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Posted 2:24 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Morris Is Doing Something Right
Steve Outing on the EPpy Awards
Morris Communications' newspaper websites dominated the 7th annual EPpy Awards Friday night. The company's online operations — in Augusta, Georgia; Athens, Georgia; Topeka, Kansas; Lubbock, Texas; and Hannibal, Missouri — won six top awards (out of a total of 19 awards given to newspaper sites). That kind of sweep in previous recent years went to WashingtonPost.com, which this time around won zero. NYTimes.com also came up empty-handed this time. (USAToday.com won two awards.) Morris' newspapers are mostly small, and their Web staffs are modest — but each has the considerable resources of Morris Digital Works at hand. Congratulations to the Morris crew.Two other awards went to best non-newspaper news service (ABCNews.com) and outstanding individual achievement (Rich Jaroslovsky, outgoing president and founder of the Online News Association and former managing editor of WSJ.com). Here's the full list of winners.
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Posted 8:46 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The End of Framing Without Permission?
Steve Outing on "fair use"
This story (The Recorder) is a couple days old but I missed it then; perhaps you did, too. A U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a search engine can lawfully post thumbnails of photographs belonging to others, but it can't post full-size images without the copyright owner's permission. This stemmed from a case where a photographer claimed that a search engine violated his copyright by reproducing and displaying his images without asking. The Circuit Court backed up a lower court decision that the search engine had acted within the "fair use" exception to U.S. copyright law when displaying the photo thumbnails. The reasoning (in part) was that the thumbnails did no economic harm to the photographer; rather, they improved access to information on the Internet.The appeals court has given us some guidance on the issue of framing and use of in-line images with this ruling. By linking and framing, the search engine's display of the photos at full size was not transformative and harmed the market for the original photographs, according to the court. This appears to be the first time an appellate court has addressed in-line linking and framing. The Recorder story quotes an attorney commenting on the case: "It's basically going to do away with linking or framing without permission."
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Posted 8:09 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Saffo: You Blew It! You'll Rule!
Steve Outing on an inspiring speech
When futurist Paul Saffo speaks on media trends, listen. He was the keynote speaker this morning at the E&P Interactive Newspapers conference, and I came away inspired. He was blunt: "You all (the newspaper industry) completely screwed up" when it came to figuring out what to do with the Internet, and, "There's a whole generation of newspaper executives who should be fired." But he also was optimistic: "Newspapers are now in just the right spot," and, "We are sitting just as a new mountain range (the next wave of technology) is appearing." Pay attention to new tech trends like 802.11 wireless networks, he advises, and start experimenting like it's 1995 all over again. Thanks for the pep talk, Paul. The newspaper new media industry really needed it.
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Posted 12:07 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Online Orders for Magazine Subscriptions Growing
Steve Outing on Web-print interaction
Here's an interesting tidbit from eMarketer: According to new research, 11% of U.S. online households that subscribe to magazines ordered their subscriptions online in late 2001 — up from 6-7% in previous quarters. Look for that number to continue growing. It's much easier for consumers to manage print subscriptions via the Web than traditional methods. Newspapers likewise could see more online orders, if they'd be more aggressive about promoting the Web as a preferred subscription method.
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Posted 9:07 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Do You Know the Way to Profit?
Steve Outing on E&P's conference
I'm in San Jose (California) for day one of the Interactive Newspapers conference. Frankly, I feared for an empty conference hall, but it's not bad — roughly 400 attendees if you include speakers and exhibitors. It's a far cry from a couple years ago, when the event attracted well over a thousand attendees; but the turnout nevertheless indicates to me that newspaper new media is climbing upward again. We heard lots of encouraging words from today's speakers. (E.g., San Francisco Chronicle VP of digital media Bob Cauthorn: "Our greatest work is ahead of us!" and "The Internet is a mass medium now.")Much talk at the event is, of course, about making money. I moderated an afternoon panel on paying for online content. There was much interest in one panelist in particular: Terry Bergen of Gazette Communications in Iowa. His website, GazetteOnline.com, restricts access to editorial content except to print-edition subscribers and paid online subscribers ($60 a year). Frankly, I don't like the model, but audience members were eager to hear about his experience. (Including the many e-mails calling charging for newspaper Web content "stupid" and worse.) I sensed that many in the audience would really like to charge. But it takes guts, because it may not be a wise decision.
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Posted 8:19 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Perhaps You Better Spit On Them?
Katja Riefler on getting users to pay for online content
It is difficult to make users pay for formerly free websites. Sometimes unorthodox methods will work. But decide yourself whether the Weekly World News finds the right words to explain why it temporarily closed its site: "We would like you to buy the paper at least one stinking week out of the year." The Wall Street Journal has its own comments about this (for subscribers only).
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Posted 10:58 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
E-mail Was King on Sept. 11
Steve Outing on Internet usage
A UCLA Internet Project study confirmed that on Sept. 11 and the days immediately afterward, e-mail dominated Internet use by Americans. More than 100 million people — 57% of e-mail users — sent or received e-mail expressing concern after the attacks. 23% received e-mail from overseas. In contrast, of the 1,200 randomly selected people who participated in the survey, only 3% looked to the Web for information on the Sept. 11 terror events; 80% relied on television. A scant 1% of people first learned about the terrorist attacks on the Internet. (Among that tiny minority was me; I learned about planes hitting the World Trade Center in an e-mail news alert.) Yes, there is something to this e-mail thing. So why is it that at the Interactive Newspapers conference (where I am today), we're mostly talking about the Web again?
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Posted 10:56 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Whatcha Gonna Do About This E-mail?
Steve Klein on new e-mail technology
As a registered member of NBCi (now when did I do that?), I received an e-mail message today as part of my "service" promoting NBC's Winter Olympic coverage that said: "NBC is going to rock your world!" Un-huh — but does it have to do it so loud and with such poor quality and service? The multimedia message (which plays when you open it) was sent by NBC using M4internet, which, according to its website, is "the premier outsource solutions provider for managing personalized permission-based e-mail marketing campaigns. Our solutions enable companies to easily manage effective high-volume e-mail campaigns for strengthening customer relationships and increasing revenue opportunities." The company says it strictly adheres to "the confirmed opt-in (sometimes referred to as double opt-in) list policy."So how was the quality? Well, I have a cable broadband connection, but the audio and video was choppy, the stop button didn't work, and the sound was LOUD (and the volume button didn't work, either). My overall impression is that this e-mail technology is obtrusive in its current not-ready-for-prime-time version. But I'm not going to opt-out — yet. Let's see what else NBC has up its overbearing sleeve. If you don't like pop-ups, you're probably not going to like this addition to your in-box, either.
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Posted 6:00 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Taking This Digital Thing Too Far
Steve Outing on online piracy
If you don't mind watching first-run movies in small, grainy format, you can see Hollywood's latest for a buck (and sample them for free). A Taiwanese website, Movie88, is offering streaming online copies of recent movies (including some currently in theaters) for only $1. I tried it out and watched the first few minutes of American Pie 2. The quality is lousy, and I wouldn't even consider it worth a dollar. But that's not the point. As the Hollywood Reporter writes, the site is pretty clearly violating intellectual property law — despite its published disclaimer that its online movies are "lawful and free from copyright infringement under the laws of the Republic of China."That's the Internet. There will always be those who push the limits. Napster did the same, but at least in that case there can be a reasonable debate about the legality of its business model. Not so with Movie88.com.
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Posted 11:30 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Photos on the Radio ... Huh?
Steve Outing on media convergence
Elsewhere on Poynter.org today, my colleague Al Tompkins has a surprising report of media convergence in action: NPR (National Public Radio) sent digital cameras with its correspondents in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has been posting their photos on its website. NPR is experimenting, and some radio reporters are enthusiastic about doing photojournalism; others are not. Interesting, eh?
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Posted 11:21 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Olympic Fever
Andrew Stroehlein on snowboarding online
For those of you who just can't wait till Friday's opening ceremony, BBC Online special Winter Olympics coverage pages offer "Ace Powder's Mountain Mayhem," a nice little snowboarding game in Flash 5.
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Posted 12:43 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Online Ads Have Come a Long Way, Baby
Steve Outing on online advertising
Remember when HotWired pioneered the Web banner ad in the mid '90s? The ubiquitous 468 x 60 pixel banners dominated for a long time. But online advertising is growing up, and now there are many alternatives. To see examples of the dizzying array of online ad vehicles of today — from scratch-off banners (think of scratch-off lottery tickets) to ad logos that follow your cursor around the screen — visit this page from German ad-serving company AdTech. It gives a nice overview of what's state of the art in online advertising. Yeah, a lot of them are annoying. (Credit is due to Just an Online Minute... columnist Masha Geller, from whom I learned about this page.)
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Posted 12:42 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
IOC to Permit (Very) Limited Streaming Video
Steve Klein on Olympic streaming video
The International Olympic Committee has made it clear that it's not about to cook its golden goose, commercial television rights, by permitting online streaming video of the Olympic Games anytime soon. However, Swiss broadcaster TSR, the French-language affiliate of Switzerland's SSR national television network, has gained limited rights for the first Internet broadcast of streaming video for the Winter Games, which begin Friday in Salt Lake City, according to a story (subscription required) by Multichannel News' Karen Brown.This is just a toe in the streaming-video waters by the IOC, which recognizes that the the Internet will inevitably play a significant role in future Olympics. "But it also underscores a persistent fear among major sports entities," writes Brown. "Internet distribution poses a danger to their business game plans, which have long been based on television-rights fees." Some of the details: TSR's video streams will only be distributed to Swiss customers in Basel, Geneva, and Zurich; there will be a limit of 2,000 simultaneous viewers; subscribers must not only log in and authenticate their subscription, but each image will be electronically watermarked and fingerprinted; customers can pick and choose events; and video will be packaged with team standings, individual results, and times. TSR expects to stream about 240 hours of video from Salt Lake City, from the opening ceremonies through the closing ceremonies Feb. 24.
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Posted 5:42 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
UK ABC Certifies E-mailed Publications
Vin Crosbie on e-mail publishing
The Audit Bureau of Circulation in the United Kingdom and Ireland has begun auditing and certifying e-mail publications' distribution. The first to be certified by its ABC ELECTRONIC division is e-government bulletin, a 6-year-old, free e-mail publication covering governmental Internet policies, published by Headstar. ABC ELECTRONIC audited and validated the publication's e-mail subscriber addresses and certified its opt-in circulation of 6,864. Said ABC ELECTRONIC managing director Richard Foan, "The independent audit supports the online business model and the figures are proof of their claims. We are pleased to offer our industry the transparency that it demands in this growing sector." The American ABC is reviewing its UK brethren's policies for possible application in North America.
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Posted 2:39 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Online News Gets Weird
Paul Grabowicz on online media
As part of a recent redesign, the San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate website added a new feature linked to off the home page: "Weird News." Also called "The Bondage File," it's a collection of odd-ball wire stories with headlines like "Sex Massage Can Cause Carpal Tunnel," "Pet Lizards Eat Owner," and "Duck Kills Jet Skier."Other websites have set up similar sections — such as Jim Romenesko's The Obscure Store — and they appear to be popular. We may need to create a new journalism job title: Weird News Editor.
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Posted 1:17 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
In Footsteps of Failure
Steve Outing on old ideas tried anew
A lot of companies in the online media sector died or went out of sight during the dot-com downturn. I've long expected some of the concepts plied by those companies to resurface once the economy picks up again. A note that landed in my e-mail box this morning, from AdExpedia, appears to demonstrate that this is already beginning. AdExpedia has a new service that specializes in converting print-publication advertisements and circulars to online form. (See some examples on this page.) Several years ago, several companies offered similar services and technologies. What's new is old.
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Posted 12:41 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
True Location Based Services
Katja Riefler on trends in mobile communication
You know that Europeans can't live without their mobile phones. According to the latest figure from the GSM network, around 30 billion SMS text messages are now being sent every month in Europe. Users in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands can expect more to come soon. NTT DoCoMo's managing director, Takeshi Natsuno, announced at the Multimedia Fair Milia in Cannes (France) that the several-times-delayed i-mode service, which serves 30 million customers in Japan, will finally start in Europe in April.While the telcos are looking forward to this cash cow, visionaries already have the next step in mind. Have a look, for example, at the New Scientist, which describes in its latest issue true location based services. With the help of each location's Global Positioning System (GPS) reference, anyone will be able to send and receive messages that are "pinned in the air." Drivers involved in an accident will post a message so that in-car satellite navigation systems can warn other motorists to steer clear of the area, for instance. I wonder what will happen to privacy, whether there will be any chance to hinder misuse at all or what will happen if too many people try to use this service at once. We'll have to discuss this not now but in the near future. Few phones contain GPS systems now, but they will soon.
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Posted 9:22 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
What Every Online Newsroom Needs
Nora Paul on online news staffing
Most of the time I'm hearing about how online news sites are cutting back on any funding of truly innovative, experimental story-telling efforts. Sad news comes from the folks at the Helsinki Sanomat that their Webortage team, creators of some truly mold busting story forms, is being disbanded. (Webortage packages are at the bottom left of the page.) And so it is with great good tidings that I learned of Tom Regan's new position at the Christian Science Monitor. He is "executive producer" of a new unit designed to produce one original Web-produced story every two weeks and a major package every month. One of their first efforts, My Fellow Americans, was picked by Jonathan Dube in his Cyberjournalist report as his "Great Work of the Month." Regan has a team of four journalists, all of whom also have other duties (as does Tom; he'll still be covering technology, writing a column and a weblog). But the creation of this position in the organization really signals the Christian Science Monitor's belief in exploring the kinds of reporting that can only be done online. We look forward to seeing their efforts.
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Posted 6:53 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Closing of Newspaper New Media Minds?
Vin Crosbie on online publishing technologies
Are newspaper new media minds closed to new ideas? Eight years ago, the mission of newspaper new media staffs was to use software and online technologies to publish their papers. But nowadays there are indications that those staffs have become fixated with the Web and insensible to any other software and online solution — even to obvious or "no brainer" solutions.Executives from NewspaperDirect and PEPC Worldwide, two of the three firms that supply more than 100 major newspapers with Internet delivery of editions worldwide at no costs to the publishers, say they nowadays rarely bother calling on newspaper new media staffs because those staffs rarely "get it." Said one, "We'd rather call on print publishers or circulation executives because they understand the value of using the Internet to deliver thousands of editions per day that consumrs, newsstands, hotels, and offices will readily pay to receive and that are certified by the ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulation) as paid circulation. We've been doing that with Adobe Acrobat files and FTP transmissions for years while those Web guys are only now figuring out that they want to generate ABC-certified paid circulation." When newspaper new media executives gather in San Jose later this week for Editor & Publisher's Interactive Newspapers conference, the only online technologies scheduled to be discussed in 16 of the 17 panels will be the Web.
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Posted 4:46 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Sidestepping a Delicate Issue
Steve Outing on journalism ethics
Here's an interesting item plucked from Lost Remote's e-newsletter today: "When a freelance photographer shot the exclusive interview with John Walker Lindh (the American found fighting with the Taliban), the FBI desperately wanted the tape. To avoid having to fight a potentially nasty subpoena, CNN posted the full, unedited video on its website. By placing it in public domain, the cable network neatly dodged a delicate issue and the prosecutors got what they wanted."
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Posted 4:28 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Letting Users Choose Advertisers
Paul Grabowicz on Web advertising
The Weatherbug online weather service now lets users control which advertisements they see. When downloading the Weatherbug software, people are shown a list of advertisers and pick the one they want to see as a sponsor of the site. dc.internet.com has a story on the service.
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Posted 1:38 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Ubiquitous Broadband ... Is Here
Rich Gordon on wireless access points
Tom Weber of the Wall Street Journal writes today about the spread of wireless access to common spaces like coffee shops and airport lounges. He suggests that wireless broadband will spread more rapidly than home access because more people can be served with less hassle than DSL or cable. It's an exciting prospect, especially for content publishers. I'm convinced that a lot of the relatively low readership of online content (many fewer minutes spent with a news website than a newspaper or magazine) is due to the fact that most people's Web usage is limited to desktop computers. Put the Web on a device that you carry around with you (laptop, PDA, e-reader), and usage will rise. Especially if you can peruse online news while sipping a latté.
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Posted 12:58 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Enron Blame Game
Nora Paul on online storytelling
Not since the California energy crisis has there been as confusing a story as the Enron debacle. Everyone is trying to figure out "who done it," and like the best mysteries, who done it all depends on who you ask. Like everyone else, I've been plowing through the reporting and getting more confused. But finally, thanks to Slate, the who's who of the Enron show is packaged and displayed in a form that I can understand and want to play through. The Enron Blame Game is a clean and clever combination of text and graphics that lets you click through the different players in the game and see who it is they are blaming for Enron's financial fiasco. This is a beautiful example of busting out of the "column inches on your computer screen" form that most online news stories take. This display of the story facilitates understanding of the issues through the use of functions uniquely available online. Nice work, Slate. (And thanks to Regina McCombs and Dave Braunger at the Star Tribune for telling me about it.)
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Posted 11:12 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Internet Is No. 1 With Kids
Steve Outing on youth media-usage study
If a kid was limited to one medium — television, radio, magazines, or the Internet — which would it be? According to a study commissioned by Ad Age, the Internet beats out even TV. TV is still the overall favorite medium for most youths (followed by the Internet); in terms of hours spent using media, Internet moves to the top spot as kids get older. Thinking about trimming your Internet investments? Read this study and think again. (It should be noted that the participants in this survey were 12,000 kids and teens who use the NeoPets.com website. Since only Internet users were included, take the numbers with at least a small grain of salt.)
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Posted 10:10 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The End of Free – Written by You
Steve Outing on weblogs
The End of Free weblog, which tracks those Internet publishers and enterprises that have begun charging for content instead of giving it away, has added a new feature: anyone can now post an item to the weblog. (You'll need an account on Blogger, and submitted postings will be cleared by an editor before being published.) Previously, a small group of writers contributed items. The new "collaborative" weblog concept should make what was already a terribly useful site even more useful.I noticed this tidbit in an item about weblogging by Robert Loch in Dotcom Scoop's weblog. (There we have an example of how information now travels on the Web: a weblog (this one) writing about a weblog (Dotcom Scoop's) writing about weblogs.)
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Posted 9:40 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Singapore Press Holdings De-lists Internet Arm, Redeploys Staff
Madan Rao on convergence trends
Publishing company Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) has redeployed most of the staff of its Internet arm, SPH AsiaOne, following the latter's privatization and de-listing. SPH publishes 11 newspapers in the country's four official languages (English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil), as well as seven lifestyle magazines. Its content appears in print, and on TV, radio, and the Internet. Of AsiaOne's 72 remaining staff (following a business restructuring in early November last year), 55 are being transferred to SPH, mainly to the marketing and IT divisions. The other 17 staff will be retrenched. Said SPH's executive chairman, Lim Kim San, "Given the difficult market conditions for Internet-related ventures, this process of transferring staff to SPH will help to retain Internet-related talent and experience within the SPH Group. While SPH will continue to maintain its online presence, going forward we will need to carefully review and re-assess the model for doing business on the Internet."
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