|
Posted 4:57 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
And the User Will Really Pay?
Katja Riefler on selling content to mobile phone users
You will be able to make money with content on the Internet — if you sell it to mobile phone users rather than PC users. Jupiter MMXI concludes in its latest report that by 2006, European consumers will spend EURO 3.3 billion for content on their mobile phones, compared to Euro 1.7 billion on their PCs. Nevertheless, it is a big question whether this revenue will develop fast enough. For some companies it will come too late. Clickfish, for example, a German community site that features self-selected "experts" that answer questions of all kinds, just announced insolvency, despite the fact that the company had announced some deals with mobile operators to include its Askforce answering service as part of paid services not too long ago. (See my item from a few weeks ago.)
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 2:15 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Text Messaging Far From Perfect
Steve Outing on mobile interactivity
An interesting new media notion is of having consumers use mobile phone text-messaging services to interact with other media — for example, for TV viewers to participate in contests by calling in text messages as they watch. However, as a Guardian article from earlier this week pointed out, there's a bit of a problem. Turns out that many mobile services aren't equipped to handle an onslaught of text messagers — so the text-message contest entry may not arrive for days, or may not get delivered at all. It's a great concept — along the lines of the TV commercials showing a woman buying a soda from a machine using her cell phone to beam it money — but it's not quite ready for prime time.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 9:08 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
It's NBC vs. NBC in Olympic Web Competition
Steve Klein on online Olympic content
NBC will be its own top competition for Olympic users and viewers when the Winter Olympic Games begin Feb. 8 in Salt Lake City. For starters, there will be about 375 hours of television coverage divided among NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC. And the network is involved in three Olympic websites: its own NBCOlympics.com; Olympics.com, the official site of the Salt Lake Olympic Committee; and its joint effort with MSNBC. The first two are relatively the same; the NBC/MSNBC site draws from much the same material.However, one critic doesn't expect the Internet to be a gold medal Olympic competitor. "By and large it won't be an enormous Internet event," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & Life Project, a nonprofit group that studies how people use the Web. "People don't use the Internet this way." A survey by Pew of Internet users following the Sydney 2000 Summer Games showed that less than 10% of the U.S. adult population accessed information about the Olympics online. Rainie said only serious fans delve into the information online, and he does not expect this year's games to be much different.
Cool Olympics Feature
The neatest Olympics Web feature, according to a story by Jennifer Beauprez of the Denver Post, allows users to vote during the skating competition at either NBCOlympics.com or Olympics.com. "You Be the Judge" automatically lets people see the tally of the online poll. Users can also improve their judging skills by watching an animated skater demonstrate what makes a good triple lutz. And during the competition, skater biographies will automatically pop up on the screen.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 8:32 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Net's New Rules
Steve Outing on mission statements
Search engine Google is an Internet success story, so it's worth watching. Google has an interesting document posted online: a mission statement/statement of principles. Some of the 10 "things Google has found to be true" don't apply to media companies, but some do. They're certainly worth a read.The most relevant item, in my view, is No. 4: "Democracy on the Web works: Google works because it relies on the millions of individuals posting websites to determine which other sites offer content of value. Instead of relying on a group of editors or solely on the frequency with which certain terms appear, Google ranks every web page using a breakthrough technique..." This is a great concept for news people to think about — how to let democracy into the news selection process. Scary? For journalists, sure. But necessary. (Tip 'o the hat to Robert Niles, who pointed out this page to the Online-News discussion list.)
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 7:55 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Not Your Normal Navigation
Nora Paul on new news presentation
My favorite part of my job is scouting out interesting new designs and navigation schemes that online publications are playing with. I just found this one yesterday — Urban Desires: A Cultural Oasis for Weary Internet Travelers. It was one of the first art/literary zines published exclusively for the Web. Check out the "Viewfinder" and the "Slide Rule" navigations — intriguing ways to hook people up with articles. Why don't news sites play with some new ways to think about navigating through their articles (besides no time, no money, no interest)?(Warning: self-serving plug coming...) At the Institute for New Media Studies we have been exploring ways journalism might be inspired by other crafts and break out of legacy medium on computer screen formats. In November we had "Playing the News," with computer game designers and artists working with journalists. If you are interesting in seeing what came out of it check out the website at Playing the News. The mantra for the session was, "It's not about storytelling, its about story-making." (And it is this notion of moving from a passive to an active news audience that still gives most journalists the heebie-jeebies.) Next month we will have "Painting the News," which will bring together digital artists and online storytellers to discuss with journalists how story packages might be more creatively designed. I'd love to hear about your favorite convention busting sites as far as design or new navigation. Contact me at npaul@umn.edu.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 2:47 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Coming of the Magic Box
Steve Outing on the home entertainment gateway
Leslie Walker of the Washington Post has an interesting column today about what's coming soon to our living rooms. A single "box" that performs a wide variety of tasks — from viewing and storing television programming (a la TiVo), to enabling interactive game-playing, to providing broadband Internet access — is not yet available in stores, but the vision for what the box will be is now more sharply in focus. The devices will, I think, get people away from their desks and PCs. Particularly for entertainment-value Web surfing, consumers will sit on the couch interacting with their "home entertainment gateway" (which looks like a TV) instead of their PCs. HEGs will succeed where WebTV did not. This has some implications for Web news publishers, who will need to adjust their presentation to accommodate more TV Web viewers.I especially liked this comment from Walker about Moxi, one of the competitors in the HEG landscape (and whose founder created WebTV: "(Its) best feature may be the ability to share one video recorder with up to four TV sets. That would enable the kids, say, to watch different prerecorded shows in their rooms while their parents simultaneously watched something else in the living room. To accomplish that today would require multiple video recorders."
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 10:34 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Another One Bites the Dust
Nora Paul on Internet trends
Internet Week, an Internet technology focused magazine with a circulation of 275,000, announced yesterday that it is shutting down. While its loyal readers appreciated the content that was delivered weekly, "Unfortunately, the advertising community wasn't as supportive of our distinct Internet focus," Rob Preston, editor in chief, stated in the farewell e-mail. The company will continue to publish Information Week, Network Computing, and Optimize. Is this just another victim of the advertising downturn, or another indication that marketing Internet niche publications doesn't make as much sense because the Internet is becoming so integrated into company operations?
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 9:34 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
More TV and Web Convergence
Steve Klein on online sports integration
Terra Lycos and FoxSports.com will be integrating their content, sales, and marketing resources, according to a story in the Boston Globe by Bill Griffith. As a result, FoxSports.com will become part of the Lycos.com home page, and its content will be integrated throughout the Lycos Network, which serves 109 million unique monthly visitors. FoxSports.com, which redesigned last fall, now can be reached with one click from Lycos. That will bring added visitors to its sports broadcast properties: Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and NASCAR.This convergence of the Web and television is similar to the recent integration of MSN and ESPN/ABC that made ESPN the primary sports destination of those using the Microsoft Internet portal. AOL users have a similar arrangement with Time-Warner. "From a marketing standpoint, this is all about leveraging the power of Fox Sports, the regional networks, and the Fox World networks with our global reach," said Steve Fund, Lycos vice president of marketing. "We really think this combination will help users break through the clutter and make Terra Lycos the premier sports destination on the Web." Not likely, but it's still a good move.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 9:27 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Looking for the Local Angle
Jade Walker on local news sites
Twelve hours after a 42-year-old law student went on a murderous rampage, I wondered how the major online news sites near Grundy, Virginia, had handled the story. Unfortunately, the news coverage ranged from perfunctory to nonexistent. While major news organizations like CNN and the New York Times produced staff stories complete with photos, maps, audio/video interviews with witnesses, and forums, the Roanoke Times opted to run six inches of wire copy. The Virginia Mountaineer, a weekly in Grundy, missed the event entirely, opting to keep last week's issue up on its website. I confess it felt rather odd to see the main news of the day pronouncing: "Finally, Some Snow!" instead of "Killing Spree at Law School Leaves 3 Dead."Clearly these local news sites need to realize the potential and immediacy the Web offers for breaking news. I have no doubt that traffic spiked at these news sites, and in both cases, the readers were left wanting.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 6:39 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Warning: Only Read This If You're 18 or Older
Steve Klein on online content going mainstream (well, cable)
How do I put this delicately? Let someone else say it, I guess. According to Jane Roh of Silicon Alley Daily, viewers who like sex for the thinking man or woman may want to tune in to a new program on HBO (you DO get HBO, don't you; you DO watch "Sex in the City," don't you?), "Downloading Sex," which debuts Saturday at 11 p.m. U.S. Eastern time, thanks to the folks at Nerve.com. This is SO new that I couldn't find anything about it on the HBO website (yet), but I did at Nerve.com. The program is co-produced by HBO and Nerve.com; the pilot runs about 45 minutes and is supposed to be "the TV incarnation of the website."The format combines cartoons, documentary-type footage, and artsier fare, "all with a racy edge, to be sure," writes Roh. I won't go into the details here (this IS Poynter, after all), but a Nerve.com columnist will be peppering people on the street with questions about their bedroom behavior. According to Nerve.com co-founder and CEO Rufus Griscom, the key to his company's success (survival?) is simple: Nerve.com isn't just a dot-com anymore. "We just saw the Net as a cost-effective way to get our content out," said Griscom. "Fundamentally, Nerve is a brand that we would've created even in the absence of the Net." Larry Flynt must be oh so jealous.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 4:14 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Measuring Online Advertising
Rich Gordon on new audience measurement guidelines
It's quite a paradox: online advertising, the ad format that lends itself best to measurement of effectiveness, has fallen somewhat out of favor because of allegedly poor results. Meanwhile, advertisers happily throw away millions of dollars on television and print advertising that isn't doing anything for them. The Interactive Advertising Bureau is trying to do something about this with the release this week of its first-ever guidelines for measuring and reporting online advertising results. It's an effort to develop a common vocabulary and consistent measuring standards. They're not easy reading, but the guidelines — and the PriceWaterhouseCoopers report they're based on — are very useful. (They're also an excellent primer on the technology behind online advertising.) If the IAB guidelines are adopted widely, websites, advertisers, and media buyers would have the ability to fairly compare advertising results from site to site and campaign to campaign. IAB guidelines have sometimes had substantial impact — its initial standards for online ad formats became widely adopted. In hindsight, though, those standards were flawed. And the industry's reliance on them contributed to the ineffectiveness of banner ads once their novelty wore off.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 1:44 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The End Of Free – Next Step
Katja Riefler on paid content on Germany's biggest portal site
Will users really pay for content? In Germany, everyone is looking at T-Online, the biggest portal site and the biggest ISP in the country (and a unit of Deutsche Telekom). T-Online started charging today (sorry, German only) for some premium services like financial news, games, and fitness videos. Users are offered both single-copy and subscription options. After registering, users are charged on their next telephone bill. If T-Online succeeds even modestly, many content providers in Germany probably will follow soon.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 12:26 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Some Companies Are Getting VC Funding
Steve Outing on media investments
There continue to be signs of a comeback in the Internet media sector. This week, NewspaperDirect announced that it had secured $5 million in third-round venture capital funding. The company distributes exact duplicates of newspapers via the Internet to customers around the world, printed by a network of license partners. NewspaperDirect currently works with more than 90 newspaper titles. It will be printing numerous titles and making them available at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City next month.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 8:59 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Breaking Politics News, Anonymously
Steve Outing on politics sites
While online media has had a rough ride, there are still signs of hope for original journalism on the Web. As reported in CyberJournalist.net, the sites PoliticsNY.com and PoliticsNJ.com have been scooping local media and making waves recently. Really interesting: the writers won't reveal their identities.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 2:52 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Print Classifieds Rebound: Don't Count on It
Steve Outing on classifieds trends
In today's article, "Web takes help-wanted advertising from newspapers," in the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, that newspaper's vice president of classified advertising is quoted as saying that in a soft economy and a time of pinched budgets, advertisers are experimenting with online sites because the price is so much cheaper. She believes that the newspaper advertising model ultimately will prevail, as have "bricks and mortar" retailers.My reaction to that is, In your dreams! (Unless the "newspaper model" includes strongly integrated print and online components.) As this article points out, many advertisers have abandoned print classifieds (especially in job recruitment) and moved to online job advertising. Now, the bottom pretty much fell out of the online sector, yet online classifieds gained during this down period. That should tell you that the concept of online classifieds services is a solid one. If an economic resurgence returns some classifieds advertisers to print, it will be only a portion of what they used to spend. Newspaper classifieds executives who discount the online threat are, in my opinion, living in a dream world.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 12:11 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Hope for Blogger
Steve Outing on weblog publishing
Last week I noted in an item here about the troubles of tiny but important weblog publishing technology provider Blogger. Blogger founder Evan Williams has confirmed to OnlineBlog.com that he is close to introducing a Blogger premium service, to be priced at a modest $30 a year, that will give weblog publishers more reliable service. Recently, Blogger has been plagued by hacker attacks and service outage that have made it impossible for webloggers to publish their content. Thousands of weblogs rely on Blogger.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 11:59 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Ink-in-Motion Signage
Steve Outing on electronic ink
E Ink is a fascinating company to watch, for someday in the (not so distant?) future it will have major applications for news media. Today E Ink plunked a press release in my inbox about a developer kit for its new retail signage: the company's "Ink-In-Motion" sign is "a flashing electronic display that combines the proven promotional effectiveness of motion with the visual appeal of ink-on-paper." The signs are lightweight and made out of durable plastic sheets that can be integrated into retail promotional displays. They can operate on two AA batteries for up to one year of continuous operation, E Ink claims.E Ink is making progress on the "digital ink" technology, which has the readability of ink on paper and can be viewed from various angles. Retail applications are the testing ground for digital ink. Progress with digital signage is an indicator that E Ink is getting closer to refining the technology for mass-market small-format uses, such as portable news and content display devices.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 2:23 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The New WSJ.com
Steve Outing on leading website's upcoming redesign
The website of the Wall Street Journal is offering a sneak peek at its upcoming redesign. It promises improved navigation and greatly enhanced personalization features. The new WSJ.com is supposed to roll out in late January. I like the idea of previewing a redesign like this — and generating some advance excitement and buzz. It's smart to let online users know about the change in advance, to prevent the likes of what happened to Salon.com a couple years ago when it introduced a new design that was widely trashed by users. It pays to let the public see what you've got in store, and let them spot problems while there's still time to fix them before the formal launch.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 6:28 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Does Web Hurt Cartoonists?
Steve Outing on online vs. print syndication
After I wrote a column recently for Editor & Publisher about using the Web to publish content that no longer fits in print editions of newspapers, I apparently struck a nerve. I suggested that it's a good thing for newspapers to move comic strips that have been axed in print to papers' websites — to keep loyal comic fans mollified. Not so fast, said Jim Toomey, creator of Sherman's Lagoon (distributed by King Features). Actually, this practice is great for newspapers but lousy for cartoonists. Toomey says that when a strip gets cut from print but stays on a paper's website, the revenues are a small portion of what was earned before.
But the worst part, Toomey says, is that papers are able to deflect criticism when they kill a strip. ("It's still on the Web!") The cartoonist loses the "angry mob" of fans who sometimes are able to get strips reinstated after the editors have decided to axe them. Readers have gotten Sherman's Lagoon reinstated in at least a dozen papers. Toomey opines, "If a paper cuts the print version of a strip, the syndicate should require that they stop running the online version, or at least pay rates comparable to what they paid for the print version." Cartoonists have to eat, too.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 6:25 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
'Popping' Ad Windows Get Negative Consumer Reception
Vin Crosbie on online advertising
A survey by E-Poll reports that 72.4% of consumers who encountered pop-up, pop-under, or other types of spawned browser window ads "always close this type of ad without paying attention to it." According to a the Hollywood Reporter story about the E-Poll, the survey also found that 40% of consumers who encountered popping ad windows and did pay attention actually lowered their opinions about the products advertised. Because the survey found that opinions of another 36% of consumers who looked didn't change their opinions about the products when faced with the "popping" ad, might it be mathematically reasonable to conclude that popping ads hurt more than help the products they advertise?
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 12:01 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Making Online Ads Work
Rich Gordon on new advertising formats
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting package today on online advertising. "Imagine This" asks several experts for "out of the box" ideas for making online ads catchy, memorable, and effective. And "What's Shaking" looks at a case study of a shoshkele ad — technology from United Virtualities that puts animated ads backed with sound in a layer on top of a Web page. The range of ideas for improving online advertising is broad. David Macaulay, author of "The Way Things Work," argues that ads should use more text. Chris Wink, one of the founders of performance art troupe Blue Man Group, argues for multiple streams of content. And magician Penn Jillette says online advertising will never work. "Historically, the power of advertising through the '60s, '70s, and '80s will be seen as a glitch," he says.Personally, I'm still an optimist about online advertising — though I think broadband will be a prerequisite for effective ad formats. Winning interactive ads will combine the multimedia power of television with the clickability of banners. So I'm intrigued with shoshkeles and other new formats. But I'm still traditionalist enough to believe that for editorial sites, there needs to be a clear delineation and separation between editorial space and advertising space. So ads that sit on top of editorial copy, in my opinion, are a problem because they increase the chances that viewers/users won't understand what content is paid for and what's not.
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
Posted 11:49 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Google Effect
Steve Outing on less need for domain names
It used to be important (very important) for a company to have a domain name that could be easily guessed. For the website of the Boulder Daily Camera (my hometown newspaper), its URL should be something easy to guess (like boulderdailycamera.com or dailycamera.com). Of course, often the ".com" domain you needed was taken by someone else. Well, according to San Jose Mercury News technology columnist Dan Gillmor, it no longer really matters. As he writes in his Sunday column, the most reliable way to find the website of any company or media organization is to go to Google or other good search engine and type the name. Having the perfect .com domain name, he says, is no longer critical. (Though I'll argue that you should still have it if at all possible.)
[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
|