December 2010
43 posts
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bijan sabet: Your Tumblr reach is likely bigger... →
This is not a problem unique to Tumblr. Social media is redefining reach and metrics have yet to catch up. Again, I think back to when Tumblr’s Mark Coatney was trying to explain to the Times that the engagement of a Tumblr follower is higher than the engagement of a Twitter follower. He had a hard time using standard metrics to prove his point. But I agree with Bijan, Tumblr’s...
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WatchChirpstory joins the ranks of Storify and ScribbleLive as a third party publication tool that helps publishers assemble content out of curated Tweets, photos, and other social media. The big difference between Chirpstory and the other two is that Chirpstory has tied its fate directly to Twitter, which ultimately could backfire.
The advent of these types of third party tools are the first forays...
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Relaunched HuffPo app brings two big 2011...
In light of the relaunch of the Huffington Post iPad app, two, perhaps obvious, questions about 2011 pop immediately to mind:
1) Much has been made about the iPadificaiton of Web design. What about the iPadification of Web content? It’s no secret that the Huffington Post has been aggressively poaching high profile editors in their pursuit of quality original content. Will the iPad and other...
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“Clay [Shirky’s] prediction assumes that news consumption will continue its...”
– Scott Karp, Nieman Journalism Lab (via futurejournalismproject), disagrees with Clay Shirky’s prediction for 2011, too.
In so many words, Karp agrees, 2011 will be the year of the reader, as publishers gravitate toward tablets, which are better then the “desktop web” at...
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“One of the more insightful blog posts of the last few months was one where Max...”
– Looking for a co-conspirator (via greglinch)
His conclusion:
As news organizations with legacy Java ECMS systems from the 90’s begin to look towards the future, and as college newsrooms continue to adapt to the web and new business models, I think the time is right for a new...
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“The problem with journalism on the Web today is that it’s being...”
– Mike McCue, Founder & CEO of Flipboard, speaking to the LA Times about his goals for the social magazine iPad app. (via futurejournalismproject)
McCue wants a fresh start—and he thinks the iPad gives it to him. When he says, “Let’s leverage the power of the Web—don’t get rid...
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D-Day: January 17 →
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“Now the big-money offers come from a newer competitive set — HuffPo, Bloomberg,...”
– NY Times Editor Bill Killer talking about the loss of Tim O’Brien, Dexter Filkins and David Shipley, to John Koblin.
Pardon the expression? Suddenly? It may represent … ?
Oh, burned.
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“I have no idea how this is going to work”
– Emily M. Olson, the managing editor of The Register Citizen, a small newspaper in Torrington, Connecticut, tells The New York Times.
Her paper is undergoing a radical reinvention. Its staff of 10 has thrown open the paper’s doors to the public and invited them in.
The idea of the cafe,...
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WatchThese are funny, but … NBC is running a preroll ad on it. They’re running an ad on an ad. Nice.
-saturdaynightlive:
SNL Promo #1 - Jeff Bridges/Eminem & Lil Wayne
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Coming soon to journalism: Matt Thompson sees the... →
Worst part of reporting and best use of interns: Transcription. I’m sure there are a lot of journalists out there, both old and young, that would love to see this kind of technology mature.
drewvigal:
As Matt describes, Google Transcribe isn’t too far away. Just check out this Automatic Captions in YouTube Demo. In addition, SpeakerText looks promising.
But if you’re need something that...
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Introducing the Sicha Ratio: "We have such... →
There’s income, and there’s traffic, and that’s about it. But neither of those take into account burn rate, overall expenditure or organization size, just for starters. One way to look at things might be: unique visitors per month, divided by employees.
I agree! But who is the audience for this type of metric? Investors? I guess advertisers would be tangentially interested in...
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“The guys in New York don’t know the new media. San Francisco takes more risks as...”
– Larry Kramer (via soupsoup)
You can take the man out of New York, but you can’t New York out of the man. That is patronizing in a way only a native New Yorker could pull off.
That being said, this is the third time in two days where someone who’s been there, done that is suggesting...
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Shirky's prediction for 2011 is surprisingly off,...
I’m a big fan of Clay Shirky. So I have to say I was baffled by his prediction for 2011. He predicts that syndication models are going to be disrupted by middlemen such as Google and the Jeff Jarvis-led masses who engage in linkage that differentiates between the original source of content and the poseurs.
“If Reuters has the best version,” he writes, “why shouldn’t people...
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Is it a sign?
This quote from O’Reilly sounds an awful like the one the president of the Atlantic Media Company gave to the Times.
futurejournalismproject:
“Many existing publishers will go out of business, yes, but that was happening before the digital revolution, as part of the ongoing ‘creative destruction’ of capitalism. To adapt, publishers need to cannibalize their own business, experimenting with...
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“We imagined ourselves as a venture-capital-backed start-up in Silicon Valley...”
– Justin B. Smith, president of the Atlantic Media Company, on how the Atlantic was able to turn a profit for the first time in 10 years.
It was hard to choose a quote from this article. The thought process behind the transformation of The Atlantic is so spot on, its leadership should teach a master...
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“It’s hard to believe that in 2010 some traditional journalists are still...”
– Elizabeth Spiers expressing shock at comments (quoted below) made by Columbia J-School dean Nick Lemann to David Carr.
“People from the digital world are always saying we don’t need journalists at all because information is everywhere and there in no barrier to entry,” said Nicholas Lemann, ...
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“We have not been big believers in paywalls. Paywalls in name alone connote a...”
– Duncan McIntosh, president of Duncan McIntosh Company, Inc. (DMC), which publishes Editor & Publisher, on the decision to take down the site’s paywall.
It’s as good a reason as any, no?
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“It’s a lot more fun facing challenges related and problems related to growth and...”
– Groupon Managing Editor Brandon Copple explains why he likes his work at the fast-growing startup better than the work he did under the same title at Crain’s Chicago Business.
Touché.
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“Social media can’t belong to one person; it needs to be part of everyone’s job....”
– NY Times Social Media Editor Jennifer Preston explains why her position is being eliminated.
Amen.
I guess this is what progress looks like:
“At the beginning there was some resistance among my colleagues about using these tools,” Preston said. “What did I hear at the very beginning? ‘Twitter...
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Defining 'Transmedia' →
Called Mirada, the new company “will look beyond what the market is doing right now to where it will be in 10 years,” Mr. del Toro said. He means that Mirada will house all of the tools that filmmakers need to create entertainment that lives partly on the Web, partly in movie theaters, partly in video games – so-called transmedia – under one roof.
Ambitious … coinage.
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A small, yet telling moment in Web vs. iPad design
From a post on NYTimes.com’s Open blog about designing and developing election results pages for the Web and the iPad:
Early on in the design process, Graphics Editor Shan Carter developed election results mock-ups that attempted to unify the web and iPad experiences. Ultimately, we decided that these designs sacrificed the desktop browser presentation. So we began building out the...
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VC Fred Wilson recommends "We Are NY Tech" →
Unlike silly lists like the Business Insider “Coolest 100 People” which is bullshit and I hate it and wish they would stop putting out nonsense like that, We Are NY Tech is democratic, wonderful to look at and read, and is exactly the kind of service we need in NYC to identify who is who and who is doing what and why.
Oh, snap.
UPDATE: Apparently, he delivers money AND...
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“One binary that might actually be relevant in that regard, Christakis suggested:...”
– Nicholas Christakis on the networked nature of Twitter » Nieman Journalism Lab
In a couple years, once advertisers figure out how to quantify it, your CPM will be determined by how easily you can lead your audience by the nose. Begin taking appropriate steps now.
(via conky)
This reminds...
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A reminder that so much of the business of...
BI’s The Wire does a rundown of how NYTimes Co. was able to rescue itself from potential financial ruin. Here’s their list of crisis-saving measures:
Significantly reduced annual costs.
Increased circulation revenue.
Eliminated the dividend.
Raised cash by selling non-core assets, including the gleaming Times Square headquarters.
Restructured and reduced debts.
Reduced...
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NYO's biggest media launch of 2010 doesn't... →
If you guessed Dan Abrams’ Mary Sue, you’re right! I kid.
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“When spiders from Google or Bing or whatever pay sites a visit, they don’t send...”
– Terry Heaton responds to my earlier post and makes some strong points like this one:
“Display advertising is not, nor will it ever be, the driver of Web advertising. It’s designed for a one-to-many display, and the Web is a constant, real time two-way connection.”
I don’t...
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The reports of the death of blogs have been...
futurejournalismproject:
“When I first read Nick Denton’s apologetic for moving away from the blog format for his Gawker empire, I thought I’d misread the whole thing… …Denton is a smart fellow, but I think he’s made a decision that will ultimately cost him, for in turning his whole online bloggy magazine consortium into one, giant traditional media display, he’s assumed the role of disrupted...
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Cue the banjo plucking
soupsoup:
“Jobs isn’t the only one who may want to stick it to the Times. The Gray Lady is Murdoch’s longtime bête noir, and just as he targeted it with his “Greater New York” section in The Wall Street Journal, he’s apparently trying to wound it with The Daily as well: We hear brass at the tablet newspaper have been trying to poach a few key staffers from the Times and have succeeded in stealing...
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“I think the era of people who ‘get it’ and ‘don’t get...”
– Paul Ford, formerly the Web editor of Harper’s and more recently an iPad consultant to Condé Nast, talks about The Daily staff.
Since nobody would talk to Nick Summers on the record, we don’t know if the staff of The Daily gets it or just wants to get paid. His story does hold one...
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“It’s not nostalgia. I dream about [The New York Observer]. I miss it...”
– Peter Kaplan, ex-editor of the Observer and, full disclosure, my former boss.
I think even Peter knows that’s not true. Plenty of people miss yesterday’s newspaper—especially the Observer. Perhaps too many. Although his point of living in the “ever-changing present” is well...
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This is not another post about Gawker or Felix...
Deep within the Felix Salmon piece on Gawker Media (Wait! Keep reading. I don’t dwell.) he explores the viability of Gawker as a technology company, focusing primarily on its content management system. While he dismisses the notion after a couple of paragraphs—noting the technical problems Gawker has had in the past—there is a lot of wisdom in the question itself: Should media companies like...
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Felix Salmon on what Gawker's Batty is up to next
Lots to chew over in the Felix Salmon piece on the Gawker split. Another part that stuck out to me was this:
Advertising which is so good it’s even more attractive to readers than the editorial content? Gawker Media got there at times, and that it did so is one of Batty’s crowning achievements. I look forward to his next venture, which will be partially bankrolled by Gawker Media, and which I...
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Tired of Nick Denton? Sorry. →
Say what you will about Gawker and Nick Denton—god knows they’ve gotten enough good and bad publicity over the last year to nauseate even the most casual media observer—but this post about the future of Gawker is the smartest dissection of a website’s traffic, information architecture, and purpose I have read by a publisher—perhaps ever.
What I respect most is that his argument for...