Monthly Archives: October 2008

How do you react to the threat of a substitute technology? Jettison the fluff.

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Philip Meyer, author of the Vanishing Newspaper, is at it again, making a compelling point for the role of investigative journalism and original research in newspapers’ survival:

One of the rules of thumb for coping with substitute technology is to narrow your focus to the area that is the least vulnerable to substitution. Michael Porter included it in his list of six strategies in his book “Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.” The railroads survived the threat from trucks on Interstate highways and airlines by focusing on the one thing they could still do better: moving bulk cargo across long distances. Continue reading →

When retailers and consumers move into social media, news should surely follow

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Stat of the day comes from Cone (I’m sure there’s a fascinating reason for that name):

Sixty percent of Americans use social media, and of those, 59 percent interact with companies on social media Web sites. One in four interacts more than once per week.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, 93 percent of social media users “believe a company should have a presence in social media”. “56 percent of users feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment.”

But it’s MediaPost’s Research Brief that complements this with something more interesting for me:

Data from an August 2008 survey of Web merchants, sponsored by Internet Retailer, found that, of the 39.3% of retail respondents that use social networks, 32% have a page on Facebook, 27% on MySpace and 26% on YouTube.

So a significant proportion of retailers are moving into social media, consumers want more, and the trend continues.

Now, what should news organisations be doing again?

Citizen journalism returns, but is it making the same mistakes? AllVoices tours the UK

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A few months ago I had a call from someone representing new citizen journalism startup AllVoices. “Oh great,” I thought. “Yet another cit-journo outfit scouting for student journalists to populate their pages with free content.”

The (cold) caller didn’t inspire me with confidence. They clearly knew nothing of me or the course; they spoke of content being ‘visible to the world’ – as if blogs hadn’t been invented. And the site made me spit feathers: “The first open media site where anyone can report from anywhere,” it boasted – the biggest piece of bullshit I’ve seen all year.  Continue reading →

Lessons from Digg in news community and crowdsourcing

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Mashable has a very lengthy but equally illuminating overview of social bookmarking site Digg, following the service’s decision to ban many of its biggest users. It’s essential reading for anyone involved in reader communities and user generated content. Here are some of the highlights:

Users quickly realized that one way to get diggs for their submitted stories was to make someone your Friend and consistently digg that person’s stories. Reciprocal diggs would usually follow. Continue reading →

If the economy of the web forces us all to cut our cloth accordingly, the list of job requirements will go further than that…

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By Rick Waghorn: (My thanks to Paul for this opportunity to ‘cross-post’; this is from OutWithABang yesterday… http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=153 – I have to say being granted access to someone else’s blog is very weird; it’s like tip-toeing through someone else’s bedroom… Anyway, we digress.)

Much has already been made of the Daily Express’ decision to slash away at its cost base by asking its reporters to place their stories on the pages themselves – in an instant wiping out the sub-editors’ craft.

Self-written, self-subbed pages – that’s the future, say the suits. Before introducing the nice man from Sweden whose new, multi-platform CMS system can make it all happen…

Clearly what’s good enough for Richard Desmond is good enough for the Epping Forest Gazette – and, indeed, reportedly the Welwyn & Hatfield Times as Archant mirrors Newsquest’s thinking in multi-skilling and multi-tasking their local news reporters for this new digital world.

What’s interesting is the job descriptions that follow in technology’s wake; there are 300 journalists across the Midlands already applying for a job with the word ‘multi’ well to the fore… many, many more will be asked to follow suit as the suits upstairs desperately seek to match revenue to editorial process. Continue reading →

Don’t make them disappear

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Bas Timmers on the problems with updating on the web.

Imagine this: you read an exclusive breaking news article on a website that says Gordon Brown is about to resign voluntarily. An hour later you come back to that same site, same article, but it now tells you David Miliband is about to step down after an argument with Brown. What to believe now? Continue reading →

Define blogging without mentioning technology

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What is blogging? Time was you could simply say: “writing a blog”, but now? I wonder whether the genre has outgrown the platform, with the likes of Seesmic, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Delicious providing new spaces for ‘things we used to blog’ (any more you can think of?).

As I write a book and ask myself this question I wonder: can you define blogging without mentioning technology? Personal? Open? Linked? I’d love to know your thoughts.