When a blog becomes a job

Blogs are big news at the moment, and they might just be about to make big money for a lucky few.

The Guardian thinks so:

"It's possible for an individual, skillful blogger to have income from a blog," says Adriana Cronin-Lukas, a consultant for fledgling firm the Big Blog Company, and a serious weblogging evangelist. "But ultimately it is the communications aspect of the blog that brings money in - by blogging about a company or expertise."

Others have found fortune in different ways. The anonymous writer behind Belle de Jour, the notorious and disputed diary of a London call-girl, has made a mint from her salacious stories, recently publishing a book and subsequently signing a deal for a TV series on Channel 4.

A handful of budding entrepreneurs have even taken the bait and tried to cross blogging with traditional publishing to fish for profit. Nick Denton, a former Financial Times journalist and experienced dotcommer, is recognised as the king of commercial bloggers.

Nick Denton of Gawker and New York web designer Jason Kotke regularly feature as the likeliest to profit early from the blog phenomenon. Kotke spoke to Wired about his recent move to full-time blogging.

Darren Rowse is another blogger who is making a living from blogs.

Watch this space.

Losing relevance online

For so long the Wall Street Journal has been held up as a successful model of how to make the web pay. Not only is it an authoritative, well written and well edited mass circulation business paper, but it seemed to have its act together online as well. Its online subscription policy was seen as being a smart move for a publication that "owned" business and finance reporting in the US market. Accordingly it could charge for access. News, on the other hand, is too easily available to charge for.

But maybe the silver web lining in the WSJ cloud has tarnished. Writing in Wired, Adam L Penenberg says:

"Since most people refuse to pay for WSJ stories, most bloggers are reluctant to link to them. It also has an impact on anyone who uses the web for research -- and there are a lot of us. As importantly, the next generation of readers is growing up by accessing news over the internet, and one place they are not surfing to is WSJ.com. With their habits being formed now, there is little chance the Journal will become part of their lives, either now or in the future.

As a result, there is a meme that has begun to take hold that questions the Journal's long-term relevancy. It began, I believe, last fall with John Battelle, founder of the defunct Industry Standard, who realized he couldn't remember the last time he had read The Wall Street Journal, even though he is a subscriber. Since he couldn't share links with his community (read: bloggers), he ended up passively boycotting it. Battelle suggested the Journal partially open up its doors to bloggers by allowing them to link to specific stories, which they could share with their readers, but if they wanted to access any other part of the site, they'd have to pay up like everybody else.

J.D. Lasica, a former editor for The Sacramento Bee, followed up with a blog post entitled, "When publications remove themselves from the conversation," in which he confessed that he planned to let his Journal subscription run out because he couldn't link to his favorite writers. He believes the Journal, with its "walled garden" policy, is shutting off its site to newcomers."

A similar thing has happened to the Australian Financial Review and Penenberg's conclusion about the Wall Street Journal could easily apply to the AFR:

"What it needs is a new online strategy. The Journal should take the bold step of jettisoning its subscriber model and open up its archive to the public. In the end, it would make up the loss of subscriber revenue with money from advertising, which has been growing briskly. Sure, it might take a while -- perhaps many years -- but this is the only way for it to ensure its long-term survival."

Today's blogs

Slate has a new feature, a roundup of blog discussions - highlights, you could say.

Washington Post's continuous newsdesk

Robert J. McCartney, assistant managing editor of The Washington Post's continuous news desk, discusses online news and how "continuous news" works at The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com in an online chat.

Abbott's feel-good spin

Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott has been in the headlines all week, but not because of his portfolio responsibilities. Instead, the minister has been talking about the responsibilities he shirked as a young man when he allowed his then pregnant girlfriend (actually, she'd dumped him by this stage) to give up their child for adoption. Twenty seven years later the child turns up as an ABC sound recordist who works in Canberra's Parliament House. Wonderful coincidence.

This is the way The Age broke the story last Monday:

"The day after Christmas a nervous Tony Abbott made a call into his past, and was rewarded with four words that took his breath away: "Thanks for having me."

It marked a reconciliation and reunion with the son, Daniel, he gave up for adoption 27 years ago."

It ran all week. There was the inevitable reaction the same day; the minister's plea on day two for his new-found son not to be used as a 'political football' in the abortion debate (thus ensuring that he was); pained reaction from Daniel's adoptive family; speculation on the effect this story would have on other adopting families; and so on ...

All of this was kickstarted by an almighty stoush between Bulletin editor Gary Linell and the editors of News Ltd papers, particularly The Telegraph. You see the Bulletin had the story first but agreed to hold on to it until Abbott had had time to talk to his family. Big mistake. Anne Summers picks up the story in today's Age:

The whole story is recounted in considerable depth and with a great deal of sensitivity to all parties in this week's Bulletin magazine. Journalist Julie-Anne Davies got a tip some weeks ago about the Health Minister being reunited with his son. She approached Abbott, who confirmed it but asked her to hold off publishing the story to give him time to talk to relevant people. The magazine could have run the story last week but agreed to the minister's request. He then betrayed them.

Last Sunday afternoon, just after Davies had filed her story, Tony Abbott rang his good friend Piers Akerman, rabid columnist for The Daily Telegraph and alerted him to the fact that The Bulletin was running with the story on Wednesday. Late that afternoon Kathy Donnelly rang Davies, extremely upset, to say she had had a call from Akerman. Abbott has told The Bulletin that he had no idea that Akerman would run with the story the next day; he was reminded by The Bulletin of the deal they had and claims to have rung Akerman a second time and also to have spoken to his editor and asked them not to publish.

Stopping the presses

Forbes analyses the economics behind the decline in newspapers:

"Though many publishers can boast of increasing their shareholders' earnings during the past 40 years through acquisitions and cost-cutting, only a few have managed to buck a trend of declining readership. The combined weekday circulation of all U.S. dailies has dropped from 62.8 million in 1985 to 55.2 million in 2002. That gives it the lowest penetration of any medium.

Worse for newspaper publishers, that trend is accelerating as the Internet has become embedded in the daily lives of so many potential readers both young and old. The top 20 news sites drew an average of 5 million individuals each month in early 2002. That figure has risen to more than 8.5 million, with the top sites drawing more than 20 million unique visitors a month. [...]

The Internet has changed the economics of the publishing industry in a way commercial television never did. The price of news and information has irrevocably been pushed way down the supply/demand curve. The Web has also destroyed the functional monopoly of the local daily newspaper with the very high barriers to technical entry. Anyone can be a publisher, and, it seems, these days, most anyone is. [...]

People may decreasingly read news from branded and trusted newspapers, but, surveys show, they do want to read it from them online.

There lies the trap for serious journalism. Going online has not yet worked convincingly for many newspapers. Despite spending billions to create online editions, these are read by fewer people, less frequently and less fully than print editions are."

Sony pays 25k a month for Gawker blog

AdAge reports that Sony is paying $25,000 a month for a new Gawker blog - Lifehacker.

The deal, which also includes placements on Gizmodo, Gawker's earlier gadget title, will cost Sony in the range of $25,000 a month, according to a source close to the deal. The sponsorship runs for about three months. [...]

But because Gawker sites are considered the cream of the blog world and Sony is a blue-chip marketer, the pact assumes a rare status. [...]

Although several famous blogs like Dailykos.com and Instapundit pull in up to $20,000 a month from their many advertisers, and marketing on blogs in general is starting to appear on media buyers' radar, such deals are far from mainstream. Still, media pros are buzzing about whether the Sony-Gawker pricing begins to define buys on high-profile blogs going forward.

Peter's principles

News Corp executives met last week to discuss the company's online strategy. Coincidentally, company president Peter Chernin outlined his 10 rules for media survival at a Forrester Consumer Forum.

Chernin explains that networks and advertisers need to work together on new formats, and that companies need to turn to technology for new forms of distribution. In particular, he looks at the most contentious issues currently facing the media and threatening future profits including: fragmentation, ad-skipping, and piracy.

Chernin's rules are:

"Rule 1: Realize that consumers' desires of control, choice, convenience, and simplicity have not been altered by the recent changes in technology.
Rule 2: A wired home does not change anything. It merely allows consumers to move content from one device to another within their home.
Rule 3: Media companies and advertisers have to redefine their relationship.
Rule 4: Consumers don't reject advertising, they reject complacency. Advertisers need to evolve the methods through which they reach consumers, especially their old habit of using 30 second commercials.
Rule 5: Content is still king, but financing the kingdom is complicated.
Rule 6: If content is king, then marketing is the crown prince. Broadcast or cable networks need to create tightly focused brands, like HBO, FX, or MTV.
Rule 7: Get noticed. Even the brightest ideas need to be original, more audacious, and more gripping.
Rule 8: The industry cannot ignore the fragmentation that is going on around the world.
Rule 9: Nothing compares to the spontaneity and thrill of things that are live, including sports, news, and entertainment.
Rule 10: If the industry does not solve the problem of piracy and can thus not protect content, all other rules are meaningless."

We Media one year on

Chris Willis and Shayne Bowman are interviewed about the reception We Media has received one year after publication:

"We Media" tries to define what many journalists and media executives have been sensing for sometime — the media world is shifting. What is the most unsettling thing for media professionals is not change but how the change is happening and where it is coming from. Change is not coming from traditional competitors but from the audience they serve. What could be more frightening? These changes have been growing in momentum for some years. Mainstream media now has to make the choice: Embrace their audience as true collaborators or try to save the existing business model.

What few journalists and executives understand is that their audience is motivated to work with them. People are seeking a more intimate relationship with their storytellers — those who help them make sense of the world. They are willing to become actively engaged in the news gathering process. For this effort, they are looking for something remarkably simple, inexpensive and, yet, impossible for many news organizations give in return: Trust.

In the coming years, news organizations will have to figure out how to become equal partners with their readers and viewers. They will have to become better listeners, rather than doing all the talking. They will be the ones being informed, rather than informing. That will be the change.

Ohmynews in English

OhmyNews celebrated its fifth anniversary on February 22. Now it is building a global network of citizen reporters writing in English on OhmyNews International.