and traditional media found a way to work together.
A light at the end of the tunnel?
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Industry, Newspapers on August 10th, 2009
Or is that a train loaded with unused newsprint rushing full speed ahead at us?
Three promising signs indicate that possibly, maybe, perhaps the newspaper industry is finally starting to break free from the bottom, where it has been mired for many, many months.
Those signs:
1. The New York Times reports that The Seattle Times, the city’s surviving newspaper after the rival Post-Intelligencer closed its print operation several months ago, is in black ink. With the P-I’s closing, The Times circulation jumped 30 percent, from 200,000 to 260,000, in June. And at the P-I, a Web-only operation now, owner Hearst says things are going better than expected, with audience and revenue better than forecast.
2. Gordon Borrell, a long-time observer of the newspaper industry and head of Borrell Associates, is forecasting a “mild rebound” for local newspapers in 2010, perhaps a 2.4 percent increase in advertising. Borrell reports that smaller newspapers “are firmly entrenched in their niche of providing rich local content that people seem to prefer in print – rather than screen – format.” That matches the thinking in corporate conference rooms three years ago when the bottom started to fall out. Then the only solace was a belief that at least the small to medium size newspapers would weather the building storm. Borrell suggested we all might want to remember his forecast and take a look one year from today.
Good stuff, but not yet time to uncork the champagne bottle.
Newspapers face a very tough road, and so far the attempts at righting the ship have come mostly from slash and burn cost-cutting over the last 12 months. Not much room or time to innovate or invent “the new model.”
But now newspapers are in Phase 2: trying to publish a quality print product, while moving forward on the digital front and trying to woo advertisers back.
Any one of those alone is a tall order in good times; an amazing challenge when staff ranks are depleted and morale is down.
But as Yogi Berra and Lenny Kravitz agree, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
And these three reports seem to indicate it ain’t over.
As a pal/editor at the Palm Beach Post says: Onward.
Social media, business style
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Industry, Social Media on July 27th, 2009
Some businesses ignore it (other than wondering WHY their employees are on social media during the workday). Others adapt and embrace, and make it their own.
Here’s one from the latter category.
Consulting company Booz Allen Hamilton has launched an internal social media networking tool called Hello. Booz has all the “normal” digital tools: email, blogs, wikis, an intranet. But this new platform is intended to tie it all together, and get everyone working in the same repository.
CIO Insight reports that since launch last year, 70 percent of the firm’s employees have logged on, and 35 percent have edited profiles.
It’s not a site for planning after-hours socializing.
It’s a place for employees to get help from co-workers to do their job (anybody know an expert on the Navy’s ERP system?), presumably making them better and more efficient employees.
It’s not all about racing to see how many you can friend, a company official says. It’s about spreading the knowledge, particularly knowledge buried in hard drives or on desktops of senior employees.
“The goal is not for co-workers to build purely virtual relationships,” he says, “but to make connections to the right person or right piece of intellectual capital and then pick up the phone. It’s just a new spin on an old technique.
Communication. What a cool idea.
Newspapers: Time to act
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Industry, Newspapers on July 23rd, 2009
I’ve never been in a boat with a cracked hull, watching it fill with water, bailing with an old milk jug. And planning my next ’round the world cruise.
But that’s what it feels like today in the world of newspapers.
There’s a leak in the boat, the water line inside rises as the hull dips to meet the water level outside. But it’s time to think, well, what do we do next year.
Hit by the double whammy of a sinking national economy and changing readership habits, newspapers - the institution - are in a sink or swim situation.
But the dilemma is you can’t just work to survive today’s disaster. If that’s your goal, you won’t. Competition is too tough, technology and product move too quickly. If you take a deep breath, you’ve lost the moment.
But with water rushing in, it’s pretty logical to take that deep breath before figuring out the rescue scenario.
A paralysis can set in and that water quickly and quietly filling the boat looks so serene and peaceful as it gurgles your way.
But ultimately it pulls you down.
Newspapers have to shake the paralysis and do “something” - anything - different online.
For all the talk about speed and flexibility, some newspapers still move at the old pace. Lots of meetings, over-planning, slow decision-making. That’s not so much a criticism as a reflection on a long history of careful thought and process, when the balance sheet was different.
Now it’s time to move; the world has changed.
So, in that sense, it was good to see that The New York Times is in the midst of a survey with their valuable print readers, trying to figure out if there is any type of pay online model that could work.
One scenario is $5 a month, half that for print subscribers. Looks like one option is to put some areas behind a paid wall. No scenario calls for blocking off all content.
The idea of paid content online is odious. But perhaps there’s a way that allows portions to go paid, other portions to remain free.
Social Media: To die for?
Posted by jareetz in Social Media on July 19th, 2009
Some think so.
A new study by Anderson Analytics shows that only 29 percent of Facebook and LinkedIn users say they could “probably do without” those networking services.
That’s 71 percent of respondents who profess how absolutely critical social media is to their everyday lives.
Facebook led the list with 75 percent of the social media users participating in the survey saying it was their most valuable network. MySpace came in at 65 percent, followed by business-oriented LinkedIn at 30 percent and Twitter at 12 percent.
Both Twitter and LinkedIn have unique challenges, the report said. First, LinkedIn needs to figure out a way to build frequency, and Twitter needs to find out a way to add value to its service.
The numbers, to no one’s surprise, are big: Facebook has 78 million regular users, MySpace 67 million, Twitter 17 million and LinkedIn 11 million. A “regular user” in this case means you log on once a month.
Anderson reported an estimated 110 million people using social networking sites on a regular basis. And 61 percent of those are under 35 years old.
Also worth noting - women lead the social networking category, 55 to 45 percent.
LinkedIn is more male - 57 to 43 percent - and Facebook is more female - 56 to 44 percent.
Men share hobby, work and related articles info, and women are more likely to share photos, info about what they’re currently doing, and posts about their pets.
And how do you compare with the averages? Men have an average of 140 Facebook friends, 53 Twitter followers and 71 LinkedIn conenctions. That compares for women’s 110 on Facebook, 18 on Twitter and 36 on LinkedIn.
Any surprises overall?
Not really. Other than perhaps the number of conenctions seems a little low, but it is a sample of all who say they use social media.
So what does it mean?
It simply reinforces that social networking itself continues to grow, though the players may rise and fall, as they have in recent years. Who three years ago would have thought Facebook would nudge aside MySpace so easily? What is ahead for Twitter?
Time will tell, but no argument that social media continues to rev up at a rapid pace.
Is your digital ID in order?
Posted by jareetz in Social Media on June 23rd, 2009
For years - before anyone even thought about their digital identity - wise image-builders counseled clients to take stock of your digital footprint, search your name and see what you get, be cautious about what you post.
It still applies, but oh, haven’t we moved so much farther along.
Even for those without keen digital skills, it is now amazingly simple to build a personal identity (good or bad) - via your Facebook page, your Twitter activity, LinkedIn, blogs and other digital extensions.
Try this experiment: step back and take a look at friends’ content feeds flowing into your Facebook page, maybe over the next 12-hour period. Imagine those same friends in a room, talking, visiting, killing time. You’d pretty much get the same info, right?
Just as people work to make a good impression with a group of strangers, so it happens on Facebook, and social networking in general. Never mind if the person asking for info on hiking trails in the Swiss Alps really wants that info, or just wants everyone to know he’s going. As in realtime, so it is in digital.
What Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others make so easy is the ability to send a message about who you are, what you care about, why you matter.
At the end of the day, most people people want to make a good impression, establish a smart and savvy identity. And just like any successful effort, it’s not all about one item. It’s the sum total: what you present to friends (and customers); how you’re perceived; who you are, online and in the real world. Don’t neglect one over the other.
The need for speed
Posted by jareetz in Industry, Newspapers, Radio, Television on June 18th, 2009
What’s your school of thought when it comes to publishing systems - newspapers, radio, TV, whatever - and speed to market? Make it perfect, dot every i, cross every t…spend a couple years. Or get a good one in quickly and grow it, as needs grow?
Okay, you’re thinking this is not exciting, and why do I care? But you’re wrong. Almost everything digital revolves around a “publishing system” of sorts. You’ve got a thought for your Facebook page, but you have to publish it, so how it functions, the interface, the speed, the ease of use make all the difference. Same for this blog. Same for Twitter. Slow and cumbersome, you waste time, and perhaps don’t use as often as you would otherwise.
Same stands for the media and publishing system decisions. Only it’s almost a life or death call now, since so many companies teeter on the edge financially, and finding cash to buy systems, and reinvent their operations, and pay the bills, too, is a challenge these days.
It also has everything to do with how a media company organizes itself for this century, not the last. Is the staff (now, much smaller than two years ago) integrated into publishing to all devices, all output methods, or it it split apart, one little group doing this, another doing that? A bunch of separate fiefdoms. Is everyone focused on the content, or the publishing system?
There are already almost too many minefields to navigate. Doesn’t it seem logical - regardless of the name brand - to work to integrate widely across the editorial team, do it right, but know that you keep building it and growing the system as needs change.
But whatever happens, do it quickly. As the industry reinvents, there’s a true need for speed, flexibility and ease of use. It’s simple.
A year from now …
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Industry, Newspapers, Radio, Television on June 16th, 2009
…. will today’s dirge on “the death of newspapers as we know them” be replaced by “the death of radio as we know it,” and “the death of TV as we know it”?
Probably not so directly said - because TV and radio won’t provide as much “ink” to their financial woes as newspapers have in the last 24 months. But it is clearly reinvention time - not to mention redefinition time - for all mass media, not just newspapers.
There’s a decent case to make that TV and radio today are where newspapers were just a few years ago: fretting about the future, but believing and hoping the bottom wouldn’t drop out.
Newspapers had an extra hit to push them along: an over-the-cliff national economy, plus some investments that turned sour.
But all three - newspapers, radio and TV - face the same reality of dramatically changing reader/viewer habits. Newspapers just got a head start, but it’s a good bet many TV and radio companies will follow the same path.
Consider:
1. In smaller radio markets - below the top 50 -ad revenue fell 6.6 percent last year, but around 9 percent in larger markets. Sounds like a repeat of the minimally consoling conversations in newspaper board rooms two years ago that at least the smaller papers are doing okay.
2. With hundreds of channels in place today, and Internet distribution of content just starting to take hold in a big way, what does the future hold for local television stations? Pretty good bet that sorting this out will be as complicating, or moreso, than sorting out today’s newspaper issues.
The good news is TV and radio execs can study newspapers’ attempts to dig out, and reinvent.
But reinvention needs to get started, or it will be a very large hole - as newspaper companies can attest.
First step: think of each TV, radio and newspaper as an information and content business. Not a print or broadcast business.
And those remaining companies that view digital as a nice marketing tool or side business best review the focus, and seize the opportunity. Before others in their market do.
More later.
Welcome…
Consider this an intro to a new media blog, one that will hopefully go a bit behind the daily headlines, provide some perspective on the issues roiling around today, and perhaps a bit of outlook for the future. Plus a look at what is and what is not working as everyone tries a hand at experimentation and innovation, seeking answers to the issues confronting the industry.
The author is John Reetz, a former editor and reporter, who has spent the last decade on the digital side of the business.
Stay tuned for more to come.