The "unheralded" benefits of paid-for content

With Rupert Murdoch describing some aggregators as "content kleptomaniacs" and with regional media organisations looking for potential business models for their hyperlocal journalism, the debate over paying for content continues to rage.

Dorian Benkoil at Poynter Online has provided an interesting argument for the benefits of charging for some content.

Recalling a calculation he made on the effects of making the Wall Street Journal free, he explains how by charging, the Journal (and other publications) can say to an advertiser that they have a "committed, consistent" audience. A free Journal, he calculates, would potentially result in a 60% drop in its ad rates.

Besides obvious benefits such as minimal production and distribution costs for digital subscriptions, he also looks at some of the "less intuitive" benefits, as described by Gordon Crovitz, former publisher of the Journal.

He says: "charging for online subscriptions can help increase the perceived value of the print subscriptions, spurring more sales. Presumably, the psychology of saying "this is worth money" works across media.

"Bundling print subscriptions with online can help sell both. Crovitz found after data analysis that WSJ readers preferred buying online and print as a package over buying one or the other separately for less.

"Selling print subscriptions online greatly decreases the cost of acquiring new subscribers. This makes perfect sense. When someone uses an online form and payments system, he or she doesn't require phone agents or mailings or other costly infrastructure to handle it.

"The cost of sales goes down, too. You don't have to pay as much for advertising if people reading your material online then click to subscribe."

Benkoil acknowledges that getting the mix right is tricky and publishers must consider the risks, such as driving away core audiences or losing valuable page-view statistics, and shouldn't "plunge in" to payment systems.

But he believes that with incremental experiments and continuous improvement it should be possible to create a digitally-based business model that bolsters the print product as well.

A Look Ahead from `Oasis of Optimism'

Last week's Online News Association convention in San Francisco (see post below) was "an oasis of optimism," reports Jacqui Banaszynski, a long-time journalist and currently the Knight Chair in Editing at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

The crowd gazing at the relatively near horizon identified a variety of "Web 3.0" tools and trends that seem to hold enormous promise for journalists. Banaszynski summarizes a few of them:

* GoogleWave, which observers think could be the next ... well, Google. ChicagoTalks.org publisher Barbara Iverson says Google’s soon-to-be-released real-time sharing tool is "the latest blockbuster in the communications journey that has taken us from phone to Napster to Facebook to Twitter," Banaszynski reports. "It will apparently make the hiccup of time spent waiting on Twitter or IMs seem limiting."

* Facebook Connect is seen as a powerful tool for building online communities around a product or message. It will let people log in to a website directly through their Facebook accounts. Those users will then have real identities, which the optimists say should boost transparency, accountability and even civility.

* Twitter, "already the stud of the online world, is taking steroids," Banaszynski says. Co-founder Evan Williams mentioned three specifics: Twitter lists to let you more easily aggregate and organize the Twitterverse, as well as send group messages; location information embedded into every tweet; and a still-in-the-works “reputation system” designed to make tweets more transparent and verifiable.

Other predictions include more video, less podcasting -- and a surge in online initiatives by and for women.

Best Ways To Share Blog Posts

Social media, texting and Instant Messaging all make Mashable’s list of the Top 20 Ways to Share a Great Blog Post.

Writer Ben Parr points out that there’s a whole host of ways to share blog posts with friends and strangers on the Web, so he's put together a list of Mashable’s 20 favourites.


On the social media side, this includes microblogging site Twitter, social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, and social news sites like Digg and Reddit.

Suggestions also include spreading the word about a good blog post by blogging about it yourself, sharing the link with friends via Google’s RSS reader or sending the link to blogging platforms such as tumblr and posterous.


TwitThat, it installs a bookmarklet into a browser to enable one-click posting to Twitter feed, also merits a mention and so does ping.fm, which sends links to multiple social media accounts at once.

And not forgotten is sharing via texts – using the text share option under articles – or posting the link to friends via Instant Messaging.

Check out the full 20 on Mashable.

Newspapers & Content – Learn To Let Go

It is the user-focused business that will survive and thrive in the media industry of the future.

That’s the view of self-confessed “user-experience zealot” Mike Ellis, who recently delivered a presentation on media content and the Web.

If You Love Your Content Set it Free has some interesting ideas on how the Web has radically changed the value of content and how consumers construct identities around ownership of it.

Ellis, who works at non-profit IT group Eduserv, advocates sharing Web content and concentrating less on where it is consumed and concentrating more on producing the stuff.

"If you love your content, set it free" ?

View more presentations from dmje.

BBC To Share Online Content

The BBC is working on a syndication strategy which would see the broadcaster share content with online newspapers.

In response to a government report, the BBC said it is exploring ways to help newspapers in the future by sharing some of its online stories.

Press Gazette reports that the BBC’s submission to the Digital Britain report revealed that a plan to increase the number of links to newspapers from the BBC News site is also under consideration.

However, it is also noted that the strategy would be limited in scope during an initial trial period and “syndication would be subject to partners agreeing to appropriate terms and conditions”.

See Press Gazette for the full story.

Telling The G20 Story With Social Media

News reporting via Twitter and AudioBoo became the norm last week as journalists used social media tools to tell the story of the G20 Summit in London.

The majority of the mainstream media got in on the action as social media software provided an ideal way for field-based reporters to provide real-time updates on events at the summit and on the streets of the City.

According to BBC tech correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones: “It does seem as though just about everyone involved in G20 - from the politicians to the journalists, from bloggers to demonstrators - has been snapping, filming recording everything in site and uploading it to the web to share with the world.”

Several online newspapers provided coverage using CoverItLive blogs, including Times Online and Sky News.

On the Sky live blog, correspondents sent text updates and links to photos uploaded to TwitPic.

Meanwhile, the Times Online’s live blog featured embedded photos and eye-witness posts from members of the public.



On Guardian.co.uk, award-winning blogger Dave Hill posted regular updates to his London blog about the action on the ground at the Bank of England.

And the BBC offered multimedia coverage through its Live Map, which linked to geotagged video, text and photographic content.



The BBC also pulled together links to all its G20 related content on a Live Text Page which featured links to news articles and blog posts from journalists as they were published.

An abundance of content from citizen journalists appeared throughout the day on content-sharing sites such as Flickr, and a group of students from London’s City University used their mobiles and social media tools to provide extensive coverage of the street protests (HT – cybersoc.com).

For more on this, journalism.co.uk and the BBC’s dot.life blog have round-ups of how social media was used by the mainstream and alternative media during last week’s events.

NYT Readers Capture Hard Times

People are sharing their experiences of financial hardship via a new user-generated content initiative from the New York Times.

Picturing the Recession asks readers to submit photos which capture the signs of economic troubles in their homes, neighbourhoods and towns.

The result is an extensive gallery of interesting and often moving photos showing the effects of the global financial crisis on people’s everyday lives.



Subjects vary from empty fridges to closed shops, boarded-up houses and make-shift homes in tents and under motorways.



Pictures are grouped into categories - Business, Home, Sacrifice, Family, Work and Transportation.

The NYT invites submissions from users around the world and asks potential contributors: “How do you see the recession playing out in your community? What signs of hardship or resilience stand out? How are you or your family personally affected?”

[HT – Journalism.co.uk]

10 Social Media Ideas To Save Newspapers

Social media strategist Woody Lewis believes that newspapers can help save themselves by engaging with the social side of the Web.

He writes on Mashable: “Social media gives any business an interactive channel to communicate with its current and future customers.

“For newspapers, that channel can increase the chances of survival in a market where commoditised information has diminished the value of individual brands.”

And to drive the point home, he has produced a list - “Ten ways newspapers are using social media to save the industry”.

Here are some of his suggestions:

*Online-only Events

Lewis points to Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as an example of this. The newspaper recently promoted a novel by streaming content of an actor reading aloud passages from it and then encouraging users to discuss it via forums.

*Twitter Headline Channels

He singles out the New York Times for praise on this one as it has also set up feeds for sections such as movies and books.

*Publishing APIs

Again, the NYT is singled out for making application programming interfaces available on its website for developers, who can then use them to create new social media tools.

In the UK, the Guardian has opened up some of its content to software developers through its Open Platform project.

*“Promoting and monetising UGC”

An interesting example supplied by Lewis is CaptureCincinnati.com, a local photo-sharing website created by the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The Enquirer then collected together the best photos and made money from them by putting them on a DVD and in a photo collection book.

*All-Out Online

Basically, this means totally quitting the print world and producing web-only content.

“Unfortunately, this isn’t the most agreeable method for many, but social media applied to a smaller, virtual organisation might be the way of the future,” writes Lewis.

See the rest of the list on Mashable.com.

[HT – Editor & Publisher]

The Power Of Networks

Here’s an interesting slideshow about the impact of digital networking upon the ways we communicate in the modern era.

It’s taken from a presentation recently given by David Armano, the vice president of Experience Design at Critical Mass and a new media blogger.

The Micro-Sociology of Networks considers social media and networking, participatory journalism, blogging, and branding among many other aspects of the digital age.

The Micro-Sociology of Networks

View more presentations from David Armano.

[HT – cybersoc.com]

BBC Introduces Embedded Videos

The BBC has added the embed function for the first time to videos displayed on certain areas of its website.

As a result of the move, users will be able to embed BBC videos on their own websites and blogs.

The beginning of the embedded video rollout has begun with the News Technology section and will be expanded to other areas in the future.



Writing on the BBC Internet blog, chief technical architect John O’Donovan explains: “It’s taken a while because there have been a huge number of tricky little issues to sort out and most of these have been complex business issues around rights, terms and conditions, etc.

“But at last through the fog, a simple and subtle change finally emerges.”

He also reveals that following the initial rollout stage, “there are different flavours of embedded widget which will be made available”.

[HT – Journalism.co.uk]

Guardian Opens Up Online Content

This month has seen The Guardian making some of its content and data freely available to developers through its Open Platform project.

Launched as a commercial initiative, Open Platform enables people to access its articles and data sets in order to create new applications and online offerings.

The beta trial makes the content available through the Content API and Data Store channels on Guardian.co.uk.




Visitors to the Data Store can access statistics on a range of subjects, from the cost of military engagements in Iraq to the makeup of the British population and the tax-paying habits of some of the UK’s biggest firms.

And developers can share their creations through a blog dedicated to the data applications built using Open Platform.



Several partners are already working with The Guardian on the project, including OpenStreetMap which is hoping to work with users to create a map of geotagged Guardian content.

Director of digital content Emily Bell believes that Open Platform is a great way for the newspaper to interact with the wider world on the Web.

“We try very hard and spend many pounds a year to put our journalism in from of a wider audience: this is another way to do that,” she writes.

“We also recognise that by opening up what we do to more people who have more expertise than we do, we can improve what we do and change the Guardian’s relationship with the web and the internet.”

And she stresses that such a project works well as an accompaniment to more traditional journalism.

“This ‘showing your insides’ approach to publishing might seem like a million miles away from the relatively controlled world of top-down journalism, but it is strangely complimentary.”

A number of news organisations are starting to make some of their content available online to developers, including the New York Times which launched its first API last year.

Visit Guardian.co.uk for more details on Open Platform.

Florida Duo Launch Statehouse Mobile Alerts

Florida residents can receive the latest local politics news on their mobiles thanks to a collaboration project between two titles.

The St Petersburg Times and the Miami Herald are the two newspapers behind the initiative to provide mobile alerts from their joint bureau at the statehouse, reports Editor & Publisher.

Subscribers receive breaking news under general categories such as Top News, and specific ones including Legislature and Governor.



“We think The Scoop on Florida Politics will give followers of politics the best news and information possible, and faster than ever before,” said Anders Gyllenhaal , executive editor for the Miami Herald.

“In the mobile culture of Tallahassee during the Legislative session, it will be one more way people can rely on the Miami Herald-St.Pete Times bureau to provide the news they need at this critical time.”

NY Plane Crash On Twitter Pic

A Twitter user is being feted for his picture taken at the scene of yesterday’s plane crash in New York.

Janis Krums captured the dramatic scene on the Hudson River using his iPhone as the ferry he was on moved towards the plane to rescue people.



Posted to Twit Pic, the photo could then be accessed by a link from his Twitter feed where the accompanying Tweet read: “There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.”



According to the New York Daily News, Krums has now become something of a Twitter hero after he sparked the “Internet firestorm”.

The photo has been viewed in its original posting spot over 100,000 times so far and has been displayed on photo-sharing site Flickr by several users.



It has also attracted a deluge of comments from admiring viewers and fellow Twitterers.

2008 - Top Social Media Sites

A chart of the world’s most popular social media websites shows Facebook is on the up and up.

Ranking social media sites by the number of unique visitors, the ComScore list places Google’s blog hosting platform Blogger in the top spot with more than 221 million.

Close behind is social networking site Facebook, with more than 220 million unique visitors and a growth rate of 116% from 2007.

According to TechCrunch, the chart demonstrates that “while the audience for blogs is still showing healthy growth overall, Facebook stands out as the social gorilla taking share from not only other social networks but blogs and other social media as well”.

Facebook is joined in the top 20 by fellow social networking sites including MySpace, hi5, Orkut (majority users in Brazil and India), Baidu Space (China), Netlog (Belgium) and Bebo.

Other blog or web hosting platforms making the list are Wordpress, Yahoo Geocities, Six Apart, Webs.com and Windows Live Spaces.

And completing the top 20 are content-sharing websites such as Flickr, 56.com (China), Scribd and imeem.

See TechCrunch for the full list.