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Welcome to the Digital Edge Blog!
The Digital Edge Blog focuses on developments, trends, best practices and more in newspaper digital media. The blog launched in 2006 (archives before August 2008 are here).
We look forward to reading your comments and contributions to the Digital Edge Blog. Questions? E-mail Beth Lawton at beth.lawton@naa.org.
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In a year, the media world has gone from no large-scale, truly-personalized, printed news products to five. MediaNews Group's I-News, The Washington Time's personalized news weekly (the pilot project ended recently), Printcasting and others seem to indicate that personalized news has reached a turning point.
All of the programs rely on highly complex RSS to choose-your-medium technology. (By the way, who would have thought that RSS would power things so complex?!)
Printcasting
At yesterday's Individuated News Conference at The Washington Times complex in D.C., Printcasting founder Dan Pacheco said his venture is partnering with MediaNews Group and is now available in five cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver and Boulder, Colo., and its original site in Bakersfield, Calif. MediaNews Group owns newspapers in 11 states.
How newspapers can benefit: By making select content available to individuals who want to publish small newsletters, newspapers could take a share of whatever revenue comes in through the upcoming self-serve paid advertising service in the program. In addition, it offers a way for small businesses with limited ad budgets to get into print advertising. Pacheco noted that in Bakersfield, 65 percent of the local businesses have ad budgets below $10,000 per year, but less than 40 percent of print advertisers in the newspaper were from companies that had ad budgets of this size.
Washington Times' I-Newsweekly
The Washington Times presented at yesterday's conference about its weekly edition, currently mailed to more than 50,000 subscribers across the country. Sixty people - not all of whom were regular newsweekly subscribers - participated in the individuated news pilot project.
The final product looked exactly like the newspaper's regular newsweekly - a large, newsprint tab. People in the pilot project could choose their topic areas of interest, and their newsweekly arrived with dozens of half-page (or longer) articles designed to meet their needs. This was the first time a project on this scale had incorporated half-page modules rather than full-page or full-section ones.
People in the pilot project said they liked it and indicated that being able to choose their own content and interests was very important to them. Seventy percent said they would subscribe to the publication (though fewer said they were willing to pay more than the normal price for it).
MediaNews Group's Peter Vandeventer suggested this type of personalization could be used to personalize e-editions of newspapers, rather than print/deliver personalized, full-size publications. That way, people can have their own e-edition with stock tables, personalized sports content and other content (blogs, maybe?) that isn't normally printed in the standard-run newspaper.
I-News
Vandeventer also showed a short infomercial for MediaNews Group's I-News program, which allows people to choose their news and their way of receiving it: Either through e-mail, through their mobile phone or through a home-printed multi-page newspaper. (MediaNews has already started giving wireless printers to some home users to test the program.) Earlier this year, MediaNews Group tested a print program with guests staying at a Marriot Residence Inn in Denver.
You can read more about these projects through Newspapers & Technology's coverage of the conference. Also check out these stories:
MediaNews to Begin Customized Printing in Denver Homes (Poynter)
MediaNews to Test Individuated News at L.A. Daily News (Poynter)
IndividuatedNews.com
Printcasting.com
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NAA this month hosted a series of Webinars on mobile revenue opportunities for newspapers.
The following is a round-up of the best pieces of advice from our Webinar presenters.
The Webinars focused on online classfieds, text messaging and mobile display ads. A fourth Webinar, on mobile phone application development, is coming later this summer. The archives from these Webinars are available now at www.naa.org/mobile.
Products
- Find out what your advertisers are looking for in the mobile space before you build out capabilities. Some advertisers may want your newspaper to build and manage mobile micro-sites for them. Others may want text-messaging capabilities. Your mobile vendor probably has many of these solutions ready to go, but you need to know what your advertisers need first!
- Calls to action in mobile ads work. Prompts to "click to call" or "send a text message to..." invite consumers to interact with the advertiser.
- Be smart about matching your advertisers and products. A grocery store may be a good sponsor for weather alerts, for example. (Think of how crowded grocery stores get before snowstorms or hurricanes.)
The Sales Pitch
- Equip your sales team with mobile devices - BlackBerrys, iPhones, Palm Pres, etc. The sales pitch is much more powerful with live demonstrations that your sales associates can guide the potential advertiser through in person. Show - don't just tell!
- Make your sales team passionate about the product. If your sales team is energized about the power of mobile marketing, your advertisers will catch that enthusiasm and embrace it. (The Star Tribune offered mobile-themed prizes, like an iPod, to sales associates.)
- Make mobile sales a part of a larger digital media experience for your advertisers, but don't just throw it in as a "freebie."
Building Audience
- Cross-promote your offerings. USAToday does a lot of mobile promotion in the print edition of the newspaper as well as on USAToday.com. Raising awareness of your mobile offerings is the key to getting people to sign up.
- Make sure the advertiser is prepared to handle customer interactions. If an advertiser offers a mobile coupon, the advertiser needs to make sure his employees know how to handle customers who come in with that coupon! Otherwise, customers will have a negative experience, which ultimately hurts the advertiser and your newspaper. A positive experience will drive word-of-mouth marketing for your newspaper's mobile products.
More Advice
Be sure to go to www.naa.org/mobile to download the Webinar archives and to get more advice about mobile advertising and sales.
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Nine projects won News Challenge grants from the John S. and
James L. Knight Foundation earlier today. The projects focus on ways to use
technology to foster community journalism and interaction.
The biggest grant - more than $719,000 - went to The New
York Times and ProPublica.
From the press release:
The largest winner is DocumentCloud, a project conceived by
journalists from The New York Times and ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative
newsroom. DocumentCloud will create an online database managed as an
independent nonprofit where the media, watchdog groups and the public can find,
share and analyze source documents.
This is the third year of grants in the Knight News
Challenge, which has $25 million in funding to grant over five years to individuals who propose open-source, community-oriented digital media projects.
Tomorrow afternoon, Poynter will host a chat with the grant
winners from The New York Times and ProPublica about their project. Read more
here.
NAA's Mobile Revenue Opportunities Webinars
Be sure to check NAA's Presstime Now! blog later today for a recap of today's mobile revenue Webinar with iLoop Mobile and the Star Tribune. The archived Webinar will be available online Friday if you missed the event this afternoon! The archive (along with many, many more mobile resources for newspapers) will be at www.naa.org/mobile.
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In an E-Media Tidbits column
yesterday, Amy Gahran wrote this: "Mobile
media offers not just a huge audience, but also existing revenue models --
including ample room to make money through premium personalized content, advertising, interactivity or
location-based services. These opportunities are significant today and will
only grow in the future."
Gahran hits the nail on the
head. NAA has been pushing our newspaper members to explore new technologies
and revenue models for years. And that's part of the reason why this month NAA
is presenting a series of Webinars specifically focused on mobile revenue.
Here's more information:
Text Messaging: Revenue
Potential in 140 Characters
TOMORROW
(Wednesday, June 10) at 2 p.m. ET
It can be tough to put both content and an effective ad into 140 characters,
but newspapers are getting real results for their advertisers through text
messaging. Learn from the successes of USA Today and the Virginian-Pilot. Speakers: Shaun Fogarty, Virginian-Pilot, and
Jason Fulmines, Gannett. Register here.
Plus:
- Creating Effective Mobile
Ads: Standards and Best Practices
Next Wednesday, June 17 at 2
p.m. ET.
Creating effective mobile ads is both easier and more complicated than you may
think. Learn about how mobile standards impact your mobile advertising and
revenue in this Webinar focusing on standards and best practices. Speakers: Michael
Becker, iLoop Mobile,
and Daniel Krolczyk, Star Tribune. Register here.
- In the last week of June,
we'll present a Webinar on mobile application development - more specifics on
this event will be available soon.
- Last week, NAA hosted a
Webinar on mobile classified services with Dan Hellbusch, manager of real
estate advertising at the Orange County Register. You can see the archived
version here.
By the way, if you're interested
in sponsoring an NAA Webinar, please e-mail Kevin McCourt at kevin.mccourt@naa.org.
Additional Resources
In addition, NAA has these resources available right now:
Moving to Mobile: A
Development & Growth Guide (at www.naa.org/mobile) has information
on everything from how to reserve up a short code to creating WAP sites and the
current state of mobile local search.
The Digital Media Advertising
Toolkit (at www.naa.org/adtoolkit) has good tips on how to sell mobile to
your advertisers.
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Here's a good reason for banks and other retailers to advertising even when times are tough: Your customers may be gauging the health of a company by how often they see ads.
eMarketer reported today, "Nearly one-half [48 percent] of the Internet users surveyed said that if they noticed a drop-off in ads from a bank, they believed it was struggling, and 12 percent believed the financial institution might not be in business much longer," according to a study from Ad-ology Research.
For retail stores, the link between advertising frequency and perceived business health was even more pronounced, with 56 percent of Web user saying a decrease in retail store ads made them think the store was struggling and 15 percent thinking the outlet may not be in business much longer.
Digg Ads a Gamble for Businesses
Digg has launched a new advertising system that effectively rewards ads for being popular with Digg users.
Sponsored messages from advertisers will start appearing in the regular Digg stream of stories in the coming months. "The more an ad is Dugg, the less the advertiser will have to pay. Conversely the more an ad is buried, the more the advertiser is charged, pricing it out of the system," according to the Digg Blog.
"The goal here is to give advertisers a way to present content related to their brands and get immediate input on whether it's relevant to the Digg audience, or not."
Mobile Revenue
Yesterday, NAA hosted the first Webinar in a series of Webinars on mobile revenue. Read about it on NAA's PRESSTIME Now!. Later today, NAA members will be able to go to www.naa.org/mobile to download a recorded version of the Webinar.
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A brand new, innovative program from the Orange County Register is driving mobile revenue in classifieds. Gary Tackett and Dan Hellbusch from the newspaper will be talking about this program in a Webinar this Wednesday (June 3) at 4 p.m. ET. (Register here!)
This Webinar is the first in a series of free Webinars for NAA members about mobile revenue opportunities for newspapers. The Webinars will become part of NAA's "Moving to Mobile: A Development & Growth Guide for Newspapers."
In addition to classifieds, there are opportunities for newspapers in text-messaging (SMS) programs, mobile display ads, and even in smart phone application development. This Webinar series will provide you with information on increasing revenue in all of these areas.
Here's more information on this free Webinar series.
Mobile and Classifieds: Searching for Revenue
June 3 at 4 p.m. ET
Some analysts see classified ads on the mobile platform as an opportunity for newspapers to earn new ad revenue. For many newspapers, it's already working! Learn about a new program from the Orange County Register that is helping build revenue for local businesses and the newspaper.
Speakers: Dan Hellbusch, Real Estate Manager, and Gary Tackett, Classified Director, Orange County Register. Register here!
Text Messaging: Revenue Potential in 140 Characters
June 10 at 2 p.m. ET
It can be tough to put both content and an effective ad into 140 characters, but newspapers are getting real results for their advertisers through text messaging. Learn from the successes of USA Today and the Virginian-Pilot.
Speakers: Shaun Fogarty, Virginian-Pilot, and Jason Fulmines, Gannett. Register here!
Mobile Advertising: Standards and Best Practices
June 17 at 2 p.m. ET
Creating effective mobile ads is both easier and more complicated than you may think. Learn about how mobile standards impact your mobile advertising and revenue in this Webinar focusing on standards and best practices. Registration to open later this month!
Newspapers and Smartphone Apps
Date TBD (late June)
The iPhone and the popularity of other "smartphones" lit a fire under the mobile advertising market. Learn how The Washington Post and other newspapers are capitalizing on the smartphone market by creating in-demand mobile applications. Registration will open later this month!
Become a Sponsor!
To learn about the benefits that come with sponsoring an NAA Webinar, please contact Kevin McCourt at Kevin.mccourt@naa.org with the subject line: Sponsor Interest in [Name of Webinar].
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 In June, the Newspaper
Association of America will present a series of four Webinars on mobile revenue
opportunities. Registration is already open for next week's Webinar on mobile
and classifieds and for the following week's Webinar on revenue-generating text
messaging programs.
Mobile and Classifieds: Searching for Revenue
June 3 at 4 p.m.
ET
Some analysts see classified
ads on the mobile platform as an opportunity for newspapers to earn new ad
revenue. For many newspapers, it's already working! Learn about a new program
from the Orange County Register that is helping build revenue for local
businesses and the newspaper.
Speakers: Dan Hellbusch, Real
Estate Manager, and Gary Tackett, Classified Director, Orange County Register. Register here!
Text Messaging: Revenue
Potential in 140 Characters
June 10 at 2 p.m. ET
It can be tough
to put both content and an effective ad into 140 characters, but newspapers are
getting real results for their advertisers through text messaging. Learn from
the successes of USA Today and the Virginian-Pilot.
Speakers: Shaun Fogarty,
Virginian-Pilot, and Jason Fulmines, Gannett.
Register here!
Mobile
Advertising: Standards and Best Practices
Date TBD
Creating
effective mobile ads is both easier and more complicated than you may think.
Learn about how mobile standards impact your mobile advertising and revenue in
this Webinar focusing on standards and best practices. Registration will open
in June!
Newspapers and
Smartphone Apps
Date TBD
The iPhone and
the popularity of other "smartphones" lit a fire under the mobile advertising
market. Learn how The Washington Post and other newspapers are capitalizing on
the smartphone market by creating in-demand mobile applications. Registration
will open in June!
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In addition to the announcement about the formation of Circlabs, yesterday's conference at the George Washington University, "From Gatekeeper to Information Valet: Work Plans for Sustaining Journalism," included discussions about payment models to financially sustain journalism.
CircLabs
In the morning, a group from the University of Missouri's Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute announced the development of a new service that will both help consumers find relevant news and help news publishers finance that news. Part of the new system focuses on "putting the user back in control" by giving people news they want.
Bill Densmore, Martin Langeveld, Joe Bergeron and Jeffrey Vander Clute are among those involved with CircLabs, a start-up that will launch in the latter half of this year. In addition, the founders are actively talking with the Information Card Foundation, which works in the online identity space.
The details surrounding CircLabs and its product, Circulate, are intentionally very vague at this point, so there's no information available on how the system will work. Read the press release here and go to http://www.circlabs.com/ for more information.
The 'Hows' of Online Payments
Earlier in the morning, a group of players in the areas of online payments and journalism discussed current and coming projects, including Journalism Online LLC and Kachingle. Merrill Brown, one of the founders of Journalism Online LLC, told attendees that "subscription and subscription strategies are more important than ever." Brown and others are working to create a platform that would allow online publishers to set their own prices and models that would be very easy to use for news consumers.
Kachingle, headed by Cynthia Typaldos, is focusing on a voluntary payment program that allows Web users to designate to which publications the Web user wants to donate. Kachingle (citing, in part, high interest levels) delayed its official launch earlier this year, but it should be up and running in beta mode by the end of this summer.
Matt Menkins of In-A-Moon said he is working on a payment layer that works on top of how a person would normally use the Web. It puts some content behind a "threshold" as opposed to a "payment wall." More information is at http://www.in-a-moon.com/.
Scott Karp from Publish2 and Walter Isaacson, who wrote the TIME magazine cover story "How to Save Your Newspaper" in January 2009, also spoke briefly.
Quote of the Day
"No one will tweet a URL that's behind a pay wall." - Cynthia Typaldos
More from the Conference
Blog entries recapping parts of the conference are available at http://informationvalet.wordpress.com/. Also, see the Twitter tag #infovalet.
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Tomorrow, I'll be in downtown D.C. attending an event called "From Gatekeeper to Information Valet: Work Plans for Sustaining Journalism." More than 100 people are attending, from journalists to entrepreneurs.
The purpose of the meeting, as the title suggests, is to talk about business models that can sustain (and even grow) quality journalism. Topics include paying for online content, online privacy and more. Guest speakers include Merrill Brown of Journalism Online LLC, Cynthia Typaldos of Kachingle, Scott Karp of Publish2, Bill Densmore of the Information Valet Program and several others.
Coverage of Tomorrow
I'll be tweeting from the event: You can follow me on Twitter at blawtonnaa, or search for #infovalet to see all the tweets from participants tomorrow. I'll send a few tweets from the NAA_Community Twitter account, too, and post a blog entry here on the Digital Edge blog later this week with the most interesting and important content for newspaper execs.
More coverage: Live video streaming should be available at www.ustream.tv/channel/infovalet with a companion Twitter chat, and live blogging will at www.informationvalet.org.
OPU
The Online Publishing Update newsletter was published here on the Digital Edge blog last week while I was out of town. It will be returning to its normal e-mail publishing format tomorrow. Big thanks go to David Johnson, assoc. prof. at American University, for guest editing the OPU, and to Lindsey Leisher here at NAA for getting it published.
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This week, the Online Publishing Update, an e-mail newsletter from NAA that goes to our Digital Media Federation members, is being published here on the Digital Edge blog. The guest OPU editor is David Johnson, an associate professor at American University, who focuses on digital media and journalism. Thanks for reading. Google Dropped Idea of Buying Newspaper
Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the Financial Times that Google had looked at buying a newspaper but concluded that potential acquisition targets were too expensive or carried excessive liabilities. Google considered using its charitable arm, Google.org, to support news businesses seeking non-profit status but Schmidt said the company was now unlikely to do so and was "trying to avoid crossing the line" between technology and content.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iDBLlpROHSNTi49DcRgRn1u_8FCg
Analysis: Why Google Likes to Use the Newspaper Bailout Card
http://seekingalpha.com/article/139154-why-google-likes-to-use-the-newspaper-bailout-card
Commentary: Give Up the Suicide Mission That Enriches Google: Ann Woolner
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_woolner&sid=aepETX0PAJIk
Is Going Niche a Viable Option for Newspapers?
Exploring Newsweek's attempt to rebrand itself from a general interest publication to a targeted niche product, Emma Heald wonders at the World Editor's Forum if it could be a workable option for suffering newspapers. Recognizing that newspapers no longer have to regard themselves as the sole source of news to their readers, Heald notes the volume of content in the newspapers may make things more complicated for such a transition; however, the brand and the journalistic experience can empower experimentation with more specialized areas of coverage.
http://www.editorsweblog.org/analysis/2009/05/going_niche_a_viable_option_for_newspape.php
Professor Robert G Picard on the Future of Newspapers
The Telegraph's Shane Richmond interviews the professor of media economics who posted the attention grabbing opinion piece that journalists deserve low pay. He talks about how most readers never cared that much about news, how things will never be the same again for newspapers and how charging for access to content is the only way forward.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/shane_richmond/blog/2009/05/21/interview_professor_robert_g_picard_on_the_future_of_newspapers
FTC Explores News Industry Fixes
The FTC has launched a new series entitled "Can News Media Survive the Internet Age? Competition, Consumer Protection and the First Amendment," and will consider a range of fixes including possible non-profit models.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/233083-Federal_Trade_Commission_Looking_Into_Range_of_Fixes_for_News_Industry.php
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/05/newspapers.shtm
McClatchy Co. unveils new ad strategy to emphasize Internet
McClatchy will begin paying sales commissions to ad agencies, a move designed to "level the playing field" with broadcasters and other media that pay commissions, said Chairman and Chief Executive Gary Pruitt. Pruitt said McClatchy also will now emphasize the Web instead of its newspapers in selling help-wanted ads. The switch acknowledges the severe decline in help-wanted advertising and the popularity of the Internet among employers and job seekers.
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2339235/
BIA: Local Advertising to Hit Bottom in 2010
BIA and its sister company The Kelsey Group, are predicting local advertising media, including newspapers, direct mail, TV, radio, yellow pages, traditional outdoor, cable TV, magazines and digital/online, to decline collectively to $144.4 billion in 2013, down from $155 billion last year. New media's share of total adspend is forecast to grow from $14 billion or 9 percent to $32.1 billion to 22.2 percent. Radio and TV Internet revenue are expected to climb from $805 million last year to nearly $1.9 billion in 2013.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/local-broadcast/e3i4ac338fdce0587a72002e1fa3a4aa3b8
Newspapers, Local Media Missing E-mail Revenue Stream
Among the oldest form of online advertising, e-mail has yet to be fully adopted by local media firms or local advertisers. However, according to a new report from Borrell Associates, it's poised to grow significantly in the next few years. Just a fraction of e-mail marketing revenue is local, says Borrell. While the e-mail market reaps $12.1 billion, only $848 million of that is local. However, the local media research outfit predicts big growth for local e-mail spending. By 2013, Borrell expects local e-mail revenues will exceed $2 billion, increasing 150 percent.
http://www.clickz.com/3633827
An Inside View: How & Why Digital Advertising Stalled
Poynter's Biz Blog talks to Mike Leo, CEO of Operative, a leading vendor of work-flow and measurement systems and formerly head of a large digital ad agency. Rick Edmonds says when they first spoke by phone in February 2008, business was booming. But all that changed in 2009. Why?
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=123&aid=164027
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This week, the Online Publishing Update, an e-mail newsletter from NAA that goes to our Digital Media Federation members, is being published here on the Digital Edge blog. The guest OPU editor is David Johnson, an associate professor at American University, who focuses on digital media and journalism. Thanks for reading.
CNET Webware 100 Winners and Surprising Losers
Google, YouTube, Hulu and Amazon are among C|Net's Webware 100 expected winners, but the companies that didn't make the list may surprise some. Nearly 630,000 votes were cast during the voting this year to pick the best Web 2.0 sites and services. The days of physical media may or may not be long for this world, but these are the sites that are worth the bandwidth and are setting the pace in today's media space.
http://news.cnet.com/webware/?keyword=Webware%20100%202009&tag=snav
http://www.cnet.com/html/ww/100/2009/winners.html?tag=mncol;txt
HuffPost Poaches WashPost for Editor to Head New Investigations Unit
The Huffington Post has hired Lawrence Roberts, investigations editor at The Washington Post since 2004, to head a new Investigative Fund. Launched in March with an initial budget of $1.75 million, the Huffington Post Investigative Fund is a nonpartisan, nonprofit initiative whose goal is to produce multimedia investigations. Says E&P: The move may well be viewed as a symbol of the decline of newspapers or at least online news sites coming of age. Said Roberts: "With all the financial pressures roiling newspapers, it makes sense to replicate their public service and investigative mission in the nonprofit world. I'm excited to be joining Nick and Arianna in this important venture."
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003974848
Why Journalists Deserve Low Pay
Robert G. Picard opines in the Cristian Science Monitor that journalism can be saved if journalists commit to creating real value for consumers and become more involved in setting the course of their companies.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0519/p09s02-coop.html
Kicking Ink: The Struggles of a Print Newspaper Unsubscriber
MediaShift's Mark Glaser, who charts the digital media revolution on his PBS blog, has been greeted on the stoop by a paper each morning for 18 years, but he's decided to cut the cord and plug in another. His personal account points out the pros - and cons - of going paperless.
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/05/kicking-ink-the-struggles-of-a-print-newspaper-unsubscriber139.html
Google Tweaks Reader to Add Social Features
The Twitterati have been tweeting lately that they haven't been using RSS as much as they used to since their friends started posting and sharing links over the explosive conversational platform and others like it. If Google has noticed this, it may explain some of the new features in Reader, such as a new set of tabs in the trends page called “Friends Trends,” where you can see which friends share the most content and whose shared items you read. Comments have also been changed, sources of items in Reader are now visible in the comment view and makes it easier to mark items as saved, similar in some ways to Friendfeed and Delicious.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/19/google-releases-new-version-of-reader/?awesm=tcrn.ch_2FG&utm_campaign=techcrunch&utm_content=techcrunch-autopost&utm_medium=tcrn.ch-twitter&utm_source=twitter.com
Wolfram|Alpha Debuts with Grand Ambition
As if Google's goal of "organizing the world's information" wasn't big enough, the expressed mission of Wolfram|Alpha, which opened to the online public May 18th may be the semantic Web's equivelent of infinity plus one:
"Wolfram|Alpha’s long-term goal is to make all systematic
knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. The
company aims to collect and curate all objective data; implement
every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to
compute whatever can be computed about anything."
Yes, Google has been the undisputed king of search for an eternity in Web years, but Wolfram could be the long coming next step. It isn't so much a search engine as it is a "computational knowledge engine." Grab your slide rule and take it for a spin to see if it really is a game changer for everyone or a plaything for the ultra geek niche.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
http://2ohreally.com/2009/05/wolframs-debut-does-this-compute-i-think/
http://www00.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=163820
Microsoft to Bow New Search Engine
Could the search engine wars be unthawing? Microsoft plans to demonstrate their new search engine, called 'Kumo,' to the public next week. Analyst Charlene Li notes that Kumo is designed to win back people "already in the Microsoft Orbit" who are using products like Hotmail, but still hitting Google or Yahoo for search. Microsoft is a distant third in the search category and falling.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=106432
Nieman Foundation Announces 2009-2010 Nieman Fellows
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard has selected 24 journalists from the United States and abroad to join the 72nd class of Nieman Fellows. The group includes print and multimedia reporters and editors; radio and television journalists; photographers; book authors; a filmmaker and a columnist.
Nieman Foundation Curator Bob Giles notes that members of the incoming class reflect the changing news industry: “This year, we received applications from — and awarded fellowships to — more freelance journalists than ever before. They are highly talented professionals who by choice or circumstance don’t hold staff positions with established news organizations. In response to their needs and those of all the Nieman Fellows, we will introduce a yearlong multimedia curriculum in the fall, designed to teach new media skills in what is becoming an increasingly competitive market.”
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/newsitem.aspx?id=100116
GateHouse to Launch Cape Cod Free Daily
With all the news of folding papers, the GateHouse move to launch a new title is a grabbing headline. But the free paper is like summer wine and will go away when the leaves start to fall: Cape Cod Day will begin distribution on June 23 and publish Tuesdays through Saturdays through Labor Day. The paper will have an average daily distribution of 25,000 copies targeted at summer visitors and vacationers. Some Cape Cod Day content will come from WickedLocalCapeCod.com, one of GateHouse's community Web sites of its New England papers.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003974471
TinyURLs are a Branding Opportunity in a Smart Service
A great idea from Amy Gahran in Poynter's E-media Tidbits: build your own URL shortener to help your readers, build reliability, and promote your brand. URL shorteners have been around for a while, but have picked up notice in the 140 character Twitter world. But can you rely on the current providers to make their businesses work? Building your own service isn't that rough and makes your content easier to share, giving your users a gift that gives back twice or more as they pass your branded short url around.
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=163859
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This week, the Online Publishing Update, an e-mail newsletter from NAA that goes to our Digital Media Federation members, is being published here on the Digital Edge blog. The guest OPU editor is David Johnson, an associate professor at American University, who focuses on digital media and journalism. Thanks for reading.
Maureen Dowd Clips Talking Points Memo
A blogger at Talking Points Memo Cafe noted striking similarities between Maureen Dowd's Sunday column and a recent post by TPM editor Josh Marshall. Politico's Michael Calderone has both clips with the story story, and notes that Dowd's column online was updated and noted that the original Times piece lacked proper attribution after Dowd told the Huffington Post she hadn't read the original.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0509/Dowd_lifts_TPM_passage_updates_column.html?showall
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/thejoshuablog/2009/05/ny-times-maureen-dowd-plagiari.php?ref=fpd
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/17/maureen-dowd-admits-inadv_n_204418.html
Newsweek Seeks to Reinvent Itself
Launching a new Web site and new print edition (on news stands this morning), Newsweek is going niche. Instead of continuing as a general interest newsweekly, the new Newsweek seeks to attract a higher-end audience with a more opinionated publication. The Washington Post Company, which not only owns Newsweek but also Slate.com, is hoping that audience is the kind that will continue buying printed media. While a traditional newsweekly model's purpose has not survived in the Internet era, Newsweek's move is not a new frontier, but the territory of established brands like the Atlantic Monthly, The Economist and the New Yorker as well as upstarts including Tina Brown's online Daily Beast. It is also littered with casualties, such as Conde Nast's Portfolio.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/197888
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051702074.html
http://seekingalpha.com/article/137852-will-newsweek-s-reinvention-succeed?source=email
Sprint Sponsors Washington Post TimeSpace maps
Sprint has signed on to be the exclusive sponsor of the Washington Post's TimeSpace maps through the second quarter, starting with the most recent launch which offers the latest articles, photos, video and comentary on the economic crisis. MediaShift featured the "Web Ninjas" at the Post responsible for TimeSpace in an article earlier this year. Sprint will use the placement for its "Now Network" campaign, which is aimed at promoting the ability of the 3G network for real time information needs.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=106211
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/02/washington-posts-web-ninjas-build-map-timeline-combo047.html
ContentNext's Fine: Facebook Needs to Charge Developers Rent
Facebook's open API was launched as it opened its doors past the .edu domain and was clearly part of the skyrocket of success for the popular social media platform. But noted analyst Lauren Rich Fine says that strategy may make everyone else profitable while the host goes broke trying to make advertising work. Instead, she suggests that Facebook starts "charging rent" to be on the platform, taking a page from mobile carriers. This also fits with Jaiku founder Jyri Engeström's fifth principle of Web 2.0 success: "Work out a business model where you charge the publisher, not the spectators." Among the report's findings, more than $25.5 billion have been spent in social media M&A investment in the past 27 months.
http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=136700
http://www.smartbrief.com/news/aaaa/industryPR-detail.jsp?id=3C26AA41-EFC2-496B-B025-4A48B5E06C06
http://www.contentnext.com/
http://www.consumingexperience.com/2007/06/5-principles-for-web-20-success-jyri.html
Gannett's 'Tucson Citizen' goes Web only
The Tucson Citizen is ceasing print publication, but will continue publishing content on its Web site, according to the Gannett Co, which tried unsuccessfully to find a buyer for the oldest continuously published newspaper in Arizona. The Citizen is the fifth regional U.S. daily to close its print edition this year.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=106203
Banner Showdown: Super Skyscrapers and Medium Rectangles
The new monster 300 x 600 half-page skyscraper ad format recently lost in a side-by-side test against a lowly 250 x 300 medium rectangle ad according to the crunched numbers from an April Kohl's campaign. The larger ad got 30% more click-throughs per session, but the smaller unit converted more sales and consumers who clicked it stayed on the landing page longer.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=106196
Scribd Adds E-Commerce with 80 Percent of Revenue to Publishers
The Document sharing site Scribd is opening up beta tests of a new e-commerce platform that is in step with the Web's increasing moves towards direct creator-to-consumer content charging. While facing charges of text piracy from certain corridors, Scribd may be banking on devices like the Kindle and iPhone to make buying texts online a friendlier notion. Scribd is certainly friendly to publishers, though, offering content owners - who set their own prices - an 80 percent cut where even Amazon's revenue share model takes as much as 70 percent. Analysts like Mark McQueen were already predicting the democratizing Kindle could blow up book publishing's star system. If successful, Scribd could pour gasoline on the fire.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051701717.html
http://seekingalpha.com/article/137957-how-kindle-will-kill-the-book-star?source=email
Ten Ways the Internet Can't Replace Newspapers
Beth Teitell offers up a bit of (gallows) humor for the newspaper industry in her piece for the Boston Globe's Sunday magazine. If newspapers go away, what will you cut up for your ransom notes? How will you make papier mache for your kid's science projects? And just try lining your birdcage with a Kindle!
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2009/05/17/save_the_presses/?s_campaign=8315
New York Times Pay to Read Plans and the Paid Content Debate
John Kolbin's story in Friday's New York Observer about the New York Times' two possible plans for paid content schemes has sparked some heated discussion, but not quite a flame war. Jeff Jarvis jumped in right away on Buzz Machine and the twitterati expressed their dismay in 140 characters or less. Eric Pfanner added to the conversation yesterday with his Media Cache article in the Times saying "pay walls" alone will not save the industry, but are only a transitional step.
http://www.observer.com/2009/media/new-york-times-considering-two-plans-charge-content-web
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/05/15/tick-tick-tick/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/business/media/18iht-cache18.html?ref=business
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Last week in the Online Publishing Update*, I included this item:
The Digital Publishing Alliance, affiliated with the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, met Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the Digital Newsbooks Publishing Project, emerging opportunities in e-readers, netbooks and other mobile devices and more. Highlights included presentations on the future of e-reader technology, the pros and cons of publishing formats for digital newspaper editions and discussions about creating a newspaper e-reader consortium to develop editorial and advertising standards.
The executive summary and presentations from the DPA meeting should be posted online soon. (I'll update this blog entry when they are available.)
MediaShift Editor Mark Glaser kept a live blog of the meeting, including an in-depth discussion on whether newspapers should form a consortium to maximize the e-reader opportunity.
Like many emerging technologies, the standards - especially in ad sizes and formats - are basically nonexistent. John Forcucci, IT director of business solutions for Boston Globe (not speaking as a representative of his company), said newspapers should seize the opportunity not only to set those standards, but also to gain control over distribution of newspaper content on the devices.
MediaShift reported Forcucci had these questions: "What if we had a consortium? What kind of power would we have? We could build a brand new ad platform. Do we want to control that? Of course. There are two levels, a national consortium... We look at business models, revenue shares, how do we achieve a newspaper experience on these devices? And maybe there's a regional consortium that could talk to the national one."
This idea of forming a consortium may be one of the things that comes up this Wednesday in NAA's Webinar, "E-Readers and E-Revenue." Sarah Rotman Epps from Forrester Research and Derek Robinson from Cox Media Group will present.
New! The Detroit Newspaper Partnership, which will be launching an e-reader lease and subscription program later this year, has agreed to participate in this Webinar as well!
Here's the promo and the registration link for Wednesday's Webinar:
Newspapers are experimenting with e-reader companies including Amazon (Kindle), Plastic Logic and FirstPaper, but questions remain about the potential revenue and ROI that can come from these partnerships.
Learn about the risks and rewards of newspaper subscriptions on e-reader devices in this NAA Webinar at 3 p.m. (ET) Wednesday, May 13. This Webinar is free for NAA members!
More information on newspapers and e-readers is available at www.naa.org/e-readers.
Register here!
* The Online Publishing Update is a 3x/week e-mail newsletter for NAA members that focuses on digital media issues of particular interest to newspaper editors and executives. Want a copy? Join NAA's Digital Media Federation here.
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 Today's unveiling of Amazon's new
Kindle DX has generated headlines
across the country, with speculation focusing on how the new and significantly
larger version of the company's e-reader will impact the newspaper business.
In
an article that appeared in Monday's New
York Times, reporter Brad Stone wrote that, "Unlike tiny mobile phones and devices like the Kindle that
are made to display text from books, these new gadgets, with screens roughly the
size of a standard sheet of paper, could present much of the editorial and
advertising content of traditional periodicals in generally the same format as
they appear in print. And they might be a way to get readers to pay for those
periodicals - something they have been reluctant to do on the
Web."
How will the new Kindle and other
upcoming e-readers impact newspapers? NAA Senior Vice President of New Business
Development Randy Bennett provided
his own perspective this morning on Bloomberg Television.
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NAA Webinar: E-Readers and E-Revenue
3 p.m. Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Two recent projects have gotten a lot of traction here on the
Digital Edge blog at on NAA.org: Forrester Research's analysis on e-reader
opportunities and Cox Media Group's e-reader financial projections. To delve
deeper into both, NAA is hosting a Webinar with Sarah Rotman Epps of Forrester
Research and Derek Robinson of Cox Media Group.
The Webinar is at 3 p.m. next Wednesday, May 13. Registration is open now!
Here's the promo for the event:
Newspapers are experimenting with e-reader companies including
Amazon (Kindle), Plastic Logic and FirstPaper, but questions remain about the
potential revenue and ROI that can come from these partnerships. Learn about
the risks and rewards of newspaper subscriptions on e-reader devices in this
NAA Webinar at 3 p.m. Wednesday, May 13.
Speakers: Derek Robinson of Cox Media Group will discuss his financial
projections and analysis, and Sarah Rotman Epps will discuss her recent
research on e-reader opportunities for newspapers. More information on
newspapers and e-readers is available at www.naa.org/e-readers.
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