Finnish Internet Users are Most Avid Consumers of Online News article says that news and information sites capture a large proportion of the European on-line audience with 8 in 10 Internet users accessing one of these sites in September 2013. 338 million people visited a news or information website via a desktop or laptop during the month. 97 percent of Finnish Internet users visited a news site during the month, followed by Sweden and Norway.
I live in Finland. I have over several years pretty much converted my reading habits from printed magazines to on-line format. I used to read pretty much on printed magazines, and even been active writer to Prosessori and Tietokone print magazines. Things have changed. I have canceled pretty many printed publications I used to read. I have canceled the daily printed newspaper (I get it only on weekends) and I read my daily news on-line, most often on computer or smart phone. Some years ago I did not like e-book type flippy magazines but nowadays I have used to read many of professional magazines in that format.
I have to admit that the print magazine business is really changing from what it was some years ago. And it has caused problems to publishing companies.
Digital technology is reinventing our whole world, in service of you and me. It’s free enterprise on steroids. It’s bypassing the old gatekeepers. The digital revolution has completely changed the world of news. The media world has changed when all parties are on common ground on the Internet. Journalism is generally changed in the direction of a more critical. Users have changed, and they choose to participate. The consumers are organizing their use of media in a different way than before. Technology eventually mows down its forces of resistance. The mercantilists can only delay but never finally suppress the human longing for a better life.
Bold and Innovative article tells that there’s no doubt that in recent years the newspaper business has faced a punishing challenge that would be difficult for anyone to cope with. Readers have gravitated to computers and mobile devices. Display advertising has declined sharply (Newspaper Ad Revenues Fall to 60-Yr. Low in 2011). Classified ads have been eviscerated. Digital dollars have been hard to come by. The disruption has been enormous.
Digital ad revenues does not seem to be the solution for most publishers. This Is the Scariest Statistic About the Newspaper Business Today article tells that In 2012, newspapers lost $16 in print ads for every $1 earned in digital ads and it’s getting worse. The digital ad revolution, always “just around the corner”, seems to remain tantalizingly out of reach for most newspapers.
Programmatic Era Isn’t Benefiting Publishers article tells that real-time bidding is a great advertiser-centric concept; advertisers can bid what they want, based on their own parameters and audience targets. Yet for the sell-side (publishers), the picture has been less than rosy. The inconvenient truth is programmatic ad buying stems from an on-line advertising industry drowning in an ocean of available display impressions — 5 trillion were served in 2012. As the supply side of a massively imbalanced supply-demand equation, publishers have not come out on top.
Mag Bag: Record January For Magazine Web Sites article tells that digital audiences for magazines are growing fast, with big increases in consumption via apps and Web sites.
The promise of the Internet was that anyone with a keyboard and a connection could become a publisher and make tons of money. Like many promises rooted in theory, when it comes to practicality, things are quite different. Publishers Opt Out of the Pageview Rat Race article tells that the reality of the digital ad system is that scale still matters. Smaller publishers have the deck stacked against them. They’ll never get the traffic numbers brands and buyers want. And in the age of automated ad systems, finding large pools of specific audiences is easy — and cheap. For many small publishers, it all adds up to the need to take a different route. Smaller publishers can’t compete on a CPM basis. The pendulum is swinging for publishers that can convince brands that money is better spent on creating custom content and targeted messaging for these passionate audiences.
The digital revolution has already killed several well known old publications. Last year, Newsweek published its last print edition. Reader’s Digest Is Bankrupt as Iconic Magazine Falters article tells that RDA Holding Co., publisher of the 91-year-old Reader’s Digest magazine, filed for bankruptcy. And those are not just isolated incidents.
Innovate to adapt
Bold and Innovative article tells that the culture tied to the past and wary of innovation has only compounded the damage. Too often the response has been simply to cut, cut, cut. The result: a much weaker product trying to stay alive in a brutally competitive environment. For publishers whose businesses had evolved during the long day of print newspapers and magazines, the expansion of the Internet was terribly disorienting. The biggest risk is not rethinking business models. If newspapers are to survive in the digital age, they’ll need a bold, innovative, proactive approach. 4 pillars of media transformation article says that the print-vs.-digital debate seems almost trite by today’s increasingly complex media landscape.
State Of The News Media: Everything In Decline But Digital article tells that “State of the News Media” report offers a mostly pessimistic assessment of the condition and trajectory of various news media in the US today. In perhaps its most striking finding, the report shows how declining revenues leading to repeated cost-cutting have hurt readership and audience loyalty: slipping quality and diminished coverage have alienated large numbers of people who’ve abandoned news publications or outlets. Nearly one-third—31%—of people say they have deserted a particular news outlet because it no longer provides the news and information they had grown accustomed to. This applies to news media across the board, not just newspapers.
Call it “digital first” if you want, but today’s publishing imperative is really about distributing content wherever your audience wants it – on the web, through mobile devices, at events, or in print. You don’t necessarily need to focus exclusively on digital natives – but it helps. Adding outside talent can help to change your culture by infusing new ideas. Should staffs be integrated across print and digital? There’s no consensus on the best approach. Innovation must be supported by a structured format for vetting ideas, assigning resources, and managing projects as they evolve.
Wired switches leadership at Wired.com, underscoring the rise of digital media article tells that the Wired magazine is shifting to an integrated print and digital model. Ironically for such a forward-facing publication, Wired is a relative latecomer to this approach.
When a technology goes digital, it changes everything. For starters, the rate of technology improvement takes a new slope — transitioning from glacially slow to exponentially fast. Think about online search and how it changed the way we find information, how social media changed the way we receive news, and how electronic books and e-readers changed the way we buy books. When a technology goes digital, words like “library,” “newspaper,” and “bookstore” start to sound like relics of the past.
Digital publishing is also in constant transition. Coming to an e-book or car near you: the Web article tells that World Wide Web Consortium is now adapting Web technology for publishing industries to replace proprietary technologies used in e-readers. “The Web equals publishing” “There’s really no difference anymore.”
By helping others become competent communicators, legacy media make themselves stronger article tells that strengthening community competence and awareness is not only a good deed. It is a great business opportunity. And a relationship builder. No bond is stronger than the one you bind while learning together.
179 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Forbes is latest old media for sale – with help from the New York Times
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/18/forbes-magazine-for-sale-decline
Forbes used articles in the Times to help create an illusion of success. In fact, illusion is what Forbes has largely become
A week ago, Christine Haughney, who covers media for the New York Times, wrote a puff piece about Forbes magazine and its CEO Mike Perlis. The piece said that Perlis had saved Forbes, the almost 100-year-old business magazine, through the adroit ways he had adapted the print product to the digital age, including his aggressive push into “native advertising” – in Haughney’s casual explanation, “using journalistic content for marketing purposes”. (Among Haughney’s other insights: “Interviews with a half-dozen Forbes executives reveal that they find Mr Perlis’s approach refreshing.”)
“Some industry observers,” said Haughney, “have noted that Mr Perlis’s efforts are intended to position Forbes to be sold.” Perlis, however, Haughney rushed to say, “stressed” to her “that Forbes is not for sale”.
Five days later, Haughney wrote a piece saying that Forbes magazine was indeed for sale, precisely because Perlis had so transformed the company.
Forbes had clearly used the Times to help create an illusion. In fact, illusion is what the Forbes business had largely become. Forbes was once the business magazine of the high-trouser country-club set, a rock of free marketeering and bible of mid-size company executives, worth several billion dollars. Then, along with other business magazines after the dotcom crash, it began slipping. And slipping.
Forbes responded to this evident existential change in a different way than most of its peer group magazines, who went into a long period of denial.
While the magazine’s core business tanked, its traffic spiked, making it became one of the few traditional print properties to successfully push the illusion of its own transformation.
The Forbes business continued to decline, but its new business of desperation and shamelessness seemed to many like a little engine that could. It had created the illusion that in a world of endgame media it was an alternative, even a leader. Traditionally media might not survive, but that didn’t mean that, for the time being, you couldn’t yet milk it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Newspapers put together by one person ‘skimming online content’ – Montgomery outlines vision for Local World journalism
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/local-world-newspapers-will-be-put-together-one-person-skimming-online-content-monty-outlines
Chief executive of the Local World group David Montgomery today sent staff a 2,000-plus word explanation of how he sees the future role of the journalist in his group.
Sub-editors and editors are largely a thing of the past under Montgomery’s plan which will see police, hospitals, schools and businesses publish their content directly to the Local World websites.
Montgomery believes that new technology will allow weekly newspapers to be put together by one person in a “small number of sessions” by “skimming online content” and dailies will be created by a “handful” of office-based staff.
Montgomery today described the current role of the journalist as being “entrenched in the industrial age as a medium grade craft”.
He said that the Local World model will “migrate journalists a million miles away from this tradition…propelled by the technology that drives every other transactional business”.
Most content will be provided by “third party contributors” and the journalist, Montgomery said, “will have the task of providing attractive formats for this third party content in the first instance online and for constantly monitoring the content to instigate its promotion to a position of prominence”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Long on Cutting Edge of Print, New York Magazine Cuts Back
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/business/media/long-on-cutting-edge-of-print-new-york-magazine-cuts-back.html?pagewanted=all
Since its founding in 1968, New York magazine has served as a prototype of literate, high-tempo publishing, using its weekly cadence and location in one of the world’s cultural capitals to usher in a new, more intimate and frank approach to what a publication could be.
Using the tenets of so-called New Journalism, the magazine helped popularize the knowing, skeptical voices of writers including Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, Gloria Steinem and Nora Ephron. It was the birthplace of both Ms. Magazine and the concept of “radical chic.”
Now, this magazine that has been at the vanguard of Manhattan publishing for almost five decades is acknowledging that the cutting edge is not necessarily a lucrative, or sustainable proposition, at least on the same schedule.
Beginning in March, New York will retreat from its long-standing status as a weekly and come out every other week instead. Beginning in March, New York will retreat from its long-standing status as a weekly and come out every other week instead.
Along with the closing of the printed Newsweek and the planned spin-off of Time Inc., which includes the weeklies Time and People, the move to bi-weekly publishing represents the end of an era and underscores the dreary economics of print and its diminishing role in a future that’s already here.
The change will beget misty eyes from magazine geeks — myself among them — while other consumers will shrug and dive into the ever-changing web version of New York magazine that shows up in their browser.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Talentum to buy Tietokone managinse from Sanoma Magazines
Talentum buy Sanoma Magazines is owned computer magazine “Tietokone”.
The computer is integrated into the Talentum ICT family: Tietovikko, CIO and MPC.
“Iron-clad journalism serving the Computer Journal nicely complements Talentum supply. ” commented Talentum Magazine Business in Finland Tuomas Hämäläinen.
Tietokone has currently around 98 000 readers.
The Chief Editor will be Mikko Torikka.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/talentum+ostaa+tietokonelehden+sanoma+magazinesilta/a950540
Tomi says:
Journalists’ apology
12.16.2013 8:13 16
Pekka Pekkala
One of the hardest hit by the internet misunderstood phrases is ” information wants to be free” . Every wannabe hacker is able to defend the bittorrent latailuaan or pay online magazine circulation wall classic The formed words attributed to Stewart Brand .
The problem is that the phrase has been removed completely out of context . The whole idea of the brand begins with the words , that information wants to be expensive.
On the other hand production of information and in particular the publication on the Internet so cheap that a part of it becomes free.
Users can lie to themselves that they do not steal, because not belong to pay anything in the Internet pay.The content provider can bark while thieves users , who are not even worth to ask for compensation.
If one knows how to do the job who is just and nearly free, why it should pay the premium price?
A good example is journalism . If the magazine stories seem a matter of indifference , and they are found in roughly the same form all over elsewhere , does not belong to them to pay.
Journalists do not really envy . There is hardly any other profession has changed with the Internet as public and transparent as journalism .
For every story you entered is compared to every day tens or hundreds of other similar online publications. Thousands of journalists smarter people will find all of the errors and the conclusions of the fault .
What other work will have the same situation ?
Would you be willing to receive public feedback on each and every work task today over ?
But full contact with unknown people , every day.
Twitter, Facebook and blogs remind
Sure, the majority of journalism is in vain. But it is not the fault of journalists but producing companies . Their business models are based on the number of : a lot of pages , a lot of eyeballs , lots of ads.
The same pie as many channels and advertising display counter is to thank . Traditional media companies are competing brand theory at the end where made more and more cheaply.
Reader to journalists and their employers, the conflict between is easily affected : do not click on the junk and pay for the good stuff.
Source:
Journalistien puolustuspuhe
http://www.hs.fi/tekniikka/a1387160647749
Tomi Engdahl says:
If Time Inc wants to survive, it should create its own ad agency
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/16/time-inc-magazine-advertising-agency
In the Darwinian battle between media, an in-house, clever advertising agency could save the flailing business
Problem: media-buying agencies, which Time Inc depends on, barely sell print media anymore. The creative agencies that it must depend on to create compelling print ads don’t have people who write print ads anymore (or they’re only written by has-beens or novices).
Solution: Time should start an advertising agency. This wouldn’t just be editors reporting to publishers, as Time recently announced it will blur the historic divide between the two (in this theory, you get more ads if you suck up more). It’s building a business that can make great ads on paper – ads that belong in Time Inc titles.
Tomi Engdahl says:
In the Unverified Digital World, Are Journalists and Bloggers Equal?
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/03/24/130214/in-the-unverified-digital-world-are-journalists-and-bloggers-equal?
“As the source of news moves increasingly away from traditional channels to the millions of people carrying mobile phones and sharing commentary, photos and video on social networks, the distinction between journalists and bloggers has become increasingly blurred.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
23 March 2014, 1.07pm GMT
In the unverified digital world, are journalists and bloggers equal?
https://theconversation.com/in-the-unverified-digital-world-are-journalists-and-bloggers-equal-24702
Amongst the many challenges facing the field of journalism in the move from print to digital, the question of what distinguishes a journalist from a blogger has been a perennial one. This is not just an existential crisis for journalists contemplating their relevance in a digital age, it has real life ramifications as a recent libel case has highlighted.
Crystal Cox, a blogger, was sued for libel to the tune of US $2.5m
The subsequent appeal in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals however turned on whether Cox was entitled to be treated as a journalist under which circumstances, she might be protected.
“With the advent of the Internet and the decline of print and broadcast media… the line between the media and others who wish to comment on political and social issues becomes far more blurred.”
Journalists will attempt to use primary sources for information whereas bloggers “typically” may rely on secondary, or already published sources. The problem here is that as self-identified journalists have made the transition from daily print to continuous 24/7 online news, they themselves have had to learn what it actually means to report and comment on news in a digital world.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Verification Book
A definitive guide to verifying digital content for emergency coverage
http://verificationhandbook.com/
Authored by leading journalists from the BBC, Storyful, ABC, Digital First Media and other verification experts, the Verification Handbook is a groundbreaking new resource for journalists and aid providers. It provides the tools, techniques and step-by-step guidelines for how to deal with user-generated content (UGC) during emergencies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Exploitative Economics of Academic Publishing
http://betaboston.com/footnote/2014/05/06/the-exploitative-economics-of-academic-publishing/
Taxpayers in the United States spend $139 billion a year on scientific research, yet much of this research is inaccessible not only to the public, but also to other scientists.(a) This is the consequence of an exploitative scientific journal system that rewards academic publishers while punishing taxpayers, scientists, and universities. Fortunately, cheap open-access alternatives are not only possible, but already beginning to take root, suggesting a way forward to a more open and equitable system for sharing research.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google’s Legal Blow: What ‘the Right to Be Forgotten’ Means
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/05/13/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-eu-high-court-google-ruling/
The European Court of Justice on Tuesday ruled that individuals can ask Google Inc. to remove links to news articles, court judgments and other documents in search results for their name.
What’s the bottom line?
The court’s decision means that individuals can ask Google or other search operators to take down links to web pages that are published by third parties, such as newspapers, containing information relating to them. That doesn’t mean that the article or website has to be removed or altered by the original publisher. It would only affect search results compiled by search engine operators like Google.
Does this ruling apply all over the world or just within the EU?
It’s not yet clear. The ruling says that European data protection law is applicable as soon as a “data controller” like Google is operating in the European market.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Exclusive: New York Times Internal Report Painted Dire Digital Picture
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mylestanzer/exclusive-times-internal-report-painted-dire-digital-picture
“Our journalism advantage is shrinking,” a committee led by the publisher’s son warned. A call to get rid of the metaphor of “Church and State.”
A 96-page internal New York Times report, sent to top executives last month by a committee led by the publisher’s son and obtained by BuzzFeed, paints a dark picture of a newsroom struggling more dramatically than is immediately visible to adjust to the digital world, a newsroom that is hampered primarily by its own storied culture.
The report largely ignores legacy competitors and focuses on the new wave of digital companies, including First Look Media, Vox, Huffington Post, Business Insider, and BuzzFeed.
“They are ahead of us in building impressive support systems for digital journalists, and that gap will grow unless we quickly improve our capabilities,” the report warns. “Meanwhile, our journalism advantage is shrinking as more of these upstarts expand their newsrooms.”
“We are not moving with enough urgency,” it says.
A New York Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha says that this copy of the report is a draft and “not the final version” of the report presented to newsroom management.
The deep problems, the report says, are cultural, including a sense that the Times will simply serve as a destination — leading to a neglect of social promotion
“The newsroom is unanimous: we are focusing too much time and energy on Page One,” the report says.
Another problem: Most content is published online around evening print deadlines.
Also a central issue is “a cadre of editors who remain unfamiliar with the web.”
“Many desks lack editors who even know how to evaluate digital work,” the report says.
The report also details technical weaknesses in the paper’s backend: The lack of an organized system of tags to organize stories’ metadata
And it says the paper is unwilling to kill new digital features, like its international home page and “Scoop” app, that simply aren’t working.
Tomi Engdahl says:
An open letter to Eric Schmidt Why we fear Google
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/mathias-doepfner-s-open-letter-to-eric-schmidt-12900860.html
Here for the first time, a German manager confesses his company’s total dependence on Google. What publishers are experiencing today is a sign of things to come: We will soon all belong to Google. An open letter to Eric Schmidt.
In 2013, Google made a profit of fourteen billion dollars. I take my hat off to this outstanding entrepreneurial performance.
Google doesn’t need us. But we need Google
In your text you refer to the marketing cooperation between Google and Axel Springer. We were also happy with it. But some of our readers have now interpreted this to mean that Axel Springer is evidently schizophrenic. On the one hand, Axel Springer is part of a European antitrust action against Google, and is in dispute with them regarding the issue of enforcement of German ancillary copyright prohibiting the stealing of content; on the other hand, Axel Springer not only benefits from the traffic it receives via Google but from Google’s algorithm for marketing the remaining space in its online advertising. You can call it schizophrenic – or liberal. Or, to use one of our Federal Chancellor’s favorite phrases: there is no alternative.
We know of no alternative which could offer even partially comparable technological prerequisites for the automated marketing of advertising. And we cannot afford to give up this source of revenue because we desperately need the money for technological investments in the future. Which is why other publishers are increasingly doing the same. We also know of no alternative search engine which could maintain or increase our online reach. A large proportion of high quality journalistic media receives its traffic primarily via Google. In other areas, especially of a non-journalistic nature, customers find their way to suppliers almost exclusively though Google. This means, in plain language, that we – and many others – are dependent on Google. At the moment Google has a 91.2 percent search-engine market share in Germany.
In this case, the statement “if you don’t like Google, you can remove yourself from their listings and go elsewhere” is about as realistic as recommending to an opponent of nuclear power that he just stop using electricity.
Not only economic, but also political
We are afraid of Google. I must state this very clearly and frankly, because few of my colleagues dare do so publicly.
We believe that modern technology platforms, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, are even more powerful than most people realize (…), and what gives them power is their ability to grow – specifically, their speed to scale. Almost nothing, short of a biological virus, can scale as quickly, efficiently or aggressively as these technology platforms and this makes the people who build, control, and use them powerful too.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Eric Schmidt about the good things Google does A chance for growth
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/eric-schmidt-about-the-good-things-google-does-a-chance-for-growth-12887909.html
Why is everybody picking on our corporation, fueling the „fear of Google“? Why are they ignoring the chances? Google creates new possibilities for the cultural industry, for publishing houses and journalism. A long overdue response to all the critics.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The New York Times can’t abandon print—yet
It would immediately swing to a big loss
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/the_new_york_times_cant_abando.php?page=all#sthash.CBngClHj.dpuf
The NYT’s giant newsroom costs somewhere around $200 million a year, and its digital-only revenue from ads and subscriptions is now well above that, at more than $312 million in 2013. The Times also brings in money from its news service, digital archives, and conferences. Much of this $86 million in “other” revenue would survive the demise of print. Assuming it would all survive shutting off the presses, the NYT has roughly $400 million in non-print revenue.
Unfortunately, it also has $1.41 billion in operating costs beyond the newsroom, and printing the paper likely accounts for less than half of that.
The Times would go from an operating profit of $156 million to a loss of at least $150 million a year if it dropped the print paper.
The innovation report is convincing in its arguments that the NYT needs a digital-business realignment, particularly by letting the 600-strong reader-experience department from the business side interact with the newsroom. That’s a no-brainer.
But don’t forget that the Times has a large and growing digital business that focuses on core readers, and it exists right alongside a still-lucrative print business.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Management isn’t journalism’s strong suit
And running a newsroom is hard and getting harder
- See more at: http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/management_journalism_training_leadership.php#sthash.EwS8EM0E.dpuf
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Best-Kept Tech Secret Got Tank Man Images Out of China
Sony, Canon & tech journalists hushed news of first digital cameras
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1322623
History-shattering events happened 25 years ago this week. The Chinese government’s absolutely worst fear was happening.
However, the advent of digital technology was about to confuse China’s leaders on an unprecedented scale. For millennia, physical blockades and censorship kept secrets inside China. They did not know that digital camera technology and ordinary telephones were about to unleash the scale and scope of their very private citizen killings to the outside world.
Remember, this was an time before the Internet
There was no such thing as “online” in 1989.
Enter the brand new science of digital photography. Only Sony (in the lead) — and Canon — had very early (professional) digital camera systems which could use an analog phone line to transmit their megapixel images to a faraway location — in this case, a distant newspaper, news service, magazine, or TV news station. An analog modem was used to convert the picture — pixel by pixel
Chinese officials and soldiers were watching airports, sea terminals, trains, and boats to Hong Kong. The government order was that no film must escape. No camcorders or movie film. Nothing. Tourist cameras were opened and emptied. Videocassettes were seized. Anything the size or shape of a 35mm film canister was seized. Officials took no chances.
The leaders were completely unaware of the dozens of digital cameras capturing every citizen’s courage — and every government stumble and massacre.
“I’m going to appeal to you to not report the digital camera news we had here this week.”
“Too many lives are at stake.”
Sony and Canon were willing to forgo free publicity for the greater good. It was the opposite of traditional PR mandates.
Soon we all agreed that no news stories revealing the digital camera technologies of Sony, Canon, Casio, Kodak, and others were to be reported for now. No one was to write up how these “film” images were escaping Chinese censors and militia.
Digital camera technology was revealed later that summer of 1989.
By not doing our “jobs” that day, the world had changed. For the better.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet Media Industry Leaders
http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/industries/detail/internet-media?cmpid=taboola.industries
Tomi Engdahl says:
CloudFlare Teams Up With 15 NGOs To Protect Citizen Journalists And Activists From DDoS Attacks
http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/12/cloudflare-teams-up-with-15-ngos-to-protect-citizen-journalists-and-activists-from-ddos-attacks/
A lot of political speech now happens online, but that also makes it very vulnerable to DDoS attacks from those who don’t agree with a given viewpoint. Many of these sites are hosted by individual journalists (and citizen journalists, if you want to make that distinction) and artists, who likely don’t have the infrastructure and knowledge to protect themselves against these attacks.
To help keep these sites operating, online security and CDN service CloudFlare today announced Project Galileo, a partnership with 15 NGOs to help it identify and protect sites around the world that are under attack. These NGOs include the Access, ACUL, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Center for Democracy and Technology, Mozilla, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
“We had bullies censor important journalism because we didn’t recognize the importance of it,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wikipedia Strengthens Rules Against Undisclosed Editing
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/06/16/wikipedia-strengthens-rules-against-undisclosed-editing/
Beginning Monday, changes in Wikipedia’s terms of use will require anyone paid to edit articles to disclose that arrangement.
“we’re not an advertising service; we’re an encyclopedia.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook exec: I HATE the INTERNET and I REALLY hate journalism
This thing that I use to earn a living every day is full of sh*t!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/23/facebook_mike_hudack_kettle_calls_clickbait_pot_black/
Modern internet journalism is terrible and full of trivial clickbait designed for Facebook, says Mike Hudack, director of product management at, um, Facebook.
Of course, he didn’t quite phrase it like that.
“It’s hard to tell who’s to blame.” he writes “But someone should fix this shit.”
Yes, somebody should. But who might this “somebody” be? Facebook has done nothing to ameliorate the trends Hudack decries, and plenty to encourage them. Facebook profits enormously from encouraging lowbrow click-bait. Its entire revenue apparatus is designed around quantity, not quality.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Audiences Hate Hard News—And Love Pretending Otherwise
Ask readers what they want, and they’ll tell you vegetables. Watch them quietly, and they’ll mostly eat candy.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/news-kim-kardashian-kanye-west-benghazi/372906/
Why is it so important that digital news organizations track which articles you’re reading on our websites? The obvious answer is that it teaches us what you’re interested in. The less-obvious, but equally true, answer is that it teaches you what you’re interested in.
If we merely asked what you wanted, without measuring what you wanted, you’d just keep lying to us—and to yourself.
But despite Iraq’s prominent location on every major newspaper, the most-read stories on those papers’ websites aren’t about Iraq, at all.
Ask audiences what they want, and they’ll tell you vegetables. Watch them quietly, and they’ll mostly eat candy.
The culprit isn’t Millennials, or Facebook, or analytics software like Chartbeat. The problem is our brains. The more attention-starved we feel, the more we thirst for stimuli that are familiar.
The analytic age of journalism has its detractors, but with regard to serving our audience, it gets us closer than ever to that highest purpose of journalism: learning the ugly truth.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nostalgia and Newspapers
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2014/06/nostalgia-and-newspapering/
The most important fight in journalism today isn’t between short vs. long-form publications, or fast vs. thorough newsrooms, or even incumbents vs. start-ups. The most important fight is between realists and nostalgists.
Kushner was running a revival meeting for nostalgists: “The internet’s not such a big deal! Digital readers will pay rather than leave! Investing in print is just plain good business!”
That was some old-time religion right there. It was fun while it lasted, for people who miss the good old days. For people who do not miss the good old days, it was not fun.
“So how do we save print?”
I was speechless for a moment, then exploded, telling her that print was in terminal decline and that everyone in the class needed to understand this if they were thinking of journalism as a major or a profession.
The students were shocked — for many of them, it was the first time anyone had talked to them that way.
When you have an audience mostly made up of nostalgists, there’s not much market demand for unvarnished truth.
TRAURINGE fue die Trauung gefertigt vom Goldschmied aus Rotgold says:
I go to see daily some blogs and sites to read articles or
reviews, however this blog provides feature based writing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Print still matters, even if some would like to believe it shouldn’t
http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/06/print-still-matters-even-if-some-would-like-to-believe-it-shouldnt/
The future is digital, of course — but in the present, the revenues generated by print are absolutely critical to supporting local newsrooms. So it makes sense to pay attention to print strategy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Disruption is a dumb buzzword. It’s also an important concept
http://www.vox.com/2014/6/17/5817824/disruption-is-a-dumb-buzzword-its-also-an-important-concept
Jill Lepore isn’t a fan of Clay Christensen’s concept of disruptive innovation.
Lepore is right that the concept of disruptive innovation is often overused and even misused.
The “Innovator’s Dilemma” Dilemma
A disruptive innovation, as Christensen defined it, is a new technology that’s simpler, cheaper, and — at least initially — lower-quality than the one that came before it. Early PCs were a lot less powerful than the mainframes that were already on the market. Early news websites were markedly inferior to the New York Times. Yet the low cost of these technologies lowered the barrier to entry, permitting a faster pace of innovation. And so over time they’ve narrowed the gap with incumbent products. In many cases, disruptive firms have driven their older rivals into bankruptcy.
One of the big problems with the theory of disruptive innovation is that its originator, Clay Christensen, faced a conflict of interest that we might call the “Innovator’s Dilemma” Dilemma. In the introduction to his 1997 book, Christensen wrote that “colleagues who have read my academic papers reporting the findings recounted in chapters 1 through 4 were struck by their near-fatalism.” Over and over again, the book described how businesses tried and failed to cope with the problem of disruptive innovation
One of Lepore’s criticisms of Christensen is that his theory has a lousy track record for predicting how disruptive innovations evolve.
Journalism isn’t an industry but newspapers are
It’s true: journalism isn’t an industry.
t’s true that journalism is a profession that, like the practice of law or medicine, has obligations beyond the bottom line.
Credible news organizations deal with this dilemma by erecting a wall between the business and editorial sides of their organizations. The editorial team is given autonomy to report the news without regard to commercial considerations. It’s the job of the business team to figure out how to convert all those “eyeballs” into a profitable business.
Many newspapers still evaluate reporters by their ability to get stories on page A1 of the print newspaper rather than on their success at generating web traffic in the mistaken belief that it’s unethical to try to write stories that a lot of people want to read. Newspaper journalists believe in a strict separation between the news and opinion sections of the newspaper, but this is less an ethical principle than a business strategy that made more sense for a monopoly print product than in the competitive online news business.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mozilla to Develop Comments Platform With New York Times and Washington Post
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/business/media/new-york-times-and-washington-post-to-develop-platform-for-readers-contributions.html?_r=0
The New York Times and The Washington Post announced on Thursday that they had teamed up with Mozilla to develop a new platform to better manage their readers’ online comments and contributions.
The platform will be supported by a grant of roughly $3.9 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which promotes innovation in journalism.
Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox web browser and a nonprofit that works for open standards on the web, will help The Times and The Post build the technology for a platform tailored to news organizations. The platform, which will take approximately two years to complete, will eventually be available for other news organization to download free.
“Everyone’s been talking for years about using the web in a better way without cheapening content, but simply adding a post by ‘anonymous’ is not a way to maintain the journalistic quality of any publication,” said Alberto Ibargüen, Knight’s chief executive. “There was a need to find a way to engage the audience in a way that enhances discussion.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Social media users are going mobile; Classical online media usage is declining
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Computer_Systems/Standalone_Mobile/Social_media_users_are_going_mobile_Classical_online_media_usage_is_declining.aspx#.U6PVvkBklG0
Mobile devices play an increasingly huge role in our everyday media consumption, and social networking was one of the first activities to become mobile-first. According to the infographic above from online statistics portal statista.com, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter are used almost exclusively on mobile devices in the U.S., while Facebook usage is more evenly distributed across devices.
According to a recent report published by eMarketer, time spent on digital media use among U.S. adults surpassed time spent with TV for the first time in the last year. Time spent on smartphones and tablets in the U.S. is predicted to jump to 23.2% by the end of 2014. Statistics show that mobile has become so popular that the classical online media usage has been on the decline since 2012.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rather Than Opt-Out Of Google, German News Publishers Demand 11% Cut Of Revenue
http://searchengineland.com/german-news-wants-google-to-pay-194719
German news publishers are picking up where the Belgians left off, a now not-so-proud tradition of suing Google for being included in its listings rather than choosing to opt-out. This time, the publishers want an 11% cut of Google’s revenue related to them being listed.
The news comes from Jeff Jarvis, who writes that a group representing about half the major news publishers in Germany have a started an arbitration process demanding that Google pay 11% of revenue related to listing links to and descriptions of their content.
The actual suit (in German) from the VG Media industry group is here, which demands up to 11% of all gross sales worldwide (plus VAT!) of revenue related to its content, as of August 1, 2013.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NYT’s content management system Scoop manages 700 articles, 600 images, and 50 videos a day :
Scoop: A Glimpse Into the NYTimes CMS
By LUKE VNENCHAK
June 17, 2014 2:15 pm
http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/scoop-a-glimpse-into-the-nytimes-cms/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
You know the importance of technology to the future of journalism has become a widely accepted fact when a prominent editor decides to join a new company because of its content management system.
You know the importance of technology to the future of journalism has become a widely accepted fact when a prominent editor decides to join a new company because of its content management system.
What is Scoop?
Scoop (not to be confused with our mobile listings app, The Scoop) is The New York Times’s homegrown digital and (soon-to-be) print CMS. (We also use WordPress for many of our blogs.)
The vision for Scoop has evolved over the years. The beauty of a homegrown CMS is that we can shape its features and technology over time.
Perhaps the biggest change has been the reversal of our publishing process. The original idea was that articles would be written in the Microsoft Word-based print system, CCI, and then sent to Scoop, where a web producer would add multimedia, tag the content and publish it on NYTimes.com. Today, instead of writing articles in CCI and then sending them to Scoop, our journalists can create articles in Scoop and publish to web and mobile first before sending them to CCI for the print newspaper. We call this change “Digital First” — a multiyear project that will make Scoop the primary CMS for both print and digital by 2015.
It’s a powerful system, custom-built for the needs of a 24/7 print, web and mobile news organization. Scoop publishes roughly 700 articles, 600 images, 14 slide shows and 50 videos per day.
Scoop is role-based to reflect the segmentation of duties and the checks and balances in our newsroom. Managing that complexity — making the system as easy to use as possible without diminishing its features and functionality — is a balancing act we face every day.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Explores A Unified CMS And Publisher Ad Platform
http://www.adexchanger.com/publishers/google-explores-a-unified-cms-and-publisher-ad-platform/
Google is developing a content management system (CMS) that would unify editorial, advertising and perhaps commerce activities for media companies, AdExchanger has learned.
Beginning in 2013 Google started talks with some big publishers about offering software to help manage content and advertising in a holistic way, multiple sources said.
Google’s CMS plans are at a very early stage. While discussions with some publishers began last year, no one commenting for this story has seen a demo or screenshot. But according to one source, the idea is more than conceptual. “It’s past the whiteboard phase,” this person said.
The so-far-untapped opportunity that Google is chasing – articulated with greater frequency this year in ad tech circles – is to take a holistic approach to managing yield that spans multiple publisher revenue sources and screen form factors. This trend has accelerated with the rise of mobile and the resulting decline in screen real estate. With less space to serve ads and content, each decision matters more. In light of this trend, some believe content tech and ad tech systems are likely to merge over time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gartner Rolls Out Digital Marketing Transit Map
http://www.adexchanger.com/data-exchanges/gartner-rolls-out-digital-marketing-transit-map/
In what ways do the various components of digital marketing intersect and how can a company use that knowledge to its advantage? Gartner asked itself those questions and came up with the “Digital Marketing Transit” map, which resembles the map of the London Underground, with color-coded routes bearing names like mobility, analytics, and ad tech snaking out of the “Digital Marketing Hub.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Every digital trailblazer needs a reliable map
http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/digital-marketing/transit-map.jsp?prm=gml-tm-a
The digital landscape covers a wide, complex territory. To plan and manage technology effectively, digital marketers need to understand the inherent relationships between diverse operational areas, applications, technologies and vendors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Journalists increasingly under fire from hackers, Google researchers show
21 out of 25 top news organizations hit by state-sponsored attacks.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/03/journalists-increasingly-under-fire-from-hackers-google-researchers-show/
Tomi Engdahl says:
German publishers want an 11 percent cut of Google News
Street View, copyright, a “right to be forgotten”—Europe and Google have issues.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/german-publishers-want-an-11-percent-cut-of-google-news/
Several of Germany’s largest newspaper and magazine publishers have instituted legal proceedings against Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. They’re seeking an order that would make the search engines pay them an 11 percent portion of their “gross sales, including foreign sales” that come “directly and indirectly from making excerpts from online newspapers and magazines public.” That’s according to new media pundit Jeff Jarvis, who published a blog post this morning calling the demands “as absurd as they are cynical and dangerous” and part of a German “war on the link.”
The German companies that instigated the arbitration against Google include Axel Springer, Burda, WAZ, the Müncher Merkur. Other major publishers have chosen not to participate, including Spiegel Online, Handelsblatt, Sueddeutsche.de, Stern.de and Focus.
Germany in particular has been historically resistant to some of Google’s products.
European publishers have had a more contentious relationship with Google than their American counterparts for years now.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is time spent a better metric than pageviews? Upworthy says it is, and open-sources its code for attention minutes
http://gigaom.com/2014/06/23/is-time-spent-a-better-metric-than-pageviews-upworthy-says-it-is-and-open-sources-its-code-for-attention-minutes/
Both digital publishers and advertisers are trying to come up with a more accurate way of measuring the value of a reader than just raw pageviews or uniques. Upworthy says its “attention minutes” metric is better, and it has opened up the code for anyone to use
Tomi Engdahl says:
A 16-year-old made a plugin that reveals where politicians get their cash
http://www.dailydot.com/politics/greenhouse-browser-plugin-political-donations/
In the volatile political landscape of the United States, getting a straight answer out of a politician is virtually impossible, so don’t expect even the most trustworthy elected official to talk about who is stuffing their campaign coffers. If you want that information, you could spend the next week poking around on campaign finance websites, or you could just install Greenhouse, a browser plugin crafted by a kid who can’t even vote yet. Its creator, 16-year-old Nicholas Rubin, is helping add some much needed transparency to the folks bankrolling the U.S. political machine.
After installing the plugin on Chrome, Safari, or Firefox, Greenhouse will highlight the names of any members of Congress no matter what webpage you’re on. When you hover your mouse of the highlighted name, a list pops up showing the elected official, their political affiliation and state, and a full list of their biggest contributors, as well as dollar amounts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon accused of ‘bullying’ smaller UK publishers
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27994314
Amazon is facing a battle with UK publishers as it seeks to secure more advantageous terms in its latest round of contract negotiations.
The web giant wants the right to print books itself if publishers fail to provide adequate stock, and wants publishers to match any pricing deals it offers to other distributers.
One mid-sized firm accused Amazon of “bullying,” and warned that the company was destroying the industry.
Amazon has not commented on the issue.
Tomi Engdahl says:
French Senate passes anti-Amazon amendment
Free shipping with discounting banned in la Cinquième République
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/27/french_senate_passes_antiamazon_amendment/
France’s Senate has passed an amendment to the “Lang Law”, a 1981 statute fixing the price of books, to prohibit online booksellers offering discounting and shipping books for free.
Yesterday, France’s Sénat did likewise, meaning the bill is now only a stroke of President François Hollande’s pen away from becoming law.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon offers Blighty’s publishing industry ‘assisted suicide’
Do you see a pattern here?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/27/amazon_offers_publishing_industry_assisted_suicide/
Amazon wants to dictate book prices, and even print copies of publishers’ books itself, a report in trade mag Bookseller suggests. UK publishers are, we’re told, none too happy.
Over in the US, Amazon is already locked in battle with Hachette, the first publisher whose terms with Amazon are coming up for renegotiation: Amazon has stopped taking preorders for Hachette titles, citing delivery times of weeks or months. It’s also kneecapped German publisher Bonnier Media the same way, prompting a complaint to the German competition authority.
We’re told the new contracts demand payment for strong placement on the website, and Amazon also wants to dictate the price for the books industry-wide by forbidding suppliers from offering rival retailers lower prices.
Publishers are on watch by competition authorities for five years following the settlement of the Apple e-book price-fixing case.
Mahalia says:
I like it whenever people get together and share views.
Great site, keep it up!
Sabina says:
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your posts! Carry on the superb work!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Just days before HOPE Number Nine, John Huntington released a self-published version of his book, Show Networks and Control Systems. Several months before, his publisher had decided that they were not interested in an update after three successful editions, so Huntington got his publishing rights back and did a whole new edition himself using Amazon’s Createspace for printed copies and Kindle for e-books. And it’s been a success – Huntington has made far more money self publishing this one edition than the royalties on all three of the previous editions with the publisher combined. More importantly, he has had a far higher level of engagement with his readers, and has been able to do things he never could have done with the publisher, like putting free lecture videos for each chapter on his website, or giving copies away
Source: http://controlgeek.net/blog/2014/6/30/my-self-publishing-talk-at-hope-x
Tomi Engdahl says:
AP Using Robots For Journalism Starting In July
The Associated Press announced Monday that it will begin using automated technology to write company earnings reports next month.
The AP will be teaming up with Automated Insights, a North Carolina-based tech company that uses algorithms to turn raw data into stories that look like human writing.
This isn’t the first time the AP will be using the automated technology from AI. Last football season, the media organization introduced an automated NFL player ranking that includes automated text descriptions of player performances.
Read more: http://www.benzinga.com/news/14/06/4672045/ap-using-robots-for-journalism-starting-in-july#ixzz36DEiPDkE
Tomi Engdahl says:
Welcome: Our website is now open to the world
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/blogcollegeofjournalism/posts/Welcome-Our-website-is-now-open-to-the-world
When the BBC College of Journalism website was first launched it was designed for and aimed at a purely internal BBC audience.
The College wanted to support its programme of formal training by encouraging some of the best journalists in the newsroom to share their knowledge and experience with as many colleagues as possible.
It soon became obvious that the quality of the content on the site, from journalists like Allan Little, Evan Davies and Nick Robinson, deserved a wider audience. So while the editorial focus remained clearly on BBC journalism and how our journalists did their jobs, we opened the site up first to a UK audience, then to an international one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thanks To “Right To Be Forgotten,” Google Now Censors The Press In The EU
http://marketingland.com/eu-right-to-be-forgotten-censorship-89783
The EU’s Right To Be Forgotten removals have been happening for about a week on Google, and now news publications are discovering the fallout. For some searches, you can’t find their news stories relating to certain people.
In particular, both the BBC and the Guardian have shared examples of content that’s now been “forgotten” in Google.
Johne404 says:
Great article post.Really thank you! Fantastic.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google reverses decision to delete British newspaper links
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/03/us-google-searches-idUSKBN0F82L920140703
(Reuters) – Google Inc GOOGL.O GOOG.O on Thursday reversed its decision to remove several links to stories in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, underscoring the difficulty the search engine is having implementing Europe’s “right to be forgotten” ruling.
The Guardian protested the removal of its stories
The incidents underscore the uncertainty around how Google intends to adhere to a May European court ruling that gave its citizens the “right to be forgotten:” to request the scrubbing of links to articles that pop up under a name search.
Privacy advocates say the backlash around press censorship highlight the potential dangers of the ruling and its unwieldiness in practice.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The EU’s “right to be forgotten” is a bad idea, and Google is handling it exactly the right way
http://gigaom.com/2014/07/03/the-eus-right-to-be-forgotten-is-a-bad-idea-and-google-is-handling-it-exactly-the-right-way/
Google is telling British media companies that it has removed articles from its index as a result of an EU decision on “the right to be forgotten.” Critics say the company is deliberately over-reacting, but it is just doing what it can to call attention to a bad law.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Leia Media has developed a new concept for Journal houses. In the publishing houses generating content for the cloud, where the company transfers it to the reader e-paper. The unique discovery has sparked a lot of interest around the world.
- E-paper is very simple. The reader will get an e-paperilleen every morning at six daily newspapers bluetooth connection. E-paper does not need software updates or electricity. It works at room lamps or natural light by means of e-paper at the back of the light through the cell, Leia Media R & D Director Valtteri Halla explained.
In 2012, established Leia Media’s innovation is currently being tested in Helsingin Sanomat in the pilot, with 60 Finnish families around the use of e-paper Helsingin Sanomat newspaper reading.
- About two-thirds of newspaper publishers and distribution costs go on weight. These costs will be completely removed the e-paper. Also, the e-paper of environmental emissions are significantly lower than those in the printed newspaper, Frost says.
World newspapers are wrestling with financial problems
There is long-standing challenge of digital content translation into profitable business.
- In North America, has long sought a solution to problems magazine publishers
Source: http://www.goodnewsfinland.fi/arkisto/uutiset/leia-media-kehitti-ekologisen-e-paperin/