Showing posts with label online news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label online news. Show all posts
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Newspapers and their future
Oh, the pain. Just thinking about newspapers and the challenge they face wants to make you sigh and almost shrug. Like our economy, it's going to be a whole lot worse before it (ever?) gets better.
Principally, this because ... breathe deep here ... there is no business model ... at least not one to sustain current ways of doing things, and that's a key distinction. We have to think about the work of journalism may change in the future — from gatekeeper to gatewatcher, from content creator to content curator — and then we can better explore and predict ways in which the economics might make sense.
Consider some writings in this area ... first, Nicholas Carr lays out the central problem in The Great Unbundling.
Clay Shirky, a fascinating thinker on all things new media, picks up with this:
So, we need to experiment ... and fast. The transition will be messy, but new models are emerging that offer some hope. Finally, consider Jeff Jarvis' picture of newspapers in 2020, as well as 10 questions he says news organizations must confront going forward. (Key among them: "Who are we?")
Ultimately, though, the stats are numbingly bad. Time to panic, and for the news industry to actually act like it.
Principally, this because ... breathe deep here ... there is no business model ... at least not one to sustain current ways of doing things, and that's a key distinction. We have to think about the work of journalism may change in the future — from gatekeeper to gatewatcher, from content creator to content curator — and then we can better explore and predict ways in which the economics might make sense.
Consider some writings in this area ... first, Nicholas Carr lays out the central problem in The Great Unbundling.
“How do we create high quality content in a world where advertisers want to pay by the click, and consumers don’t want to pay at all?”
The answer may turn out to be equally simple: We don’t.
Clay Shirky, a fascinating thinker on all things new media, picks up with this:
We should stop worrying about the newspaper as a whole, and instead turn our attention to the important question: taking unbundling as a given, what bits merit saving? It isn’t the physical fact of newsprint, or the expensive yet ineffective classified ads, or having a movie reviewer in every town.
What’s worth saving, as a critical function, is investigative journalism. We need someone, many someones, to do long, deep, boring research, for stories that may not even pan out. Without that, government at all levels will simply slide back into the nepotism and corruption of the 19th century.
That is the challenge we need to take on, and as Carr notes, it’s not one currently being met well on the Internet.
However, it’s not obvious that the old ways of producing such journalism are better than any possible future ways, both because the current model is far from perfect, and because the Internet brings a suppleness to media design that has barely been flexed yet.
So, we need to experiment ... and fast. The transition will be messy, but new models are emerging that offer some hope. Finally, consider Jeff Jarvis' picture of newspapers in 2020, as well as 10 questions he says news organizations must confront going forward. (Key among them: "Who are we?")
Ultimately, though, the stats are numbingly bad. Time to panic, and for the news industry to actually act like it.
Apocalypse Now
The apocalypse is upon us. It’s time to run around like headless chickens. And yes, newspapers are dying a faster, albeit painful death. While some people in the industry have been writing eulogies to newspapers, others think physical newspapers aren’t dying off – they’re evolving. Really?
When Michael Crichton, in a 1993 issue of Wired Magazine, said print would become obsolete, journalists sniggered in a corner and said he was on to his sci-fi fiction. Now look who’s sniggering? Advertising revenue in US newspapers in 2007 dropped 9.4 per cent, the sharpest decline since the Newspaper Association of America began measuring ad revenues in 1950. Are we still going to live in denial?
In July, the New York Times reported that its earnings were declining. Then came the news that it was hiking the newsstands price by 25 cents. I’m sorry, I know I sound like one of the fist-shaking and bellicose advocates for the Internet, but it really is time to wake up, smell the roses and go online.
When Michael Crichton, in a 1993 issue of Wired Magazine, said print would become obsolete, journalists sniggered in a corner and said he was on to his sci-fi fiction. Now look who’s sniggering? Advertising revenue in US newspapers in 2007 dropped 9.4 per cent, the sharpest decline since the Newspaper Association of America began measuring ad revenues in 1950. Are we still going to live in denial?
In July, the New York Times reported that its earnings were declining. Then came the news that it was hiking the newsstands price by 25 cents. I’m sorry, I know I sound like one of the fist-shaking and bellicose advocates for the Internet, but it really is time to wake up, smell the roses and go online.
Tweet me the news
Journalism is still valuable, as well as local (print or online) newspapers. Yes, I do think spelling and grammar are important, and especially for journalism. How would people think the news is credible if the writing is crappy?
The discussion on Monday and also the Maybe it is time to panic made me think other possibilities of online news. In the article "technology doesn't dumb us down. It frees our minds" the author suggested maybe we can blam twitter for making us stupid. And as Nan's really refreshing idea in her post that "media requires less attention may attract more users," a twitter style news might be convenient for people who do not have enough time or attention.
The discussion on Monday and also the Maybe it is time to panic made me think other possibilities of online news. In the article "technology doesn't dumb us down. It frees our minds" the author suggested maybe we can blam twitter for making us stupid. And as Nan's really refreshing idea in her post that "media requires less attention may attract more users," a twitter style news might be convenient for people who do not have enough time or attention.
Actually rss feeds are something similar to twitter style format, but it really depends on what kind of reader (or widget) you are using, the format of the article from the production (news web site maybe) end, and so on. So sometimes the news feeds we end up getting is one headline, or full article. A twitter style means it is short, straightforward, with headline and the blurb text. Nothing else. Maybe something else if the user click on it. But the what shows up on the screen initially should not be more or less than the headline and the blurb text.
So who will use that? I don't know. But it should not be hard to try this idea. And again, a twitter style does not mean bad writing. It should be the best journalistic writing among all.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
online news and relevant advertising
I was thinking how news Web sites can make the advertising showing up on their Web pages relevant to their users.
It is hard. When we see an (full screen) ad on a news Web site like the other day in class, what we did was to look for the x button. We do not like being interrupted by advertising, especially irrelevant ones. But making advertising relevant to a specific user requires sufficient knowledge of that specific user. We rarely give out adequate/true information to news Web sites. This is where portal sites such as Yahoo, AOL, and especially Google can gain a great chunk of the pie. They profile their users.
Here is a post describing with google phone, how google will profile each individual user precisely. Another thing not in the post but I saw on another youtube video is (unverified info) when a user use google phone to take a photo and with 3g network, the phone tags the current location to the photo automatically.
It is hard. When we see an (full screen) ad on a news Web site like the other day in class, what we did was to look for the x button. We do not like being interrupted by advertising, especially irrelevant ones. But making advertising relevant to a specific user requires sufficient knowledge of that specific user. We rarely give out adequate/true information to news Web sites. This is where portal sites such as Yahoo, AOL, and especially Google can gain a great chunk of the pie. They profile their users.
Here is a post describing with google phone, how google will profile each individual user precisely. Another thing not in the post but I saw on another youtube video is (unverified info) when a user use google phone to take a photo and with 3g network, the phone tags the current location to the photo automatically.
Anyway, as we see in class on Monday, google devotes 70% of its effort to search and advertising, 20% to something and 10% to the rest. No wonder google news does not have a user friendly interface, yet. It's probably not yet on the to-do list. As we see google plans to start digitizing print newspapers, I do think google has an interest in news, or an interest in constantly updated information. With it devotes 70% of its effort to search and advertising, when they profile each individuals precisely, would the combination of the three make most users use google news and make most advertisers reluctant to spend money on any other news Web sites?
Google does not produce any news products. Will there be new business models or partnership between google and a news organization? similar to the partnership between google and t-mobile for the google phone?
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