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Posted 4:48 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Internet Is Killing a Magazine
Steve Outing on the slow demise of Penthouse
Sex magazine Penthouse is in trouble, as noted in this article on Salon.com. Once boasting a circulation of 5 million, the raunchy magazine has fallen to 650,000. Why the decline? The Internet is largely to blame. With the Net's easy access to pornography in the privacy of the home, who needs print magazines any more? If the Internet can bring down (eventually) once-popular sex magazines, what other old media will it destroy in time?
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Posted 4:20 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Half Full or Half Empty?
Steve Klein on the Digital Divide
I first bumped into Larry Irving at a Freedom Forum event and was impressed with his commitment to narrowing the Digital Divide. That passion hasn't flagged. According to the former U.S. Commerce Undersecretary in the Clinton Administration, the federal government and U.S. corporations have abdicated their roles in bringing the Internet to U.S. citizens. Speaking at the Computers Freedom and Privacy 2002 conference in San Francisco this week, Irving said that the current administration's scaling back of several important programs reveals a lack of desire to make the Internet a ubiquitous tool in the U.S."It's one thing to say that there is a job that should be done and the government shouldn't do it," Irving said. "It's another to say that the divide is solved." Irving believes that government and corporations need to accept their role in bridging the divide, but he admits that there is no compelling interest for either group. Corporations are busy serving shareholder interests; the government is preoccupied with financing the ongoing war on terrorism. When someone in the audience suggested that the glass is half full, Irving, always the straight shooter, said, "Lady, for the folks who don't have access, it is completely empty." Robert MacMillan has more on the conference on Newsbytes.com.
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Posted 3:29 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Beware Snail Mail
Steve Outing on a domain name scam
Be careful when you receive a "renewal notice" for Internet domain names you own. Some unscrupulous companies are sending out via postal mail advertisements that look like renewal notices for domains that you own. In some cases, they are not the same registrar with which you currently have a relationship. Responding and paying for the "renewal" actually changes your domain registering company. Have you received any of these? I have, but luckily caught the ruse. Don't be fooled by these sleazy Internet operators.
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Posted 1:19 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
When Google Doesn't Know, Net Users Do
Steve Outing on innovative Internet research
Here's an idea I like a lot (picked up from CBS MarketWatch's Internet Daily): Google is testing a service on which anyone can ask a question (which costs 50 cents to post), say how much they are willing to pay for the answer, and then registered "experts" will bid to respond. Everyone else will be able to read the questions and responses for free, and add their own comments. If questioners aren't happy with the response, they can request a refund. This concept for a research service has been tried before, but Google's power in the marketplace has a better chance of success than the smaller ventures that preceded it. I admire the concept because it harnesses the power of everyone who uses the Internet.
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Posted 12:09 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Have Broadband, Will Travel
Steve Outing on journalists on the go
A journalist I know is contemplating giving up his home, buying an RV, and hitting the road full time. Sounds pretty neat, but since he plans to work while traveling around North America, what's he going to do about Internet access? Well, now this kind of life is possible. Just buy a satellite dish for the roof of the RV, and subscribe to the Skycasters broadband Internet access service. Monthly rates are as low as $100 a month. In addition to allowing a neat lifestyle for the working/traveling independent journalist, this technology should be useful for news organizations. Bolt a Skycasters-enabled satellite dish on top of an RV, van, or utility vehicle and your reporters have relatively inexpensive, high-speed access from any remote location. (Temporary downside: it doesn't work while the vehicle is moving, but Skycasters says it's working on a solution for that limitation.) This is going to open up lots of possibilities for remote journalistic work. ... Don't be surprised if more reporters in your newsroom propose working road trips!
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Posted 3:16 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Newsplex Construction Starts
Vin Crosbie on the future of online publishing
Construction began this week on Newsplex in Columbia, South Carolina. Newsplex is billed as "the world's most forward-thinking and technologically advanced prototype newsroom" by its director and founder, Kerry Northrup, who also is director of the Ifra Centre for Advanced New Operations. The US $1.7 million prototype newsroom is based upon Ifra's concept video, "Tomorrow's News," about the new technologies and editorial issues that confront media organizations in the 21st Century. Ifra, the 40-year-old international association of media publishers, based Newsplex in the U.S. because, according to its press release, an increasing number of media organizations internationally are already confronting the issues addressed in the video, but media organizations in the United States are falling behind their counterparts in Europe and Asia.Newsplex is funded by Ifra and organizations such as Groupe Edipress of Switzerland, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten of Denmark, Guardian Media of the UK, IMPRESA of Portugal, VTTS of Finland, the Star of Malaysia, and Morris Communications of the U.S. For more details about the project, download a (PDF format) copy of the Newsplex prospectus or view the "Tomorrow's News" video from Ifra's website.
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Posted 9:43 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Deep Linking Returns to the Surface
Jeppe Kruse on the old/new media divide
Wired News has a story on the Danish deep link case that is currently being fought between the Danish Newspaper Association and the news service Newsbooster. (The case has been covered here earlier.) Wired describes the legal consequences that would apply under different circumstances, depending on how the case unfolds, but the story is also entertaining. It is definitely worth observing how people from the newspaper industry and people from online businesses fail to understand each other, even on a basic level.
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Posted 9:37 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Squatters 1; Gossips 0
Andrew Stroehlein says hello! to cybersquatting
Hello!, a leading UK celebrity gossip magazine, has failed in its effort to acquire the URL hello.com from the California company that now owns it. As Owen Gibson reports in the Guardian, the World Intellectual Property Organization ruled in favor of the California firm, Pasadena, saying it was running a legitimate business from the site. What is that business? Well, a quick glance at hello.com reveals: "This site is planned for development..." and a generic directory list of links — in other words, the standard page of cybersquatters.
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Posted 9:32 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
May I Also Have Fries With That, Please?
Vin Crosbie on the online venture capital
Jason McCabe Calacanis, publisher of Venture Reporter magazine and the Silicon Alley Daily e-mail newsletter, is inviting his print subscribers to a party on May 14 to celebrate "the top venture capital firms and capitalists of the past year" (he refers to it as a "Back to Reality Party"). Unlike Calacanis' parties during previous years, and perhaps signifying the relative importance of Internet venture capital this year, this year's festivities will be held at the McDonald's on West 34th Street in New York City. Dress will be, as Calacanis' invitations notes, "elegant casual."
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Posted 7:47 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
A Sunken Canoe(.ca)
Steve Outing on death of premier Canada site
The Canadian news portal Canoe has been dealt a death blow: Its remaining 67 staff members were laid off by Netgraphe Inc., a subsidiary of Quebecor Inc., which owns numerous media operations, including the Toronto Sun and London Free Press. Canoe was one of the most popular websites in the country, but Quebecor executives cited its inability to turn a profit, and said they determined that it was unlikely ever to become viable. Canoe.ca was launched in 1996, one of the first significant national sites to be attempted by a Canadian media company. Despite its high traffic (average 3.5 million unique monthly visitors), the site was never successful in attracting advertising. (The National Post reports.)
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Posted 2:16 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Afghan Journalists Launch Online News Bulletin
Andrew Stroehlein on a news service with a difference
Afghan journalists working for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting have just launched the Afghan Recovery Report (ARR), a free service providing local media outlets and the international community with objective and reliable news from local sources. The ARR is produced as part of IWPR's training work to develop the professional skills and sustainability of the Afghan print media, facilitating their role as a critical monitor and guardian of the stabilization process. The free report will appear in English, Dari, and Pashto, both online and via e-mail. Articles will be freely syndicated in the local-language print media.The Afghan Recovery Report Website is one of only a handful of sites in the world to publish in Pashto. Written Pashto is based on Arabic script, but 12 extra letters make it unique — and really maddening to get to display online. (Note: I am training director for IWPR.)
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Posted 1:34 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
New Chief at Knight Ridder Digital
Steve Outing on new media personnel moves
Red Herring Communications CEO Hillary Schneider is the new top dog at Knight Ridder Digital; she starts work on April 29. (Here's the press release.) Schneider replaces Dan Finnigan, who left the newspaper giant's Internet division recently to become senior VP of Yahoo! and general manager of its HotJobs site (which was acquired by Yahoo! in February, and which competes with newspaper online employment services). Schneider enters the fray and will have to soothe the dissatisfaction among some Real Cities affiliates over the recently implemented new publishing system, which severely restricts the look of those websites (some of which are in the Knight Ridder chain, some of which are independent). (See previous item about this controversy.)
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Posted 12:31 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Sun Rises on the Web ... But Late
Steve Outing on New York's new newspaper
The New York Sun newspaper debuted yesterday, but missing in action was its website. The start-up publication does have a site, but it's nothing more than a marketing message for the print edition. This is odd, since some of the key players at the Sun have Internet backgrounds. Managing editor and VP Ira Stoll, for instance, is best known as the man behind the website SmarterTimes, a daily critique of the New York Times. According to CBS MarketWatch's Internet Daily, the Sun will have a real website within a month offering newspaper articles online, and some content will require payment.
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Posted 12:19 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Internet Takes to the Waters of the Amazon
Juan C. Camus on reach of Internet access
The Internet is reaching worldwide, as the numbers show. But a different thing is to have a real test of that achievement. Brazil has it with the "Projeto Navegar" (Sail Project), which allows people on the banks of the Amazon River to access the Internet. Projeto Navegar works with the little ship Fé em Deus da Tiana (seen at right in a government photo), which is equipped with six computers connected to the Internet via satellite through Embratel, the Brazilian telco, plus some printers, scanner, and digital camera. It sails within eight islands on Bailique archipelago, allowing people — especially kids — to practice creating home pages; it also offers some public services, such as assistance in obtaining personal ID cards and getting information about agricultural loans.
The project has been under development since 2000 in the state of Amapá located in the northwest region of Brazil, which has the best good record on Amazon forestation (just 1% of its 140,276 square kilometers has been deforested, according to its records). During the past year, the program coached 100 people as Internet tutors for the community.
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Posted 8:50 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Tiger Effect
Steve Klein on online sports content
OK, OK, so Tiger Woods won his second-straight Masters golf tournament and third overall. The real question on inquiring sports fans' minds these days is: What does Tiger's new girlfriend, Elin Nordegren, look like? According to the Lycos 50, the most searched golf-related person on the Internet last week was Nordegren, checking in at No. 34, beating out female sports fave Anna Kournikova at No. 39.The Masters topped all sports-related searches on Lycos at No. 6 overall, and golf in general was 26th. And Tiger? Didn't make the top 50. The official website of The Masters said that it drew nearly 1.5 million unique users last weekend, a 37% increase over last year. The site's traffic peaked on Friday at about 3 p.m. U.S. Eastern time. As for the most-searched golfers on masters.org, the results were pretty close to the finish: Woods, followed by Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson. But back to Elin: You can see why she's got Tiger by the tail yourself at a number of sites. Go get 'em, Tiger!
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Posted 4:28 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Information Generation Gap
Steve Outing on changing media usage
I don't know where the following "funny" originated (my wife e-mailed it to me), but it's not only humorous. It also points out how we older media folks need to understand how the younger generation thinks about information. Enjoy: "Working as a computer instructor for an adult-education program at a community college, I am keenly aware of the gap in computer knowledge between my younger and older students. My observations were confirmed the day a new student walked into our library area and glanced at the encyclopedia volumes stacked on a bookshelf. 'What are all these books?' he asked. Somewhat surprised, I replied that they were encyclopedias. 'Really?' he said. 'Someone printed out the whole thing?'"
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Posted 4:07 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Blogging the Big Local Story
Steve Outing on another Spokane interactive experiment
Interactive editor Ken Sands is at it again at the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington. A few weeks ago I wrote an Editor & Publisher column about Sands' weblogs revolving around big local events. His latest weblog covers an incorporation election for a new city of 80,000, on the ballot for May. Through May 21, Sands is writing a weblog about the incorporation effort.This is not your typical election coverage. In the spirit of weblogs, Sands says it relies on interaction with readers, and it is intended to be funny. (He says, "A lot of the jokes won't make sense to people outside the area.") If you want to see an innovative approach to covering what normally might be seen as a dull story and inviting readers to join the fun, take a look at what Sands is doing with this weblog.
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Posted 3:23 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Death of a Pioneer
Katja Riefler on newspaper online ventures
Sad days in Germany. Today it was made public what rumors had said for months: The pioneer online venture of newspapers in Germany, ZET.NET, had to file for insolvency. The company was founded in 1996 as "mbt Online KG" by 18 newspapers. In the end it belonged to 30. It was intended to serve as an ISP for newspapers and had provided their own online ventures with content and technology. During the dot-com boom the focus of the company shifted to streaming video and unified messaging services. The company changed its name and structure, expanded its services to new customers, and invested heavily in marketing — but wasn't able to go public due to market conditions. With the popping of the dot-com bubble the newspapers lost interest in the company. When it ran out of money, no one invested any more. From a peak of 60 employees, only 17 are left and will probably have to look for new jobs soon.
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Posted 3:15 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Building a Content Audience
Rich Gordon on strategies that work
Anne Holland's ContentBlog has a couple of interesting items:[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
- She talks to an e-mail newsletter publisher who is requiring everyone with a Yahoo.com e-mail address to resubscribe with a different address. Why? "The Yahoo! people on my list don't tend to read their e-mail on a regular basis," says Paul Myers. "I don't care how many subscribers I have — I want active, involved readers. I have no interest in big numbers of useless addresses." And not all free e-mail services are equal. Hotmail users are 12 times more likely to respond to an e-mail newsletter than Yahoo.com e-mail users, he says.
- She talks to an author/consultant who is using Google's "AdWords" service to test different messages to attract customers for her (paid) "special report" on how to write, publish, and sell booklets. (Yes, she's selling content about how to sell content.) For an expenditure of just $5.72, she learned that the phrase "Make money from content" got five times the clickthrough rate of "Turn content into money." It's pretty well known that writing good headlines and blurbs is a key to attracting clickthroughs. It's an interesting idea to use Google as a way to test your assumptions.
Posted 12:11 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Newspaper Websites: Advertisers Not Satisfied
Steve Outing on online advertising
New media research group Borrell & Associates later this week will release a Newspaper Association of America-sponsored study of advertisers' attitudes about newspaper website advertising. According to Peter Krasilovsky, one of the study's authors, the survey of 60 newspaper advertisers (including the likes of United Airlines and Home Depot) includes "frank feedback" about what they get and don't get from newspaper websites. He says, "Basically, they got a free deal at first, they think the Web is a nice channel, but ... they don't think it is worth paying for. They are largely flustered by lack of measureability." Ouch!
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Posted 8:31 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Barter Times in Argentina
Juan C. Camus on use of the Internet
The Internet is being used in Argentina to keep in touch the members of a nationwide network of people who want to exchange services and products. The trend, originated in the scarcity of money caused by the economic problems of the country, has been recognized by the media, as shown in a story in Clarin.com. The newspaper points to "Red Global de Trueque" (Global Exchange Network) as the main site for barter. This site even has a newsletter and a mailing list to help its members get the best deals in the exchanges.
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Posted 5:48 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
I Believe in Bankruptcy Protection
Steve Outing on online content troubles
Late last week, religion and spirituality site BeliefNet filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. (Here's an AP report.) BeliefNet was an ambitious content and community site, which focused on the larger area of spirituality; it was not focused just on one religion or faith, as are so many other religious websites. An interesting concept, for sure. But it's a wonder that BeliefNet lasted this long through the Internet down cycle. (It debuted in 1999.) As the Internet industry pulls slowly up again, BeliefNet must take drastic measures to stay alive, and faith by the remaining staff of nine (down from a peak of more than 50) isn't enough.
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Posted 4:14 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
CMS Choice Is More Than a Technical Decision
Eva Domínguez on content management systems
A content management system (CMS) should not be implemented or built up in a media company unless all the departments participate in defining what it needs to accomplish. Communication between departments is more necessary than ever. This was one of the main thoughts shared during the Content Management Workshop organized by Ifra Ibérica in Madrid 10 days ago, which I attended.Providers of CMS and clients from different Spanish newspapers agreed that the current changing environment media companies face makes technological decisions extremely relevant for future strategies. New business models, new journalistic roles, and new production rules are redefining present and future needs and all areas should work together to explore and define the best tool for them. Assistants to this workshop were all technical people, both on the provider and client sides.
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Posted 1:25 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Hacking Is Not a Crime ...
Juan C. Camus on Internet law
In a surprising decision, a judge in Argentina has ruled that it is not a crime to alter the information of a website, because only persons, animals, and things are protected by the law. And, as Federal Judge Sergio Torres stated in his decision, websites are none of those. They are just "non-material elements" (elementos inmateriales in Spanish). According to a story in LaNacion.com, this is the first case of hacking that has gone to a court decision in Argentina — and the target of the attack was the website of the Supreme Court!The author of the attack was the "X-Team" (led by Julio López, according the investigation), which defaced the court's site and posted messages and portraits supporting the investigation about photographer José Luis Cabezas, who was killed during the journalistic investigation of a corruption case.
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Posted 1:07 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Kids Click Ads, Adults Don't
Steve Outing on online user behavior
A new study by usability expert Jakob Nielsen shows that kids are more likely to click on ads (when using kids' websites) than are adults — significantly more likely. (See Steven Levy's column in Newsweek.) Does this mean that the young generation will be more accepting of online advertising as they grow older? I doubt that. In time they'll learn to discern ads from editorial content. But Nielsen's findings might be useful for websites in attracting more advertising aimed at kids; advertisers can expect to get better results.
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Posted 12:17 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Le Monde Goes Subscription
Norbert Specker on paid content
Following the paid-content trend, Le Monde has started its souped-up, premier, and paid-for online edition (which it named "The subscription edition," implying that what you subscribe to is better than what is free). For 5 Euro (roughly US $5) per month, additional services include 25 articles from the archives, a PDF version of the newspaper, country files, the option to organize research and articles in an online file system, and a news ticker. Take out your best French and check the Flash presentation of the service.
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Posted 11:12 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Has the Times Taken a 'Sucker Bet'?
Steve Klein on the challenge of weblogs
It seems that Martin Nisenholtz, chief executive of New York Times Digital, and Dave Winer, creator of a Web publishing tool called Userland Radio, have a $2,000 bet going on what will be the more authoritative Internet news source in five years: an established newspaper or weblogs. "It reflects a growing debate among writers at offline and online media over how the Internet will reshape journalism," writes Leslie Walker in the Web Watch column in the Washington Post.It all sounds a lot like the earlier debate about the Internet eliminating print publications, but Winer was happy to take it. "I think it's a sucker bet," he said to Walker. "There are half a million Web logs now, and in five years there'll be a lot more." Walker defines weblogs, or blogs, as "a diary-like publishing format increasing in popularity thanks to tools making it easy to create and update them. A blog is stuffed with brief commentary and links to other Web writings and news, with updates often coming several times a day. Blogs are as varied as the people creating them." Nisenholtz is betting on the traditional role of the newspaper as gatekeeper. "Readers need a source of information that is unbiased, accurate, and coherent," he said. "News organizations like the Times can provide that far more consistently than private parties can." Maybe so, but it sounds like the same thing news executives were saying about pure-play websites just a couple years ago.
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