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Posted 7:03 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
DoubleClick Settles Online Privacy Lawsuits
Vin Crosbie on online publishing.
Late Friday, DoubleClick and lawyers representing Web surfers agreed to settle federal and state class-action lawsuits against the company's online privacy practices. The settlement will result in dismissal of those class action lawsuits, which were filed in January 2000. This settlement comes more than a year after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission dropped its own investigation into the data-collection practices of DoubleClick, the biggest Internet advertising company. The settlement (terms of which resemble the European Commission's consumer data protection guidelines) stipulates that DoubleClick provide to consumers:
- Clear Notice: The privacy policy will include easy-to-read explanations of its ad-serving services.
- Enhanced Choice: If the company collects personally identifiable information, previously collected clickstream obtained by the company from across Web sites can only be combined with the personally identifiable information after the provision of clear and conspicuous notice to the Internet user and receipt of the Internet user's opt-in choice.
- Education: DoubleClick will start a consumer education effort, including 300 million consumer privacy banner ads that invite consumers to learn more about how to protect their online privacy.
- Consistency: The company will ensure that a user's online data will not be used in a manner materially inconsistent with the privacy policy under which it was collected, unless the consumer has given permission to do otherwise.
- Purging of Data: DoubleClick will institute internal policies to ensure the protection and routine purging of data collected online. It also agreed to limit to five years the life of new ad serving cookies.
- Compliance: An independent accounting firm will conduct annual reviews for the next two years of DoubleClick's compliance with the terms of the settlement, expanding on DoubleClick's current auditing program with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Posted 1:01 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
TSN: The Little Engine That Could
Steve Klein on providing online sports content
Now that March Madness is about to culminate in the Final Four men's basketball tournament Saturday and Monday in Atlanta (Dept. of Equal Time: The women's Final Four concludes Friday and Sunday in San Antonio), have you ever wondered how media organizations, both large but especially small, keep up with the event online in real time? J.D. Lasica of OJR.org wondered, and what he found was the little engine that could: The Sports Network. In his story, Lasica points out that more than 100 online newspapers have signed up with TSN, which operates out of Hatboro, Pa.TSN provides provides real-time scores, updates, previews and stats for the "big four" sports -- pro football, baseball, basketball and hockey -- plus extensive coverage of college basketball and football. Clients include Tribune, Knight Ridder, Cox, Fox Sports, the Irish Times and the major online newspapers in New York, Philadelphia, Miami, Dallas, Boston, Detroit, Seattle, Toronto and Vancouver. Considering that their major competition is SportsTicker, "The Instant Total Sports News Service from ESPN," you have to wonder how TSN attracts such a wide and diverse clientele. In a word, they're cheaper. SportsTickers' clients include a lot of the big players (and payers) in the online sports space: USA TODAY, America Online, Yahoo!, SportsLine, CNNSI, Fox Sports, MSNBC, Excite, Lycos and the ESPN network. However, to TSN's credit, ESPN has not been able to make it go away. And obviously, a lot of online outlets are grateful.
Posted 10:19 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Preparing for Loss
Jade Walker on post-mortem website survival
Every responsible adult should write a will, a document that tells the courts how assets should be distributed. Online publications also need to prepare a contingency plan in case of natural disaster, acts of terrorism or death.Pepper Raines, publisher of Amazing Authors Showcase, died on Sunday of a massive stroke. Four days later, Associate Publisher Sammie Jo LaMontagne closed the website. Six months ago, Amelia, Cicada and SPSM&H magazines were forced to discontinue publication after editor/publisher Frederick A. Raborg, Jr., died.
Nothing in life is certain. We never know when terrorists will blow up the office, when a computer system will crash or when the grim reaper will appear at the door. But we can prepare. Take some time this weekend to back up your computer harddrive and servers. Update your insurance policy. Create a back-up of your subscription list. And generate a Plan B for your publication, just in case an emergency should arise.
Posted 4:56 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Broadband Keeps Users Online Longer
Steve Klein on Internet growth
A new report from Nielsen/NetRatings reports that while U.S. Internet growth is slowing, users are staying online longer. "Those who want to have access pretty much have it," said analyst T.S. Kelly of Nielsen/NetRatings. According to a story on the report by Leslie Miller of USA TODAY, growth in users who log on once a month dropped to six percent last year. Other statistics showed that although 55 percent of U.S. households are wired, only 37 percent of the population uses the Internet in any given month. Also, 50 percent of all hours spent online are used by those with access to high-speed connections.
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Posted 4:28 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
A Blast from the Future of News Gathering
Steve Klein on online content management
For as long as I have been working as a journalist and teaching journalism, one of the most critical skills has been writing concise news briefs. Now comes the news that Columbia University is testing a software program that summarizes, writes and edits those challenging little items. According to a story by the New York Times' Susan E. Reed, the software, called Newsblaster, has been in development for five years. The program currently trawls 17 news sources, including the Washington Post, Reuters and the BBC. According to Reed, "Once Newsblaster has organized the articles by subject, it begins to search for shared terms and common phrases that it can use to produce a five-sentence summary.""This takes whatever different voices there might be and blends it into a news smoothie," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism and a co-author of "The Elements of Journalism: What News People Should Know and the Public Should Expect." He further characterized Newsblaster as "the essence of pack journalism perfected." The program is not quite ready for prime time, so you copy editors out there are safe for the time being. A quick look at a summarized baseball item found several typos and Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig's first name and title repeated on second reference. If a copy editor can't get away with that, then a software program shouldn't be able to, either.
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Posted 2:51 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
In Whatever Online Format They Want
Vin Crosbie on online publishing.
I respectfully disagree with colleague Steve Outing's comment today that newspapers publishing replica digital editions are clinging to the past. "Past" does not describe a newspaper using software & online technologies to perform the newspaper's mission. "In our mission to reach as many people as possible who want to read The New York Times, we have entered into a partnership with Newsstand, Inc. to produce a new Electronic Edition of the Times," New York Times Newspaper Operations Senior Vice President Janet Robinson declared to the CSFB Media Week Conference in December. New York Times Company Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. told the Seybold Seminars NY 2002 Conference this month that nearly 2,800 people were now paying $348 per year to subscribe online to the digital edition of the Times and that he expects 20,000 will by year’s end. Those online readers will boost the paper's million-plus circulation by nearly 2% and bring in more than $1 million in revenues. The Times already directly credits its Newsstand.com editions as a reasons why it "expects in April to reports its seventh consecutive weekday increase for the semi-annual ABC report".Many newspaper Web sites are nowadays struggling to expand beyond the limited graphical layout possibilities of HTML, to offer print-quality display ads to advertisers, to charge subscription fees to consumers, or to get Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) electronic edition certification. The dozens of newspapers that have begun publishing digital editions have instantly achieved all that. The Newsstand.com editions might yet lack screen-mapped hyperlinking, unlike the similar digital editions by Olive Software of Arizona's East Valley Tribune and of Austria's Der Standard, but all digital editions soon will have the interactive capabilities possible from websites. The only disadvantage then will be one that digital editions share with Web editions: the constraints of landscape-format PC screens. Online publishing isn't a synonym for website publishing. Online publishing means reaching readers in whichever online format that they want.
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Posted 11:41 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Bona Fide, Old-Fashioned: One and the Same
Steve Outing on holding on to the past
Newspaper companies tend to cling to the past even when it comes to doing business on the Internet. I guess that's why the New York Times employs NewsStand to produce a digital replica of the print edition and sell it to Internet users. And why the East Valley Tribune in Arizona has started doing the same thing, using Olive Software's solution. I'm no fan of taking an old-media format and slapping it on a computer screen. (Different are solutions that use the Internet for far-flung digital printing of newspapers. That makes sense.)Newspapers sometimes shoot themselves in the foot with Internet strategies. One example I keep noticing is the appearance of "Bona Fide Classifieds" logos on many newspaper websites. That's a Newspaper Association of America program that's a couple years old. I wish newspaper sites would bag the Bona Fide tags. It makes the statement that newspaper classifieds are a dated technology. It might attract older Internet users to newspaper classifieds over online competitors (Monster, et al), but younger users will be turned off by such dated marketing efforts. It's time to quit living in the past.
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Posted 4:28 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Publications Diverge on Convergence
Paul Grabowicz on online media
Do print and online publications complement each other? What should you charge for each? Consider these radically different approaches: Darwin magazine just announced it is suspending publication of its print version, but keeping its free Web edition alive. Hotline, a political news publication, said Thursday it is discontinuing its free Hotline Scoop Web site in favor of a $5,500 subscription delivered via web, fax, e-mail and PDA. Meanwhile, The New York Times, Boston Globe and Wall Street Journal, as Vin Crosbie noted in Tuesday's Tidbits, disclosed that their websites have added thousands of subscribers to their print products (The Times and Globe sites are free, while the Wall Street Journal requires a paid subscription). Different financial and management situations are no doubt driving each decision, along with differences in the audience each is trying to reach. It will be interesting to revisit these publications in a year and see which approach is proving most successful.
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Posted 4:06 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Sports Fans Will Pay for Their Passion
Steve Klein on paying for online sports content
From the expensive luxury suites of stadiums and arenas to bleachers filled with fans painting themselves in team colors, media companies are increasingly tapping into sports teams' loyal fan base as a market for paid content. In an article in the NAA's Digital Edge, Rob Runett writes about media companies that are "beginning to understand the content, services and pricing structures that turn dedicated visitors into paying customers."Runett looks at subscription based sports content websites including the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's "Green Bay Packer Insider", the NYTimes.com's "Glory Days: Baseball in New York 1947-1957", and the SunSentinel.com's "Fins Insider Report" on the Miami Dolphins, among others. So, what will sports fans pay for? Anything they're passionate about that is "handsomely designed, information-rich and (includes) thoroughly engrossing packages of information about their favorite team that seem to have been created, in their minds, just for them."
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Posted 11:29 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Red Light, Dead End
Katja Riefler on the first and last class of online journalists in Hamburg
The first class of pure online journalists that have been educated at the well-reputed publishing house of Gruner + Jahr in Hamburg will also be the last -- the publisher is not going to continue to educate pure online journalists any more "for there already are too many on the market," vice president Bernd Schramka of the the cooperating journalism school "Henri-Nannen-Schule" explains. If you want to have a look at what the students learned during their two-year course have a look at www.reeperbahn1230.de. The young journalists had four weeks to research and prepare this website. They let themselves be inspired by the song of Hans Albers "On the Reeperbahn at night half past twelve" and visited Hamburg's famous red light district twelve hours in advance at noon.
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Posted 11:16 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Bye-bye, Paperball
Katja Riefler on consolidation in Germany
Easter won't be too happy for the Internet economy in Europa. Lycos is restructuring and has announced plans to lay off another 200 of its 1,100 employers. It will also shut down its Hotbot search engine, and the online newspaper seach engine Paperball is said to be also in danger. "E-Market", one ot the remaining print voices of the online publishing industry, finally succumbs to the lack of advertisments and ends its life as an independent bi-weeky magazine. It will live on as a monthly supplement to its former sister publication, "Werben und Verkaufen", an advertising magazine.
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Posted 4:33 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
A Sneak Peek at Database-Driven Flash
Martha Stone on Flash development at Agence France-Presse
You've seen plenty of Flash news graphics that have static information integrated with photos, animated illustrations, and sound. But what about Flash graphics integrated with fast-changing database information? Agency France-Presse in Paris is developing an array of these graphics, particularly on sports topics with ever-changing results data, such as Tour de France and Formula racing. Now you can take a look at the results of their skunkworks. I met with Marlowe Hood, director of the AFP multimedia development department in Paris last week and took a look at their password-protected site. Now you get the chance to hack in, with permission from Marlowe, of course. Go here before March 31 and log in as: demo, password: 25386u (Between April 1 and April 15, log in as: demo, password: n1j6an.)
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Posted 2:22 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Websites Generate Print Subscriptions
Vin Crosbie on online publishing.
According to the New York Daily News' report yesterday from last week's Jupiter Media Forum in New York, The New York Times generated 85,000 print subscriptions from its website last year; The Boston Globe 15,000 from its website; and The Wall Street Journal 26,000 from its website. "That is totally counterintuitive to all those people who thought we were going to cannibalize the newspaper," New York Times Digital CEO Martin Nisenholtz told the Jupiter Media Forum, the story said. I don't believe that it's counterintuitive at all. Content doesn't exist by itself; it exists in a format. Most consumers won't pay to retrieve newspaper stories one at a time in a personal computer but will pay for that content in the more convenient format of delivered, intact, and portable packages of stories. If you publish a newspaper website, don't forget to offer a print subscription signup.
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Posted 11:46 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Groups Webloggers Do It Together
Steve Outing on blog trends
This (E-Media Tidbits) is a group weblog. Twenty interactive media experts contribute daily items, and I serve as editor. I think the group or collaborative weblog is a very cool idea, so it's surprising that there aren't more of them being published. Mainstream publishers are slowing catching on and publishing weblogs, but they're mostly written by individuals.Tom Shugart points out a few group weblogs currently active: Reading Gonzo Engaged, a free-wheeling group blog that lets in anyone who asks (and "is not an idiot"); Blog Sisters, a group of more than 50 women webloggers; and Blogtank, an "attempt by a group of us to see if we can get a viable consulting business going with this approach," says Shugart. These are worth a look just to see how people are experimenting with the weblog concept.
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Posted 11:41 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Easter E-Mail
Jeppe Kruse on holiday treats for e-mail subscribers
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If you run a website with e-mail newsletters, you've probably thought about this: With Easter coming up, your subscribers might be looking at no less than five days without e-mail updates from you. In fact, they could be likely to forget about you. While some of them are happy that the only e-mail they receive is from friends and family, others will certainly look to the web for work updates and information. So, do one of two things: Wish them a nice holiday and tell them to get away from the computer and spend time with the family, while you do the same. Or serve something special and well-produced; your content will be read thoroughly in the holidays.
Posted 5:44 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Fight the Power!
Rich Gordon on the continuing battle over copyright
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Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News says consumers need to take a stand against big companies that are trying to control distribution of copyrighted material. Gillmor says he'll stop buying music from companies that are copy-protecting CD's. He also urges readers to tell their elected representatives not to support the recently introduced Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Act. (Coverage from ZDNet and The Washington Post.) This debate may seem removed from journalistic content, but online publishers need to pay attention. Digital rights management tools will enable a publisher to control digital distribution and copying in ways that have not been possible. It will be tempting to try to limit people's ability to print and copy content -- but beware of imposing limitations that don't exist with traditional media. (For instance, if someone can copy a newspaper article for personal use, don't use technology to prevent them from printing out a digital version.) Gillmor's closing message: "I'm not a thief. I'm a customer. When you treat me like a thief, I won't be your customer."
Posted 5:35 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Online Beats Out Print... In Retail
Rich Gordon on e-commerce and e-content
Retailer J. Crew has announced that in February, its online sales exceeded catalog sales for the first time. It's a milestone that, perhaps, has some relevance for the content industry. Consider, for instance, the following points from The New York Times' article about catalog retailers who now sell via the Web:
- 20 to 40 percent of online customers were not catalog customers;
- Even if there is "cannibalization" -- the switch of catalog orders to Web orders -- it's a good thing for the retailer because it costs less to serve a Web customer;
- Online orders are larger than catalog orders -- largely because retailers have gotten good at pushing customer-appropriate "upsell" opportunities during the visit.
Meanwhile, news Web sites are helping sell print subscriptions. They'll also be able to sell online content (and save on printing and distribution) -- but only if publishers learn from retailers. Among other things, they need to build a rich customer database and apply technology to personalize content appropriate to each user. On the last point, consider "Amazoning the News," a proposal to apply Amazon's ecommerce techniques to journalistic content.
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Posted 11:41 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Sharing Numbers in Chile
Juan C. Camus on tracking Internet usage
In a rare demonstration of cooperation, nine portals, ad networks, and news sites from Chile made an agreement to show their visitor numbers through the use of a system implemented by Certifica, a local company dedicated to tracking online statistics. Though the agreement was signed last September, the data was not shown until this month due to differing opinions between the members about what the numbers mean. That's a critical point, as the idea behind the group was to transform the numbers into a tool for selling ads. The new rules are very strict, and state that pop-up windows, auto-refresh of pages, and pages shown through newsletters won't be measured.The first numbers are from January 2002 and give to Entel the first place in audience with more than 23 million pageviews and 980,000 unique visitors. After that is newspaper group Copesa. The problem with this project is that the other big player in Chile, portal and newspaper network Emol.com, did not join. Emol.com says it records 25 million pageviews per month.
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Posted 11:26 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Investigative Reporting or Cheater Journalism?
Eva Domínguez on controversial newsgathering methods
Is it acceptable for a journalist to offer a bribe in order to show that someone is accepting bribery? That question has been raised by a broadcast report intended to show that anyone with enough money can buy the title of "Miss Spain." An incognito reporter, working for El Mundo TV productions, registered herself as a candidate in contest. The report showed how, by offering more than 27,000 euros, she could have been the winner -- had she not been expelled before the ceremony. The two-part report has inspired a debate over newsgathering methods. On the Net, Antena 3 and El Mundo are on one side of the issue; newspaper La Razón on the other. La Razón -- whose editor, Luis María Ansón, has been part of the jury for years -- discredits this style of reporting. Some professionals from other media agree. Opinions of all kinds are spread in chats, forums and mail lists. Many question whether it's worthwhile to devote such resources to a beauty contest expose.
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