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Posted 3:34 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Goodbye Boards, Hello Blogs?
Steve Klein on weblogs
It would appear that the war of the blogs is about to claim a victim, at least at MSNBC.com: discussion boards. MSNBC.com has decided to kill its discussion boards and replace them with "Weblog Central," a portal of regularly updated lists of blogs from throughout the Web, according to an article by Craig Colgan of the National Journal. The blog list, which is scheduled to launch by the end of August, will be arranged by subject and will include links to MSNBC.com's own blogs.This is no shoot-from-the-hip decision. The MSNBC.com boards attract about 18 million posts per month, but they were far from perfect, according to Joan Connell, an MSNBC.com executive producer. "The boards were often chaotic, off-topic, and not conducive to the kind of civil and coherent communities we want to develop on this news site," she said. "We hope that weblogs will provide that coherence and bring like-minded people together to consider topics of mutual interest."
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Posted 3:24 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
At Last, a Paid Web Content Network!
Steve Outing on online content revenue models
Given the current "trend" of content websites to switch from free to paid access, I've long advocated the need for a content network to which people would pay a nominal monthly fee which would grant them access to paid content from a variety of websites. ("Adult"/sex sites have been doing this for years with AdultCheck, but mainstream content websites lack anything similar.) Well, a pair of Silicon Alley entrepreneurs have grabbed the ball and are running with the concept. As Rafat Ali reports in Silicon Alley Reporter today, Qtik (currently in beta) is a Web content network modeled on this one-price-for-many-premium-sites concept. It's aimed at smaller sites at this point, and costs $1 a month; the price will slowly rise to $9.95 a month when the network reaches 500 paid member sites. Qtik shares revenues with participating sites, based on popularity.An important point about the Qtik model is that it supports sites that are part paid, part free content. With all the recent hoopla about paid content and "people really will pay," it's important not to get caught up in the rush and make bad strategy decisions. It's only the really good, "premium" content that will support a price tag — whether direct from a site's customers or via a content network like Qtik. Keep plenty of free content on the Web, too, please.
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Posted 12:50 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Quantifying Paid Content
Rich Gordon on the new report from the OPA
The Online Publishers Association yesterday released the best report yet quantifying paid online content. It's based on actual monitoring of content purchases in the U.S. using ComScore Network's user sample. Some of the most interesting findings:
U.S. consumers spent $675 million for online content in 2001, up from $350 million in 2000. More than 12 million people — 9.2% of the U.S. Internet population — paid for online content in Q1 2002.
Content purchases are rising rapidly. In the first quarter of 2002, they totaled $300 million, almost three times the $118 million in Q1 2001.
Only $50 million of the $675 million in content purchases in 2001 was for "general news." Content sales fell heavily into categories related to people's jobs (business content, research) and diversions (entertainment/lifestyles, personals/dating, games, sports, and greeting cards). In year-to-year growth, the leaders are greeting cards, sports, and personals/dating.
Annual subscriptions accounted for about half of paid content sales, monthly subscriptions another 31%. Single purchases accounted for just 15% of total sales.
7 in 10 people who subscribe to online content renew their subscriptions or, in the case of monthly subscriptions, continue to subscribe a year later.
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Posted 12:19 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Syndicates Branch Out Digitally
Steve Outing on new revenue sources
Content syndicates are starting to tap into some new revenue streams. For example, Copley News Service early next week will launch a service that will allow anyone to purchase one-time publication rights for its comic strips, editorial cartoons, and columns. Copley's download site will be used primarily by its newspaper and other clients to get regular content (instead of getting it in postal mail, which is being phased out). But what's interesting is that other potential customers will be able to buy Copley's content quickly and easily with a credit card — say, a dentist's office that wants to buy a specific cartoon for single publication in its newsletter. (Editor & Publisher's David Astor writes about the new Copley service.)Here's another interesting syndicate revenue generator. United Media, one of the largest content syndicates, has an online store at which you can order custom mugs, posters, and clothing. You select any comic strip (published within the last 90 days) to be printed. Prices are between $15 and $45.
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Posted 11:41 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Guru of Web Writing
Juan C. Camus on content lessons
The "guru of Web writing," Crawford Kilian, is coming to Brazil to present a two-day seminar about content generation, in September. The seminar will be held in Sao Paulo, and the entrance cost is about US$300. A Canadian writing instructor and author, Kilian published one of the first books on writing for the Web.
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Posted 11:17 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Need for News and the (Not Really a) Kidnapping Epidemic
Peter M. Zollman on media proliferation
One of the disadvantages of the tremendous growth in news outlets — multiple 27/7 cable TV all-news (or sometimes, all noise) networks, Internet news outlets, wireless devices, and more — is the need to grab attention. Thus has come, as former newspaper editor Paul Janensch describes it, "The Summer of the Abducted Child." But in an enlightening and fascinating article in the Hartford Courant, Janensch illustrates that the numbers of kidnappings and child abductions this year in the U.S. are actually down. Substantially. The need to fill all that airtime, all those cable minutes, all those Web pages, and all those PDAs just creates the appearance of more kidnappings.
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Posted 8:37 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
What Only Soccer Fever Can Reach
Eva Domínguez on an online audience record
The Spanish sports newspaper Marca hit an online record in June, delivering more than 195 million page-views, 100 million more than in the previous month. But in May there was not the World Cup. The soccer fever explains this big difference in pages, taking into account that the number of unique visitors was only 1.7 million higher in June than in May. Audience numbers were recently published by the Oficina de Justificación de la Difusión (OJD).
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Posted 1:27 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Reading News: A Personal Activity in the Work Place?
Eva Domínguez on companies controlling Internet use
About 80% of Spanish enterprises have some rules on the use of e-mail and the Web in the work place, but only 50% have them written down. Web surfing is much more controlled (45%) than e-mail activity (24%). Those are some of the results of a survey made by e-Business Center PwC&IESE among 91 companies. Only 12% of the businesses surveyed allow free use of the Web, and 14% of e-mail.The study shows that the majority of workers surf the Web every now and then for personal interests. E-mailing friends or family and managing bank accounts are among the most common activities, as well as reading news. One-third of the companies surveyed ban personal use of the Web and e-mail. If this percentage increases, how would this affect online media? Should reading the news be considered in all cases a personal activity?
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Posted 12:57 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Convergence at Work
Carla Passino on making print and online work together
I hope readers will forgive me another bout of self-publicity, but I'd like to share a good example of media convergence. A few months ago, our print edition, Country Life, launched a campaign to find Britain's Best View, and referred readers to the website, where they could nominate their favorite landscape. We, in turn, fed the nominations back to the magazine. Last Thursday, the winning view was announced in an article, which appeared in print and online at the same time. The website also ran a sidebar story on Britain's favorite places, and a forum where readers could express their opinions.Print and online teams worked together throughout the campaign, using each medium to its best advantage (beautiful photographic spreads in print, interactivity and link-driven information online). The result was our busiest online day ever, with a 52% increase in traffic over the average day. This just couldn't have happened if we had operated in isolation.
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Posted 12:46 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Journalists Are From Mars, IT Managers Are From Venus
Steve Outing on the spam-filter problem
In an item yesterday, I noted how a private e-mail to my editor at Editor & Publisher had been blocked by a spam filter deployed at that company. It was my column for the week, and it contained several words that spam filters don't like. My column didn't reach him, and neither of us knew because the filter arbitrarily killed the e-mail. This issue makes me incensed, because a poorly implemented technology solution is dictating what words I can use in my publications and even my private messages. As a journalist, this restriction on free expression makes me angry.What I found interesting was the response from the IT manager responsible for the system that blocked my message to my editor. He attempted to justify the policy of outright killing incoming messages, saying that to send notification messages to senders of suspected spam would tax system resources and bandwidth. His solution was to try to better tweak the filter to not catch business correspondence. I feel like we're from different planets. While I am very concerned about the seriousness of the spam problem, this restriction on Internet free expression concerns me greatly. I get the impression that many IT managers care only about "solving the spam problem," and don't see the threat to content as important.
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Posted 12:04 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
A Website Stored at the Library
Juan C. Camus on content preservation
As a legal obligation, Chilean print publications must store a copy of every issue at Biblioteca Nacional, the national library of Chile. Now, the news website El Mostrador will be part of the library's files, too, thanks to an agreement signed on Wednesday. It will be the first website preserved in this way.
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Posted 5:01 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Delicious Irony
Steve Outing on the obnoxious side of spam filters
My Editor & Publisher "Stop The Presses" column, which this week covers the issue of spam filters blocking ethical (opt-in) e-mail and dictating content choices by publishers, was posted many hours late this week. I sent my column to editor Carl Sullivan by e-mail yesterday (on time), but after three attempts, he didn't receive it. We figured out why: A spam filter on the mail server at E&P parent VNU blocked my column from reaching Sullivan. It didn't just bounce it (so I'd know that he didn't get it), it deleted it, unbeknownst to Sullivan or me. (In the column, I purposely used several words that tend to trigger spam filters.)This is great irony, and helps me more strongly make my point that spam filters (especially the increasingly popular SpamAssassin) are hurting ethical e-mail publishers. The only real way for publishers to avoid being blocked by spam filters is to closely edit their content, being careful not to use words that the filters tend not to like. Got an article in your e-mail newsletter about male sexuality? Don't use the "p" word to describe the male sex organ, or the "V" word for the drug that aids with erec... oops, can't use that word either. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this situation sucks. Journalists should be outraged.
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Posted 4:11 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
E&P Conference Change
Steve Outing on new media training
Editor & Publisher's "Interactive Newspapers Conference" is no longer exclusively for newspapers. The next event — confirmed for May 7-9, 2003, in San Diego — will be called the "Interactive Media Conference & Exhibition," and is being sponsored by E&P and sister publication Media Week. The event previously has been held each February. (Disclaimer: I am a freelance columnist for Editor & Publisher Online.)
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Posted 1:34 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Get Ready to Ante Up by 2004
Steve Klein on paying for online content
Here's another vote for paid online content. According to Factiva CEO Clare Hart, consumers will be paying for all online media content, and sooner than you think: by 2004. Why? According to a story by Rachel Lebihan of ZDNET, the online advertising model doesn't work but charging for largely selective content does. "In order for publishers to continue to pay journalists they're going to have to start charging, and that’s a good thing. Valuable information has a price," Hart told ZDNet Australia on a recent visit to Sydney. "The media has trained the online consumer that there is no value in what they publish. Consumers are going to learn that they have to pay; business users on the other hand have known this for a long time."
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Posted 12:26 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Banjo Jones: Read All About It
Steve Outing with a follow-up
Yesterday I noted a story in The Facts newspaper about the Houston Chronicle reporter who maintained an anonymous weblog and got in trouble for it. The story is available to read online, after all.
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Posted 12:13 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Cannibals and Dinosaurs
Steve Outing on old-media's outmoded notions
In a Wall Street Journal article today, "ABC Starts Charging Viewers for Video Clips on the Internet," is this quote: "ABC won't jeopardize its relationship with television affiliates that carry its news programming, though: Newscasts will be available on the Internet only the morning after they air on television." Here we have yet another example of old-media executives engaging in dinosaur thinking. If affiliate contractual relationships don't allow news video to be broadcast until it's too old for anyone to care about (let alone PAY for!), then ABC needs to work on revising those contracts. This approach ensures failure of a fledgling enterprise (paid Internet video). The fear of cannibalization of old media by new makes for some bone-headed decision-making.
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Posted 11:27 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
To Subscribe or Not, That Is the Question
Katja Riefler on paid content
When FT.com announced that it would introduce charges for parts of its website in May, everyone was curious whether this would finally resolve the mystery of turning visitors into paying subscribers. Decide for yourself: After three months, 17,000 of FT.com's 2.8 million regular online users have agreed to pay US$95 or US$225 a year (depending on the level of archive access granted).
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Posted 6:18 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Anonymous Blog Gets Reporter in Hot Water
Steve Outing on journalism ethics
Houston Chronicle reporter Steve Olafson, who covers Brazoria County, Texas, has been asked to stop publishing his weblog (written on his own time), in which he comments on county politics and personalities while hiding under the cover of the pseudonym "Banjo Jones." It seems that someone whom he skewered in his spicy political weblog "outed" him to The Facts newspaper in Brazoria County — and when Chronicle editors found out they told him to kill the blog. Apparently, he still has a job, but he's lost some credibility with his sources, no doubt.This saga of journalism ethics was reported late last week by Yvonne Mintz in The Facts. Mintz has watched the Banjo Jones blog for some time, and like many people in the county wondered who was behind it. She says the weblog gained a strong following, and was entertaining and often insightful. "Banjo" pulled no punches in his criticism of some local personalities. Olafson, writing as Banjo, also criticized stories in The Facts, and even commented on articles he'd written for the Chronicle and criticized his own paper's coverage. I'd say he definitely crossed over a few ethical lines. Sorry, I can't offer a link to Mintz's story; it's not on the paper's website.
One final wrinkle in this story: "Banjo" currently has this posted on his weblog: "The news of our demise has been greatly exaggerated." The archive of his past commentary is not available. However, Google has some of it archived (from last month).
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Posted 11:59 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Soap Operas, Word for Word
Juan C. Camus on "amateur" content generation
"Soap operas" are a national pastime in Chile. They are produced by local TV networks and they get the major audiences every day. So, it's natural to have an Internet parallel. At Teleseries Chilenas you can get briefs of every program, actress and actor photos and bios, and even forums about the series. But soap-opera aficionados have gone even further. Emol.com published a story about "Internet soap operas" built with just text using a forum tool to publish and to get feedback about the programs.
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Posted 11:52 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Working at Web Speed
Jade Walker on the LA Times' reaction to violence
Only 10 minutes after police arrested a man threatening to blow up the Los Angeles Times building, the newspaper's website published a blow-by-blow account of the incident.Around 6 p.m. on Monday, a bomb threat forced the editorial staff to evacuate the newspaper building. "A safety monitor ran through the newsroom and he told us, 'Get out, don't take your possessions with you, don't take time to turn your monitors off," said Barry Zwick, the newspaper's assistant readers representative. Apparently the paper's reporters/editors took notebooks and/or laptops with them anyway, because once the alleged bomber was captured by police, and everyone was allowed back inside, the story quickly appeared on the site. Very impressive.
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Posted 11:35 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Come On, Get More Eyeballs
Katja Riefler on media-portal cooperation in Germany
Tomorrow Focus AG and Microsoft Network Germany announced today that the popular magazine brands of Tomorrow Focus AG (among them Focus Online, Tomorrow.de, and Max.de) will be integrated into the German MSN portal and can be reached in the future at URLs like "tomorrow.msn.de". The content for all online publications and the portal will be produced by 50 journalists in a central content unit in Munich. Close cooperation on ad sales also is intended. This deal looks as if it should replicate the success of another German media-portal collaboration: the big tabloid newspaper Bild operates together with T-Online (still partly owned by Deutsche Telekom) at bild.t-online.de, by far the most popular media website in Germany. Both partners report that they profit significantly from cross promotion.
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Posted 11:31 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Who Are You Working For? Don't Think
Katja Riefler on the sale of Netzeitung in Germany
You better not care too much about your identity if you work for an online publishing venture in Germany these days. Netzeitung, Germany's only relevant Web-only "newspaper" which has belonged to Lycos Europe since the spring of last year, has just been sold to BertelsmannSpringer. The Monopolies and Mergers Commission still has to approve the deal. All 30 journalists shall keep their jobs for the moment. But they foresee an uncertain future. BertelsmannSpringer itself is for sale. Whether the Bertelsmann Group as the owner of BertelsmannSpringer will stick to its various online ventures is also questionable, even more so after the sudden firing on Sunday of its board director, Thomas Middelhoff, who had proved to be a real new media leader. Netzeitung lost 800,000 Euro in the second quarter of 2002.
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Posted 7:37 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Changes at Clickshare
Steve Outing on online transactions
Nell Fields is out as president of Clickshare (for personal reasons), and CTO Rick Lerner moves into the top spot at the news-focused online transactions network company. Founder Bill Densmore returns as a consultant to focus on sales and marketing. According to Lerner, the company has entered a sales mode, and is focusing on bringing new customers online. (Eight are using the Clickshare system to charge for digital content currently, including Universal Press Syndicate; another four are in the pipeline for implementation; and another few are in the contract phase.) Clickshare is worth watching as it's the one digital transactions vendor that has long worked mostly with news publishers — though Lerner hopes to branch out soon to online music sales.
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Posted 12:26 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Blog: It's Official, Now
Steve Outing on Safire's blessing
New York Times Magazine columnist William Safire put his considerable weight behind recognizing the word "blog" as an official member of the English language. Read his column from yesterday.
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Posted 12:05 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The End of Pop-up Ads?
Steve Outing on online advertising
CBS MarketWatch reports today that the iVillage group of websites will eliminate pop-up ads by October — in response to user complaints about the intrusive form of Web advertising. Let's hope that this is the start of a trend, and that advertisers will see that this form of ad generates more ill will from consumers than new customers.
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Posted 11:48 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Pleasure of Getting It Wrong
Carla Passino on immersive journalism
Assiduous E-Media Tidbits readers will know that Steve Outing and I have been debating about the advantages and disadvantages of immersive content for a while. Steve maintains that immersive journalism is crucial to the Internet's success as a mass medium. I, on the other hand, have long been saying that, while the concept is valid, immersive journalism is either too expensive or too time-consuming to produce for today's ultra-lean newsrooms.It grates to admit it, but I was wrong. Spurred by Steve's item on Flash, I started introducing simple movies to one of the sites I run: Countrylife.co.uk. I quickly found out that, so long as you stick to a template, basic movies are not that much more time-consuming than standard 500-words-and-a-picture pieces. And, of course, they lend themselves much better to feature stories — especially exhibition reviews and show reports — but can also work very well for news.
The impact on traffic has been amazing. Since we have started running immersive features, page-views have shot up by 28%. So, thank you, Steve. I don't think I have ever been happier to be proven wrong.
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Posted 11:17 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Talk to the Chimp
Steve Outing on print-online packaging
Print-online convergence is now commonplace even in the bizarre media. At the grocery checkout yesterday, I spotted the latest edition of Weekly World News with a cover story about the chimpanzee with an IQ of 150 who's going to college. (Now why did the New York Times miss that story?) On the front page was an invitation to "chat" online with "Frank" via AOL Instant Messenger. Use the screen name "FranktheChimp" to talk to him between the hours of 4 and 5 p.m. U.S. Eastern time, today through Friday.
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