Friday, June 15, 2001

Posted 5:08 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Everyone's a Journalist!

Josh Fouts on the evolution of "journalism"
Journalism continues to evolve along a fascinating path. Two not-so-new incarnations, "Community" and "Peer-to-Peer" journalism, are in the news. Technology book publisher Tim O'Reilly's company, O'Reilly & Associates, has tapped the co-developer of Blogger, Meg Hourihan, to lecture on "Weblogs as Peer-to-Peer Journalism." Meanwhile, community news sites in the genre of this site, Metafilter, and the mother-of-all-community-sites, Slashdot, continue to bloom. Just this week, Los Angeles web developer Bill Rini launched the new community-driven Internet news site RINI.org — the Real Internet News Iniatiative — an effort to counteract the glut of news by focusing on "quality over quantity." Will the real journalist please stand up?

 

Posted 5:03 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Tomalak Decides to Stay

Josh Fouts on on the travails of Lawrence Lee
Senior weblogger Lawrence Lee, proprietor of seminal online news weblog, Tomalak's Realm, announced on June 4 that he would be closing shop on June 8, citing constraints and a "possible business venture." That same week he set up a discussion group to brainstorm on the future of the site. Discussion on the list emphasized funding and subscription models for the site, an issue that received some attention in this week's the New York Times. June 8 passed and Lee kept publishing. Today Lee announced that he has decided to "join the team at UserLand Software and to also continue my work on Tomalak's Realm." Welcome back from the edge, Lawrence.

Posted 3:00 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Content Is Not King

Norbert Specker on the value of content
The primacy of connectivity over content long has been a popular argument ("the killer application is e-mail", closing speech of Interactive Publishing 1996). However, nowhere have I seen a more complete and better referenced argument on the "Content is Not King" line as Andrew Odlyzko's paper published with First Monday. Prepare for a long read and be assured that you will have visited and revisited the key issues of content value in a distributed network. (Tip o'the hat to Tom Sperlich for the pointer.)

Posted 1:48 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Revisiting Personalization

Norbert Specker on wireless content
With more than one "Slap on Wap," as MediaGrok titled it, the discussion on what content could be successful in a wireless environment looks rather dead. It is only a temporary dip to be sure, as mobile access is just much more in synch with overall human behavior than is desktop access. The mind boggling numbers of SMS are more than ample proof. (The first quarter of 2001 saw 50 billion SMS messages with 500 million worldwide users, which boils down to 1 message per user per day. Keep an eye on the GSM homepage.)

One of the main discussion areas in wireless services is personalization. As the additional information of geographical location is embedded in the service, companies are starting to develop services around this functionality and the practicalities of daily (business) life. A description of such an application can be found here. While the notion of personalization went through different highs and lows on the Web (and is on a rather low note right now), the wireless environment looks much better positioned for successful applications. That is, if you throw all your worries about privacy overboard. That's something much more readily done in North America than in Europe.

Posted 1:14 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Your Sports Your Way

Steve Klein on online sports content
SportsLine.com believes that sports fans aren't all on the same page. Therefore, the we-try-harder folks at the No. 2 online sports site have created MySportsLine, the first customized user sports page. You must register and enter a password to set up your own page or pages with anything you want, writes Paul Rosano in a Hartford Courant story: individual sports, customized scoreboards, standings, statistics, weather for designated cities, etc. There are more than 100 options available.

Posted 11:54 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Still Hope for Online Advertising?

Carla Passino on PriceWaterhouseCoopers forecasts for the industry
The future of online advertising looks promising, according to recent research by PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The consulting firm predicts that total spending on Internet advertising and access will jump from US$40.2 billion in 2000 to $90.1 billion in 2005, with good long-term prospects. Does this mean that there is light at the end of the tunnel for e-publishers? I still believe that no business plan worth its socks should rely solely on advertising. However, I am confident that we will soon start seeing some advertising money flowing back in. And now that a whole host of the "get a free Jaguar just to visit my site" companies have deservedly gone out of business, serious e-publishers will not suffer from last year's cut-throat competition, which killed CPM rates. Maybe there really is light at the end of the tunnel.

Posted 11:48 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Paul Grabowicz on the state of new media publishing
The ups and downs of online publishing were summed up in stories that ran in the last few days on three different Internet media companies. The demise of Suck magazine is dissected in a Washington Post piece. The troubles at TheStreet.com and the departure of editor in chief Dave Kansas are examined by the Industry Standard. And CNET's emergence as the premiere tech publication — online or off — is detailed in a USA Today report.

Posted 11:44 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

High-flying Expectations

Katja Riefler on Internet on airplaines
E-mail and the Internet are set to become standard services on passenger aircraft soon. Three U.S. carriers — United, American, and Delta — are working with Boeing to install broadband Internet on 1,500 planes by the middle of next year, with more planes to be wired later. The service, available to all classes, is priced at US$20 an hour and will work only on domestic flights. Singapore Airlines has been providing in-flight e-mail and Internet services — free — since February but only on one flight (Singapore to Los Angeles via Tokyo). Other carriers are going to follow soon.

There still are restrictions: The Asian system is not live Internet access but a proxy server. The satellite-enabled Boeing technology isn't allowed right now. While the airlines have obtained the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's approval to receive signals, they still await approval for transmitting them. Read more from the South China Morning Post.

Posted 11:37 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

A Well-deserved Funeral

Kerry Northrup on the demise of "community publishing" ...
The recent sell-off of KOZ.com and the decision by many KOZ users to ditch the "community publishing" software pretty much ends the news industry's misdirection with trying to treat readers like marbles to be grouped and sorted rather than as individuals to be provided with the benefits of professional newshandling. While there might have been journalistic rationale for some of it, most newspapers took up "community publishing" expecting it to be a cheap way to handle people online — getting them to create their own content and then redistributing the freebies through automated self-promoting forums with little or no supervision.

I remember first learning about KOZ at a seminar in the early days of the World Wide Web where the main message was that chat rooms are more important than news on a newspaper site. What most readers know but newspapers had to relearn is that cheap content is cheap content. So no wonder that "community publishing" never generated much community, not to mention money.

Thursday, June 14, 2001

Posted 10:33 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Dot Silly, Maan

Andrew Nachison on dopey semantics
First, companies started dropping the "dot-com" from their names, as if that would make a difference or save anybody from a non-existent business plan. Now we've got further evidence that the Internet boom was the result of a global acid trip. How else do we explain this: The Industry Standard, an 80-page shell of its former 300-page ink-on-paper self (according to the Washington Post), is no longer "The Newsmagazine of the Internet Economy." Its new "tagline," introduced with a new design for its print product, is now "Intelligence for the Information Economy."

"We really liked our old moniker, but the term 'Internet Economy' has in many people's minds become inextricably linked with the world of dot-coms, and we've always been about much more than that," Standard editor Jonathan Weber explains in a column in the June 18 issue. "Make no mistake, we're still big believers in the importance of the Internet, but we see our challenge as exploring not just the industry itself, but also the myriad ways in which the Net and associated computer and communications technology are driving extraordinary change in business."

OK, now I get it.

Posted 9:48 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Monsters of the (Job) Midway

Steve Klein on online sports marketing
It makes sense that the monster of the online job boards and the monster of sports on the Web would eventually get together. Monster.com has entered into an estimated $10 million deal with ESPN/ABC Sports that gives the job search site a "presence across multiple platforms ranging from a co-branded Web site to ad time" on ESPN's college football and basketball coverage and on ABC's Bowl Championship Series, according to David Goetzl of Advertising Age. The deal allows Monster "to create an ESPN/Monster dual-named job-search site for people interested in sports-oriented careers." Also, Monster and ESPN will operate seminars on college campuses on getting into the sports business.

Posted 9:43 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

X10 Ads Beat Amazon, eBay

Steve Outing on online advertising
Would you believe — one of the top-ranking Web sites is that of an advertiser? The ubiquitous ads of X10.com (for small digital cameras) are turning up everywhere on the Web as pop-ups and pop-unders. If you've surfed major content sites on the Web recently, you've no doubt seen them. As Ecommerce Times reports, X10 has surpassed Amazon.com and eBay in pageviews. Of course, the numbers are meaningless. I've "experienced" the X10 ads dozens of times, but close the extra browser window quickly without looking at the ads. Certainly 90%+ of X10's traffic must be from people who do the same thing and thus don't really "see" the advertising message.

Bonus tip: You can opt out of seeing the X10.com ads again by simply going to this URL, which will set a cookie on your PC that will prevent X10 pop-ups/downs from loading for 30 days. http://www.x10.com/home/optout.cgi?DAY=30&PAGE=http://www.x10.com/x10ads1.htm. (Change the "30" in the URL to a longer number if you like.)

 

Posted 9:38 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Internet Usage Expected to Boom in Italy

Carla Passino on Italy’s online growth potential
In a previous Tidbit, I noted how Italy had mysteriously avoided the dot.com gloom. Writing for the Financial Times Market Watch, Thom Calandra now confirms that not only are Italians optimistic about business opportunities online, they expect Internet usage to "hyper-grow" during the course of next year.

As Calandra notes, words like hyper-growth are sadly reminiscent of the dot.coms’ heady days and must be taken with a pinch of salt. However, I do think Italy is poised for an online boom, especially if and when more sophisticated mobile phones come into being. Until now, the low level of PC penetration in the country has severely limited Internet access (only 11 percent of the population connects to the web). But Italians have a veritable obsession for mobiles, making Italy the largest cellular phone market in Europe. If, as it seems, GPRS and, later, 3G phones will provide proper wireless access to the Internet (WAP being such a complete joke), usage of all things online will inevitably take off.

Posted 9:31 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Newspaper Delivery Techniques

Kerry Northrup on new circulation approaches
The Editor & Publisher eLetter notes that the St. Paul Pioneer Press' Web site, the Pioneer Planet, now makes a feature out of offering Monday online availability to weekend print features that it thinks some interested readers might have missed. It's a great idea, and strictly a matter of marketing to impress upon readers that this is not an archive but rather alternate access to continued fresh material.

Posted 9:27 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

The First Online Ombudsman

Steve Outing on online journalism
MSNBC.com is the first major online news organization to appoint an ombudsman. Dan Fisher, who spent five years with Microsoft after a career of nearly 30 years at the Los Angeles Times (including a stint as online editor), now monitors the quality and balance of reporting on MSNBC.com and comments on the way news is gathered, edited, and presented. Fisher, who operates as an independent, becomes the first ombudsman for an online news organization to join the Organization of News Ombudsmen. This is good news to those who worry about the quality of online journalism. Here are Fisher's columns, which began running in early May.

Posted 9:15 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Diffusion vs. Protection

Norbert Specker on digital copyright
J.D. Lasica provides a good overview article for the Digital Edge on the companies and services out there that offer a variety of copyright protection options. For the record and not in the article: In Europe, Info2Clear, which has grown out of several publishers' initiatives (one of the directors is the former director of the European Newspaper Association, Michel vander Straaten), claims to be the market leader.

Wednesday, June 13, 2001

Posted 9:43 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Don't Give Up on Advertising

Rich Gordon on the online publishing business model
According to AdZone Media Research, for the first time in five months, online advertising revenue was up in May compared to the previous year. This is at least the second article in two weeks (the earlier one was on CNET) suggesting that the online advertising business has (finally) struck bottom. I still think advertising, not subscriptions, will provide the business model for journalistic content delivered via "new media." But the advertising will have to be a lot better (i.e., more effective for advertisers):

• Better targeted. (Most banner ads are either untargeted or targeted only very broadly; for instance, technology ads on technology sites.)
• More effective messages. (The "creative" in most banner ads is lame.)
• Bigger. (The percentage of space on a Web page devoted to advertising is much lower than in print publications.)
• More interactive. (Within the space of the ad, not requiring the user to leave the editorial site.)

The best glimpse of the future that I have seen are the new, large, Flash-based ads running on News.com and CNET. The ads are bigger, more dynamic, and interactive. The best of them (not all) allow the user to interact with the ad without having to leave CNET.

Posted 6:18 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

This Isn't Kansas Anymore

Steve Klein on online publishing
Dave Kansas, the editor-in-chief who led financial site TheStreet.com through "glory and grit," announced his resignation on Wednesday, according to a story by Kenneth Li in The Standard. Kansas' successor effective July 5 is David J. Morrow, an articles editor at SmartMoney magazine.

Posted 9:02 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

If You Build It, They Will Come

Steve Klein on online sports content
NASCAR.com has launched a new feature called "Shop Shots" that allows race fans an inside look at North Carolina-based Body Dynamics Racing. Utilizing five live Web cams placed around the facility, the site allows users to watch a racecar being built from beginning to end. The Web cams provide live video from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. After 5, a video recording of that day's activities is replayed for "after-hours" viewing.

Posted 8:48 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

U.S. Mind Share Consolidation

Norbert Specker on online media consolidation
Ecommerce Times reports on data provided by Media Metrix that more than half of U.S. surfing time is absorbed by four properties: AOL, MSN, Yahoo and Napster (still?). That is down form 11 companies two years ago. Consolidation in the marketplace is resulting in mind share distributed over fewer companies.

Posted 8:12 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Ready for the Daily CD?

Steve Klein on new initiatives for newspapers
Ready for your daily newspaper on a CD? The Akron Beacon Journal is the first daily to begin selling just such a version of its daily newspaper at newstands along with the print edition. Once loaded into a computer, the CD shows the newspaper's actual pages. The CDs should appeal to younger readers who prefer a page-by-page format but want to read online rather than the print edition, said Mike Needs, director of Beacon Journal Interactive. The CD includes extra photographs and commercial videos.

The ABJ produces about about 250 CDs a night. Both cost 25 cents, though production costs are less for the CDs — 19 cents compared to 35 cents for the print edition, Needs said. Sales have averaged about 150 CDs a day, said Bob Tigelman, vice president of new initiatives for the newspaper, which has a daily circulation of 145,000 on weekdays and 198,000 on Sundays. "If we can get 1 to 2 percent of our new readers this way, that's significant," he said. The newspaper continues to be available online.

Posted 7:33 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Survival Instinct

Jade Walker on surviving a dot-bomb
Online magazine Ironminds and the National Foundation For Teaching Entrepreneurship have joined forces to sponsor a day of media discussions. On June 19, media executives, writers, artists, and dot-bomb survivors in New York City will gather to attend "Silicon Alley Media — Down But Not Out: Booty Camp For Survivors," a digital media forum/film screening/charity event. Admission is $10, but if unemployment has you low on cash, they'll also let you in if you donate a T-shirt bearing the logo of your failed former online employer. The cloth from these T-shirts will then be sewn together into a quilt and auctioned off.

Posted 7:29 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Bob Baker's Words to the Wise

Jade Walker on clichés
A cliché is a word or phrase that's been overused — done to death, so to speak. Bob Baker's News Thinking Web site recently published a list of the 17 Worst Clichés in the Newspaper Business. After all, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Tuesday, June 12, 2001

Posted 11:25 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Weblogs Not So F***ed

Josh Fouts on the supposed demise of weblogs
The latest fad in weblogs is documenting their downfall. FuckedWeblog mimics the popularity of FuckedCompany for the weblog set. But is the data on weblogs significant? In a world where a thousand flowers potentially bloom, Evan Williams, CEO (or "COE" as he calls himself: Chief Only Employee) of Blogger, says that the fate of failing companies is "totally irrelevant to the Web as a medium for personal expression and the democratization of media." In fact, he says, according to his records (which are enviable), "In the time it's taken FW to catalog 75 or so weblog "deaths" ... there have been at least 20 thousand new weblogs created." Read Evan's complete statement.

Posted 12:10 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Big, Bad, Big Media Threaten Internet?

Steve Outing on threat to the Internet
Iwantmedia.com interviews Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy and a champion of media diversity on the Internet. Chester fears that the biggest media and telecommunication companies are changing the open architecture of the Internet, which will ultimately stifle smaller voices. As the Internet moves to broadband, network operators providing cable and DSL services are given more control over content flow, he says, and consumers will lose. "The problem is that the nation's leading 'old' media companies are chaining the Internet to their business models. They want to make sure they control the content flow. They want to give their content, brands, and applications premium service while relegating everyone else, including competitors, to less favorable terms. Ultimately, it's going to severely damage the vitality of the digital world."

Posted 11:49 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

WSJ.com Mulls Price Hike

Steve Outing on paid online content
The long-shining bright star of Internet content is likely to raise its rates soon. WSJ.com, the Web site of the Wall Street Journal, appears poised to announce its first rate increase, according to a report on Internet.com. The current annual fee to access the Web site is $29 for print-edition subscribers and $59 for others. WSJ.com has about 575,000 paying online subscribers.

Monday, June 11, 2001

Posted 6:48 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Streaming SportsCenter?

Steve Klein on broadband sports content
When it comes to broadband sports content, most providers want it to be anything but free. So it came as no surprise that when ESPN unveiled fall plans for an Internet streaming service called ESPN Broadband at the National Cable Television Association's annual conference in Chicago, the competition yelped. "If we are paying millions for programming, then streaming shouldn't circumvent our pipes," said Comcast Communications president Steve Burke, making an argument similar to NBC's approach to the Olympic Games. ESPN would provide affilates with streaming video highlights and sports headlines. "The reality is there are so many platforms, and we are going to be marketing programming across them," said ESPN president George Bodenheimer. "It is not a problem but an opportunity.''

The NCTA conference should get interesting with speeches expected from Senate majority leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell.

Posted 4:15 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Cable + Web: The Brand

Andrew Nachison on convergence
In stark contrast to the content-focused ambitions of online newspapers around the world, U.S. cable TV companies have focused on using their Web sites to drive viewers and advertising dollars to their offline media operations. For instance, BET.com has had great success boosting the ratings of its cable TV music programming by incorporating its Web site into viewer picks.

Newspapers need to take this more humble offline "partnership" more seriously. Direct revenue is not the only measure of a Web site's success. The Washington Post includes a Subscribe To The Newspaper link on every story. It's astonishing that this isn't a prominent feature on every newspaper Web site.

Posted 12:57 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

The 'Smart Tag' Debate

Rich Gordon on Microsoft's insidious tactics
I read the differing views (from Walt Mossberg and David Coursey) of Microsoft "Smart Tags" with interest. I first must confess that I don't much appreciate when my software tries to do my thinking for me. For instance, it drives me crazy when MS Word tries to correct my spelling and grammar on the fly, so I turn that feature off. But unfortunately, there are probably more people who appreciate this kind of feature — even though they come to rely on it instead of using their own judgment. (Don't get me started about the "spell-check generation," who rely on spell-check and think it's right even when it isn't.)

But as Microsoft continues to transform its software and business model to tie the desktop ever more tightly to the Net, I feel more strongly than ever that the company needs to be reined in on antitrust grounds. Microsoft simply can't be allowed to extend its near monopoly on desktop operating systems to dominate networked content and services. And that's exactly what they're trying to do, with small things like Smart Tags and bigger ones like its "dot-Net" initiative. A couple of years ago, I thought drastic action against Microsoft might not be necessary, because the company wouldn't win as strong a position in the world of operating systems for servers, interactive TV, and handheld devices. But I see NT winning the server battle, Ultimate TV and the XBox being strong entrants in the competition for "living room OS," and Windows CE making headway against Palm on handhelds. Content providers have a vested interest here. If Microsoft isn't restrained or broken up, I think we're going to find that reaching an audience will require paying a toll to our friends in Redmond.

Posted 10:29 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

We All Need Cheering Up

Steve Outing on content industry's depression
Clearly, lots of us in the online content and online media business need cheering up. After attending last week's low-turnout Internet Content West conference, I wrote an essay for the Content Spotlight newsletter that attempted to put the current situation in perspective. It's a realistic pep talk, I suppose you could say. I've already received several notes from people who said that they had been feeling depressed about the state of the online content industry. My essay made them feel a bit better, they told me. (By contrast, if you want to feel more depressed, read Ken Layne's post-Internet Content West article, which I mentioned in an E-Media Tidbits item on Friday. (Scroll down to find that link.)

Posted 10:17 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below

Smart Tags: Not Really So Bad?

Steve Outing on Microsoft's controversial new OS feature
In an item last week prompted by a Walt Mossberg column in the Wall Street Journal, I opined that Microsoft's "Smart Tags" represented a dangerous trend where the software giant could in effect be able to "edit" other Web publishers' pages. ZDNet's David Coursey has an opposing view about why Smart Tags actually are a good thing. It's worth reading to get the full story, then make up your own mind.