Archive for the 'Media Companies' Category
Old to New Media: Mindset Shift - LA Times Offsite Case Study
See here for a diagram of a vision for 2010 that came out of an LA Times offsite of 24 newsroom editors “to develop a three year plan for the newsroom.” As you would expect there is a focus on feedback and input from readers, customisable content, a recognition of content from professionals and amateur and a wide channel view for the future across TV, print, web and mobile. See this link for the memo sent to staff and a book/blog reading list provided to those going along.
“Rest assured that we still want to break news and do in-depth and investigative stories that matter to our readers. But we also are looking for ways to reimagine our business so that we can remain relevant for many years to come.” - LA Times Editor
When easily accessible publishing tools such as blogs and citizen journalism sites first came into existence they were very far removed from traditional publishing houses. In the last 6 -7 years they have become commonplace, in use by individuals who would not previously been able to publish their ideas, opinions and any other creative content they choose to generate. If this content is generated out of a work setting and of a person’s own initiative many claim it is because it is a created out of passion, which makes for expertise, understanding and a good read. This is how many of the leading blogs were formed and the reason they can gain such a strong and rapid readership.These tools are now also used widely by organisations, with main benefits that come to mind gains in productivity, increased ability for collaboration and the ability to have a two way conversation.
But more relevant here is that they are also used to today by “traditional” media companies, complementing (e.g. add a comment, social media tools) and in some cases replacing traditional journalism. What I thought first thought when I read the article about the LA Times offsite was how difficult it must be to accelerate change within a large media organisation. This is where pure new media companies have an edge through agility. This LA Times plan is a couple of years off (2010), when realistically technology that is hot now and integral to this roadmap plan from LA Times may will be archaic, may have evolved, maybe even totally replaced.
In my mind it would be best to run this type of “Newsroom to New media” offsite with the understanding that “remaining relevant” will always be an ongoing process, not a fixed project with an end date looked to, in this case 2010. At the offsite focus would be best set on reinforcing to the whole editing team that the fact the roadmap that they set today will quite possibly need to change daily, weekly, monthly. And that this is one of the most exciting aspects of their field.
On the journalism note this seems relevant,
“The latest gaff in online journalism comes courtesy of prominent tech blog, emphasizing once again an important point: When bloggers are under pressure to be first and fast, the journalistic process is undermined and due diligence is neglected.”
“New Media’s final hurdle for true credibility can be summed up in one word: veracity.In two words: journalistic standards.” Read the full article here
No commentsOnline Media (Thrive) vs Print Media (Barely alive) - Fact or Fiction?
There is always a constant stream of readings/blog posts/research I come across debating the assertion that print media is on its way to a certain death. You can find a convincing argument from each side of the online vs print media argument, although it is always good to look at the interests of the publisher behind the content before taking it as fact.
In my opinion, there will always be a place for both, it is the weightings and dominance in the market of each that is the grey area. There will be an inevitable shift to digital as a preference as todays Gen Y & Z (and those to follow) age and become the baby boomers of today and target customer$. This digital preference is for real-time immediacy of information that is now expected and the norm, but these demographics have grown up much more environmentally aware also. In saying this though, there will always be those with a need or passion for some things printed regardless of age. For many nothing beats the experience of a great book or a fresh copy of your favourite magazine. The podcast below captures some of these ideas.
First see here for some extracts from a debate between a online editor (Buzzmachine.com) and print editor (National Geographic):
- Online
- “That’s the problem with print: It is far too one-way for this two-way world.”
- “Print is not dead. Print is where words go to die.”
- “In our post-scarcity world, distribution is not king and neither is content. Conversation is the kingdom, and trust is king. Perhaps your value is not just editors or articles but the community that gathers around them.”
- Print
- “There is tremendous value in passionate, knowledgeable, talented editors who can assign stories and photographs with budgets to do them better and more authoritatively than any individual can.”
- “Print is the perfect introduction to an informed debate and to the deep resources of the web.”
- “The web is the friend of print, not its killer.”
- In Agreement
The winning media companies will be the most adaptable, not the biggest or the one with the most content. The winners will be aggregating audiences in interesting ways. Bottoms up, not Top down.”Here is a great podcast from Knowledge@ Wharton (Mar 19, 2008): ‘Dead tree Medium’ no longer: For many marketers print outperforms digital. “People like paper, and paper works”.
Listen to podcast here
As always, if you want a concrete answer (for now anyway) pays to look for some cold, hard objective metrics. See Techbrief link, “Print Media vs Online Media. Who will win?”
Scott Karp from Publish2 Blog is a thought leader within this realm. Essential read is this post here “The New Media consolidation”
1 commentState of the News Media 2008 Report Released - Problems different than expected
“It appears the fundamental issue for the future of journalism is not audiences splintering away to citizen media, corporate PR and other non-news venues. In many ways the audience for news—and for what traditional newsrooms produce—appears to be growing. Nor are journalists failing to adapt. There are more signs in 2008 than ever that news people embrace the new technology and want to innovate.
“The problem, it is increasingly clear, is a broken economic model—the decoupling of advertising and news. Advertisers are not migrating to news websites with audiences, and online, news sites are already falling financially behind other kinds of web destinations.”
Will cover more of the findings and insights later, in the meanwhile:
No comments2008 State of News Media Report - Out Tuesday
The Project for Excellence will release the State of the News Media 2008 report on Monday, March 17. The report examines the health and status of journalism in America, and it includes major industry trends, specific analysis of the eight main media sectors, and the following additional features such as:
- A Year in the News, a new comprehensive content analysis of 70,000 stories from 48 news outlets in five different kinds of media.
- A survey of a cross-section of journalists that reveals how they feel about the future of the profession
- The view of the advertising industry from Madison Avenue
- A content analysis study of 64 citizen media sites
- Links to key industry statistics
Check out last year’s at this link:
http://www.lucindigo.com/2007/03/21/2007/
SEO, Stats & Stuff that will make you and your site smarter
SEO & WEBSITE TOOLS
How to develop “money making niche sites” with Wordpress (Caroline Middlebrook) - Download Here
“Search Engine Optimisation” for Bloggers. - Download Here
SEO… Some of my notes from Webstock 2008
Use Key words in: - Anchor text (own internal links help ranking)
- Clickable images alt attributes
- Headlines (in or out of H tags)
- Body text
- Title tags
- Meta description tag (may be in search result- depends on engine)
Measure success:
- not on numbers, but on value of targeted traffic (use analytics)
- on more conversions
Future of SEO:
- always free to list
- crawler friendly sites
- off page criteria (links- alway important)
- good content
- create a buzz, market, be creative
SEO Tools- Read Here
CNN Employee fired for blogging Read: “Not with a whimper but a bang” here
A comprehensive guide to “online Keyword research” - Read Here
Feed Journal - This is cool, although not aligned with my goal of a carbon zero, environmentally sustainable existence! Feed Journal, Make your own Newspaper from your RSS Feeds, reversing the trend of a move to an all electronic way of working. They claim here we read on paper 25% faster, aggregate all your RSS Feeds and then print it like a newspaper in a PDF format! Quite a cool tool I think for now and then when a day at the beach or a long trip (with no wireless) is on the cards… Have a look here
A Tech definition to learn, “AJAX” - Is used for developing interactive web applications e.g. Clear explanation here in WIkipedia.
MEDIA INDUSTRY STATISTICS
Internet Outsider - The Advertising Share Shift - US advertising revenue at 4 big online media companies–Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), AOL (TWX), and MSN (MSFT)–grew by $1.3 billion in Q2, or 42%. US advertising revenue at 15 big television, newspaper, magazine, radio, and outdoor companies (Time Warner, Viacom, CBS, etc.) shrank by $280 million in Q2, or 3%.
* Television (cable and broadcast) shrank 1%, or $50 million
* Print (magazines and newspapers) shrank 5%, or $170 million
* Radio (terrestrial) shrank 7%, or $105 million
AND BECAUSE IT IS ALL ABOUT THE CONTENT
The Lonely Writer, An E-book which discusses the challenges of writing and creativity. If offers suggestions for staying focused and productive, no matter which area of writing you are in . - Download E Book Here
2 commentsA shift to two way conversations
It was called campaign coverage for “the digerati” - the Closing Arguments event co-hosted by MySpace, MTV and Associated Press. Questions came from the studio audience and through MySpace and MTV News’ Web sites. Candidates’ responses were polled live through a widget on MySpace, using technology from Flektor, a start-up that (MySpace parent) Fox Interactive Media acquired last year. The closing arguments address was live-streamed on MySpace, MTV, and Associated Press Web channels also.
On a local setting, I noticed the other day that John Key has gone very digerati focused on his official website with 7 RSS feeds, blog, a Flickr Photostream, embedded YouTube videos of speeches and a John Key Video channel www.ntv.co.nz
Richard Macmanus of Readwriteweb claimed web 2.0 was dead in 2005 . WIkipedia says :
“Skeptics argue that the term web 2.0 is essentially meaningless, or that it means whatever its proponents decide that they want it to mean in order to convince the media and investors that they are creating something fundamentally new, rather than continuing to develop and use well-established technologies.”
It is probably a disservice using the term now for both media and investors (media especially) are looking for just that something fundamentally new, then its news. In this instance time is probably best not thinking how you fit into the web 2.0, (3.0, 4.0) category but what really makes you stand out, whats different instead of what is the same.
Read: What an effective analyst briefing looks like: From Web Strategy with Jeremiah Here
How does this fit with the start of this post on US and NZ politicians use of new web technologies? All of these new channels they are adopting are reaching different demographics, eyeballs, ears and minds that may be inaccessible through traditional media. They are vastly extending and diversifying their reach so they can do just that: Tell a whole bunch of people what makes them stand out.
Adoption of new media tools and channels by politicians, educators and experts means that a new groups of people get a whole lot more information (delivered efficiently in real time ) improving their knowledge, skills and decision making.
Without this filtering through of information to young people, we would really be set for a generation of adults coming up that have never watched news on TV or Radio and only know whats going on based on what MySpace serves up. Which right now is addresses from the potential future US presidents.
Facebook users were invited to be part of the Democratic and Republican with a special Facebook message board:
“But it turned out to be one of those ideas that may be better in theory than in practice. During the East coast broadcast of the debates, Facebook users posted around 35,000 “Soundboard” messages, meaning that at perhaps 50 characters each, that’s some 1.75 million characters to read during an approximately three-hour period.” Read more Here
The main premise of this is that now there are conversations, not just statements. PFB (Pre Facebook) it would not be possible for these 35,000 opinions of users to voice these thoughts. On the side of the conversation, the candidates would be missing a lot of positive (and negative but the ranters are just part of they job) feedback, ideas and opinions of those that they want to lead and that will make them lead in a more informed finger on the pulse kind of way.
No commentsReuters sign deal with IHT, New owner for WSJ - Media Company News Today
Reuters & Int Herald Tribune have signed a deal with an agreement to launch a co-branded daily online and print business report a move that marks a break to the usual where newpapers e.g. IHT pay wire services e.g. Reuters a subscription fee for ability to republish news. Reuters and IHT will share the revenue from advertising and IHT is still able to draw news from other sources/wires as it is a non-exclusive deal.
IHT is owned by the NYSE Listed New York Times Company a diversified media company including a wide range of newspapers, internet businesses, television and radio stations, investments in paper mills and other investments.
In other Media company News today
-Conrad Black formerly of Hollinger International is facing 61/2 years in jail for defrauding shareholders. Read NZ Herald Story
-At the end of the week the Wall Street Journal will be owned by Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp. Murdoch has appointed a new management team for Dow Jones, including longtime News Corp publishing executive Les Hinton as CEO and Robert Thomson, editor of the Murdoch-owned Times of London, as publisher. Read NZ Herald Story
Web Growth in China - Conglomerates move in and online
Found this quite interesting. Foreign companies have had a tough time getting traction in the Chinese Market for instance both Yahoo and EBay now both have local partners running ops.In the Chinese online landscape www.baidu.com holds over 60% market share with www.google.com at 23.7%. Come just to see Google Domination as a reality, here there and easy to think everywhere, but not so in country using 2nd largest group of web users (123 million at the end of last year, 77 million on Broadband)
Snippet from Official Google Blog:
“Figuring out how to deal with China has been a difficult exercise for Google. The requirements of doing business in China include self-censorship – something that runs counter to Google’s most basic values and commitments as a company.” Read Testimony: Internet in China Here
Read about Chinese Internet Censorship Here
IAC (Barry Dillers online conglomerate) is going in to China with $100 million investment in services for local users. IAC may go down partnership route also with a media partner to get awareness out there.
The “Young Digital Mavens” study was commissioned by IAC (media conglomerate) and JWT (biggest ad agency in the US) which ”aimed to explore how attitudes toward digital technology are changing among Chinese and American youth at a time when people are spending less time with traditional media and more with interactive technology.” Getting a lot of air time so a good move to start getting brand salience on the up.
The study also showed that Chinese users were more likely to be web addicts…
China online users more likely to be web addicts - Reuters
42 percent of users in China said they at times felt “addicted” to their Web use compared with 18 percent of U.S. users. Diller described Web games as an area of importance in the Chinese market.
Successful business ideas developed in China might be exported for use in the U.S. market, Diller said. Getting quite a lot of air time already with publicity of recent research undertaken.
No commentsAggregators, Media Powerhouses, Aggregating Media Powerhouses..
Sam Zell, prospective majority owner of the Tribune Co.”I think the newspaper industry has stood there and watched while other media enterprises have taken our bacon and run with it,” he said. “It’s too much complacency.”
The industry as a whole, Zell said, has been “standing there and letting this happen while Rome is burning.”
Read Scott Karp - The New Media consolidation here
No commentsThe Missing Post!
I really must have been busy of late - How could I have forgotten to mention this, although I am sure noone missed it
News Watch - 3,171 News Articles on this topic!
Drumroll…
News Corporation (NWS) Stock Watch
NWS versus DJ Charts in the last 6 months and last 12 months and last 5 years and Long Term