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Posted 1:17 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Terrorist Attacks Prompt Self-Censorship at Websites
Paul Grabowicz on terror's impact on the Internet
Both government agencies and private organizations are removing information from their websites that could be useful to terrorists. Everything from floor plans at government buildings to reports on chemical weapons and poor security at airports and other facilities is being taken down, according to a San Francisco Chronicle story.
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Posted 12:53 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Internet Gains as Favored News Medium
Steve Outing on media usage during crisis
As reported here shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, only 3% of Internet-using respondents in a Harris poll say they used the Internet as their primary source of information in the 24 hours after the attacks. (TV news won out at 78%.) Now the same poll done three weeks later finds an improvement for Internet media, with 8% of the U.S. population now using the Internet as their primary source of news. TV declined to 76% and radio declined to 8%. Here's the press release about the Harris/Online Publishers Association poll, for more detail.
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Posted 12:35 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
'They Can Read Every E-mail I Write'
Andrew Stroehlein on online privacy in the former Soviet Union
I met with a journalist from the crisis-ridden Caucasus region of Nagorny-Karabakh today, and his situation is one we should all be aware of when we talk loosely about the freedom the Internet brings. The Nagorny-Karabakh enclave has been a point of violent dispute between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan for more than a decade, and ever since an assassination attempt on Karabakhi president Arkady Ghukasian in March 2000, conditions within the enclave have tended toward the authoritarian. This applies to the Internet and e-mail: the ISPs may technically be in private hands, but the secret service has access to everyone's incoming and outgoing traffic. "They can read every e-mail I write," this journalist told me. "I have no privacy."
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Posted 12:32 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Photographer Copes With His Images of Death
Vin Crosbie on photographing the doomed
Many broadcasters, newspapers, magazines, and websites worldwide debated whether to publish photos of doomed people jumping from New York City's World Trade Center towers to their deaths. The Poynter Institute's website today published what I think is a very interesting story about how shooting some of those photos affected Associated Press photographer Richard Drew. (Note: The Poynter Institute operates E-Media Tidbits, this weblog.)
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Posted 12:26 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
International Coverage Provides Perspective
Steve Klein on reading habits of Web surfers
As Jade Walker notes in the item below this, modern media provides easy access to a variety of viewpoints from around the globe about the war on terrorism. Anyone with an Internet connection these days has access to sources of international news and opinion that were once available only to intelligence analysts and diplomats. For example, British newspapers like The Times and The Guardian offer broad coverage of law enforcement agency efforts to identify conspirators in Europe. The Frontier Post, which is published in the Pakistani town of Peshawar on the Afghan border, reports on the latest political developments among the Taliban and in Pakistan as well as the flow of refugees and military activities in Afghanistan. "In a case like this, the main reason for turning to the foreign media is to gain a balanced worldview," says Ian Duckworth, creator of a site called The Paperboy, which provides a directory of links to 5,288 newspapers in 176 countries. "U.S. media outlets are doing a fine job covering the story, but it's important to see how all the various players in the impending conflict are reporting it."
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Posted 12:13 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Supplemental Points of View
Jade Walker on the reading habits of Web surfers
During World War II, it often took weeks for dispatches and news reels to get from Japan or Germany to Mr. and Mrs. Jones in Omaha, Nebraska. Today, news travels almost as fast as it's written or taped, thanks to television and the Internet. A plane crashes into the Pentagon, and the Australian public can watch it live using Real Player and a cable modem.According to the Washington Post, more and more people are turning to the Internet to supplement their understanding of current events. Now you can learn about a single protest in Kabul from a local newspaper's website, a pro-Islamic militancy organization, the weblogs of participants, and Western news outlets like CNN.com and the New York Times. One can only hope that all this available information, and varied points of view, will lead to a more informed public.
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Posted 11:58 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Media Companies Missing Boat on .info
Steve Outing on overlooking domain names
Many media companies have not yet bothered to register ".info" domain names for themselves, points out Patrick Phillips of iWantMedia.com. ".info" is a new domain suffix being offered up to reduce the overcrowding of the ".com" domain suffix. A search of the registration database finds that names such as these are available for anyone to register: brillscontent.info, nationalenquirer.info, nydailynews.info, sjmercurynews.info, timeinc.info, and scripps.info. Says Phillips, "It is surprising that some media companies — many of which have major stakes in interactive media — may not have taken steps to protect their trademarks in this new area. Why is 'nydailynews.info,' a domain for a major U.S. daily newspaper, still available?"Media companies have had advance warning about this, but many have yet to act, and now the domain names with their brands are open for anyone to register. For instance, msnbc.info, cnet.info, and primedia.info were all grabbed by private individuals. This is no time to be cheap and save the few dollars a year for another domain for your company. To register a ".info" domain name, get information at Afilias.info, the registering agent for the new domain suffix. Media companies also should think now about getting a ".biz" domain name; that domain suffix is scheduled to roll out in the coming weeks.
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Posted 4:17 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Limiting Bonds Home Run Highlights
Steve Klein on sports content restrictions
Back in the "old days" before professional sports leagues and teams became publishers, maximizing publicity mattered. These days, it's maintaining control of your intellectual property. Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger who is attemping to break Mark McGwire's home run record of 70, is poised at 69 entering tonight's game in Houston, and Major League Baseball has set some rules for showing highlights of the next two home runs — if and when they come.For Bonds' 70th, only MLB media partners ESPN, Fox, TBS, and their related networks can show up to a 60-second taped highlight immediately following each at-bat. For the record-breaking 71st home run, all news entities are permitted to air up to a 60-second taped highlight. However, live cut-ins for news entities or live or taped highlights by online media highlights are not permitted. It gives the phrase "Play Ball!" a whole new meaning.
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Posted 4:08 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Salon Clarification
Steve Outing on webzine's paid-content model
The Associated Press has issued a correction on its story of Oct. 1 which stated that the webzine Salon.com was charging a subscription fee for all its staff-written articles. The charge only applies to news and political coverage; more than 50% of the site's content remains free. (I stand by my E-Media Tidbits commentary of Oct. 2, in which I called the strategy a mistake. I noted in that item that the subscription was for Salon's news content, not everything on the site.)
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Posted 2:05 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Does One Size Really Fit All?
Steve Klein on online sports content
One of the more interesting and daring sports site experiments in 2001 has been Major League Baseball's centralized, integrated approach that replaced individual team sites. According to Jon Surmacz in an article in CIO Magazine, MLB.com "has done much more than put baseball online," it has "changed the way baseball does business, replacing winner-take-all with a more cooperative model, one that might never have been born if not for the opportunities presented by Internet technology. The only question is, will that new business model work?"That's always the question, of course, with Internet-related businesses. Bob Bowman, CEO of MLB.com, is counting on several sources of revenue: e-commerce, subscriptions for exclusive content like game broadcasts, sponsorships, and advertising. Every team uses a common template, even though some teams such as the San Francisco Giants and Seattle Mariners had been site-setters in individual site design. Since its debut this season, Nielsen//NetRatings reports that MLB.com is drawing about 1 million unique visitors per week, making it a top 10 sports site. Other benefits: the sites have sold about 1 million tickets online and have generated more than US$5 million in revenue, not including a similar profit for merchandise. And despite a shaky beginning, MLB.com has approximately 110,000 subscribers for its real-time game broadcasts at $9.95 a customer.
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Posted 1:39 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Why Watch TV on the Web?
Carla Passino on Televisión Castilla y Leon's Internet broadcast project
Spanish TV network Televisión Castilla y Leon is to broadcast five of its regional channels through the Internet, reports Spanish news agency Europa Press. Thanks to a sophisticated streaming technology, Canal 29 Valladolid, Televisión Salamanca, Televisión Burgos, Televisión León, and Televisión Segovia can now be watched live on the Web, as well as through traditional TVs. This — at least — is the theory, for when I tried to watch Canal 29 Valladolid online, I waited several long minutes of buffering and connections only to be served up a black screen.Technical glitches aside, I wonder why anyone in his right mind would want to watch television through a tiny window on a low-resolution computer screen when the very same programs can be viewed far more comfortably on a modern TV set. As Jakob Nielsen once put it in a seminal 1998 column on integrated media, "multimedia means many data types, not simply getting linear television on a computer screen."
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Posted 1:24 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Resources for Covering the Terrorist Attacks
Vin Crosbie on a resource for news coverage.
Websites that want to provide links to news, background information, and resources about the terrorist attacks in America should look to the hyperlink list that E-Media Tidbits contributor Paul Grabowicz has created at the University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, where Paul is adjunct professor and director of the new media program.
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Posted 10:27 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
SportsLine Enjoys a Fantasy Month
Steve Klein on online sports content
What's driving page views at SportsLine.com? Fantasy football. The sports portal site, which usually trails ESPN.com, set a record in September with more than 1.5 billion page views, a 40% increase over the company’s 1.1 billion page views in September 2000.
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Posted 10:20 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
More Than a Half Billion People Online
Vin Crosbie on how 1/12th of the human race now has online access
After a hiatus for bankruptcy and change of ownership, NUA of Dublin has resumed reporting how many people are online in various countries and worldwide. NUA's latest estimate of worldwide use is "513.41 million. Give or take a few million." North America continues to have the most, with 180 million. Europe and Asia are catching up quickly, with 154 million and 143 million, respectively. Latin America has 25 million, the Middle East 5 million, and Africa 4 million. The countries with the highest rate of Internet penetration are Sweden at 63.55%, Iceland at 60.79%, the USA at 59.75%, the UK at 55.32%, and Hong Kong at 54.5%.
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Posted 1:00 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Tell Us We're Wrong! (or Right)
Steve Outing on this weblog
Dear E-Media Tidbits readers: You may have noticed the new "Discuss this" links at the bottom of most items on this weblog. This is a new feature just added; it collects comments about individual items. I hope you'll use this to contribute your thoughts and reactions to what you read here. Argue with us. Spark a controversy. All of us who contribute to this weblog want to hear your voice, too.
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Posted 12:45 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
King Football
Steve Klein on online sports sites
You can tell it's football season. According to Nielsen/NetRatings for the week ending Sept. 23, the NFL Internet Network of sites is No. 1 in audience, reach, and time spent on site. College football is alive and well, too, with FansOnly.com No. 8. Not only has ESPN.com, usually at the head of the class, dropped to No. 3, but it trails SportsLine.com as well. Three professional sports sites make the Top 10: NASCAR Online at No. 4, MLB Properties at No. 6, and the NBA Internet Network at No. 9. As for the other big general sports sites, CNNSI.com is No. 5 and SportingNews.com No. 7 in these latest ratings.
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Posted 12:33 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
A History of Charging for Online Newspaper Content
Vin Crosbie on a warning from the not-so-distant past
The U.S. philosopher and poet George Santayana in 1906 declared, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." That declaration should be a warning to publishers who now want to charge consumers for access to newspaper websites. Veteran online newspaper editor Rusty Coats, now director of new media at MORI Research in Minneapolis, has written an instructive primer on the history of newspapers charging consumers for online access. Entitled Reflections From the Subscription-Site Pioneers, it's viewable by those who have access to the Newspaper Association of America's Digital Edge website.
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Posted 12:27 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Amateur Sports-News Site Calls It Quits
Peter M. Zollman on failure of another Internet sports site
Here's another example of a logical news/sports service that folded for lack of funding and time. Scorecard USA Inc., which created a site where amateur sports enthusiasts could post their team scores and personal statistics, has folded after burning through more than $3.6 million. Its liabilities at the end: $470,000; assets, $20,000. It filed for Chapter 7 liquidation under the U.S. bankruptcy code. (The Orlando Sentinel reported on the collapse.) At its peak, Scorecard-USA.com employed 15; now its founder, Karl Seiler, works from his home on Florida's east coast for a Chicago software firm.
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Posted 12:01 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The 800-Pound Gorilla
Rich Gordon on Microsoft's content strategy
I've been fretting for some time about whether Microsoft, unencumbered by antitrust concerns (not that Bill Gates & Co. seemed to worry much about this even when the U.S. Justice Department was being aggressive), was going to be able to extend its desktop dominance to other platforms — and then to content. Neil McAllister, a Web developer and contributor to Web Techniques magazine, has done the best job so far in translating my fears into words. In a column on SFGate.com, McAllister notes that Microsoft has staked out an enviable position in every step of the content "value chain": media file formats, delivery systems, platforms, security, and commerce. "It's only one step further before Microsoft owns the content itself," McAllister says. Personally, I'm not so sure that Microsoft wants to own the content (its debacle with Sidewalk will make the company think twice). But owning key pieces of the distribution technology will be enough to allow Microsoft to make a lot of money from content providers, subscribers, or both.
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Posted 10:34 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Listen to "The Shot Heard 'Round the World"
Steve Klein on an online sports broadcast
If you're a baseball fan, then MLB.com, the official website of Major League Baseball, is providing a can't-miss opportunity to listen (for free) to a piece of baseball history never before heard in its entirety. It was on this date (Oct. 3, 1951) 50 years ago that Bobby Thomson hit a three-run home run off Ralph Branca — the historic "Shot Heard 'Round the World" — to give the New York Giants a 5-4 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers and the National League pennant. MLB Radio will broadcast a re-creation of the entire game with Ernie Harwell, who actually called the game for CBS television, doing the re-creation. Harwell has been calling baseball games for nearly 60 years, 37 as the voice of the Detroit Tigers.The re-creation will begin at 1:30 p.m. US Eastern Time and conclude at 3:57 p.m., the exact time that 34,320 fans watched the Thomson homer clear the left field wall of the Polo Grounds. Fans can access the game on MLB.com. The game will be archived for on-demand listening.
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Posted 7:42 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
A Book About Sept. 11 (Yes, Already!)
Steve Outing on Internet-enabled book
It well may be the first full-length book published about the events of Sept. 11. 09/11 8:48 AM: Documenting America's Greatest Tragedy has just been published by BookSurge.com, in e-book and print-on-demand forms. This rushed-to-press book, which features a collection of accounts of what it was like in lower Manhattan that horrible day, was edited by Ethan Casey of BlueEar.com, with the assistance of Jay Rosen and students of New York University's Department of Journalism (the closest journalism school to the World Trade Center site). Rosen wrote the foreward to the book, which is interesting for his comments about journalism and the Internet. His students wrote many of the accounts. This book is notable because it was the Internet that made it possible to publish so quickly — less than three weeks after the event. Editing was done via e-mail (Casey is based in London), and production took advantage of the speed of digital publishing technology. (Proceeds from purchases of the book all go to the American Red Cross, by the way.)
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Posted 5:54 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Urgent Need For Money
Katja Riefler on wireless business models
How can you reach your customers? Despite the enduring dot-com crisis in Germany, some wireless companies are very creative. And they still seem not to run out of money. Look for example at Jamba!, which sells ringing tones and logos to young mobile-phone users. It already sells prepaid cards in supermarkets — in return, users get "credits" and can download those items. Now the company wants to expand its presence and offers its "Jamba Box" cards in vending machines — some of them already installed in Berlin; 60 will follow soon in the bigger cities of Germany. Or look at Beamgate. This mobile-commerce company focuses on short news delivered to your phone and just celebrated attracting 500,000 users. A special offer for the next 500,000 registered users: each will get a gift coupon worth 10 Deutsche Mark (about US $5) from Amazon.
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Posted 5:36 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Wall? What Wall?
Josh Fouts on redefining the advertising/editorial wall online
In wake of what seems like a year filled with endless debates about the merits of (and our expectations from) banner ads, and my still very fresh memory of The Wall's importance in journalism, E-media Tidbits received a tip about a new, uh, innovation in online advertising. MediciNet, which plans to unveil the concept tomorrow, describes it as "advertising at the word and phrase level." The idea: links on the site will launch pop-up windows with information about specific health-related words (say, cancer) on one side and ads from a pharmaceutical company on the other. This writer has always considered the online world's relationship with links to be a fragile one at best — caveat emptor would be an understatement. But methinks a health information site might consider drawing a more distinct line between advertiser and editor in this new feature.
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Posted 3:46 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Changes at About.com
Rich Gordon on another site refining its business model
I've always felt that About.com was one of the Web's true success stories. Its concept of using "guides" — experts in their field who built topic-based directories, and were compensated based on the traffic their topic pages generated — was brilliant. When I'm looking for information on a particular topic, I often find that About.com is one of the best places to start. But it appears that the downturn in online advertising is hitting home. About's new CEO, William Day (who replaced founder Scott Kurnit), tells Reuters that the site is laying off 20% of its staff and becoming more "commerce-oriented." Of course, About is not an independent company any more — it was acquired by magazine publishing giant Primedia last year. The layoffs (and maybe the changeover in CEOs) suggest that the acquisition has not achieved the desired results.As an About.com fan, I hope the pending changes don't reduce the site's value to end users. I'm particularly wary of Day's comments that the About.com guides will be asked to make product recommendations — which could lead them to build links based on revenue rather than relevance. For more on the changes at About, check out Chris Sherman's report at Search Engine Watch.
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Posted 12:16 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Salon Makes a Mistake
Steve Outing on webzine's pay-for-news scheme
I've been a supporter of Salon.com for some time. While many other observers looked to the webzine with certainty that its demise was imminent, I've clung to the hope that it will survive. As (arguably) the most prominent pure-play zine on the Web, frankly, I'd hate to see it die; that would be a hard symbolic blow to the entire notion of online content as viable business. Alas, my confidence in Salon is wavering with its latest move to lock down all its news content except to paying Salon Premium subscribers (of which there are currently 15,500, according to this report in the New York Times). Optimistically, perhaps it can raise that to 50,000; that's still a mighty small audience given the expense Salon is going to to provide original coverage of the day's news events. Next time it has a big scoop (and the webzine has had quite a few in its day), few people in the world will know about it. Salon Premium should offer other benefits to paying subscribers. Locking down news content will hurt more than it will help. This is a mistake.
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Posted 11:35 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Inaccuracy Watch: CNN Rearranges Europe
Steve Outing on the Internet and accuracy
Fellow Tidbits contributor Norbert Specker tells me of his surprise "at the overall timid media criticism in the wake of the attacks" by terrorists on the U.S. There have been numerous examples of inaccuracies caused (most likely) by haste to publish or broadcast. For instance, CNN had an incredible map infographic that put Switzerland next to Poland. (Here it is, posted on Norbert's website.) Another was CNN's speculation shortly after the September 11 U.S. attack that the same-day attack on Kabul might be a U.S. retaliation. "Every half awake person read on the day before that Massud, the leader of the Northern Alliance, had just been killed. Only CNN could not get the connection weighted properly," he says.These are examples of "talking before thinking," and they're not limited to TV news. Internet news sources are equally well suited for reporting too fast and spreading inaccuracies. Says Norbert, "Fact is: terrorism without media is impossible. That can not be helped. But irresponsible media coverage makes media an accomplice. Immediacy is a lousy excuse for bad work, nothing more."
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Posted 4:58 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Madan Rao Joins Tidbits
Steve Outing on this weblog
Asian Internet expert Madan Rao has joined the ranks of online media industry gurus contributing to E-Media Tidbits, this weblog. Rao is a Bangalore, India-based consultant, writer, and author of books about the Indian and global Internet economy, and a regular on the international conference circuit, having given talks and lectures on Internet-related issues in some 40 countries. Madan is the first Tidbits writer from outside North America and Europe, so we're looking forward to offering an even broader global perspective on online media/journalism.
Posted 11:15 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Uncharged Protest
Andrew Stroehlein on the Web in Kosova
Using the Web to announce and organize a public protest is certainly nothing new, but it certainly doesn’t work in all cases, as current developments in Kosova show. Power outages in Kosova have been frequent over the past two years since the war, and, lately, things seemed to have taken a turn for the worse: Some days, people have electricity only about one hour in six. Allegations of corruption at electricity company KEK are rife. Journalists here are especially getting fed up with their falling on the wrong side of the digital divide; a public protest is planned for Wednesday. But unlike other popular movements in this region, the Internet doesn’t seem to be playing much of a role. Sure,the Internet cafes in the capital, Prishtina, have generators chugging out on the sidewalks, but, clearly, irregular electricity generally means irregular Internet availability. KEK’s inefficiencies and possible corruption are points in their favor in the information game here.
Posted 10:08 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Searching for News on September 11
Norbert Specker on the performance of key entry sites
While many reports stress the fact that information-seeking Internet users flocked to the news sites of traditional media, the search engines still had to handle a strong flood of visitors. Search Engine Watch did an interesting detailed account on how they performed. (If you read German, you might be interested in the short report I did for Netzwoche on news sites' performance in general on September 11.)
Posted 10:04 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Nothing New Under the Sun
Rich Gordon on AdAge's "QuikFIND" system
It's always interesting when an old idea becomes new again. Friday's E-Media Tidbits featured an item about the new "QuikFIND" system initiated by AdAge.com. Readers of the print edition can find codes that they can type into a box on the website to find relevant related material. This is virtually identical to a system included on Mercury Center, the online version of the San Jose Mercury News, when it launched on America Online in 1993. I don't recall if there was an official name for Merc Center's system, but I know that the staff of the paper and online service colloquially called them "bingo numbers." One very interesting way they were used was at the bottom of "briefs" columns (a couple of paragraphs for each of of several different items) — allowing people to see the full articles online. The bingo numbers were abandoned with Merc Center's move to the Web, not necessarily because they weren't useful but because of technology changes related to production of the online edition.
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Posted 1:02 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Contentville Is Off the Map
Steve Outing on failure of a content marketplace
Steven Brill has shut down his innovative Contentville digital content marketplace. "Unfortunately we simply were unable to entice enough people for us to see our way to a viable enterprise," Brill writes in a terse note on the home page. The site was shuttered as of Friday. As reported in the New York Post, Brill told employees in a memo, "My idea for Contentville just didn't work." He did not blame it on the depressed dot-com economy.Contentville was all about selling ... content. (Dissertations, research reports, archived magazine and newspaper articles, and subscriptions to print publications.) It would seem that the idea was and is ahead of its time. I can still imagine a time in the future when a viable business can be made by selling digital content — content that is valuable to a segment of the reading audience, but is not publishable in traditional formats like books and magazines. The problem may have been in the name. A mass audience doesn't know what "content" is. For a Contentville-like online information marketplace to work, some smart minds need to figure out how to market it in the right way (and without spending too much money, as Contentville did with its funny but ineffective TV ads).
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