|
Posted 5:16 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Canary In a Coal Mine
Steve Outing on Marketwatch.com's moves
"It's an early canary in the coal mine." That's how Marketwatch.com is described by an analyst quoted in this Reuters report. The CEO of the high-profile business news website, Larry Kramer, has announced that his company is now on the lookout for acquisitions — meaning that Marketwatch executives figure that they've hit bottom (or passed it) and are on the way up again. This could spell good news for the entire online media sector — that is, those that survived the downturn.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 2:36 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Playboy Losing Shirt, Online and Off
Steve Outing on website's troubles
As the New York Post reports today, Playboy Enterprises is a desperate company. Among other things, its website hasn't worked out, and according to a Morningstar analyst, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner made $10 million in loans to keep it online. Playboy.com is one of those websites that probably would succeed if we were further along with consumer broadband. With most young males still stuck with narrowband Internet access, Playboy.com isn't nearly as compelling as Playboy on dead trees. Give the site time; in a future broadband era, it still could be big.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 2:22 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
WSJ Partnership Flounders
Peter M. Zollman on the economic fallout
When it launched more than three years ago, the Wall Street Journal's partnership with Korn/Ferry International in FutureStep, a mid-level online executive recruiting service, was a model alliance. But it's ended quietly, at least for now. The Journal, with its great demographics, helped Korn/Ferry build the service leading to its higher-level executive searches; Korn/Ferry contracted to spend millions with the Journal, in print and online, promoting FutureStep. The alliance ended at the end of December. The reason? Korn/Ferry (like many employment and recruitment companies) suffered significant losses last year, and was cutting its ad budget. "They wanted to continue the relationship at a level we weren't comfortable with," said Tony Lee, editor in chief and GM of CareerJournal.com, as reported in Classified Intelligence Report. But, he added, "I would not be surprised if we find ourselves in a relationship again one day."
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 1:59 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Blogger Bummer
Steve Outing on weblog publishing
Thousands of weblog publishers (including this one) use Blogger, a handy and free service that makes posting new content to a weblog super-easy. We use Blogger as one element of publishing E-Media Tidbits. (The weblog resides on the Poynter.org site, but Blogger is used as the publishing interface.) Alas, Blogger has been going through a rough spell since the beginning of the year — with frequent down times when publishing via the system is unavailable (including all of this morning). The troubles of this one very small California company have left thousands of webloggers frustrated at not being able to publish recently. It's a shame. Blogger has a dynamite technical solution that works great for weblog publishers. But it lacks staff and resources to grow into a stable business. The investment community needs to throw some money at Blogger. It's a shame that the money men/women in the VC world can't see past their Internet phobia to realize that Blogger is a technology that has some real potential, and great demand from publishers willing to pay for a smart solution.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 10:55 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Sharing a Cold
Jade Walker on e-mail viruses
SiliconValley.com's daily news roundup, "Good Morning Silicon Valley," included an unexpected attachment on Monday — one that sent a virus to its entire mailing list. A spokesman for SiliconValley.com said that the site was the unfortunate victim of a hacker, who sent the Magistr e-mail worm into its servers. If PC users with Windows software activated the virus by opening the attachment, they could lose the entire contents of their hard drives.Lessons online news sites and e-mag publishers can learn from this experience: Check your computer systems for viruses. Upgrade virus detection programs monthly. Suggest your readers do the same.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 5:14 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Clutter Alert: Clean Up Your Site, Make Ads Memorable
Nora Paul on online advertising
This Jan. 7 item from Internet News should interest news sites interested in keeping advertisers happy. They report on a study by Internet research firm Dynamic Logic that consumers "miss out on advertising branding messages when ads appear in cluttered Web pages." Visual clutter (lots of text, graphics, and especially other ads) are particularly problematic. Surveys found that "only 57% of consumers could effectively remember the ads they had seen on a site they described as 'cluttered.' Uncluttered sites improved consumers' recall rates to 65%." The report notes that yes, "the gap between the two figures is small, yet some publishers are beginning to utilize how consumers remember ads by selling exclusive placements to advertisers. NYTimes.com, for instance, recently began offering ad packages that give a single advertiser exclusive control over the entire ad inventory during a user's visit to the site. This is a called a 'session' model. But these advertising packages were higher priced."
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 3:29 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Forrester Chops 22% of Staff
Steve Outing on Internet market research
Technology market research company Forrester is laying off 22% of its staff as the result of a slowdown in work and the poor state of the technology sector. (The Wall Street Journal reports.) Forrester is a household name for executives in the media and online news worlds.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 1:07 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Come On, Cooperate
Katja Riefler on media convergence
Cooperation and convergence are among the most challenging tasks that modern media houses can choose. These days you can watch at least two interesting new initiatives that try to combine both. Media General, which owns the Tampa Tribune, WFLA/Channel 8, and TBO.com, has teamed up with the New York Times Co.'s Sarasota Herald-Tribune, which owns SNN/Channel 6 and HeraldTribune.com, in order to exchange content in Florida on all platforms — print, television, and online. In the UK, the mobile phone company mmO2, Virgin Radio, and Crown Castle International have announced a partnership to demonstrate the potential of converged technologies from the digital radio broadcasting and 3G mobile telecom industries. The trial will take place this month on the Isle of Man. As part of it, Virgin Radio will launch an interactive, personalized radio service called Manx Choice which will enable its listeners to either create a personalized playlist or influence the station's music choice through online voting.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 12:08 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
They'll Pay for Print, Not Web
Steve Outing on NewsStand's lessons
Writing in ZDNet News, Andreas Pfeiffer has an interesting column this week about the lessons we can learn from NewsStand, a service that creates print-duplicate versions of newspapers and delivers them digitally via the Internet, to be read on a PC screen. (Its most prominent client is the New York Times.) The column is worth a read, though I found myself disagreeing with much of it. I tried out the Times' NewsStand service and found it to be a far inferior experience than simply reading the NYTimes.com website. (And the website is free, while the NewsStand version is priced similar to a print subscription.)Pfeiffer suggests that "the most important lesson of NewsStand is probably perceived value." That is, consumers perceive the printed Times as more valuable than the Web Times, so they're willing to pay for a digital version that looks identical to the print product, but won't pay for similar Times content in Web-page form. He's right — for now. I think in time, news consumers will "get over it" and be as receptive to Web-native content format as for print-format. In time, print won't have an advantage — so I don't look for solutions like NewsStand to have a long life in the present form.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 12:01 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Advertising on the Magic Box
Rich Gordon on ads on "entertainment gateways"
Seana Mulcahy, an online advertising specialist writing for ClickZ, follows up on this week's announcement of the Moxi Digital Center by a company led by the former co-founder of WebTV. Moxi is one of several companies — including big players like Microsoft — that would like to build the device that brings digital entertainment and information services to your home. Some have called it the "magic box"; Mulcahy uses the term "entertainment gateway." Using the Moxi device as an example, Mulcahy speculates on the advertising opportunities that are on the horizon. "This product appears to have endless advertising opportunities," she says.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 2:17 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
ESPN Has a Cable Modem Provider for You
Steve Klein on online business solutions
According to a story by Multichannel News' Jim Forkan, ever-creative ESPN has come up with a new way to drive its affiliates' cable-modem businesses. ESPN.com places a message that identifies which operators offer high-speed Internet access in the user's hometown. So, when a user clicks on a video clip, they see a prompt that reads, "Best experienced with a cable modem." Since early December, a second prompt says, "Check cable-modem Internet access in your area." Clicking on that second prompt and entering your address and ZIP code activates an affiliate search. "If there's a cable affiliate in their area that's cable-modem ready," writes Forkan, "the user receives on-screen information about all the service packages offered by that provider. They also get sign-up data that's also forwarded to any affiliates."ESPN is "not looking for compensation here," says Manish Jha, vice president of broadband and interactive-television sales. "We're not seeking to get any kind of commission (on referrals). We're helping drive our affiliates' business." The strategy should help operators save on the estimated "couple of hundred dollars" it costs on average to acquire a cable-modem subscriber, Jha says.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 4:36 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
It's Broadband's Fault
Steve Klein on broadband content
Just last week, a story in the Washington Post blamed trading in broadband capacity futures as contributing to the demise of Enron. Putting some, if not all, of your economic eggs in the broadband basket, it seems, is either the future of an economic revival or the cause of the current recession. Now, according to Stanford law professor and Internet scholar Lawrence Lessig, the revival of the country's technology sector will be an essential part of the American economy's recovery from recession, and the key is — yup — broadband. "American consumers have been slow to adopt broadband because, while there may be an infinite number of channels, there is still nothing on," Lessig writes in a Post op-ed piece. He believes this is a result of the tight grasp that major copyright holders have over broadband-intensive content. The hesitance of these copyright holders to free their content to the Internet has slowed broadband technologies in general.So what to do? Lessig, author of "The Future of Ideas," urges Congress to pass balanced laws that address the evolution of technology — laws that give copyright owners a right to compensation, but also give innovators a right to access content.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 11:51 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Profits for the Few
Steve Outing on online media trends
This shouldn't come as a big surprise. As Jim Hu and Stefanie Olsen write for CNET News.com, an increasing number of online media ventures are starting to report profits — even during the last dismal year. The reasons are simple enough to figure out: there's less competition because many online media ventures went out of business, and cost-cutting and tight-fisted business strategies are starting to pay off. For the survivors of the dot-crunch, it's not all that bad.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 10:02 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
You Can't Control History Any More
Katja Riefler on a not so unimportant WIPO decision
Haven't we all been fascinated by the new research opportunities of the Internet Archive's WayBackMachine? So have others. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) with its Arbitration and Mediation Center based in Geneva (Switzerland) used the tool in a decision from December 2001 to settle a dispute over the domain "vodaphone.com," which had been registered by a woman in the UK in 1998. The woman lost, but the real interesting thing is that for the first time the Internet Archive has been officially approved by international legal authorities. Time will show what disputes other than those about domain names can be settled with the help of the WayBackMachine.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 9:56 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Northern Light Switching Off Free Service
Peter M. Zollman on search engine changes
Long ago in Web years — what's that, three years? — one of the search engines of choice was Northern Light. It was effective, included lots of current news, magazine, and journal content, and was free. Now comes word that Northern Light Technology, which has always been a content aggregator serving businesses, is going to focus on that end of the business, and will only offer the general public online searches through its "special collection," a fee-based aggregation of 7,000 sources. So while there's rapid growth at search engines Google and Teoma, two companies that no one had heard of three years ago, other "long-term" players in free search start fading away. (NorthernLight.com will turn off its free Web search as of Jan. 16; its news search service will remain free.)
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 5:35 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The REAL Advertising Advantage
Rich Gordon on a new study of online usage at work
For the second time this month, a new study suggests that people with Internet access at work are a uniquely appealing audience for advertisers. The study by Millward Brown IntelliQuest for the Online Publishers Association [press release and summary] finds that people with online access at work spend more time online than watching television. (The study questionnaire specifically excluded e-mail from its definition of time spent online.) The study also found that these users cite online advertising as the No. 1 form of advertising in helping them decide what to buy. The Online Publishers Association plans to make a more detailed report available next month.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 4:51 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Wiki Way: Collaborative Reporting – Dream or Nightmare?
Nora Paul on user-generated content
Are the folks in your newsroom still squirmy about what to do with material written by non-newsroom employees? They really don't think most "citizens" are qualified to contribute to news content? Freak them out by adding Wiki to your website. Wiki is an "open source collaborative server technology that enables users to access, browse, and edit hypertext pages in a real-time context." To see how it works check out Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia. Anyone can go in and add an article or edit anyone else's article. Click on an item, like Current Events, click on "edit this page right now" and add your own news update (Michael Jordan's Wife Files for Divorce) — brackets around Michael Jordan's name creates an instant link to his encyclopedia entry. You can also add comments (to a listing of new movies released I wrote, "and several of them are actually worth seeing").Wouldn't it be interesting to let the public do their own updating of the state budget reaction story or just let them have a page where they could write their own articles and their neighbors could edit them? I can see steam coming out of the ears of the "closed media" ranks already!
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 4:32 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Pssst! It's 2002, Get a Clue
Steve Outing on Web, e-mail copyright notices
Are you remembering to write "2002" on your checks yet? It you can remember that detail, then you can also remember to fix the copyright notices on the e-mail publications you send out and on the bottom of your Web pages. (Change "©2001" to "©2002.") Lots of Internet publishers forget this little detail (including Poynter.org, which I see from the bottom of this page is still stuck in 2001). I've been noticing lots of not-yet-updated copyright notices on my various e-mail subscriptions. You've been reminded.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 1:53 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
High-flying E-predictions
Madan Rao on the 2002 e-media outlook
While I'm levitating at 30,000 feet, I thought I'd throw in three more observations/predictions for the new year:1) E-journalists will find growing employment opportunities within large enterprises in their knowledge management initiatives. Many KM projects require significant help with managing anecdotes, learning histories, and encouraging knowledge transfer practices via creative story-telling. Out-of-work new-media business writers rejoice! KM is your calling.
2) Archival systems components of content management solutions at large media houses will be increasingly drawn into the digital library movement, as a set of federated/distributed protocols and standards emerges to impose "bibliographic order" on the chaos of the Web, particularly for content databases.
3) At the technology vendor level, two promising growth areas in media houses are storage solutions (for fast access to content on massively expanding WWW/intranet sites), and smart software for multilingual translation/abstraction (especially in Asia and Europe).
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 1:41 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
It's Advertising, Sort Of
Steve Outing on online advertising
Have you visited Infoworld's website lately? You'll notice highlighted words throughout some articles (like this one), which when clicked bring up a small pop-up box with a mixture of editorial and advertising content. The site is using contextual advertising technology from Richlink that automatically links selected words (purchased by advertisers). The repeated highlighted words are a bit annoying, but at least they don't just bring up an ad. The mix of editorial and advertising makes this "feature" somewhat useful.The idea here is that you click on a linked word in an article because you want to learn more — about "operating systems," say. The pop-up box then presents a list of links to Infoworld stories about Microsoft operating systems, because Microsoft bought the auto-linked phrase. This is interesting, yet raises some ethical flags. An advertiser (in this example, Microsoft) is paying for "advertising" that is content produced by the publisher getting paid for the ads. What do you think of this? Click the "Discuss" link below.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 1:21 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Jostling for Strategic Position
Rich Gordon on the battle for online eyeballs
With the demise of industry magazines like the Industry Standard and Business 2.0, I find that the New York Times often provides some of the most incisive and timely technology coverage. This week, two articles focus on efforts by the major players in the online industry to gain a strategic advantage. "The Battle of the Boxes" focuses on Apple, Microsoft, and newcomer Moxi Digital (startup led by the former co-founder of WebTV). All are seeking to provide the central technology behind the "wired home" of the future. "Mr. Semel's Internet Search" focuses on Yahoo!'s efforts to broaden its revenue base beyond online advertising. All of these companies, and others, are looking for partners (such as Internet service providers and cable companies) that provide connectivity into the home. Their ultimate goals: control the entry screens that people use to access networked content, and collect a slice of the subscription fees that consumers pay for cable and/or Internet access.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 1:42 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Deja Vu: EPpy Finalists
Steve Outing on online newspaper awards
Editor & Publisher has announced the finalists for this year's EPpy awards — the annual competition that honors the world's best newspaper websites. Once again, WashingtonPost.com came out on top with eight finalist positions; NYTimes.com got six. If this year is like years past, WashingtonPost.com executives will make multiple trips to the podium on Feb. 8 at the Interactive Newspapers conference in San Jose, where the winners will be named in 19 categories. The not quite so well known website of the Topeka Capital-Journal (Kansas) also did well this year, grabbing four finalists slots.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 8:05 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
It's Come to This
Steve Outing on low rates for online writing
The January issue (in print) of Writer's Digest magazine has a story that demonstrates the depths that online content sunk to last year. Katie Struckel Brogan wrote the article, "25 Best Places to Get Published Online." Her No. 1 website (the best that the online world has to offer for freelancers): Fabjob.com, which pays $10 per article (200-500 words). The next best site, Millenium Shift, pays $15 per feature (1,000 words). No. 3, WritersWeekly.com, pays $50 for a feature and $30 for a column or department piece. Of the 24 sites that Brogan cites, the highest paying is Gorp.com, which pays $100-400 for 1,000-word features. If that's the best pay rates that websites can offer freelance writers these days, let's pray for a recovery of the online media sector. Freelance writing has never been lucrative, of course, but those rates are an embarrassment to the online media industry.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 10:29 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Comics Online – Only
Steve Outing on newspaper changes
The San Francisco Chronicle has announced several changes to the newspaper, including the elimination of the comic strips Baby Blues, Zippy the Pinhead, Sylvia, Curtis, Amazing Spider Man, Piranha Club, Family Circus, and Marmaduke. However, Zippy the Pinhead, Curtis, Piranha Club, and Baby Blues will remain available to Chronicle readers on the paper's website, SFGate.com. While no consolation to Family Circus loyalists, this is a good technique for appeasing readers who tend to get annoyed when you cancel their favorite comics.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 10:00 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Penguins Come Up With an Online Winner
Steve Klein on online sports content
When the NHL Pittsburgh Penguins found themselves with a hole in their television schedule Sunday night against the Chicago Black Hawks, they came up with an original approach by marrying their radio broadcast and website. Paul Steigerwald conducted an ongoing chat session and took questions and comments for play-by-play man Mike Lange and color man Bob Errey. Penguins general manager Craig Patrick took part in the chat between the first and second periods, and assistant GM Eddie Johnston participated following the second. The TV color commentator, Eddie Olczyk, provided intermission runway interviews for online audio. And a Web cameraman captured video highlights that appeared on the site within minutes of real time.Could this be a look into the future? "We aren't looking at this as a one-time shot. Maybe we can enhance every Web broadcast next season," said Patrick. The Penguins, who have one of the most progressive Web presences in U.S. professional sports, planned to pay close attention to the traffic generated online Sunday. An average of 3,400 fans tune into the website-only audio broadcasts. You can bet they weren't the only ones watching.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 9:05 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Clueless American Girl
Steve Outing on print-Web integration
Over the holiday break my daughter asked me to help her find some online content that was promoted in American Girl magazine (a profile of a young singer). Alas, I couldn't help her. AG made a common mistake (which is one of my pet peeves): It told its print readers to go to its website to find supplementary content, but gave only the site's home page URL — so print readers would have to search the site to find the content. That's bad, but even worse is hiding the print-promoted content. The magazine's editors apparently need to take a Web Publishing 101 class, and learn to publish in print specific URLs that go directly to the promoted content.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 8:43 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
CBS Share of Sportsline.com Increases
Steve Klein on online sports sites
As its stock price continues to drop, Sportsline.com could find itself under new management in a couple years. According to a story by Patrick Danner in the Miami Herald, SportsLine.com's contract with CBS makes it possible for the network to gain control of the Fort Lauderdale-based online sports media company. Under terms of the contract, SportsLine.com agreed to pay $100 million in stock in five annual installments, starting this year. The first $20 million payment was made Wednesday, when SportsLine.com's stock closed at $2.90. The low stock price required SportsLine.com to issue 6.9 million shares, which boosted the CBS (which is owned by Viacom) stake to 11.4 million shares, or about 32% of SportsLine.com's 36.1 million shares. If the stock doesn't improve, the payment CBS receives in 2004 would put it near a controlling interest in SportsLine.com.How has it come to this? The possibility of CBS gaining control of SportsLine.com wasn't a concern three years ago when the deal was done; it's unlikely SportsLine.com's management ever anticipated the stock sinking to such depths. The day the deal was announced, Feb. 11, 1999, SportsLine.com's stock closed at $40.13. Had the stock remained at that level, SportsLine.com would have had to issue fewer than 500,000 shares to CBS this week instead of 6.9 million.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
|