theage.com.au got in early, but as we click over the ten year mark for online journalism how far have we come?
What have we learned? What do we need to know? Poynter’s Web + 10 seminar offers some suggestions.
Sunday, February 06, 2005
Friday, February 04, 2005
Crikey is not just a web site
Daniel Donahoo has weighed into the debate about the business value of internet publishing following Crikey's deal with Eric Beecher. In an oped piece in today's Age Donahoo asks: "The sale is good for the founder, but will it good for the site?"
I may be guilty of being too harsh here, but that question betrays a fair degree of ignorance. Or perhaps Donahoo is just repeating the same, annoying mistake that others have in the rush to get with the new thang.
Listen up: internet publishing is NOT, repeat NOT, simply about web sites. It never has been and it never will be.
And Crikey, in particular, has relied less on its web site than most other online publishing efforts of the last ten years. As I said yesterday, the "key to Crikey, which is often overlooked, is the daily email newsletter, delivered twice a day to the reported 5,300 influential subscribers in Australian business, politics and the media. The web site is relatively unimportant to this model."
Donahoo compares Crikey to the indymedia sites which came into prominence in the late 90s. The idea here was that anyone could upload stories and images to a central location where they would be published as part of an "independent e-zine".
Those tools were of their day - the Seattle S11 anti-globalisation protests made the indymedia name widely recognisable. But this publishing model doesn't bear any similarity to the Crikey system.
Unfortunately the piece in The Age gives a quite misleading picture of what Crikey is and where it has come from. Donahoo is correct to say the new owners will "be wanting to increase advertising revenue and the number of subscribers". But most readers' response might be: "Duh, of course!"
Still, anyone, Beecher and Gribble included, will struggle to make money from the Crikey web site. The value for readers is in the email newsletter. The new owners might decide to change this, dump the newsletter delivery and simply whack everything on the site with password access for subscribers. They may seriously consider giving that a try ... except lots of evidence shows it doesn't work.
Crikey has been successful largely because it is delivered to those 5,300 inboxes each day. The distribution is via a push model - similar to newspaper delivery - as opposed to a pull model where subscribers have to remember to visit the web site. There are now other methods, such as RSS or aggregators, that might achieve a similar result for a web site, but is the Crikey audience willing to make all the necessary changes to their online reading habits for this to work? Maybe, but it's a risk.
In lieu of this, the real value for the new owners will remain the database of email addresses that make up the Crikey subscriber list. Not the web site. How they manage the relationship with that group of subscribers will determine whether they can make a go of the acquisition or whether they have to hand the reins back to Mayne at the end of the 18 month initial phase of the deal.
I may be guilty of being too harsh here, but that question betrays a fair degree of ignorance. Or perhaps Donahoo is just repeating the same, annoying mistake that others have in the rush to get with the new thang.
Listen up: internet publishing is NOT, repeat NOT, simply about web sites. It never has been and it never will be.
And Crikey, in particular, has relied less on its web site than most other online publishing efforts of the last ten years. As I said yesterday, the "key to Crikey, which is often overlooked, is the daily email newsletter, delivered twice a day to the reported 5,300 influential subscribers in Australian business, politics and the media. The web site is relatively unimportant to this model."
Donahoo compares Crikey to the indymedia sites which came into prominence in the late 90s. The idea here was that anyone could upload stories and images to a central location where they would be published as part of an "independent e-zine".
Those tools were of their day - the Seattle S11 anti-globalisation protests made the indymedia name widely recognisable. But this publishing model doesn't bear any similarity to the Crikey system.
Unfortunately the piece in The Age gives a quite misleading picture of what Crikey is and where it has come from. Donahoo is correct to say the new owners will "be wanting to increase advertising revenue and the number of subscribers". But most readers' response might be: "Duh, of course!"
Still, anyone, Beecher and Gribble included, will struggle to make money from the Crikey web site. The value for readers is in the email newsletter. The new owners might decide to change this, dump the newsletter delivery and simply whack everything on the site with password access for subscribers. They may seriously consider giving that a try ... except lots of evidence shows it doesn't work.
Crikey has been successful largely because it is delivered to those 5,300 inboxes each day. The distribution is via a push model - similar to newspaper delivery - as opposed to a pull model where subscribers have to remember to visit the web site. There are now other methods, such as RSS or aggregators, that might achieve a similar result for a web site, but is the Crikey audience willing to make all the necessary changes to their online reading habits for this to work? Maybe, but it's a risk.
In lieu of this, the real value for the new owners will remain the database of email addresses that make up the Crikey subscriber list. Not the web site. How they manage the relationship with that group of subscribers will determine whether they can make a go of the acquisition or whether they have to hand the reins back to Mayne at the end of the 18 month initial phase of the deal.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
The broadsheet dilemma
More on the trend towards tabloid or compact size newspapers.
Australian newspapers are being coy about this. John Hartigan from News cites uncertainty about "impact on readership" for the reluctance of The Australian and Brisbane's Courier Mail to publicly embrace the international trend towards small. You've got to wonder how long they can hold out in a company that has made a speciality of the tabloid.
The real reason for this reluctance is advertisers. Media buyer John Sintras illustrated the point when he said "it was unlikely his company would pay the same rates because of 'less impact' from a smaller page".
While some advertisers are willing to pay the same rate for a smaller ad, not all are. Until the doubters are persuaded it's not likely to happen.
Australian newspapers are being coy about this. John Hartigan from News cites uncertainty about "impact on readership" for the reluctance of The Australian and Brisbane's Courier Mail to publicly embrace the international trend towards small. You've got to wonder how long they can hold out in a company that has made a speciality of the tabloid.
The real reason for this reluctance is advertisers. Media buyer John Sintras illustrated the point when he said "it was unlikely his company would pay the same rates because of 'less impact' from a smaller page".
While some advertisers are willing to pay the same rate for a smaller ad, not all are. Until the doubters are persuaded it's not likely to happen.
Mayne's million dollar chance
Today's newspapers are all over the Crikey story. Mark Day in The Australian, describes Mayne as a gadfly,
But elsewhere he wants to take some of the credit for Mayne's deal:
To his subscribers there is nothing new in any of these reports. Subscribers were the first to learn about the deal - subscribers are always the first to learn anything there is to know about the Mayne family, whether it's about Mrs Crikey's reaction to some new project or Grandad Mayne, the oldest living columnist in the world, reporting on the 20th century - Mayne's family have always been part of Crikey.
And that's part of the charm. It's hard to see how a corporate owner can take Crikey to the "next level" whilst retaining the folksy appeal mixed with the gossipy tartness that Crikey has established as its signature.
The key to Crikey, which is often overlooked, is the daily email newsletter, delivered twice a day to the reported 5,300 influential subscribers in Australian business, politics and the media.
The web site is relatively unimportant to this model. It's simply an archive, and despite Stephen's alternative strategies of locking it for subscribers or attempting to leverage advertising opportunities by opening it to all, it's difficult to see how this would have any real long term value.
The problem is the nature of Crikey's coverage. Unattributed insider gossip makes entertaining reading today but it's hardly a permanent, valuable record of events for tomorrow. If you're not doing original reporting, or serious analysis, then where's the long term value of your material?
They've made some effort to address this recently by developing a roster of contributors who can liven the mix of stories across sport, entertainment and politics. News stories sold as scoops with anonymous sources and fake bylines have short shelf lives so Crikey has outed popular political columnist Hilary Bray as Christian Kerr and sent Hugo Kelly to Canberra as political correspondent.
It's a good move, but I'm not sure it has worked. Kelly is in direct competition with the rest of the Canberra press gallery, and Kerr seems to have gone off the boil since dropping the Hilary Bray persona. The latter may pick up, but having Kelly in Canberra is probably not the right decision.
Nevertheless, Mayne's occasional analysis, particularly of business issues, is always good. But this just points to another problem which is that Mayne himself is the real star turn at Crikey and without him it can often be fairly dull.
Mayne has always been an entertaining writer and energetic self-promoter. His six year-old treatise on jeffed.com is a delightfully gonzoesque rant about life inside the Kennett bunker circa 1998. In fact, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that Mayne is one of the more talented Australian journalists of his generation.
And that presents a problem for Crikey under the Beecher management. Despite keeping Mayne on as a writer for the next 18 months, the challenge will be to develop Crikey as a publication independent from and no longer reliant on, Stephen Mayne.
"who pioneered a new form of journalism on the internet. Crikey broke all the rules of traditional publishing, regularly reporting rumours without checking and frequently getting things wrong."... Day takes the opportunity, as he so often does, to deliver a backhander to all journalism on the internet.
But elsewhere he wants to take some of the credit for Mayne's deal:
"So it was in October last year when Stephen Mayne, owner of the gadfly Crikey email newsletter and website was approached by The Australian's Media section to talk about his internet publishing venture. " [...]The Age and Sydney Morning Herald have been a little more straightforward in their reporting. The words are mostly Mayne's, though.
"He was asked by Media: what next? [...]
"Media duly set the bait, reporting him as saying: 'I have to decide whether to hire an editor or take on a partner. I wouldn't expect any offers from any of the major publishers, because we play the outsider game so aggressively'."
To his subscribers there is nothing new in any of these reports. Subscribers were the first to learn about the deal - subscribers are always the first to learn anything there is to know about the Mayne family, whether it's about Mrs Crikey's reaction to some new project or Grandad Mayne, the oldest living columnist in the world, reporting on the 20th century - Mayne's family have always been part of Crikey.
And that's part of the charm. It's hard to see how a corporate owner can take Crikey to the "next level" whilst retaining the folksy appeal mixed with the gossipy tartness that Crikey has established as its signature.
The key to Crikey, which is often overlooked, is the daily email newsletter, delivered twice a day to the reported 5,300 influential subscribers in Australian business, politics and the media.
The web site is relatively unimportant to this model. It's simply an archive, and despite Stephen's alternative strategies of locking it for subscribers or attempting to leverage advertising opportunities by opening it to all, it's difficult to see how this would have any real long term value.
The problem is the nature of Crikey's coverage. Unattributed insider gossip makes entertaining reading today but it's hardly a permanent, valuable record of events for tomorrow. If you're not doing original reporting, or serious analysis, then where's the long term value of your material?
They've made some effort to address this recently by developing a roster of contributors who can liven the mix of stories across sport, entertainment and politics. News stories sold as scoops with anonymous sources and fake bylines have short shelf lives so Crikey has outed popular political columnist Hilary Bray as Christian Kerr and sent Hugo Kelly to Canberra as political correspondent.
It's a good move, but I'm not sure it has worked. Kelly is in direct competition with the rest of the Canberra press gallery, and Kerr seems to have gone off the boil since dropping the Hilary Bray persona. The latter may pick up, but having Kelly in Canberra is probably not the right decision.
Nevertheless, Mayne's occasional analysis, particularly of business issues, is always good. But this just points to another problem which is that Mayne himself is the real star turn at Crikey and without him it can often be fairly dull.
Mayne has always been an entertaining writer and energetic self-promoter. His six year-old treatise on jeffed.com is a delightfully gonzoesque rant about life inside the Kennett bunker circa 1998. In fact, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that Mayne is one of the more talented Australian journalists of his generation.
And that presents a problem for Crikey under the Beecher management. Despite keeping Mayne on as a writer for the next 18 months, the challenge will be to develop Crikey as a publication independent from and no longer reliant on, Stephen Mayne.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Crikey sells
Stephen Mayne has accepted a reported $1million for Crikey, the email driven publishing business that has wormed its way under the skin of business, politics and media types for the last five years.
It's a first for Australian internet publishing businesses ... more later, when time allows. Meantime, there are some good points here.
It's a first for Australian internet publishing businesses ... more later, when time allows. Meantime, there are some good points here.
Monday, January 31, 2005
Trackback and good journalism
Jack Shafer at Slate has reviewed the Blogging, Journalism and Credibility conference and basically decided that bloggers are guilty of overstating their case by a country mile.
In a piece titled Blog Overkill he warns against "fetishising" a new technology or new media wrinkle (which apparently is what a blog is) and concludes: "... we owe it to this prodigious new communications form not to demand too much too soon."
Before then he managed to infuriate Jay Rosen whilst generating a helluva good discussion, both the original and Rosen's response are worth checking out. Here's a sample from one of Rosen's readers:
Why shouldn't daily news sites publish trackback code on every story? The overhead is a lot less compared to the editorial requirements for comment pages, but the reader value would be high. The combination of the two, though, would be quite powerful. And the loop back to the reporters, in terms of seeing the ways in which their work is used, would undoubtedly enrich their writing.
The intricacies of coding have never been my strong point, but it seems reasonable to expect that any decent content management system could handle this sort of modification.
In a piece titled Blog Overkill he warns against "fetishising" a new technology or new media wrinkle (which apparently is what a blog is) and concludes: "... we owe it to this prodigious new communications form not to demand too much too soon."
Before then he managed to infuriate Jay Rosen whilst generating a helluva good discussion, both the original and Rosen's response are worth checking out. Here's a sample from one of Rosen's readers:
This bloke is right. The trackback feature is interesting, and its use in this instance points to some serious questions, as well as opportunities, for journalists."I think the very existence of Jack's article is a tip of the hat to the increasing influence of blogs, and the future promise of a Journalism affected by the blogosphere. He's essentially added a Trackback to the end of his column that has enabled his readers to follow the discussion in the blogs and see for themselves where Shafer got it wrong or where he got it right. He didn't have to do this, and had he not, your response to the article would not be as center-stage as it is."
Why shouldn't daily news sites publish trackback code on every story? The overhead is a lot less compared to the editorial requirements for comment pages, but the reader value would be high. The combination of the two, though, would be quite powerful. And the loop back to the reporters, in terms of seeing the ways in which their work is used, would undoubtedly enrich their writing.
The intricacies of coding have never been my strong point, but it seems reasonable to expect that any decent content management system could handle this sort of modification.
Friday, January 28, 2005
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Still in print ... for now
Today's Oz Media has a round-up of projections for the industry in 2005. The main piece by Mark Day looks at the legislative landscape and the likelihood of change, as well as a quick summary of the major players and their probable courses of action. This is packaged with five accompanying breakout pieces looking at the divisions of print, radio, magazines, digital TV, advertising and marketing. Only one of these is online.
In a piece headed "Not yet out of print", Errol Simper writes:
I wonder if Simper has heard of Newsgator?
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the section, News advises Fairfax, via the wisdom of JP Morgan's media team, to go tabloid and reap millions. Who are these nameless "analysts", and what real value do they add to a debate about newspaper formats? I mean seriously.
The best minds in the business of newspaper design don't automatically favour the tabloid - it suits some markets and some papers, but not all. There are other design options to attract readers and maintain ad revenues.
In a piece headed "Not yet out of print", Errol Simper writes:
"... Newspapers will spend the year setting the majority of news agendas, just as they did last year. Radio producers, news directors and talkback hosts will continue to scan the papers every morning as bountiful providers of program content. Sometimes the newspapers will receive attribution, more often they won't. The executive producers of any number of television programs will, likewise, comb the papers for stories that can be moved on a metre or two and served up at 6pm."This is not nearly as true as it once was. And don't forget print editors pay just as much attention to what stories are running on TV and radio.
I wonder if Simper has heard of Newsgator?
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the section, News advises Fairfax, via the wisdom of JP Morgan's media team, to go tabloid and reap millions. Who are these nameless "analysts", and what real value do they add to a debate about newspaper formats? I mean seriously.
The best minds in the business of newspaper design don't automatically favour the tabloid - it suits some markets and some papers, but not all. There are other design options to attract readers and maintain ad revenues.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
"Silly and unworkable"
hmm ... This probably seemed like a good idea - just before she said it out loud.
Newspapers, blogs and Technorati
There's a good discussion going on at Morph under the topic heading "Why newspapers still matter". Guaranteed to pique my interest.
It ties in nicely with an earlier Morph discussion on Open source media. The writer, JD Lasica, wrote:
To which Lasica replied:
It ties in nicely with an earlier Morph discussion on Open source media. The writer, JD Lasica, wrote:
"Good story, except the company that is in charge of the watermarking process isn't returning my phone calls (perhaps understandably). I don't have days to spend on the phone tracking this down to nail it - and if I blog what I've got so far nobody will care."Maybe, maybe not. Funnily enough it provoked this response from one reader: "I shudder at the idea of blogging a 'draft' post based on a single source to find out if the story is true or not."
To which Lasica replied:
"It already happens dozens of times a day. (It may not rise to the level of a traditional news story all the time, but it still happens all the time.) When it does, readers who may have inside knowledge of the veracity of the report can contribute to the report or disavow the shaky part -- mostly out in the open.
Bloggers who do so should take pains to point out that the information hasn't been confirmed -- but I see no harm in doing so. (The alternative is to sit on the information.) And readers by now should be savvy enough to recognize an unverified report for what it is. (Not all do, but that's an ongoing educational process.)"
So bloggers get into discussions with readers about the finer details of a story. Or readers add their own details. Either way, this is clearly a departure from the traditional definitions of journalism. Jay Rosen has been making this point for a while, and it goes to the reason for holding a conference like the one that took place last weekend (even if the voices were somewhat limited) on Blogging, Journalism and Credibility.
Related to this is the issue of aggregator sites and the role they will play in the distribution of news. It's definitely a whole area for discussion itself, but it's worth noting that some major news sites are recording dropping visitor numbers to their front pages as readers follow deep links from blogs or aggregator sites directly to articles.
Some of the most popular sites are Blogdex and Technorati. These sites harvest millions of blogs and display the most popular ones - calculated by incoming links - or the most recently updated. And they can be sorted by topic into real-time feeds. Readers might continue to check their favorite writers, but these aggregators give every blogger a chance to be read if they write something worth reading. And it means that the brand value of particular mastheads will continue to be broken down unless major media organisations react smartly.
As an illustration of the power of aggregators, a search on Technorati this morning for "Academy Award screeners" has Lasica's post on Morph at number two. So while Lasica wrote that no one would care about the story, such as he had it, it's already out. You can imagine that post prompting enough online discussion to get closer to the truth before the LA Times gets the story published.
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