tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91077712024-03-08T07:18:22.562+11:00Hugh Martinhmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.comBlogger398125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-62837067613031056502020-09-08T14:32:00.003+10:002020-09-08T14:34:40.803+10:00Australian Media Landscape Trends<p>Some updated numbers and a reminder of history, for anyone who missed it.</p><p>Commissioned by Google, <a href="https://alphabeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/australian-media-landscape-report.pdf">the report</a> is being used to <a href="https://mumbrella.com.au/de-classified-what-really-happened-to-newspapers-641959" target="_blank">rebut</a> the current <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/the-stakes-are-high-for-facebook-and-google-if-australians-decide-to-get-their-news-elsewhere" target="_blank">ACCC push</a> to charge big tech for news snippets and links. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGqfSpBm0tsBd5sqMSZVPD_SvrjRW-xCGbGOZGPfRqXL388CKHI9KMz4zGQCjTtIzKucSy30jZwg8yUfP12_wRlYzifwFeteKqzxPMIboBwZoWWdyf-U3FOGXIUM356qxp9CPl/s843/Screen+Shot+2020-09-08+at+2.22.26+pm.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="843" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGqfSpBm0tsBd5sqMSZVPD_SvrjRW-xCGbGOZGPfRqXL388CKHI9KMz4zGQCjTtIzKucSy30jZwg8yUfP12_wRlYzifwFeteKqzxPMIboBwZoWWdyf-U3FOGXIUM356qxp9CPl/w400-h264/Screen+Shot+2020-09-08+at+2.22.26+pm.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-88767865984483754652013-11-06T11:18:00.000+11:002013-11-06T17:04:39.383+11:00A round table discussion on media and politicsThe <a href="http://publicknowledgeforum.org/" target="_blank">Public Knowledge Forum</a> round table took place behind closed doors yesterday at the Intercontinental Hotel, Sydney.<br />
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Participants came from a range of media, academic and political backgrounds. Many had presented the previous day at the public conference. Others, like me, were invited to the round table event for alternative perspectives. The stated goal of the US Studies Centre was to generate discussion and insights "into the nature of the ‘civic crisis’ created by the economic and technological disruption of the media industry and what it means for future governance".</div>
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Attendees included heads of major think tanks, senior academics, an editorial board member of the Wall Street Journal, a director of the ABC, correspondents, editors and columnists for the Washington Post, New York Times, New Republic, The Atlantic and Time. Locally, participants included senior editors and ABC broadcasters, independent publishers and a federal cabinet minister. </div>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Fallows" target="_blank">James Fallows</a> moderated the hour long discussion. It was a tough job, given the topic and the timeframe.</div>
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<b>Opening remarks</b></div>
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The discussion kicked off by acknowledging that the internet has created an "uber-platform", which has broken the previous constraints on media delivery mechanisms. As a result of this, and the difficulties faced by commercial media organisations, public broadcasting in Australia was now more important than ever.</div>
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Newspaper publishers had seen their business models destroyed by the disruption of new media technologies in recent years, and the next victims are going to be television broadcasters, particularly pay TV businesses.</div>
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The reasons given for this revolved around live sport. Live sport is "appointment viewing" on broadcast TV but IPTV will change that. The content owners of major sporting codes, eg the AFL, will be in control more than they have ever been. They will be able to generate revenue directly via, for example, paid apps, thus bypassing individual rights holders and removing key pillars for broadcasters. </div>
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Curated content, however, will still be important. A perceived key to value creation online is delivering credibility and authoratitive information where so much is unreliable.</div>
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<b>Questions and comments</b></div>
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Much of the ensuing discussion was concerned with the problems of journalism: how to maintain breadth and depth of coverage, balance and quality in reporting, newsroom resourcing, and jobs for journalists. </div>
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These are not new issues. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969);">The "future of journalism" debate was a useful one to have before 2005. The most important issues now relate to sustainability and innovation.</span></div>
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Either way, this round table was convened with a stated interest in exploring issues of civic crisis as it relates to media and politics. We seemed to be getting side tracked into old media thinking.</div>
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<b>Some conclusions</b></div>
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The US media industry is a different beast to ours. As, of course, is their political system. But we share a malaise in both and the compounding effects are dire.</div>
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It seems to me that whilst "civic crisis" is an extreme description that doesn't yet apply in Australia, there is a real risk. The media has a role to play, but it is not a controlling influence.</div>
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There is plenty of agreement that the disruptive influence of new digital technologies will not stop with media business models. The transformation from analogue to digital, with all its benefits has been painful. That pain is felt mainly in the loss of jobs. Something like 50% of journalism related jobs have been lost in this country since 2004. </div>
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Proportionately, these job losses do not represent a large part of the economy. Many of those media workers have relocated to other knowledge related work. </div>
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But the trend continues, and the same impact will be felt on other industries. We are already seeing it in retail; education will be hit too; all service industries can expect the same to happen to them. Deloitte's recent <a href="http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_AU/au/news-research/luckycountry/digital-disruption/index.htm?id=gx:th:lk:TT13" target="_blank">Digital Disruption</a> report goes some way to quantifying the impact. </div>
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However, Deloitte does not go to the next step and detail the social and political impact of this disruption. And there's the rub.</div>
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With so many industries being affected, and so many jobs being lost in such a relatively short time, civic crisis is not only possible it's almost guaranteed.</div>
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In that scenario, the quality of information exchange as mediated by professional journalists will not be the most important concern for most people. It remains relevant, but there are other more fundamental things that need to be addressed. This is broadly an economic problem. The historical analogy is closer to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_revolution" target="_blank">Industrial Revolution</a> than to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg" target="_blank">Gutenberg</a>.</div>
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The internet is an "uber-platform". And ubiquitous broadband will amplify that. Media is everywhere, and virtually every business is impacted by media technologies. The one advantage that media industries have (for now) is that we were amongst the earliest affected, and if we learn from our mistakes of the past 10 years we can play a useful role in mitigating the crises that are to come.</div>
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<i>The Public Knowledge Forum roundtable was convened by the United States Study Centre and the University of Sydney. <a href="http://www.chathamhouse.org/events/conferences/information-journalists" target="_blank">Chatham House</a> rules applied.</i></div>
hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-58216428757670687442013-03-04T13:26:00.000+11:002013-03-04T13:26:15.435+11:00Furniture reshuffle at smage.com.au<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Fairfax have today launched a new front page on their news sites, to coincide with the move to compact sized newspapers. </div>
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As a reminder of what they had before, here's the front page of the smh.com.au from last week:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbqad2pLnoR_T4WslM_Zg42ASQhUBys3h7ppKd1LJ8EkcDugnsH8qZBCW7MFPEUeQ67scQfM95O8iATVeAT4Ng6_Vx6Ki_Y5tjK-pF4xZHpUTILVfKg9mP0SFsy8lCSgRrsMN_/s1600/smh-old1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbqad2pLnoR_T4WslM_Zg42ASQhUBys3h7ppKd1LJ8EkcDugnsH8qZBCW7MFPEUeQ67scQfM95O8iATVeAT4Ng6_Vx6Ki_Y5tjK-pF4xZHpUTILVfKg9mP0SFsy8lCSgRrsMN_/s400/smh-old1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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And here's the new one from today:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGq9xVRjzCyetNGzLnyATjNOlS6gLRTS5FStvEs3xMozURtfo4PjZ1CUQdvZTU7yuoPxnFhOwTfNyMjHkdHTxb3yX8xwlgE3MaLy5KowMR_oIzCsMzxLjlj-hvfPoZ8stKjuvg/s1600/smh-new.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGq9xVRjzCyetNGzLnyATjNOlS6gLRTS5FStvEs3xMozURtfo4PjZ1CUQdvZTU7yuoPxnFhOwTfNyMjHkdHTxb3yX8xwlgE3MaLy5KowMR_oIzCsMzxLjlj-hvfPoZ8stKjuvg/s400/smh-new.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Personally, I think it's disappointing they didn't do something more adventurous. I understand that they wanted to take the sites upmarket and avoid being criticised for being "tabloid" (theage.com.au and smh.com.au have had that accusation thrown at them for years). And I get that they really, really don't want to alienate existing readers. </div>
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But they could have been more, well, interesting. They could have made this project a small statement about Fairfax's digital competency and intent.</div>
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Instead it just feels like a missed opportunity.</div>
hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-35448955842371468422012-11-27T12:12:00.003+11:002012-11-27T12:12:36.379+11:00Photo manipulation at theage.com.auIs it just me, or is this front page photo on theage.com.au highly problematic?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4jZNSM50S64zBsK25XwslUwwBFCUKW8cKkOrO0IEVpTp6S30KA0Usop1L5sCs15BYtRL8w1hk1_PLxma22MGMs1i-kEdnk-bPCXKtrEzYrEEyxLNq1VYxbCT5YjrTJd64TrQe/s1600/age-photodoc1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4jZNSM50S64zBsK25XwslUwwBFCUKW8cKkOrO0IEVpTp6S30KA0Usop1L5sCs15BYtRL8w1hk1_PLxma22MGMs1i-kEdnk-bPCXKtrEzYrEEyxLNq1VYxbCT5YjrTJd64TrQe/s320/age-photodoc1.jpg" width="312" /></a></div>
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The picture makes out that the subject, former Qantas steward Samuel Kaufman, is seated in an aircraft looking guiltily out the window, as if he might be wanting to make a fast getaway with an armful of (what could be) envelopes of contraband. He actually appears to be in the act of committing a crime.<br />
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The accompanying write-off with the picture reads: <i><b>"Qantas first-class hostie Samuel Kaufman told police the envelopes only contained cash. Then they opened them."</b></i><br />
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However, when you click on the story you see this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGL6Ty29zJM6ed1oLe_GRD0bbzZ3YWY6yjEcLRDSFis2PitGg_AD7W-45iJv0ZcfYRzQncvD9rwinnmNDgd6gJyW5BUsygJq67qc2Y3Ng8FRULgpkkaSAbe7VSyKOVYBbRdLJq/s1600/age_docpicstory.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGL6Ty29zJM6ed1oLe_GRD0bbzZ3YWY6yjEcLRDSFis2PitGg_AD7W-45iJv0ZcfYRzQncvD9rwinnmNDgd6gJyW5BUsygJq67qc2Y3Ng8FRULgpkkaSAbe7VSyKOVYBbRdLJq/s320/age_docpicstory.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Kaufman is actually ducking as he leaves a building - the caption says "pictured in March" - and trying not to draw attention to himself. Either way, he is not obviously in the act of committing a crime nor is he about to be apprehended by police.</div>
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The most generous interpretation of the doctored front page picture is that it is misleading. Others may be more vigorous in their criticism. </div>
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It's certainly a very poor piece of editing by theage.com.au. And not what you expect from quality media that is soon to start charging for access.</div>
hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-42892392361481580712012-11-16T11:18:00.000+11:002012-11-16T11:18:50.777+11:00US tabloid style 1984<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-KMDybv44k8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-91163191553531717202012-06-20T17:17:00.001+10:002012-06-20T17:18:34.765+10:00Dan Ilic imagines an SMH under Gina Rinehart<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz09kfFQ2P1r9ygsdo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="387" src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz09kfFQ2P1r9ygsdo1_1280.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-39297491966583940452012-06-14T14:31:00.000+10:002012-06-14T14:31:29.931+10:00New Orleans newspaper editor on printing cuts<object height="328" width="512"> <param name = "movie" value = "http://www-tc.pbs.org/s3/pbs.videoportal-prod.cdn/media/swf/PBSPlayer.swf" >
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Watch <a href="http://video.pbs.org/video/2245561897" style="color: #4eb2fe !important; font-weight: normal !important; height: 13px; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank">Times-Picayune Editor on Commitment Amid Cutbacks</a></div>hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-84836727389663940332012-05-29T11:35:00.002+10:002012-05-29T11:37:18.543+10:00Is the media reinventing influence?<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rHnCQ7wqM78" width="560"></iframe><br />
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Darren Burden and Catherine Lumby discuss the changing nature of news delivery and its impact on journalism.hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-60970769907608147552012-04-11T09:47:00.001+10:002012-04-11T09:47:11.745+10:00News culture eats strategy for breakfast<br />
"Culture eats strategy for breakfast" is one of those throwaway lines loved by PowerPoint jockeys and business motivational speakers (with apologies to Peter Drucker). But in the case of newspaper organizations it has a particular resonance.<br />
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A recent survey by the US based <a href="http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/search_new_business_model" target="_blank">Project for Excellence in Journalism</a> has shown what many in the digital side of publishing have known for years, namely that newspaper executives deserve the blame for not changing the culture of their newsrooms. The failure to find a successful business model in the transition to digital is really a failure of leadership.<br />
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"The core cultural issue, executives told the PEJ researchers is the tension between the old ways and the new ways — and some of that stems from newspaper leadership that came of age in the days of monopoly newspapers and 20% profit margins.<br />
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“'We haven’t needed innovative people,' explained one executive. 'So you get what you need. The kind of people that came into this industry were more operationally focused, executors instead of innovator risk takers.'"<br />
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One daily newspaper the researchers looked at with a circulation of less than 50,000 struggled with the change to a web-first organization because, although its managers acknowledged the importance of the new medium, they didn't reinforce that desire through their reward and accountability systems. "Print revenue and circulation remained the benchmarks of success, not digital revenue or pageviews. As a result, newsroom staff struggled to develop the kind of online content needed to expand the web audience."<br />
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This same attitude, driven by either short term revenue fears (swapping print dollars for digital cents) or ignorance, or both, has played out across Australian news organizations over the last ten years. There is an Us and Them divide between print and digital staff which is only just beginning to close in some of the more enlightened newsrooms. But still, digital people are being "grinfucked" (as an old boss of mine used to say) by print staffers and seeing their skills and contribution being undervalued as print "news talent" moves into newly created digital specialist positions.<br />
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As the print iceberg melts, or the deck burns, the refugees looking to jump aboard the digital lifeboats has increased. And just like an overloaded metaphor, the digital lifeboat is at risk of sinking.<br />
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News organisations finally lost their early mover digital advantage in terms of raw audience some time over the last 18-24 months. While Facebook and Twitter saw exponential growth, and Google was experimenting with Wave, Buzz and Plus, news publishers dithered. They waged hopelessly naive <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/google-dubbed-internet-parasite/story-e6frg996-1225696931547" target="_blank">campaigns against Google</a> and debated endlessly whether a paywall strategy was the right direction. Meanwhile, they stopped any broadly meaningful digital product innovation choosing to put all their chips on iPad apps, which at best have been a qualified success.<br />
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All in all, it has not been a period of distinction for the industry. And once again, the inertia and lack of energy reveals a problem with the leadership.<br />
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Donald Graham, chairman of the Washington Post Company has admitted some of these failures. When asked recently by <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/04/washington-post-watergate" target="_blank">Vanity Fair</a> if there was anything he wished he had done differently, looking back over his life at the Post, he said that he “replays” the mid-90s when the Post was first starting its web operation “all the time".<br />
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"We knocked it out of the park. We were in the help-wanted business three years ahead of anybody else. We started it with great editors and exceptional sales and marketing people, and we had good I.T. people, but we should have tripled up on that. We should have understood that this wasn’t a matter of presenting the news in another format. But I think every company in the news business would tell you the same thing."<br />
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There is certainly a consistent pattern.<br />
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One of those patterns is the ever recurring question: what is the future of print? As a medium news print may survive in a form analogous to classic music, or specifically opera. In other words, as a museum piece for a certain class of cultural animal. Frankly, it's the wrong question. A better question is: how do we ensure the viability of energetic journalism?<br />
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Some news organisations are addressing this question seriously, and attempting to resolve the crippling issues that continue to prevent them from wholesale cultural reinvention. There is a new crop of younger media CEOs now, not all with ink in their veins.<br />
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It's a good start. But is it too late to prevent news publishers experiencing their own Kodak moments?<br />hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-42825165941042239322012-03-21T10:40:00.001+11:002012-03-21T10:42:46.632+11:00State of the News Media 2012New devices and platforms spur more news consumption ... but at the end of the day it's all about mobile.<br />
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The Pew Centre's latest <a href="http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2222/news-media-network-television-cable-audioo-radio-digital-platforms-local-mobile-devices-tablets-smartphones-native-american-community-newspapers?src=prc-headline" target="_blank">report on American journalism</a>.hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-74618460045259077332012-03-14T13:26:00.001+11:002012-03-14T13:27:51.804+11:00The Guardian's Three Little Pigs<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vDGrfhJH1P4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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Just caught up with this brilliant piece of brand advertising from The Guardian.hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-14171186220626982292012-02-03T13:46:00.001+11:002012-02-03T13:46:18.325+11:00A senior editorJohn Clarke and Bryan Dawe's sketch from last night's 7.30 Report. "Instead of analysing the news, and encouraging people to think deeply about what's going on in their world, we are going to try and put people more in touch with the way they feel ..."<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zT3PRRBnbLU" width="560"></iframe>hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-26227057292039288722012-01-31T10:14:00.001+11:002012-01-31T10:14:00.095+11:00Shit (some) journalists say<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/qByB3AeBZMw" width="420"></iframe>hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-33982173021361723692012-01-18T12:31:00.001+11:002012-01-18T16:23:22.012+11:00What's in the digital store for 2012?It’s been a horror couple of years for media businesses in the ANZ markets, and on the revenue side things don’t look like getting much better any time soon.<br />
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Despite some optimistic predictions by analysts pre-Christmas, early new year <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-09/retail-sales-remain-in-the-doldrums/3763896" target="_blank">indicators</a> from the retail sector are that there is little if any growth to count on in 2012. So display advertising is likely to remain soft.<br />
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The <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/without-car-manufacturing-we-are-on-the-road-to-ruin-20120112-1pxf9.html" target="_blank">car industry is struggling</a>, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/properties-for-sale-slip-in-december-20120118-1q5gx.html" target="_blank">real estate</a> prices are flatlining, and whilst <a href="http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Australian-economy-banking-jobs-retail-manufacturi-pd20120118-QLRKB?opendocument&src=idp&emcontent_asx_financial-markets&utm_source=exact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=8599&utm_campaign=kgb" target="_blank">employment rates</a> are still holding up relatively well job ads are stagnant at best.<br />
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Europe is either officially in <a href="http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/10/chaney-eurotarp-europe-recession.html" target="_blank">recession</a> or <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204468004577164583645108556.html?mod=googlenews_wsj" target="_blank">about to be</a>, depending on <a href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/319248-the-european-recession-and-global-oil-demand-2012" target="_blank">who you read</a>, and the only glimmer of hope for developed economies seems to be that the US might just pull a very small rabbit out of the hat and post some limited growth this year.<br />
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All of which will leave China wondering who it is going to sell to and trying to figure out how to manage a precariously balanced domestic economy as it grows by a forecast 8.3% this year.<br />
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With such <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/business/world-business/world-banks-crisis-warning-20120118-1q5n7.html" target="_blank">challenging external factors</a> media companies are looking to get their operational businesses streamlined and positioned for the next economic upturn, or at least refocused into new markets.<br />
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And any way you look at it the name of that game is digital.<br />
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Locals will watch with interest as News Ltd puts a price on <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3602120.html" target="_blank">The Australian’s paywall</a> and starts to charge consumers in February some time, and then extends that to its other news properties. Will they follow a similar model to Slovakian media company Piano Media and introduce a <a href="http://thenextweb.com/media/2012/01/09/piano-media-extends-its-mass-paywall-in-central-europe-launching-in-slovenia/" target="_blank">unified paywall</a> for all their sites and channels? Or will they price individually by product and brand?<br />
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Meanwhile, Fairfax has taken initial steps with AFR.com by <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/12/16/simons-the-paywall-at-the-fin-and-what-defines-a-revolution/?wpmp_switcher=mobile" target="_blank">bundling print and online</a> subscriptions, where once there was a distinct price regime for each point of access. This has stimulated useage of AFR.com and provided some good initial data which will no doubt feed into the next iteration of the AFR’s digital strategy. <br />
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Other publishers are starting to use detailed information about patterns of useage to feed into cross-selling and build new value for clients.<br />
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And this, I think, is the key point for media in 2012: data. Data in all its forms can add enormous value for publishers: data about reader habits and preferences, data about customer needs, and data as a basis for <a href="http://jonathanstray.com/a-computational-journalism-reading-list" target="_blank">new forms of journalism</a>.<br />
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In 2012 innovative, consumer focused product development that takes advantage of all available data inputs for marketing and sales – and data output for editorial – will deliver much needed trial, purchase and loyalty as publishers look to grow valuable digital audiences.<br />
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The past ten years have shown us a lot, and one of the lessons is that audiences expect creativity and technical excellence in production values, as well as good content. “Quality” content on its own will not convince consumers to pay online. Quality – whatever that is – needs to be packaged cleverly, it needs to be easily accessible on all devices, searchable, filterable, and able to be interacted with.<br />
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In digital publishing terms we’re about to step into the interim stage of maturity as an industry. We’ve left infancy behind, but we’re not yet fully formed. The need for experimentation hasn’t passed, but at the same time expectations are vastly higher than they were five or six years ago and cost management is more critical than ever.<br />
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Just as the first phase of digital product development in media publishing was characterised by a serendipitous relationship between traditional journalism and the disciplines of software development, so the next phase of digital publishing needs to take advantage of other non-traditional media skills and expertise.
<br />
<br />
Some publishers have begun creating new roles in their newsrooms and marketing teams, whether it be social media managers or visual data journalists. This is a good step, but the challenge is to do more than simply retrain the smartest young reporters in the newsroom. Those smart young reporters have a lot to offer, but they won’t provide the solution on their own. So bringing in new skillsets, such as computer scientists, and training them as <a href="http://www.computation-and-journalism.com/main/" target="_blank">computational journalists</a> is an example of the kind of direction publishers need to go.<br />
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Publishers have been on a set path for some years now, following the advent of new information and communication technologies. But for too long most didn’t really want to acknowledge this new reality. During 2010 and 2011 there was a belated recognition at the highest levels that digital really is the future. 2012 will be the year to act on that.<br />
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It’s going to take more careful planning, and in some instances a new culture of innovation and in others a whole of business transformation; it will take a fair degree of courage and even some luck, but the alternative is not pleasant to contemplate.hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-20380564972930255192012-01-16T08:55:00.002+11:002012-01-16T08:56:21.446+11:00Behind the scenes of a 1970s newspaper<object id="flashObj" width="460" height="270" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,47,0"><param name="movie" value="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="flashVars" value="videoId=1389078573001&playerID=1054655355001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAABvb_NGE~,DMkZt2E6wO3_sfth6vHgTpNZZSEwcydt&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" /><param name="base" value="http://admin.brightcove.com" /><param name="seamlesstabbing" value="false" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="swLiveConnect" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=1389078573001&playerID=1054655355001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAABvb_NGE~,DMkZt2E6wO3_sfth6vHgTpNZZSEwcydt&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="460" height="270" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></object>hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-55556673739162397472011-12-01T10:31:00.001+11:002011-12-01T10:59:03.221+11:00Facebook apps: News brands beware<br />
<i>Facebook's "social news" strategy is just another way of sucking the remaining life out of news brands.</i><br />
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I posted some <a href="http://hugh-martin.blogspot.com/2011/10/whats-your-facebook-strategy.html" target="_blank">comments</a> on the new Facebook apps recently. At the time these apps were so new there was no real data about useage.<br />
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Now there is some<a href="https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/603" target="_blank"> early stage information</a> about take up and response.<br />
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Problem is, the data appears conflicting and the commentary is just plain confusing. Added to which Facebook users, when asked, say they don't like the apps. Yet effectively they are corralled into using them because of the way Facebook has deployed them.<br />
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<a href="http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/11/30/the-uks-guardian-newspaper-notches-4m-facebook-app-installations-in-2-months/" target="_blank">The Next Web</a> reports that The Guardian <a href="http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/?ref=bookmarks&count=0&fb_source=bookmarks_apps&fb_bmpos=1_0" target="_blank">app</a> has had 4 millions instals since its release. The article acknowledges that the app lets "Facebook’s 800m+ users read the guardian’s articles online without actually leaving the social network".<br />
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However, despite this the app generates "almost a million extra page impressions a day".<br />
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How does it do this if users don't leave Facebook?<br />
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The only way that I can see it does this is by promoting other Guardian Facebook fan pages alongside the ringfenced content within the app. So, it is possible to navigate from the app to, say, The Guardian <a href="http://www.facebook.com/mediaguardian" target="_blank">Media fan page</a> and from there to an article on <a href="http://theguardian.co.uk/">theguardian.co.uk</a>.<br />
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But that's an extra two clicks, and effectively another drag on user numbers heading off to the parent news site.<br />
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It's all enabled by Facebook's Open Graph framework, which is a clever way of connecting content with Facebook users and functionality through API's. It's a seamless user experience, but one that is actually encouraging news consumers to care less about the news brands they are engaging with.<br />
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So Facebook's claim of success here, on behalf of their news partners (Guardian, Washington Post, Yahoo!News, The Independent etc) is disengenuous.<br />
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It is a great success for Facebook, but it presents a serious dilemma for news publishers. In reality, Facebook's "social news" strategy is just another way of sucking the remaining life out of news brands.<br />
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Publishers should go there at their peril. And to my mind executives like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_E._Graham" target="_blank">Donald Graham</a> (Chairman of Washington Post and board director at Facebook) have such a conflict of interest that they should remove themselves from any publishing decisions to do with Facebook.<br />
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Everybody else needs to get a lot smarter about how they manage their news partnerships with Facebook.<br />
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Right now Facebook is sending traffic to news sites, but after the feast comes the reckoning.<br />
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<b>What would Facebook do with $10 billion cash? </b><br />
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That's the<a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/30/tech/social-media/facebook-ipo-effect/index.html" target="_blank"> number being bandied</a> around as its initial raising target as it mulls an IPO. The answer, I suppose, is anyone's guess right now.<br />
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So, what would be the chances of them buying up news media? Mark Zuckerberg has been upfront about his interest in, even need for, content. Would he spend some of that change on buying a content generating organisation? Would his Chairman, for example, offer up the Washington Post?<br />
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Or closer to home ... would Fairfax be of interest?<br />
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A cashed up Facebook might well consider making a play for the newsroom of a traditional media company (or two). They'd have little interest in the production and distribution mechanisms, so effectively it would mean junking those assets and stripping out the journalism.<br />
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It's an unpleasant thought, but one that could conceivably happen.<br />
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All the more reason for news publishers to value their brands more effectively in their relationships with Facebook.hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-55638395072563971902011-11-22T10:29:00.002+11:002011-12-05T09:46:34.644+11:00APN: Can closing papers be offset by digital?The closure of APN regional papers in NSW and SE Qld comes as no surprise. <br />
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Nevertheless, it is a sad indication of the ongoing shrinkage of regional media choices. The fact is, that current indicators suggest digital will not save APN's regional news franchises.<br />
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APN <a href="http://mumbrella.com.au/apn-to-close-freesheets-and-cut-frequency-of-historic-daily-papers-65913" target="_blank">announced yesterday</a> that it would close the Gold Coast Mail and Robina Mail, and reduce the Tweed Daily News to a Saturday paid print edition only and the Coffs Coast Advocate to a twice weekly freesheet.<br />
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It's worth mentioning that the Robina Mail only launched this year.<br />
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APN Regional Media CEO Warren Bright told the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/northern-nsw-towns-lose-daily-papers-in-online-push-20111121-1nr1x.html" target="_blank">SMH</a> yesterday "We will probably improve our focus on news because we will be breaking it online and will provide people with strong weekly newspapers, and we'll be relaunching weekend editions.<br />
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In an official statement Bright said, “We also have strong digital audiences in each market so it makes sense to combine a constantly updated digital news service with this modified print offering.”<br />
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That is either a triumph of optimism, or a cynical piece of corporate spin.<br />
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Here's what I know:<br />
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The Tweed Daily news has been losing money for years. In 2009 APN considered selling or closing it down. The only likely buyer was News Ltd and the view at the time was they might pay $5. Closing the paper meant taking a write-down hit that then CEO Martin Simons wasn't willing to take. So they "relaunched" it, effectively kicking the can down the road. <br />
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The TDN web site (<a href="http://mydailynews.com.au/">mydailynews.com.au</a>) gets something in the vicinity of 30-40,000 UBs per month, average page duration of 45 seconds, time on site of about 3.5 minutes. In online news terms that is not a commercial amount of traffic, and without a newspaper to promote the web site the audience is unlikely to grow. So on it's own it is not the solution.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1bWhLRzbr_Ip9D-O5sLe5fLrf0549RxQ6k_oEp1weuIjLlFcTjVHIBSKNsT8sHJZbmtlpIV-nANCX9v-37_HdbHAm5rh5p1iM9fzzTo_z4YezmTDiS6BMvJ0eO7ATzk2P58JZ/s1600/IMG00129-20091012-1021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1bWhLRzbr_Ip9D-O5sLe5fLrf0549RxQ6k_oEp1weuIjLlFcTjVHIBSKNsT8sHJZbmtlpIV-nANCX9v-37_HdbHAm5rh5p1iM9fzzTo_z4YezmTDiS6BMvJ0eO7ATzk2P58JZ/s320/IMG00129-20091012-1021.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">One of the original printing presses in the office at the Tweed Daily News</span></div>
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Meanwhile, the <a href="http://www.goldcoast.com.au/news.html" target="_blank">Gold Coast Bulletin</a> is rubbing its hands in glee. They can expect to pick up, not only the few readers who were still buying the Tweed Daily News but the real estate advertisers and what is left of retail, auto and jobs in the Tweed market.<br />
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Free kick to News Ltd.<br />
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Further south in Coffs Harbour The Coffs Coast Advocate has been free two days a week for some time, whilst paid the other three, but will now only be available twice weekly. This is probably where most of the job cuts will come from as the Tweed office has been gutted already. All APN offices run on a shoe string, but Coffs had been able to maintain some strength due to its recent success against the Fairfax owned Independent and the relative size of the Coffs area footprint.<br />
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Still, that hasn't been enough to save it.<br />
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Can the Advocate web site rescue things? Again, it has a similar problem as Tweed. <br />
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The <a href="http://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/">http://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au</a> averages 40-50,000 UBs per month, with an average page duration of 41 seconds and time on site of 3.3 minutes. These numbers will not deliver much in the way of advertising revenue on their own. And note, only about half these number will be local readers. In other words about half this audience is of any value to local advertisers. the same is true of most of APN regional news sites.<br />
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Taken in isolation, the future of APN's Tweed and Coffs businesses is bleak. The next round of closure - my guess probably some time in the middle of next year - will be final.<br />
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The question has to be asked: How does a previously profitable business running multiple monopoly franchises across some of the country's strongest regional centres get to this point? And we can be sure it's not over yet, the <a href="http://www.warwickdailynews.com.au/" target="_blank">Warwick Daily News</a> will be at risk, and certainly the <a href="http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/" target="_blank">Sunshine Coast Daily</a> is in a very precarious situation.<br />
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In 2006 APN regional newspapers had revenue in the order of $125m. In 2010 it was something like $55m. That's a helluva drop in four years. Some of it has been explained by the GFC, some by extreme weather events and the effects on tourism and agriculture. But at the heart of this company's problems is a failure of management.<br />
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At the beginning of this year a new <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/apn-boss-brett-chenoweth-vows-to-step-up-on-digital/story-e6frg8zx-1226012252668" target="_blank">CEO</a> took over at the APN Group level, and in turn appointed a new CEO to the regional newspaper business. Both men were touted as being digital immigrants, at least.<br />
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The digital structure these men inherited in Qld was significant. In the previous four years APN had invested substantially (and appropriately) in building a web platform and an infrastructure of expertise to drive training, sales and distribution at both a local and national level.<br />
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For some reason this does not seem to have been leveraged effectively.<br />
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Meanwhile, print circ and revenue is still dropping and the only mitigation strategy seems to be cost reduction.<br />
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<a href="http://www.apn.com.au/" target="_blank">APN</a> is often described as the biggest (Australian) media company no one has ever heard of. For years that anonymity served it well as it went about its work as a serious cash generator shipping substantial amounts of that revenue offshore to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_O'Reilly" target="_blank">O'Reilly's</a> and <a href="http://www.inmplc.com/" target="_blank">INM News & Media</a>. Since the O'Reilly's reduced their holding in 2009, and then a flurry of shareholder activism generated some media attention around the <a href="http://www.mediaspy.org/report/2010/04/30/apn-directors-re-elected-as-chairman-hits-out/" target="_blank">AGM in 2010</a>, APN's inner workings have become more exposed.<br />
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Still, it's a story that hasn't yet been fully told. As a diverse media holding, the APN group had enormous promise in the late nineties and early noughties. Since then, and despite commendable efforts from some corners of the operation, it has failed to live up to that potential.<br />
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[Disclosure: I was GM of APN Online from 2007-2010]hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-66316445968305649212011-11-09T20:32:00.001+11:002012-01-23T13:20:29.684+11:00Modern media: Necessary evil or saviour of democracy?I sat in on the <a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/independent_media_inquiry">Media Inquiry</a> in Melbourne this afternoon, and listened to the ever thoughtful <a href="http://griffithreview.com/contributors/paul-chadwick">Paul Chadwick</a>.<br />
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It was an absorbing session, and whilst it is probably clear that the most likely outcome is some increased influence for the <a href="http://www.presscouncil.org.au/">Press Council</a>, and not much else, nevertheless the process seems to have been worthwhile. And, in fact, that outcome may be just about ideal.<br />
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Who wants more <a href="http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/independent_media_inquiry/consultation">media regulation</a>, anyway?<br />
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But amongst all the talk of the threats to democracy and the power of the media, it struck me that an important historical point has been lost.<br />
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Inquiries like this start from the point of view that the media is a necessary evil, that it's a loose cannon needing to be controlled or regulated in some way. The underlying theory is that <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/the-question/do-the-media-need-more-regulating-20110722-1ht8t.html">some influence</a> needs to be brought to bear against the worst excesses of greedy moguls or uncaring shareholders.<br />
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All of that may be a fair cop, guv. But it does overlook one glaring positive.<br />
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Since the rise of a global media in the second half of the twentieth century – whether that be international <a href="http://www.reuters.com/">wire services</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN">CNN</a>, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/">BBC</a>, blogs, Twitter or digital radio – we have lived in an Age of Communication.<br />
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Digital only defines the latter part of that age. So let’s not get hung up on <a href="http://blogs.theage.com.au/media/archives/2006/10/citizen_journal.html">“citizen journalism”</a> or Twitter.<br />
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What struck me as I listened to the discussion this afternoon – particularly as Paul Chadwick, who is clearly a student of history, referenced aspects of the long cycle of media influence and its roots in <a href="http://www.thepamphleteers.com/overview.htm">pamphleteering</a> – was that a key aspect of post-industrial revolution western democracy, up until the mid-twentieth century, was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_II">militaristic</a>.<br />
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I’m not suggesting that things are particularly peaceful in all pockets of the globe at the moment, but within and between western democracies it is true to say there is no threat of imminent war. And when you contrast that with the first half of the twentieth century the difference is startling.<br />
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Right now <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i6ZrUvPHOO0JuW9z1F_HaTC3IC3A?docId=CNG.cc2abbe529c521d77fade12d486fcf8b.2e1">Europe’s economy</a> is under greater stress than it has been since the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression">1930’s</a>. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/business/economy/us-economy-shows-modest-growth.html?pagewanted=all">US economy</a> is marginally better. These zones have been the driving forces of economic growth for hundreds of years. And yes, we know the centre of influence is moving from <a href="http://www.acus.org/new_atlanticist/economic-rise-east">West to East</a>.<br />
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But the point is that before the rise of global media, these economic stresses – and the communication technologies of the day – resulted in an inward nationalistic mindset that led to devastating wars. Two world wars were fought, millions died. Today no one is predicting that will be repeated.<br />
<br />
Of course there are<a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/magazine/99521/america-world-power-declinism?passthru=ZDkyNzQzZTk3YWY3YzE0OWM5MGRiZmIwNGQwNDBiZmI" target="_blank"> many influences</a> to which this political stability can be attributed, but it is worth acknowledging that one of the very important components is ... the media.hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-58846080718707071232011-10-20T10:59:00.000+11:002011-10-20T10:59:52.643+11:00What's your Facebook strategy?Most news organisations have Facebook pages that correlate with their brands. These pages may have tens of thousands of friends. Which is all well and good, but how much traffic is this delivering to news sites? <br />
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I'll bet it's not much, at least as a percentage of overall site traffic. <br />
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Yes, every eyeball counts and there's a good argument that says Facebook friends are more engaged readers than a user who surfs Google to a news story. But whilst having a Facebook presence is an essential requirement for online news publishers, I suspect publishers are getting themselves mired in another low return exercise and training readers to never even visit the "parent" news site.<br />
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Publishers have to use the social-networking giant more effectively than they currently do. If we don't, we can be sure Facebook will use us.<br />
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes no secret of the fact he wants media content, and lots of it. <br />
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“I hope that we can play a part in enabling … the companies that are out there producing this great content to become more social,” he said at an e-G8 forum in Paris earlier in the year. “We’re going to see a lot of the transformation in these industries over the next three, five years.” <br />
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Another way to look at it is that Facebook wants to become the "operating system of the web," as Mashable's <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%E2%80%9Dhttp://mashable.com/author/ben-parr/%E2%80%9D">Ben Parr</a> puts it. <br />
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The recently unveiled new Facebook apps from publishers including Yahoo News, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Gizmodo, and a number of others, are a clear step in that direction.<br />
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The apps will tie in with Facebook’s new Timeline user interface as well as the new Ticker sidebar to let users read news stories within Facebook and easily share their reading histories.<br />
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It’s worth emphasising that these apps keep the reader wholly within the Facebook domain. They make no effort, other than via brand awareness, to steer the reader towards the originating masthead.<br />
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That so many traditional and online publishers have given the go ahead for their content to be fully replicated within Facebook, sacrificing page views on their own websites, is a big coup for Facebook. And it smacks of publisher desperation. <br />
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Washington Post CEO Donald Graham said in a statement that his company expects to see better user engagement and ultimately more reading activity by putting its stories within Facebook. “If you know that several of your friends have read a story, you’ll be more interested in it. We encourage people to try it out with their friends and keep up-to-date on the news,” he said.<br />
<br />
That is a very brave move. And more than a little ironic given that not so long ago some publishers were accusing Google of stealing their content. (Google, by contrast, delivers a large percentage of traffic to news sites.)<br />
<br />
Either way, publishers need to ask themselves who is really benefitting here. Facebook apps, such as the Washington Post’s and The Guardian’s simply play straight into Zuckerberg’s hands by lending their brand to the goal of keeping users within the Facebook universe.<br />
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The compounding factors to date for publishers, in product terms, are the disappointing results from iPad apps and the apparent failure of Google+ to steal market share from Facebook. <br />
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Whilst it is still early days, all Google+ seems to have done is prod Facebook into fasttracking its product releases and entrenching its 750 million users even more firmly within the site.<br />
<br />
Google+ is a fine product, but as a social networking site it doesn’t offer anything to compel users away from Facebook. One social network is plenty for most people, and as long as Facebook keeps a focus on user experience, and manages the privacy debate maturely, it will be hard to displace. <br />
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iPad apps are a slightly different story.<br />
<br />
Apps just haven’t taken off as many expected they would. Given the level of investment required to build and maintain news apps that can attract paying subscribers the question has to be asked whether that effort should be directed towards improving and marketing web sites. <br />
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Apart from the potential channel conflict that a news iPad app sets up, most sites already render adequately on a tablet browser.<br />
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Perhaps, now is a time for some different thinking. Instead of driving ahead with news apps, focus on optimising news web sites for access from any device and limit tablet apps to classifieds and transaction products.<br />
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And get back to figuring out how to outsmart Facebook.hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-83737344823382946752011-09-09T13:47:00.000+10:002011-09-09T13:47:31.173+10:00Working for RupertIn 2005 I was appointed editor of <a href="http://www.news.com.au/">www.news.com.au</a>. In November that year I was invited to attend the News Ltd editors conference in Adelaide, where I was briefly introduced to Rupert Murdoch. It was the only time I met the big chief, though it wasn't the only time I felt his influence.<br />
<br />
The editors conference is an annual, or twice annual event held in different capital cities where News Ltd has metro daily papers. It brings together all the editors of the metro and regional <a href="http://www.news.com.au/network">newspapers</a> - as well as the most senior columnists - and over a couple of days of presentations and workshops, thrashes out the critical issues shared across the Group.<br />
<br />
The headline agenda is set by the CEO and then fleshed out by Corporate Affairs chief Greg Baxter and his office. The topics are inevitably current and often controversial. Debates go on all day and well into the night over dinner and many drinks at the most expensive restaurants in town.<br />
<br />
It's a big deal within News Ltd, and it's fair to say that in and of itself it's a positive thing. But it's not something you'll see reported anywhere, so outside speculation always tends towards assuming the worst. <br />
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I attended a few of these conferences during my time at News and invariably they were focused on how to manage the transition from a print centric to a digital world.<br />
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The Adelaide conference in November 2005 was otherwise notable for a couple of reasons. Rupert was in town to open the new Adelaide Advertiser building, and the conference coincided with the inaugural <a href="http://www.newsawards.com.au/">News Awards</a> of which the Murdochs were very supportive.<br />
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I was scheduled to speak on the morning of the second day. My brief was to describe the online opportunity for News in Australia in terms of new audience and new approaches to doing journalism. There was real interest at the most senior management levels in trying to come to grips with the implications of digital for every aspect of newsroom organisation, reporting and news production.<br />
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The other key point of interest at that time was <a href="http://www.myspace.com/">Myspace</a>. News Corp had just paid $580 million for the social networking site but very few people in the Australian arm of the business knew what it was, how it worked, or how it made money. For Australian print executives it was a confusing and even threatening addition to the business, but the signal was loud and clear: digital is the way of the future.<br />
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The session took place in the boardroom situated on the top floor of the glittering new <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Advertiser_Building.JPG">Advertiser building</a>, opening on to a roof garden with views of the city. Twenty five people sat around a large U-shaped table. It was a warm, sunny late spring day.<br />
<br />
After opening comments and introductions from <a href="http://wotnews.com.au/news/News_Limited__and__John_Hartigan/">CEO John Hartigan</a> and then my immediate boss (one of the sharpest minds I've had the privilege of working with), it was my turn to speak.<br />
<br />
At that stage I'd been with the company for about three months. I'd had some experience editing a major news site, having been editor of <a href="http://theage.com.au/">theage.com.au</a> for the previous three years, so I felt confident about what I had to say albeit somewhat daunted by the audience I was addressing.<br />
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There was a web connection in the room, so I was able to project examples of online news coverage from a range of different outlets covering the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/05/london_blasts/what_happened/html/">London bombings</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina">Hurricane Katrina</a>, and other major news events of recent months. A the time there was a clear trend toward user generated, or audience contribution and it was something I was really keen to get working at news.com.au. <br />
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Another bugbear of mine at the time was linking out. I was directing my team to put at least one external link into each article. Australian news sites still don't do enough of this, but at news.com.au we were trying to use the medium to give our readers background or further information that would otherwise not run in the actual copy of an article. The web is perfect for this.<br />
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And one of the sites we used - with caution - was Wikipedia. I emphasized caution because there are some topics you cannot rely on Wikipedia for, but by and large historical or science based topics, for example, tend to be fairly safe sources of basic information.<br />
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In today's terms I was stating the bleeding obvious. But to an audience of News editorial executives in 2005 the whole issue of audience participation was a bit confronting. And as soon as I mentioned Wikipedia arms shot up around the room.<br />
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<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/help/contactus">Chris Mitchell</a>, editor of The Australian, was the first to object. For Chris it was a legal issue. "I don't like Wikipedia," he said. "I have my lawyers looking at it."<br />
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It was difficult to respond to that, and of course Mitchell wasn't looking for a response from me. I've occasionally wondered since whether The Australian's legal team has had any luck against Wikipedia ... <br />
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The second objection came from Daily Telegraph columnist, <a href="http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/">Piers Akerman</a>. For Piers it was a journalistic issue.<br />
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"I don't like Wikipedia," he said. "They're not journalists. We are the journalists and editors. We are the ones who check and verify information. Wikipedia is unreliable and full of mistakes."<br />
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I replied that a) the Wikipedia model has a strong self-correction mechanism, b) we used it very carefully, mostly on non-controversial topics, and c) the scientific journal Nature had just published the initial results of a comparison with Encyclopedia Britannica which put Wikipedia in a favorable light against the venerable Britannica.<br />
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Nevertheless, Piers seemed unconvinced.<br />
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The third objection came from Herald Sun columnist, <a href="http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/">Andrew Bolt</a>. For Andrew it was a personal issue. "I don't like Wikipedia," he said. "They write bad things about me."<br />
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Legal and journalistic complaints were one thing, but this was something altogether different. I wasn't sure how to respond, but rashly decided to pull up Andrew's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Bolt">wikipedia entry</a> live on the projector screen.<br />
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Suffice to say the entry was long but bland, and there was nothing in the first few paragraphs that could be immediately described as insulting or biased. Luckily for me.<br />
<br />
As I was wrapping up my presentation Rupert came in and stood at the back of the room by the tables that were laid put for morning tea. Afterwards we broke for coffee and biscuits. Rupert mingled with old colleagues like <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/terry-mccranns-column">Terry McCrann</a> and was introduced to the few newbies like myself who were present.<br />
<br />
Following morning tea, Rupert addressed the room. He spoke for about 30 minutes without any notes. He was quick to say that digital is the way of the future. <br />
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"As you know," he said, "we've recently purchased Myspace and we will continue to look for other suitable acquisitions. <br />
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"The web is the great disruptive technology of our time. It's where our audiences are moving to, and it's where we have to be. <br />
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"When I get up in the morning I can check the news from all over the world. I am constantly amazed by the rich variety of offerings on the web. Sites such as Wikipedia ..."<br />
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At which point I looked down the table and saw Andrew Bolt put his head in his hands, and Piers Ackerman nod wisely in agreement.<br />
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John Hartigan, whom I was sitting next to, leaned over and whispered, "I'll bet you're glad he said that!"<br />
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Indeed, I was.hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-2725924953069641542011-05-29T15:48:00.005+10:002011-05-29T16:09:02.862+10:00Chris Lilley is neither Jesus nor the anti-Christ<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><i>Chris Lilley polarizes opinion, but as an artist he has more in common with David Williamson than Austen Tayshus or the team at Working Dog.</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">In today's Sunday Age <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/barely-tolerable-20110528-1f9op.html">Bruce Guthrie</a> is indignant about Chris Lilley's tastelessness and questions whether the the ABC has breached its charter by airing Angry Boys. Although he does still think Mr Lilley is "supremely talented".<br />
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If he was a letter writer he'd be "Outraged of Moonee Ponds" and we'd all just roll our eyes. But Mr Guthrie's a paid columnist and you've got to wonder about manufactured froth and bubble such as this.<br />
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Still, he knows there's something going on here. He can sense that what Lilley is doing is interesting, but he doesn't quite know what that is. So he has a bet each way, which is hardly guaranteed to get the passions flowing.<br />
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There's been a lot written about Lilley's new show, much of it <a href="http://theconversation.edu.au/mockumentarys-beautiful-confusion-animates-chris-lilleys-angry-boys-1212">glowing</a>. But a good deal of it <a href="http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/television/chris-lilley-clever-but-new-show-is-short-of-laughs/story-e6frfmyi-1226054429889">perplexed</a> about the nature of his comedy.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">One of the most intelligent critiques of Angry Boys comes from <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/safe-australian-comedy-needs-edginess-of-angry-boys-20110514-1enhs.html">Waleed Aly</a>: </span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">"Typically from Lilley, there's plenty of discomfort here. His bigoted characters are extreme but presented with an unnerving realism and an editorial silence that raises tricky questions."</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Waleed hits the nail on the head with the reference to realism. Lilley's social commentary is sharply observed, and the work is all the more powerful for it.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Lilley addresses this directly in a recent interview with <a href="http://fhm.com.au/chris-lilley.htm">FHM</a>:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>FHM:</b> Is Australia becoming more humourless and uptight?</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
<b>CL</b>: I don’t know… I’m not sure if I want to make a statement about that. You might be right.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
<b>FHM</b>: I’m sure I’m right. It’s why you’re so successful, because your shows remind people of the way we used to be. We used to be unafraid.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
<b>CL:</b> I see what you mean. But I also think there’s this really patriotic thing going on in Australia at the moment. That’s what I was trying to tap into with Daniel and his Aussie flag obsession, and the Southern Cross business. Younger people really identify with that now: you’re white, you’re Aussie and you’ve got to have your Southern Cross tattoo. When I was younger that didn’t exist. It was almost embarrassing – you didn’t want to be associated with that old school “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie” thing. It was cringeworthy – but for some reason now it’s back.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">One of the mistakes reviewers and commentators seem to be making about Lilley's work is that they insist on reading him through the prism of "comedy". As a writer or actor he's regularly described as a comic genius, but he then confounds these assumptions by not being drop dead funny all the time.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">And that reaction is not about his comedy being more or less sophisticated, or the audience being more or less receptive.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">As a playwright David Williamson has similarly confounded critics throughout his career. His comedies and dramas are always character driven, but the characters are often types or stereotypes. Lilley is dealing in the same kind of material, albeit in a different milieu.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The one thing on which all commentators concur is that Lilley is a big talent. As David Williamson might agree, it's a talent that deserves a better class of criticism from our cultural elites.</span>hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-68758857268660969362011-03-16T09:21:00.001+11:002011-04-20T09:54:16.080+10:00The app is not the savior of newsThe iPad is now one Christmas old and with the benefit of more devices in more hands publishers are readjusting their projections and re-evaluating the success metrics. <br />
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The weight of expectation of a whole industry is a lot for one small device to bear. So how is it holding up?<br />
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The iPad is doing just fine, thank you very much. But it doesn't look like it is going to singlehandedly save the media publishing industry any time soon.<br />
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To get a feel for how apps are being received by consumers, I did a small, informal survey of recent iPad converts, including a few longer term users. Of the ten people I spoke to, all are high consumers of news in other formats, and range in age from their twenties to seventies. <br />
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The verdict, unsurprisingly, is that everyone loves their iPad. Some use it more than others, but each said they were spending more time online as a result of it.<br />
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But they remain underwhelmed by the available news apps and the device hasn't made any real difference to their media consumption habits yet, nor has it convinced them to pay for news where they had previously not been doing so.<br />
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There appear to be two elements at work here. One is that the iPad provides an adequate web browsing experience. It's not perfect, and there are plenty of sites that, for example use Flash extensively, that don't work properly on the iPad's Safari browser. But by and large it is a satisfactory news browsing experience.<br />
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The other element is that news apps just aren't up to scratch. Most of the survey sample had tried one or other of the available paid news apps but had dropped the subscription after an initial period of trialling it, making do with the available free versions.<br />
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The complaints were fairly consistent. All felt that while they were willing to pay for news, they resented having to pay for something they felt was sub-standard The complaints ranged from "It doesn't have everything that's in the paper" to "It's too slow, the news is out of date" to "It looks too much like a paper", there was some criticism of the technology as slow or buggy.<br />
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Breadth and timeliness of news delivery was the most important element. The web has taught consumers to expect instant breaking news, and the expectation is that the app will deliver the same, as well as being a luxurious reading experience. The app is seen as potentially combining the best attributes of print and online.<br />
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Early iPad news app usage data pointed to early morning and late evening activity. I expect we will see that change as the tablet finds its way into the routine of people's lives. The expectation follows that we should see increased audience numbers and more frequent session times. <br />
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But that puts a spotlight back on the real motivation of publishers in producing iPad apps. Are publishers still defending print circulations, or are we honestly trying to build new audiences with our iPad apps? My small survey group felt the publishers really want them to go back to buying the newspaper. Why else, they argue, would an app look and feel so much like a print product, or even in one case look exactly like a replica of a newspaper?<br />
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And why would it be so slow with the news? Queensland's flood and cyclone disasters were a case in point. Major rolling news stories were not available on some news apps as fast as they were on news web sites. Paying customers were right to feel ripped off.<br />
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Much was written in 2010 about publishers' embracing the tablet as a way of reviving the habit of paying for news. At the same time the consensus was that the new offering needed to be compelling enough to encourage the habit. With a little bit of time and plenty of apps in the app store, it is painfully obvious that few, if any of the news apps currently available are compelling enough to attract and keep paying readers.<br />
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The message from the market is - Yes, we'll pay for it, but it had better be good.<br />
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<i>First published in the PANPA Bulletin February 2011.</i>hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-21007869242595410242010-12-01T23:35:00.000+11:002010-12-01T23:35:13.099+11:00Resuming transmission ... and changing directionI finished up at APN yesterday after three and a half years. It has been a great ride, and very productive. I feel I am leaving a business quite different from the one I joined.<br />
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Digitally it is well positioned, with traffic growing and ending the year with the strongest revenue numbers ever. Really terrific YoY growth. The immediate challenge for the business now is meeting client demand and ensuring audience growth continues. But that's not a unique situation. It's an indicator of success.<br />
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During the past three and a half years we have established a whole new network of regional news sites that is now a genuine competitor as a network buy to FD and NDM. Obviously, the <a href="http://www.apndigital.com.au/">APN Digital</a> coverage is specific in geography. But it is 10% of the national market that no one else reaches, so it is very valuable.<br />
<br />
And this year we did the agency <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/fairfax-apn-in-regional-online-tieup-20100222-or3a.html">deal with Fairfax</a> to sell classifieds in Qld and Northern NSW, which kicked off in August. I think that is a classic win win.<br />
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We also set up some pretty ambitious new products - such as <a href="http://www.finda.com.au/">finda</a> - that are set to continue the growth story and extend into new audiences.<br />
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So I feel satisfied I am leaving the digital part of the business well positioned and primed for further growth.<br />
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And I am pleased to say that we brought some very good digital people into the business. The kind of talent and expertise that will enable APN to build a new business culture, and continue the growth trajectory that digital has been on.<br />
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As for me, I'll watch with interest. But right now I'm looking forward to having a break and spending some time with my family.<br />
<br />
Happy Christmas, and here's to 2011 ...hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-48159345159325991992009-04-20T08:23:00.004+10:002009-04-20T08:36:31.482+10:00Customisation and news sitesIn early March Fairfax Media relaunched <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/" target="_blank">www.stuff.co.nz</a> incorporating a degree of user enabled customisation previously not seen in New Zealand news sites. Below is a few thoughts about personalised news services from Darren Burden and David Higgins.<br /><br />Darren is Director of News and Sport at Fairfax Digital in Australia (he was not involved in the Stuff relaunch). David Higgins is editor of <a href="http://www.news.com.au/" target="_blank">News.com.au</a> which was the first major Australian news site to incorporate broad based customisation.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Q: Any general comments about the style of personalisation we've seen on news.com.au and now stuff.co.nz? </span><br /><br />DARREN: Personalisation has been the flavour of the month for as long as I can remember. The thing is that people like the idea of personalisation, but very few could be bothered to actually use the features.<br /><br />DAVID: Technically – I think I have this right – News.com.au and Stuff.co.nz are examples of customisation, where visitors can change a website to fit their own needs, eg. putting sport up top and entertainment down the bottom. Personalisation is where a site watches a visitor’s behaviour and changes itself to fit that individual’s needs. With care, I think both are good ways of building loyalty, but customisation/personalisation is only one element of a digital strategy.<br /><br />DARREN: For a news site there are other limitations such as balancing the customisation above the fold, or being able to add components of interest such as email or IM clients. This type of functionality also impedes the “serendipity effect” of being spontaneously directed around a website using devices such as the Top 5 stores, or most viewed videos. I do like the idea however of localisation – this makes a lot of sense. For example the work that Stuff.co.nz has done with weather. We need to get cracking on that concept for all Fairfax sites.<br /><br />DAVID: For me there are five key reasons why digital journalism attracts people over print. Indulge the alliteration, but I’ll call them the 5Cs: cost (it’s free), convenience (it’s on your work computer or phone), currency (it’s up to date), connection (it’s not just a story it’s a discussion), and customisation (I can make the news suit me).<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Q: So, David, has your experience shown that users treat News.com.au differently as a result of the format changes?</span><br /><br />DAVID: Just over a third of visitors have in some way used our customisation features to change News.com.au to suit their tastes. Of those, about 40 per cent have moved content modules around on the page. The most popular customisation has been to move sport up to the top of the page. The second most popular has been to move the tech section – which appears at the bottom of the page by default – up to the top. We have seen engagement and session times increase at a higher-than-industry-average rates since introducing the technology.<br /><br />Would we go to the next level and introduce an iGoogle or NetVibes approach allowing the construction of a totally customised experience? I doubt it because – being a big fan of NetVibes – I know Web customisation is more useful when pulling in feeds from all over the Web, not just from a single news site. Darren and I both agree that news sites are more likely to focus on further enabling users to export news content into third party customised environments.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Q: Darren, I know you have some thoughts on the degrees of personalisation that could work in different circumstances, could you give us either some examples or a rundown of what you see as ideal levels of personalisation for news sites?</span><br /><br />DARREN: There are some personalisation techniques that could work really well – initiated from a product point of view. As I mentioned before, people don’t necessarily want to do these actions themselves, but if the product automatically does it for them it makes for a much better experience. Take for example Amazon, who combine behavioural knowledge from an individual – that is what they have bought, with intersections of the crowd to produce suggestions and recommendations. There are other things we can do such as not show you the same video/gallery/story on the home page if you have already clicked on it. The research that we do is consistent - people are time poor, they scan stories, they want breaking news. We should be showing you the stories you are interested in based on your past behaviour – a more up to date and personal experience if you like. We’ll need to change some mindsets and work practices to achieve this – for example the editorial team who currently choose the top eight stories may have to pick the top 25 to ensure we have the selection we need. Jonathan Rosenberg, Snr VP of Product Management at Google talks in much more depth about behavioural personalisation on his <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/from-height-of-this-place.html" target="_blank">blog</a>.<br /><br />The second level of personalization is really more for readers who want to take our brands/content and build their own views in Facebook, NetVibes, blogs etc. This would entail creating better hooks into our content, but there are commercial challenges around this kind of personalisation which we would need to consider carefully. Nic Newman, Future Media Controller at the BBC recently indicated that they are also going to do more of this kind personalisation/syndication - but BBC don't have the same commercial challenges as public companies.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Q:In that context it’s interesting that The Guardian has just launched </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/open-platform">Open Platform</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. Given that we're still at the early, or even experimental stage, of this sort of formatting for news, how far do you think it can be pushed?</span><br /><br />DARREN: I think a lot of it starts from some of the ideas already discussed. It can be pushed as far as the limitations allow it. Some of the limitations are commercial, budgetary or the capability of your technical teams. We are pretty interested in making sure we build functionality or features that really add value to the product, rather than just being a good idea.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Q: What about the editing process? Do you think we will see news stories being edited differently as a result of user information generated by personalisation?</span><br /><br />DAVID: We certainly edit our home pages and features sections based on behaviour. News-editing is a lot more scientific these days and while there is still an element of “gut-feel”, most editors are more conscious of what stories and angles their audience are interested in. Editors now have incredible real-time data about their audiences and would be foolish not to be making the most of this.<br /><br />DARREN: Creating and subbing the content would not change – the story will still be the story. The changes are more likely to manifest in layout and content management. For example rather than choosing one lead image, we may select up to 10 that could change depending on behaviour as discussed previously. The types of systems that support this type of content need to be smart and robust – they need to learn as they go along, and above all be easy, fast and flexible for the editorial teams.<br /><br />DAVID: Current content management systems are not smart enough to efficiently edit stories for individuals – and clearly this will never be a manual task -- but I don’t see why this could not be possible in the future with smarter technology. The positive thing about the disappearance of "competitive barriers to entry" in our industry is the increased focus on innovation, which we all recognise as crucial to our prosperity.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Q: From a commercial perspective, what's the immediate upside? Does it increase the value of specific inventory? Do you think we'll see an upswing in targeted advertising?</span><br /><br />DARREN: Clearly any product investment should have a commercial impact. In some of the scenarios above we would see an increase in page impressions as people find more content they are interested in. We would also see a corresponding increase in time on site which is a good indication of engagement – one of the key metrics for smart advertisers. After all it makes sense that the longer someone sticks around, the more chances they have of seeing ads. The engagement metric is also an indicator of quality. People don’t tend to stick around when the content is crap.<br /><br />The other commercial aspect is really in behavioural advertising – one of the fastest growing segments of the online pie. We expect it to be a premium space as you need to have quite good data to provide this kind of service. It could be as simple as showing specific car ads to people who have been to Drive, or it could be show my ad to readers who are between 18-24, who've visited Drive in the last 7 days and who live at home. There will be an upswing, but creating the infrastructure to deal with this will be a challenge for publishers.<br /><br />DAVID: Most of the current work News Digital Media is doing in this area is on the commercial side. NDM recently introduced an Audience Targeting product that allows clients to target their ads to people based on their browsing behaviour. For example we can now serve car ads to people who are interested in cars -- even when they are not in a motoring section. This not only makes advertising more efficient for clients, it also makes it more useful to visitors. Visitors remain anonymous of course.hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9107771.post-85563070471827722172009-03-02T15:17:00.002+11:002009-03-02T15:25:58.412+11:00Another US newspaper closes<div style="text-align: center;"><object width="305" height="284"><param name="movie" value="http://www.thedailybeast.com/swf/TheDailyBeastVideoPlayer.swf"><param name="quality" value="high"><param name="menu" value="false"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="flashvars" value="video=http://www.tdbimg.com/files/2009/02/28/vid-hoyt-on-the-newspaper-crisis_113112528210.flv&still=http://www.tdbimg.com/files/2009/02/28/img-hoyt-on-the-newspaper-crisis-384_112817563928.jpg&title=HOYT%20ON%20THE%20NEWSPAPER%20CRISIS"><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.thedailybeast.com/swf/TheDailyBeastVideoPlayer.swf" id="tdbvideo" name="tdbvideo" bgcolor="#ffffff" quality="high" menu="false" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" flashvars="video=http://www.tdbimg.com/files/2009/02/28/vid-hoyt-on-the-newspaper-crisis_113112528210.flv&still=http://www.tdbimg.com/files/2009/02/28/img-hoyt-on-the-newspaper-crisis-384_112817563928.jpg&title=HOYT%20ON%20THE%20NEWSPAPER%20CRISIS" width="305" height="284"></embed></object></div><br /><br />Denver, Colorado: The Rocky Mountain News ceased production Friday February 27.hmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00029388603681662586noreply@blogger.com0