paidContent reporting:
» Traditional book publishers have so far been reluctant to experiment with new pricing models...but they may have to start soon. The Google (NSDQ: GOOG) eBookstore appears to be planning a Netfix-like e-book rental service, though no official announcement has been made. Scott Dougall, Google Books Director of Product Management, said the company also hopes to offer physical/digital book bundles, but “it’s up to the publishing industry to be more open-minded” about it.
Of course, he’s talking about the big six—smaller publishers have been much more open to experimentation in this area. Andrew Savikas, VP of Digital Initiatives at O’Reilly Media, even said, “I think we’ll move away from being a purchase-based industry. Publishing will move toward…access-based models in which case the actual price of the unit is irrelevant.” You’re not going to hear anybody from Random House saying that any time soon.
» There’s a huge market for foreign-language e-books in the U.S. Barnes & Noble Manager of International Digital Content Patricia Arancibia said the retailer’s sales of foreign-language e-books are now growing faster than their sales of English e-books—increasing over 100 percent each month…
» ...but territorial rights for e-books are a huge issue and source of friction. Currently, a publisher may have the right to sell an e-book within one country, but not another. “The notion that we can or should enforce geographic restrictions on web and digital content is a lost cause,” said O’Reilly’s Saivkas. “I don’t believe territorial restrictions make sense with digital content. It’s not the way the web works.” Again, that’s an area where the big publishers are more conservative: “We are rigorous as a company in terms of territorial management,” said Amanda Close, Random House VP of Digital Sales & Business Development.
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-what-we-learned-about-the-book-industry-this-week
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
ebooks business news from New York
paidContent reporting:
Book publishers’ greatest challenge now is discoverability in the digital age. How do they ensure that their ebooks and apps get found? How do they market directly to consumers? Brick-and-mortar bookstores that were once publishers’ main customers are disappearing and sales are moving online.“Our content has always been discovered by people either looking for it or recommending it,” said Charlie Redmayne, EVP and Chief Digital Officer of HarperCollins. “But now looking for it is through search and recommending it is through social media.” “Publishers do not know how to market e-books yet,” said Evan Schnittman, Managing Director of Group Sales and Marketing at Bloomsbury, said.
» Oh yeah…and pricing is a pretty stiff challenge too. As book publishers have moved to the agency model—in which they set their own prices for e-books and the retailer (the Amazon Kindle Store, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iBookstore, or whoever) receives a commission—they are realizing there’s a lot they don’t know about that area. Traditionally, bookstores set their own prices and ran promotions. When Perseus Books Group set out to learn more about pricing, Joe Mangan, COO, said they realized how little they knew about it: “Online retailers were repricing books every two or four hours.”
» Gadget gossip. It was a huge week for e-reader announcements. On Monday, there was Kobo with its $129.99 eReader Touch Edition, which incorporates the company’s Reading Life social networking technology. On Tuesday morning, Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) announced its new Nook, the $139 Simple Touch Reader, whose main claim to fame is its two-month battery life. CEO William Lynch said the Nook has captured over 25 percent of the e-book market. “Based on industry data, it is our belief that Nook Color is the bestselling Android tablet in the U.S., second only to the iPad,” he said. Apparently feeling left out, Amazon announced on Tuesday evening that it’s releasing a $164 Kindle 3G with Special Offers.
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-what-we-learned-about-the-book-industry-this-week
Book publishers’ greatest challenge now is discoverability in the digital age. How do they ensure that their ebooks and apps get found? How do they market directly to consumers? Brick-and-mortar bookstores that were once publishers’ main customers are disappearing and sales are moving online.“Our content has always been discovered by people either looking for it or recommending it,” said Charlie Redmayne, EVP and Chief Digital Officer of HarperCollins. “But now looking for it is through search and recommending it is through social media.” “Publishers do not know how to market e-books yet,” said Evan Schnittman, Managing Director of Group Sales and Marketing at Bloomsbury, said.
» Oh yeah…and pricing is a pretty stiff challenge too. As book publishers have moved to the agency model—in which they set their own prices for e-books and the retailer (the Amazon Kindle Store, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iBookstore, or whoever) receives a commission—they are realizing there’s a lot they don’t know about that area. Traditionally, bookstores set their own prices and ran promotions. When Perseus Books Group set out to learn more about pricing, Joe Mangan, COO, said they realized how little they knew about it: “Online retailers were repricing books every two or four hours.”
» Gadget gossip. It was a huge week for e-reader announcements. On Monday, there was Kobo with its $129.99 eReader Touch Edition, which incorporates the company’s Reading Life social networking technology. On Tuesday morning, Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) announced its new Nook, the $139 Simple Touch Reader, whose main claim to fame is its two-month battery life. CEO William Lynch said the Nook has captured over 25 percent of the e-book market. “Based on industry data, it is our belief that Nook Color is the bestselling Android tablet in the U.S., second only to the iPad,” he said. Apparently feeling left out, Amazon announced on Tuesday evening that it’s releasing a $164 Kindle 3G with Special Offers.
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-what-we-learned-about-the-book-industry-this-week
Suddenly, Amazon Starts Competing With Its Biggest Suppliers
BusinessInsider reporting:
Amazon is working hard to become an e-book publisher, and thereby compete with the established publishers, who also happen to be some of its biggest suppliers, TechFlash writes.
Amazon's Kindle, both as a device and a platform, are runaway successes, and they're clearly the future of the book. And Amazon as publisher has always been at the heart of the Kindle platform, where anyone can self-publish and sell Kindle books, with Amazon taking a cut.
But now Amazon is going beyond that, hiring a top publishing executive and starting an office in New York, and going aggressively after best-selling authors.
Amazon is announcing imprints for books under a variety of verticals like young adult fiction, business and general non-fiction, often with best-selling authors.
This is a risky move for Amazon, because its paper book retailing business is huge and so it's alienating important suppliers, but it's the right move for the following reasons:
Amazon is working hard to become an e-book publisher, and thereby compete with the established publishers, who also happen to be some of its biggest suppliers, TechFlash writes.
Amazon's Kindle, both as a device and a platform, are runaway successes, and they're clearly the future of the book. And Amazon as publisher has always been at the heart of the Kindle platform, where anyone can self-publish and sell Kindle books, with Amazon taking a cut.
But now Amazon is going beyond that, hiring a top publishing executive and starting an office in New York, and going aggressively after best-selling authors.
Amazon is announcing imprints for books under a variety of verticals like young adult fiction, business and general non-fiction, often with best-selling authors.
This is a risky move for Amazon, because its paper book retailing business is huge and so it's alienating important suppliers, but it's the right move for the following reasons:
- It's a huge opportunity;
- Publishers are going to hate Amazon for doing Kindle no matter what Amazon does;
- Most importantly, at this point the publishers need Amazon more than Amazon needs the publishers. If publishers stop letting Amazon selling their books, they'll suffer more than Amazon.
Longreads is becoming more social (and making a play at sustainability)
NiemanJournalismLab reporting:
Last month, Rolling Stone brought three of its reporters to a Manhattan bookstore for a standing-room-only conversation about long-form journalism. The event was co-hosted by a hashtag.
At the time, #longreads, along with its associated Twitter feed, had just reached its second birthday. Founder Mark Armstrong had made the tag ubiquitous as a source for great nonfiction, helping to prompt the media business’ startled realization that people will actually read long stuff on the Internet. But could Longreads’ crowd of nonfiction fans, nearly 25,000 strong on the web, be mobilized to help support the creation of the stories they loved?
It’s a question that Armstrong is still working on as he continues Longreads’ development from media-geek favorite to industry standard. (NYT Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren used the tag Wednesday morning to announce the magazine’s latest cover story.)
...
But the supply-side problem will not be an easy one to fix, at least for the highest end of longform. Former NYT Magazine editor Gerry Marzorati once noted that the magazine’s cover stories regularly cost upwards of $40,000. At that rate, per my speculative math, even if every single @Longreads follower donated $10 a year to pay for new stories, their joint purchasing power would only fund about six longform projects. That would be great, of course, but on a typical day, the feed posts at least four or five.
Armstrong’s first financial experiment is more basic: finding out whether #longreads aficionados might be willing to voluntarily shell out some cash for the support of @Longreads itself. He is asking for voluntary members at $3 a month, or $30 for a year (plus a Longreads mug). Since the membership push is new, Armstrong wasn’t willing to talk numbers yet (or to provide a size-related adjective). Same deal with the particular perks of membership. “The perks are fairly minimal right now,” he noted. “We hope to add more perks over time, but we don’t want people to come in with that expectation.”
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/05/making-longreads-more-social-on-the-web-and-in-the-store/?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=94b42bdb3b-DAILY_EMAIL
Last month, Rolling Stone brought three of its reporters to a Manhattan bookstore for a standing-room-only conversation about long-form journalism. The event was co-hosted by a hashtag.
At the time, #longreads, along with its associated Twitter feed, had just reached its second birthday. Founder Mark Armstrong had made the tag ubiquitous as a source for great nonfiction, helping to prompt the media business’ startled realization that people will actually read long stuff on the Internet. But could Longreads’ crowd of nonfiction fans, nearly 25,000 strong on the web, be mobilized to help support the creation of the stories they loved?
It’s a question that Armstrong is still working on as he continues Longreads’ development from media-geek favorite to industry standard. (NYT Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren used the tag Wednesday morning to announce the magazine’s latest cover story.)
...
But the supply-side problem will not be an easy one to fix, at least for the highest end of longform. Former NYT Magazine editor Gerry Marzorati once noted that the magazine’s cover stories regularly cost upwards of $40,000. At that rate, per my speculative math, even if every single @Longreads follower donated $10 a year to pay for new stories, their joint purchasing power would only fund about six longform projects. That would be great, of course, but on a typical day, the feed posts at least four or five.
Armstrong’s first financial experiment is more basic: finding out whether #longreads aficionados might be willing to voluntarily shell out some cash for the support of @Longreads itself. He is asking for voluntary members at $3 a month, or $30 for a year (plus a Longreads mug). Since the membership push is new, Armstrong wasn’t willing to talk numbers yet (or to provide a size-related adjective). Same deal with the particular perks of membership. “The perks are fairly minimal right now,” he noted. “We hope to add more perks over time, but we don’t want people to come in with that expectation.”
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/05/making-longreads-more-social-on-the-web-and-in-the-store/?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=94b42bdb3b-DAILY_EMAIL
Monday, May 30, 2011
Nook Color Outselling iPad in Lucrative Women’s Magazines Demographic
Topcomputertablets reporting:
Forrester Research has found that basically, the iPad tends to be more of a Male consumer purchase, while the Nook Color eReader, which actually functions pretty wells as a “Tablet Lite” as well as eBook reader, tends to end up in more Female shopping carts. They released their findings that showed that 56% of iPad owners are Male and 55% of eReader owners are female. As eReaders like the Nook Color become more proficient as tablets, the fact that women are three times more likely to purchase an eBook than men means that digital publishers will have to take that into account, or miss out on a huge payday.
Even digital publishers have noticed the slant. At Meredith, the digital publishing house that provides electronic versions of women’s magazines More and Family Circle, Nook and Nook Color editions sell twice as well as iPad versions. And they are not waiting around to see if sales level off. They are planning on adding multiple digital versions of popular magazines aimed at the Female demographic.
And in an even bigger statistic, 5 times the number of customers actually subscribe to the digital eVersions of magazines on the Nook Color than on the iPad or iPad 2, where they prefer single issue purchases.
http://www.topcomputertablets.com/nook-color-outselling-ipad-in-lucrative-womens-magazines-demographic/226191
Forrester Research has found that basically, the iPad tends to be more of a Male consumer purchase, while the Nook Color eReader, which actually functions pretty wells as a “Tablet Lite” as well as eBook reader, tends to end up in more Female shopping carts. They released their findings that showed that 56% of iPad owners are Male and 55% of eReader owners are female. As eReaders like the Nook Color become more proficient as tablets, the fact that women are three times more likely to purchase an eBook than men means that digital publishers will have to take that into account, or miss out on a huge payday.
Even digital publishers have noticed the slant. At Meredith, the digital publishing house that provides electronic versions of women’s magazines More and Family Circle, Nook and Nook Color editions sell twice as well as iPad versions. And they are not waiting around to see if sales level off. They are planning on adding multiple digital versions of popular magazines aimed at the Female demographic.
And in an even bigger statistic, 5 times the number of customers actually subscribe to the digital eVersions of magazines on the Nook Color than on the iPad or iPad 2, where they prefer single issue purchases.
http://www.topcomputertablets.com/nook-color-outselling-ipad-in-lucrative-womens-magazines-demographic/226191
Mobile Users Warm Up to the Check-In
emarketer reporting:
Checking in to location-based services on a mobile phone is still not a mainstream activity, but adoption is increasing, especially among smartphone users—those most likely to use the apps that check-ins are typically tied to.
According to comScore, 7.1% of all mobile users and 17.6% of smartphone users accessed check-in services in March 2011.
Users of check-in services were more likely than the overall smartphone population to be female, under 35 years old and full-time students.
Checking in to location-based services on a mobile phone is still not a mainstream activity, but adoption is increasing, especially among smartphone users—those most likely to use the apps that check-ins are typically tied to.
According to comScore, 7.1% of all mobile users and 17.6% of smartphone users accessed check-in services in March 2011.
Users of check-in services were more likely than the overall smartphone population to be female, under 35 years old and full-time students.
for graphics see
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008410Google Wallet Lets You Pay With Your Smartphone Credit cards could be a thing of the past
Adweek reporting:
Thanks to the Google’s latest venture, you’ll never have to worry about forgetting your wallet again. Today, Google announced that it has partnered with Citi, MasterCard, First Data, and Sprint to launch Google Wallet, an app that uses near field communication to allow users to pay for purchases with a wave (or tap) of their smartphone.
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/google-wallet-lets-you-pay-your-smartphone-132035
Thanks to the Google’s latest venture, you’ll never have to worry about forgetting your wallet again. Today, Google announced that it has partnered with Citi, MasterCard, First Data, and Sprint to launch Google Wallet, an app that uses near field communication to allow users to pay for purchases with a wave (or tap) of their smartphone.
At first, Google Wallet will only be compatible with Sprint’s Nexus 4G S phone, but Google plans to expand to support other devices. Users will be able to store their credit cards (which, for now, includes Citi MasterCard and the Google Prepaid Card), loyalty cards, Google Offers, coupons, and gift cards in the app. Whenmaking purchases, the app will automatically redeem offers and earn loyalty points. Google plans to make sure that users’ information will be kept secure, with a phone lock, required PIN, and credit card data encryption.
Google Wallet will work wherever MasterCard PayPass is accepted—which includes 300,000 merchants worldwide and 120,000 in the U.S. (although it’s not rolling out everywhere just yet, notes TechCrunch). Retailers including Macy’s, CVS, and Radio Shack have already signed up, and the app will be free to merchants. Google won’t take any revenue from the credit card transactions, and is planning to make money from advertising instead.http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/google-wallet-lets-you-pay-your-smartphone-132035
Is There a Social Media Tech Bubble?
Mashable reporting:
Valuations of social media companies are starting to remind us of 1999. But are they overvalued?
Now that Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion, LinkedIn’s IPO valued the company at $8.9 billion after its first day of trading, and Facebook’s estimated value is pushing $100 billion, you might be starting to wonder if buying into user numbers rather than revenue is a good idea.
Social media site G+, a community of professionals, entrepreneurs and academics, put together this detailed infographic that lays it all out in front of you. Take a look at these valuations and let us know in the comments if you think this is getting out of hand:
http://mashable.com/2011/05/29/social-media-bubble-infographic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29
Valuations of social media companies are starting to remind us of 1999. But are they overvalued?
Now that Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion, LinkedIn’s IPO valued the company at $8.9 billion after its first day of trading, and Facebook’s estimated value is pushing $100 billion, you might be starting to wonder if buying into user numbers rather than revenue is a good idea.
Social media site G+, a community of professionals, entrepreneurs and academics, put together this detailed infographic that lays it all out in front of you. Take a look at these valuations and let us know in the comments if you think this is getting out of hand:
http://mashable.com/2011/05/29/social-media-bubble-infographic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29
Checking in with the Newport Daily News: Two years after a digital paywall, print is still king
NiemanJournalismLab reporting:
The Newport (R.I.) Daily News might have been ahead of its time in offering the Frank Rich discount: The newspaper charges a hefty premium for digital-only access in hopes of boosting print subscriptions.
Two years have passed since the Daily News introduced a three-tiered paywall. At the time, executive editor Sheila Mullowney described the move not as a push toward digital, but as the opposite: a “print-newspaper-first strategy.”
That remains the case today.
“The print product is the thing really driving us at this point,” William Lucey, the Daily News’ publisher, told me. “As far the Internet goes, it really has not amounted to a hill of beans yet from a financial point of view.”
That sentiment is borne out in the Columbia Journalism School’s recent report on the business of digital journalism, which digs into the data:
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/05/checking-in-with-the-newport-daily-news-two-years-after-a-digital-paywall-print-is-still-king/?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_campaign=081418b8ca-DAILY_EMAIL&utm_medium=email
The Newport (R.I.) Daily News might have been ahead of its time in offering the Frank Rich discount: The newspaper charges a hefty premium for digital-only access in hopes of boosting print subscriptions.
Two years have passed since the Daily News introduced a three-tiered paywall. At the time, executive editor Sheila Mullowney described the move not as a push toward digital, but as the opposite: a “print-newspaper-first strategy.”
That remains the case today.
“The print product is the thing really driving us at this point,” William Lucey, the Daily News’ publisher, told me. “As far the Internet goes, it really has not amounted to a hill of beans yet from a financial point of view.”
That sentiment is borne out in the Columbia Journalism School’s recent report on the business of digital journalism, which digs into the data:
The paper’s site, newportdailynews.com, gets around 80,000 visitors a month. Especially with online ad rates “dropping 20 percent a year,” that’s not enough to sustain the operation, which includes a newsroom of 22 people, Lucey says. Indeed, online ad revenue accounts for only 2 to 3 percent of total advertising for the paper.As the Daily News has tweaked its price, it has preserved the print-first ethos. Earlier this year, the paper dropped its print+digital subscription price from $245 a year to $157 — a dollar more than the print-only price. A digital-only subscription, on the other hand, costs $345 a year.
After the change was put into effect, “our single-copy sales went up about 300 a day” — a bit less than 10 percent of overall single-copy sales. As the economy improves, “print is coming back. February [2011] was up 35 percent over last year” in ad sales.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/05/checking-in-with-the-newport-daily-news-two-years-after-a-digital-paywall-print-is-still-king/?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_campaign=081418b8ca-DAILY_EMAIL&utm_medium=email
The Rising Popularity of Enhanced E-books
Goodereader reporting:
This year’s BookExpo America and IDPF Digital Book Conference brought exciting announcements in extremely opposite ends of the e-reader spectrum. On the one hand, two major players in the game unveiled to great fanfare and applause new versions of their e-reader devices that brought back the simplicity of reading by promoting a pared down version of a touch screen e-reader. Both Kobo and Barnes and Noble explained the focus behind their new e-ink e-readers, which was “just about reading a good book.”
On the flip side of e-reading, there was just as much excitement and discussion about enhanced e-books, which bring a veritable three-ring circus experience to reading. Enhanced e-books are the laser light show of books, with audio playback, embedded videos, and a cornucopia of photographs and graphics that just weren’t possible at the onset of digital publishing. Much of the discussion about the new features that EPUB3 brings to the table surrounded its ability to have real-time audio and video tracking through media overlays, allowing the words to keep up with the page in order to improve the experience. Several large companies were proudly showing off demonstration stations of their improved voice-over for children’s books, to make it sound a little more like Grandpa reading to you and less like the voice at your local ATM machine.
One of the great things about this trend in digital publishing is that the suppliers are obviously listening to the likes and dislikes of their reading audience. Google E-books’ statistic that there are a growing number of readers who own both a dedicated e-reader as well as a tablet PC indicates that sometimes a reader just wants to enjoy words on the page and there are other times when he wants to be immersed in a complete experience.
http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/the-rising-popularity-of-enhanced-e-books
This year’s BookExpo America and IDPF Digital Book Conference brought exciting announcements in extremely opposite ends of the e-reader spectrum. On the one hand, two major players in the game unveiled to great fanfare and applause new versions of their e-reader devices that brought back the simplicity of reading by promoting a pared down version of a touch screen e-reader. Both Kobo and Barnes and Noble explained the focus behind their new e-ink e-readers, which was “just about reading a good book.”
On the flip side of e-reading, there was just as much excitement and discussion about enhanced e-books, which bring a veritable three-ring circus experience to reading. Enhanced e-books are the laser light show of books, with audio playback, embedded videos, and a cornucopia of photographs and graphics that just weren’t possible at the onset of digital publishing. Much of the discussion about the new features that EPUB3 brings to the table surrounded its ability to have real-time audio and video tracking through media overlays, allowing the words to keep up with the page in order to improve the experience. Several large companies were proudly showing off demonstration stations of their improved voice-over for children’s books, to make it sound a little more like Grandpa reading to you and less like the voice at your local ATM machine.
One of the great things about this trend in digital publishing is that the suppliers are obviously listening to the likes and dislikes of their reading audience. Google E-books’ statistic that there are a growing number of readers who own both a dedicated e-reader as well as a tablet PC indicates that sometimes a reader just wants to enjoy words on the page and there are other times when he wants to be immersed in a complete experience.
http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/the-rising-popularity-of-enhanced-e-books
Five mobile apps to deliver multimedia news in real time
Innovative Interactivity reporting:
In the latest State of the Media Report, consumers were surveyed about their mobile news and paying online habits in which it was discovered that 51 percent of adults use some sort of mobile platform monthly to get local news or information.
So consumers use their mobile devices to consume news – but what about journalists using these ever-changing devices to gather the content? These five applications can enhance any reporter’s breaking news story by adding a multimedia element or allowing for interactivity. And the major benefit of these apps? No bulky equipment. Video, audio, photo, a police scanner and more in one handheld device – can’t beat that.
1. Viddy allows users to capture video and add filters to it before sharing it with their communities on Facebook, Twitter or even Viddy’s own social network. USA Today’s Jefferson Graham’s comprehensive look at Viddy, a free application, shows just what the app can do. Viddy is compatible with Apple products, and an Android version is in the works.
2. UScapeit is a different way for users to share scenes through photography. This free application is a way to capture a place, a scene or a landscape through video, which will then generate a 360-degree 3D panoramic picture. It’s not your typical photo app, but it could provide for a new visual twist to a story. Available for iPhone, iPod Touch (4th Generation) and iPad.
3. AudioBoo is a free app for both Apple and Android products and is a platform to record and share audio. You can even add a photo to the recording....
http://www.innovativeinteractivity.com/2011/05/26/5-news-gathering-mobile-apps
In the latest State of the Media Report, consumers were surveyed about their mobile news and paying online habits in which it was discovered that 51 percent of adults use some sort of mobile platform monthly to get local news or information.
So consumers use their mobile devices to consume news – but what about journalists using these ever-changing devices to gather the content? These five applications can enhance any reporter’s breaking news story by adding a multimedia element or allowing for interactivity. And the major benefit of these apps? No bulky equipment. Video, audio, photo, a police scanner and more in one handheld device – can’t beat that.
1. Viddy allows users to capture video and add filters to it before sharing it with their communities on Facebook, Twitter or even Viddy’s own social network. USA Today’s Jefferson Graham’s comprehensive look at Viddy, a free application, shows just what the app can do. Viddy is compatible with Apple products, and an Android version is in the works.
2. UScapeit is a different way for users to share scenes through photography. This free application is a way to capture a place, a scene or a landscape through video, which will then generate a 360-degree 3D panoramic picture. It’s not your typical photo app, but it could provide for a new visual twist to a story. Available for iPhone, iPod Touch (4th Generation) and iPad.
3. AudioBoo is a free app for both Apple and Android products and is a platform to record and share audio. You can even add a photo to the recording....
http://www.innovativeinteractivity.com/2011/05/26/5-news-gathering-mobile-apps
Sunday, May 29, 2011
CHART OF THE DAY: Proof The iPad Is Affecting Consumer PC Sales
Microsoft's consumer PC sales growth has pretty much never declined. Not even when Microsoft released Vista. Not even when the economy went in the toilet.
But suddenly, the growth of sales is about to go negative, says Citi analyst Walter Pritchard. Take a look at the chart below, and consider what changed in the last year.
(Hint.)
But suddenly, the growth of sales is about to go negative, says Citi analyst Walter Pritchard. Take a look at the chart below, and consider what changed in the last year.
(Hint.)
 |
Saturday, May 28, 2011
The opportunities and challenges of Meporter, a new citizen journalism mobile app
Poynter reporting:
A mobile app called Meporter aims to help citizen journalists report on events and breaking news.
Meporter launched Tuesday afternoon at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York City. The app is purposefully simple: Witnesses use it to report news events, and others use it to browse nearby reports.
“We like to call it the local, mobile news desk,” founder and CEO Andy Leff told me in a phone interview. Users can “report, update and read local news as it’s happening from their phones.”
A couple things about Meporter’s approach stand out: The company is offering to license these reports to news organizations, and it is offering real rewards and possibly even payments to the users who create content.
But it faces similar challenges as other apps that depend on a network of users to create and view content: demonstrating its usefulness and attaining a critical mass of users.
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/mobile-media/134059/the-opportunities-and-challenges-of-meporter-a-new-citizen-journalism-mobile-app
A mobile app called Meporter aims to help citizen journalists report on events and breaking news.
Meporter launched Tuesday afternoon at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York City. The app is purposefully simple: Witnesses use it to report news events, and others use it to browse nearby reports.
“We like to call it the local, mobile news desk,” founder and CEO Andy Leff told me in a phone interview. Users can “report, update and read local news as it’s happening from their phones.”
A couple things about Meporter’s approach stand out: The company is offering to license these reports to news organizations, and it is offering real rewards and possibly even payments to the users who create content.
But it faces similar challenges as other apps that depend on a network of users to create and view content: demonstrating its usefulness and attaining a critical mass of users.
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/mobile-media/134059/the-opportunities-and-challenges-of-meporter-a-new-citizen-journalism-mobile-app
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Nuoret arvostavat sanomalehtiä, lukeminen lisäsi äänestämistä
Sanomalehtien liitto:
Sanomalehtiä lukevat nuoret ja nuoret aikuiset pitävät sanomalehtiä muita mediamuotoja huomattavasti uskottavampina, luotettavampina, turvallisempina, laadukkaampina ja yhteiskunnallisesti vastuullisempina. Nämä alle 35-vuotiaiden sanomalehtiin liittämät ominaisuudet korostuivat Medioiden mielikuvat 2011 -tutkimuksessa, jonka toteutti TNS Gallup Sanomalehtien Liitolle maaliskuun lopulla. Kaikkien vastaajien vastauksissa sanomalehtien vahvimmiksi mielikuviksi erottuivat ominaisuudet arvostettu (76 %), asiantunteva (73 %), ajankohtainen (69 %) ja hyödyllinen (69 %)Sanomalehtien verkkopalvelujen mielikuvia tutkittiin nyt toista kertaa. Tilastollisesti merkitsevää parannusta oli tapahtunut sanomalehtien verkkopalvelujen luotettavuudessa (+10 %-yks.), yksilöllisyydessä (+7 %-yks.) ja aktiivisuudessa (+6 %-yks.).
http://www.sanomalehdet.fi/?1620_m=4552&s=1125
Sanomalehtien Liitto julkistaa tänään kolmen tutkimuksen tulokset. Tutkimuksissa on selvitetty painettujen sanomalehtien ja niiden verkkopalveluiden tavoittavuutta, sanomalehtien mielikuvia sekä sanomalehden lukemisen ja äänestämisen yhteyttä. Erityisenä kiinnostuksen kohteena olivat nuorten lukijoiden mielikuvat ja äänestyskäyttäytyminen.
Sanomalehtiä lukevat nuoret ja nuoret aikuiset pitävät sanomalehtiä muita mediamuotoja huomattavasti uskottavampina, luotettavampina, turvallisempina, laadukkaampina ja yhteiskunnallisesti vastuullisempina. Nämä alle 35-vuotiaiden sanomalehtiin liittämät ominaisuudet korostuivat Medioiden mielikuvat 2011 -tutkimuksessa, jonka toteutti TNS Gallup Sanomalehtien Liitolle maaliskuun lopulla. Kaikkien vastaajien vastauksissa sanomalehtien vahvimmiksi mielikuviksi erottuivat ominaisuudet arvostettu (76 %), asiantunteva (73 %), ajankohtainen (69 %) ja hyödyllinen (69 %)Sanomalehtien verkkopalvelujen mielikuvia tutkittiin nyt toista kertaa. Tilastollisesti merkitsevää parannusta oli tapahtunut sanomalehtien verkkopalvelujen luotettavuudessa (+10 %-yks.), yksilöllisyydessä (+7 %-yks.) ja aktiivisuudessa (+6 %-yks.).
http://www.sanomalehdet.fi/?1620_m=4552&s=1125
News apps make up only 3% of all offerings in Apple’s App Store
Poynter reporting:
Apps in the “news” category account for only 3 percent of all apps available in the iTunes Store, according to third-party research as Apple approved its 500,000th app this week. The largest categories are games (15 percent), books (14 percent) and entertainment (11 percent). News was 12th out of 20 categories. Also, pricing data show that 36 percent of apps are free, while 29 percent cost 99 cents and 13 percent cost $1.99. The other 22 percent are more expensive. The average app price: $3.64.
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/romenesko/133674/news-apps-make-up-only-3-of-all-offerings-in-apples-app-store
Apps in the “news” category account for only 3 percent of all apps available in the iTunes Store, according to third-party research as Apple approved its 500,000th app this week. The largest categories are games (15 percent), books (14 percent) and entertainment (11 percent). News was 12th out of 20 categories. Also, pricing data show that 36 percent of apps are free, while 29 percent cost 99 cents and 13 percent cost $1.99. The other 22 percent are more expensive. The average app price: $3.64.
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/romenesko/133674/news-apps-make-up-only-3-of-all-offerings-in-apples-app-store
Live Video Streaming not Highly Valued Feature by mobile users
Strategy Analytics reporting:
Boston, MA - May 25, 2011 – Eager to fend off the threats of non-traditional distribution platforms such as Hulu and Netflix and remain relevant, US Pay TV providers have recently begun launching their own iPad apps— allowing subscribers to access their recorded and video-on-demand content from a tablet device. This move has not been welcomed by content creators, and the well-publicized battle between Time Warner Cable and Viacom appears likely to be decided in the courts.
A new report by Strategy Analytics indicates that the debate might be nothing more than a distraction.Central to the current dispute is the live video streaming feature, enabling subscribers to view live real-time content on a mobile device— just as if they were watching on their own television. Survey research conducted by Strategy Analytics suggests that live video streaming is not even a highly valued feature by subscribers.
“Live video streaming is simply not a coveted feature for consumers. Of the 60 percent of smartphone users who ever view video on their mobile device, most engage in content ‘snacking’ of less than ten minutes at a time,” said Josh Martin, Senior Analyst in the Strategy Analytics Wireless Media Strategies service. “The only exception is live sports, but most sports leagues have already circumvented the Pay TV operators by releasing their own apps offering live streaming.”
http://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod=reportabstractviewer&a0=6364
Boston, MA - May 25, 2011 – Eager to fend off the threats of non-traditional distribution platforms such as Hulu and Netflix and remain relevant, US Pay TV providers have recently begun launching their own iPad apps— allowing subscribers to access their recorded and video-on-demand content from a tablet device. This move has not been welcomed by content creators, and the well-publicized battle between Time Warner Cable and Viacom appears likely to be decided in the courts.
A new report by Strategy Analytics indicates that the debate might be nothing more than a distraction.Central to the current dispute is the live video streaming feature, enabling subscribers to view live real-time content on a mobile device— just as if they were watching on their own television. Survey research conducted by Strategy Analytics suggests that live video streaming is not even a highly valued feature by subscribers.
“Live video streaming is simply not a coveted feature for consumers. Of the 60 percent of smartphone users who ever view video on their mobile device, most engage in content ‘snacking’ of less than ten minutes at a time,” said Josh Martin, Senior Analyst in the Strategy Analytics Wireless Media Strategies service. “The only exception is live sports, but most sports leagues have already circumvented the Pay TV operators by releasing their own apps offering live streaming.”
http://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod=reportabstractviewer&a0=6364
Nordic local media conference Thursday and Friday. Watch live video.
Sessions at the Nordic Local Media Conference 2011:
You can also tweet questions
hashtag #nlmc
- Monetizing local content – can local media houses charge for niche information and selected content?
- Local media on iPad and tablets – how do media companies create successful iPad and tablet publishing solutions on a local market?
- Commercial opportunities with local audiences – how can local media companies make maximum use of their local audience with targeted advertising offers and e-commerce?
You can also tweet questions
hashtag #nlmc
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Critic: ‘You can’t underestimate how the change in technology has changed food writing’
Poynter reporting:
Craig LaBan is the food critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He started writing about food professionally in Boston in 1992 and won the James Beard award for restaurant criticism in 2000.
In his own words, LaBan talks about food writing’s past and future.
On the evolution of food writing:
Craig LaBan is the food critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He started writing about food professionally in Boston in 1992 and won the James Beard award for restaurant criticism in 2000.
In his own words, LaBan talks about food writing’s past and future.
On the evolution of food writing:
I see a strong evolution in food writing. … It’s moved from the “Ladies Home Journal” “fluffy Jello mold” and recipe card mentality to food as a way to look at the world. It’s been going on for decades, but people didn’t really pay attention to it until Food Network made it cool.http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/133676/laban-you-cant-underestimate-how-the-change-in-technology-has-changed-food-writing
In terms of my approach to food writing, I’ve always just tried to be a good journalist and be curious. I’m open to learning. …
The whole demise of fine dining and the rise of small plates, that’s been an exciting part of the evolution of the food scene but it’s a challenge to writers.
My rating scale was based on the old-school notion of the top of the heap, the fine dining places. But that needs to change and it’s hard to find a way to evolve it gracefully.
Why The New York Times replaced its Twitter ‘cyborg’ with people this week
Poynter reporting:
The New York Times is turning off the automatic feed for its main Twitter account this week in an experiment to determine if a human-run, interactive approach will be more effective.
Social media editors Liz Heron and Lexi Mainland are taking turns running the @nytimes account during weekday business hours, hand-picking and writing the tweets and engaging with readers.
What you’ll see: “@” replies conversing with users, retweets of non-Times accounts and more engagement opportunities for followers. (My Storify below has examples.)
... By calling this an “experiment,” the Times is implying that the outcome is yet unknown. I’d say it’s really more of a demonstration: an effort by the social media staff to prove to the rest of the newsroom that the paper’s main Twitter feed deserves additional resources to maintain this human-driven, personal approach.
Full-time, human hosting of a brand’s main Twitter account is unquestionably a better approach, said Zach Seward, the main voice behind The Wall Street Journal’s @WSJ account.
The @WSJ account has been run by people since January 2010, Seward said. “The metrics went up considerably and almost immediately after switching from automated to personal. We’ve seen the same effect with several other accounts.”
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/social-media/133431/new-york-times-tries-human-powered-tweeting-to-see-if-users-value-the-interaction
The New York Times is turning off the automatic feed for its main Twitter account this week in an experiment to determine if a human-run, interactive approach will be more effective.
Social media editors Liz Heron and Lexi Mainland are taking turns running the @nytimes account during weekday business hours, hand-picking and writing the tweets and engaging with readers.
What you’ll see: “@” replies conversing with users, retweets of non-Times accounts and more engagement opportunities for followers. (My Storify below has examples.)
... By calling this an “experiment,” the Times is implying that the outcome is yet unknown. I’d say it’s really more of a demonstration: an effort by the social media staff to prove to the rest of the newsroom that the paper’s main Twitter feed deserves additional resources to maintain this human-driven, personal approach.
Full-time, human hosting of a brand’s main Twitter account is unquestionably a better approach, said Zach Seward, the main voice behind The Wall Street Journal’s @WSJ account.
The @WSJ account has been run by people since January 2010, Seward said. “The metrics went up considerably and almost immediately after switching from automated to personal. We’ve seen the same effect with several other accounts.”
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/social-media/133431/new-york-times-tries-human-powered-tweeting-to-see-if-users-value-the-interaction
Aside Magazine app runs on any tablet, shows what developers can do with HTML5
Poynter reporting:
A pair of Berlin-based designers has released a prototype of what they call the world’s first HTML5 magazine for tablets.
The project, called Aside Magazine, is an impressive demonstration of the design, interactivity and app-like experience that can be created using new advances in the language that powers the Web: HTML.
The newest version, HTML5, goes far beyond pages, hyperlinks and images. It includes new support for multimedia and graphical content without using any plugins such as Flash. These advances are important for news publishers seeking independence and a universal development strategy.
Web apps enable publishers to avoid several problems with developing news apps for mobile devices: developing different versions for iOS and Android (not to mention BlackBerry or Windows), submitting the app to Apple for approval (which can take days or weeks) and giving Google or Apple 30 percent of revenue.
“Don’t get us wrong, we love the App Store. But in our world, magazines are press content, not software,” Nico Engelhardt, who along with Johannes Ippen designed Aside Magazine, told me by email. “And we don’t want a big company to decide whether our content is allowed to be published or not.”
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/mobile-media/133366/aside-magazine-app-runs-on-any-tablet-shows-what-developers-can-do-with-html5
A pair of Berlin-based designers has released a prototype of what they call the world’s first HTML5 magazine for tablets.
The project, called Aside Magazine, is an impressive demonstration of the design, interactivity and app-like experience that can be created using new advances in the language that powers the Web: HTML.
The newest version, HTML5, goes far beyond pages, hyperlinks and images. It includes new support for multimedia and graphical content without using any plugins such as Flash. These advances are important for news publishers seeking independence and a universal development strategy.
Web apps enable publishers to avoid several problems with developing news apps for mobile devices: developing different versions for iOS and Android (not to mention BlackBerry or Windows), submitting the app to Apple for approval (which can take days or weeks) and giving Google or Apple 30 percent of revenue.
“Don’t get us wrong, we love the App Store. But in our world, magazines are press content, not software,” Nico Engelhardt, who along with Johannes Ippen designed Aside Magazine, told me by email. “And we don’t want a big company to decide whether our content is allowed to be published or not.”
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/mobile-media/133366/aside-magazine-app-runs-on-any-tablet-shows-what-developers-can-do-with-html5
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Traditional Media Ad Spending Plateaus
emarketer reporting: Spending will dip again this year after an uptick in 2010
But rather than making a true recovery, spending will seesaw in coming years, hovering under $130 billion through 2015—far from the $165.94 billion recorded in 2007 on the eve of the recent recession.
“As advertiser spending continues to more closely reflect the amount of attention consumers give to individual media, each will fare differently,” said Nicole Perrin, eMarketer senior editor and author of the new report, “Traditional Media: Dollars and Attention Shift to Digital.” “For example, TV and radio are holding on to their audience, and eMarketer forecasts advertising gains for both—unlike for print media.”
TV still takes up more time per day for the average consumer than any other medium. eMarketer estimates adults spend 4 hours, 24 minutes watching TV and offline video daily, vs. 2 hours, 35 minutes online. And TV has kept its share of total daily media time at around 40%. While online video viewing has been on the rise, about 70% of the US adult population still does not watch any full-length television programming on the internet. And those that do tend to prefer traditional TV viewing when possible.
As a mass audience has kept its attention fixed on TV, so have advertisers continued to make it their greatest spending priority. eMarketer estimates TV spending will continue to rise this year after nearly double-digit growth in 2010. The presidential election and Summer Olympics in 2012 will give it a further boost, growing 6.6% to $64.5 billion next year.
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008398
10 iPad Magazines That Are Killing Print
BusinessInsider reporting:
With Apple's new subscription option for iPad publications, major publishers are finally doubling down on tablet editions.
Condé Nast is leading the charge, offering The New Yorker for $59.99 per year on the iPad. (A $10 discount from the print edition.)
And more are coming. All the big publishers are working with Apple to lock down subscription deals. In the meantime, there are still a ton of great magazines on iPad that you can get now by paying per issue.
It's annoying, but keep in mind that you'll be able to get a subscription for these iPad magazines soon. Plus print subscribers will likely get access for free.
We took a look at the best iPad magazines available right now. Check them out.
http://www.businessinsider.com/best-ipad-magazines-2011-5
With Apple's new subscription option for iPad publications, major publishers are finally doubling down on tablet editions.
Condé Nast is leading the charge, offering The New Yorker for $59.99 per year on the iPad. (A $10 discount from the print edition.)
And more are coming. All the big publishers are working with Apple to lock down subscription deals. In the meantime, there are still a ton of great magazines on iPad that you can get now by paying per issue.
It's annoying, but keep in mind that you'll be able to get a subscription for these iPad magazines soon. Plus print subscribers will likely get access for free.
We took a look at the best iPad magazines available right now. Check them out.
http://www.businessinsider.com/best-ipad-magazines-2011-5
BBC summit on social media
BBC:
"I don't take sides, I take pictures," Nick Nolte declared memorably in the 1983 film Under Fire, in which he played a photojournalist covering the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua.
For me, the question of journalistic objectivity in the social media age is one of the most interesting issues to emerge from last week's Social Media Summit. Can we reach out to audiences and still maintain our neutrality? And does engaging the audience as part of the newsgathering process require us to take on some responsibility for their welfare?
Esra Dogramaci from Al Jazeera explained that she and her colleagues were seeking to "amplify" the conversation taking place in the social media sphere. Al Jazeera, she said, was seeking to give a "voice to the voiceless" by distributing Flip video cameras to members of the audience and by educating people about how to use social media.
As protestors demand change and topple regimes across the Middle East and North Africa, Esra Dogramaci aligned Al Jazeera very clearly with those taking to the streets in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere.
"If you're asking what side Al Jazeera is on... it's on the side of the people," she said.
Of course, the belief that journalists should not always sit on the fence isn't new. Martin Bell advocated the need for a "journalism of attachment" with a moral obligation to distinguish between "good" and "evil". But if we choose to take the side of "the people" are we journalists, activists or both?
Some of the most powerful footage to emerge during the 'Arab Spring' has been user-generated - and, as Alex Murray has explained, the UGC team at the BBC has developed rigorous checks to verify the contributions it receives.
But if we're relying on our viewers, listeners and readers to provide us with information from places we can't get to ourselves, do they become, in effect, our 'correspondents'? Are they deserving of the same duty of care as an employee, and is it enough to simply say that 'at no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws'?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/blog/2011/05/bbcsms-whose-side-are-we-on.shtml
"I don't take sides, I take pictures," Nick Nolte declared memorably in the 1983 film Under Fire, in which he played a photojournalist covering the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua.
For me, the question of journalistic objectivity in the social media age is one of the most interesting issues to emerge from last week's Social Media Summit. Can we reach out to audiences and still maintain our neutrality? And does engaging the audience as part of the newsgathering process require us to take on some responsibility for their welfare?
Esra Dogramaci from Al Jazeera explained that she and her colleagues were seeking to "amplify" the conversation taking place in the social media sphere. Al Jazeera, she said, was seeking to give a "voice to the voiceless" by distributing Flip video cameras to members of the audience and by educating people about how to use social media.
As protestors demand change and topple regimes across the Middle East and North Africa, Esra Dogramaci aligned Al Jazeera very clearly with those taking to the streets in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere.
"If you're asking what side Al Jazeera is on... it's on the side of the people," she said.
Of course, the belief that journalists should not always sit on the fence isn't new. Martin Bell advocated the need for a "journalism of attachment" with a moral obligation to distinguish between "good" and "evil". But if we choose to take the side of "the people" are we journalists, activists or both?
Some of the most powerful footage to emerge during the 'Arab Spring' has been user-generated - and, as Alex Murray has explained, the UGC team at the BBC has developed rigorous checks to verify the contributions it receives.
But if we're relying on our viewers, listeners and readers to provide us with information from places we can't get to ourselves, do they become, in effect, our 'correspondents'? Are they deserving of the same duty of care as an employee, and is it enough to simply say that 'at no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws'?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/blog/2011/05/bbcsms-whose-side-are-we-on.shtml
Woman Power - New Data Provides Deeper Profile Of Typical E-Book ‘Power Buyer’
paidContent reporting:
Today’s e-book power buyer—someone who buys an e-book at least once a week—is a 44-year-old woman who loves romance and is spending more on buying books now than in the past. She uses a dedicated e-reader like a Kindle instead of reading on her computer.
In a panel this morning, the Book Industry Study Group announced these and other new stats from its Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading survey:
-E-books currently make up around 11 percent of the total book market. The percentage of print book consumers who say they download e-books more than doubled between October 2010 and January 2011—from 5 percent to almost 13 percent.
-Women make up 66 percent of e-book power buyers. In 2009, they didn’t even make up half of e-book customers (they were at 49 percent of the e-book market).
-Most e-books sold (58 percent) are fiction, with literary fiction, science fiction, and romance each comprising over 20 percent of all e-book purchases.
-“Power buyers” represent about 18 percent of the total people buying e-books today, but they buy 61 percent of all e-books purchased.
-The most influential factors leading to an e-book purchase are free samples and low prices.
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-new-data-provides-deeper-profile-of-typical-e-book-power-buyer
Today’s e-book power buyer—someone who buys an e-book at least once a week—is a 44-year-old woman who loves romance and is spending more on buying books now than in the past. She uses a dedicated e-reader like a Kindle instead of reading on her computer.
In a panel this morning, the Book Industry Study Group announced these and other new stats from its Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading survey:
-E-books currently make up around 11 percent of the total book market. The percentage of print book consumers who say they download e-books more than doubled between October 2010 and January 2011—from 5 percent to almost 13 percent.
-Women make up 66 percent of e-book power buyers. In 2009, they didn’t even make up half of e-book customers (they were at 49 percent of the e-book market).
-Most e-books sold (58 percent) are fiction, with literary fiction, science fiction, and romance each comprising over 20 percent of all e-book purchases.
-“Power buyers” represent about 18 percent of the total people buying e-books today, but they buy 61 percent of all e-books purchased.
-The most influential factors leading to an e-book purchase are free samples and low prices.
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-new-data-provides-deeper-profile-of-typical-e-book-power-buyer
Groupon Is On Its Way To Becoming The Next Big Mobile Ad Network
Business Insider reporting:
n a short span, Groupon's daily deals have become the new big thing in online advertising, with countless copycats.
Now Groupon is taking aim at the mobile industry, and could potentially become the next big mobile ad network, if it wanted to.
Already, the company has signed on one big mobile app maker, Loopt, to run real-time Groupon promotions in its app, triggered by proximity. If you're a Loopt user near a "Groupon Now" deal that's happening now, you'll get a little push notification on your phone telling you about it. (See screenshots below.)
Now, Groupon is said to be near a deal with another huge app company, Foursquare. If that happens, Groupon will suddenly have millions of people -- ad inventory! -- to ping with its location-based deals.
It seems that if Groupon wanted to, it could eventually turn this into some sort of ad network platform that other app makers could join, the way they currently use ad networks like Google's AdMob, Apple's iAd, etc.
http://www.businessinsider.com/groupon-mobile-ads-2011-5?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=SAI%20Select&utm_campaign=SAI_Select_052411
n a short span, Groupon's daily deals have become the new big thing in online advertising, with countless copycats.
Now Groupon is taking aim at the mobile industry, and could potentially become the next big mobile ad network, if it wanted to.
Already, the company has signed on one big mobile app maker, Loopt, to run real-time Groupon promotions in its app, triggered by proximity. If you're a Loopt user near a "Groupon Now" deal that's happening now, you'll get a little push notification on your phone telling you about it. (See screenshots below.)
Now, Groupon is said to be near a deal with another huge app company, Foursquare. If that happens, Groupon will suddenly have millions of people -- ad inventory! -- to ping with its location-based deals.
It seems that if Groupon wanted to, it could eventually turn this into some sort of ad network platform that other app makers could join, the way they currently use ad networks like Google's AdMob, Apple's iAd, etc.
http://www.businessinsider.com/groupon-mobile-ads-2011-5?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=SAI%20Select&utm_campaign=SAI_Select_052411
Monday, May 23, 2011
The Future of Media: Brands Are Publishers Now Too
gigaom reporting:
As if newspapers and magazine publishers didn’t have enough problems already, what with declining advertising revenue and the difficulty of getting readers to pay via iPad apps and paywalls, the number of competitors they face is expanding almost daily — and it’s not just aggregators like The Huffington Post. High-end group shopping service Gilt Groupe has just launched its own cooking magazine, and the New York Public Library has launched an interesting iPad app that also has a very magazine-like feel. As the tools to publish become cheaper and cheaper, brands are effectively becoming publishers in their own right.
The Gilt Groupe offering, which is called Gilt Taste, is interesting in part because it is targeted at a very specific market: namely, the high-end food afficionado. It looks and reads like a high-quality food or recipe-based magazine that might come from a regular publisher, but it is obviously designed to help promote offers from the Gilt Groupe (which recently closed a $138-million financing that values the company at $1 billion). It’s more than just a catalog, however — Gilt hired the former editor of Gourmet magazine to run it, and it clearly wants to be the equal of any traditional food magazine.
...
Even the New York Public Library has created its own digital magazine, although this happens to be a magazine filled with content about the World Fair in 1939 (other issues will be released in the future, the library said). The iPad app — which is called Biblion — was produced as a way of promoting interest in the library in an age when digital formats are taking over from print (Amazon said it is now selling more Kindle books than hardcover or paperback books combined). And as Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic notes, it is a stunning looking magazine, one that traditional publishes might want to imitate.
MH: it is a stunning magazine, check it out
http://gigaom.com/2011/05/19/the-future-of-media-brands-are-publishers-now-too
As if newspapers and magazine publishers didn’t have enough problems already, what with declining advertising revenue and the difficulty of getting readers to pay via iPad apps and paywalls, the number of competitors they face is expanding almost daily — and it’s not just aggregators like The Huffington Post. High-end group shopping service Gilt Groupe has just launched its own cooking magazine, and the New York Public Library has launched an interesting iPad app that also has a very magazine-like feel. As the tools to publish become cheaper and cheaper, brands are effectively becoming publishers in their own right.
The Gilt Groupe offering, which is called Gilt Taste, is interesting in part because it is targeted at a very specific market: namely, the high-end food afficionado. It looks and reads like a high-quality food or recipe-based magazine that might come from a regular publisher, but it is obviously designed to help promote offers from the Gilt Groupe (which recently closed a $138-million financing that values the company at $1 billion). It’s more than just a catalog, however — Gilt hired the former editor of Gourmet magazine to run it, and it clearly wants to be the equal of any traditional food magazine.
...
Even the New York Public Library has created its own digital magazine, although this happens to be a magazine filled with content about the World Fair in 1939 (other issues will be released in the future, the library said). The iPad app — which is called Biblion — was produced as a way of promoting interest in the library in an age when digital formats are taking over from print (Amazon said it is now selling more Kindle books than hardcover or paperback books combined). And as Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic notes, it is a stunning looking magazine, one that traditional publishes might want to imitate.
MH: it is a stunning magazine, check it out
http://gigaom.com/2011/05/19/the-future-of-media-brands-are-publishers-now-too
Amazon Sells More E-Books Than Paper Ones
Fast Company reprting:
Since April the first, for every 100 print-and-paper books Amazon has sold, it's also sold 105 e-books, according to a fresh Amazon announcement.
Kindle e-readers arrived, along with a small but fast-growing digital bookstore, in November 2007--by July 2010, Amazon notes, Kindle book sales had surpassed hardcover book sales, and then six months later beat the paperback books sales rate. Now Amazon's customers are "choosing Kindle books more often than print books. We had high hopes this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly," says CEO Jeff Bezos, comparing Amazon's 15-year heritage of selling physical books to just four years of e-book sales.
This is far from the end of the road for the ink-and-paper. The fact that buyers at Amazon are now buying Kindle books at a rate that's already three times faster than they did for the same period is pretty astonishing, and the fact that sales now beat physical books is a huge sign of the change in reading habits. But even considering Amazon's reported sales trends, it'll take years yet for physical books to be relegated to a tiny minority, which also assumes the incredible growth in e-book sales continues at its current rate. Plus there're many fans of the paper book that'll probably never fully switch to buying only e-books. Why would they? The book has been with us as a technology for millennia, in different formats, and it has an important role in all our societies (easy to wave Chairman Mao's little red book, much less meaningful to waggle a Kindle in the air...swearing on an e-Bible on a Kindle in court, and so on).
http://www.fastcompany.com/1754259/amazon-declares-the-e-book-era-has-arrived
Since April the first, for every 100 print-and-paper books Amazon has sold, it's also sold 105 e-books, according to a fresh Amazon announcement.
Kindle e-readers arrived, along with a small but fast-growing digital bookstore, in November 2007--by July 2010, Amazon notes, Kindle book sales had surpassed hardcover book sales, and then six months later beat the paperback books sales rate. Now Amazon's customers are "choosing Kindle books more often than print books. We had high hopes this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly," says CEO Jeff Bezos, comparing Amazon's 15-year heritage of selling physical books to just four years of e-book sales.
This is far from the end of the road for the ink-and-paper. The fact that buyers at Amazon are now buying Kindle books at a rate that's already three times faster than they did for the same period is pretty astonishing, and the fact that sales now beat physical books is a huge sign of the change in reading habits. But even considering Amazon's reported sales trends, it'll take years yet for physical books to be relegated to a tiny minority, which also assumes the incredible growth in e-book sales continues at its current rate. Plus there're many fans of the paper book that'll probably never fully switch to buying only e-books. Why would they? The book has been with us as a technology for millennia, in different formats, and it has an important role in all our societies (easy to wave Chairman Mao's little red book, much less meaningful to waggle a Kindle in the air...swearing on an e-Bible on a Kindle in court, and so on).
http://www.fastcompany.com/1754259/amazon-declares-the-e-book-era-has-arrived
Groupon partners with Loopt mobile service
Location-based social network Loopt has partnered with deal-of-the-day juggernaut Groupon to integrate the new Groupon Now deals into Loopt’s mobile app.
Groupon Now launched Friday in Chicago, offering denizens of the Windy City tons of local $1 deals. The idea behind Groupon Now is to offer users real-time offers based on their location.
Businesses can use Groupon Now deals to target customers in their immediate area and can craft deals tailored to specific conditions — getting more customers on a slow day, selling some food before it spoils — rather than just making a typical, one-time offer.
That strategy is perfectly suited for Loopt, which launched its Loopt Reward Alerts at SXSW 2011. Loopt Rewards Alerts are designed to give users a real-time notification of deals taking place in their area.
Staring Friday, Loopt users in Chicago can also be alerted to Groupon Now deals taking place nearby. Deals will be added to the place pages in Loopt and will be visible when browsing through nearby locations. If Reward Alerts are enabled within Loopt (under the settings menu), users will get daily, location-specific Groupon Now deal alerts.
Groupon has alerts and deal markets built into its official Groupon apps for Android, iOS and the web, but the integration with Loopt is a nice touch. For Loopt, it adds a sense of utility to the program and makes it more of a one-stop shop for deals, location-based networking and finding places close by.
Groupon Now launched Friday in Chicago, offering denizens of the Windy City tons of local $1 deals. The idea behind Groupon Now is to offer users real-time offers based on their location.
Businesses can use Groupon Now deals to target customers in their immediate area and can craft deals tailored to specific conditions — getting more customers on a slow day, selling some food before it spoils — rather than just making a typical, one-time offer.
That strategy is perfectly suited for Loopt, which launched its Loopt Reward Alerts at SXSW 2011. Loopt Rewards Alerts are designed to give users a real-time notification of deals taking place in their area.
Staring Friday, Loopt users in Chicago can also be alerted to Groupon Now deals taking place nearby. Deals will be added to the place pages in Loopt and will be visible when browsing through nearby locations. If Reward Alerts are enabled within Loopt (under the settings menu), users will get daily, location-specific Groupon Now deal alerts.
Groupon has alerts and deal markets built into its official Groupon apps for Android, iOS and the web, but the integration with Loopt is a nice touch. For Loopt, it adds a sense of utility to the program and makes it more of a one-stop shop for deals, location-based networking and finding places close by.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
5 lessons Matt Drudge can teach the rest of the media world
ZDnet reporting:
The New York Times yesterday ran an article entitled How Drudge Has Stayed on Top. If you can’t read it because it’s behind NYT’s new and silly paywall, don’t worry. I’ll tell you all about it.
In breathless terms, The Times discusses how amazing it is that The Drudge Report has remained at the top of the media food chain (and, incidentally, is bigger online than the Times itself).
The Times cites (but, tellingly, does not link to) a Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism report stating that Drudge drives double the traffic as all of Facebook to the top news sites in the country.
...15 percent of all the traffic going to the Washington Post arrives there via Drudge.
...
1. Make it blazingly fast
Although there have been a rare few times when the site took a little while to load, The Drudge Report is almost always a rocket-fast load. You’re never making a time investment to check Drudge, so many news junkies like me feel confident that a single quick click will result in instant chewy, newsy goodness.
2. Make it instantly digestible
While we’re on the topic of instant, it’s possible to see what’s happening the world over, in a single glance. ... While I can absorb all the headlines instantly, I can often get sucked in for an hour or more (especially during my morning reading), when I use The Drudge Report as a jumping off point for fascinating article after fascinating article.
3. Make it timelessly trustworthy
4. Make it always informative
There is always something interesting on The Drudge Report. Always. No matter when you check the page, there’s something to read. Some days, Drudge keeps his headlines on the important topics of the day. But on slow news days, Drudge knows we need our fix, so he’ll dig up a bunch of interesting, but less major news items. No matter what, there’s something there to read.
5. Make it completely irresistible
Much noise has been made of Drudge’s hyperbolic headlines, but you gotta give the guy this: they’re often completely irresistible. Who can resist clicking “NYT: IMF Head Arrested in New York, Accused of Sexual Attack… Developing…” or “HUCKATEASE: WILL HE OR WON’T HE?” or even “DISNEY settles suit after woman claimed she was fondled by Donald Duck…”?
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/5-lessons-matt-drudge-can-teach-the-rest-of-the-media-world/10396
The New York Times yesterday ran an article entitled How Drudge Has Stayed on Top. If you can’t read it because it’s behind NYT’s new and silly paywall, don’t worry. I’ll tell you all about it.
In breathless terms, The Times discusses how amazing it is that The Drudge Report has remained at the top of the media food chain (and, incidentally, is bigger online than the Times itself).
The Times cites (but, tellingly, does not link to) a Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism report stating that Drudge drives double the traffic as all of Facebook to the top news sites in the country.
...15 percent of all the traffic going to the Washington Post arrives there via Drudge.
...
1. Make it blazingly fast
Although there have been a rare few times when the site took a little while to load, The Drudge Report is almost always a rocket-fast load. You’re never making a time investment to check Drudge, so many news junkies like me feel confident that a single quick click will result in instant chewy, newsy goodness.
2. Make it instantly digestible
While we’re on the topic of instant, it’s possible to see what’s happening the world over, in a single glance. ... While I can absorb all the headlines instantly, I can often get sucked in for an hour or more (especially during my morning reading), when I use The Drudge Report as a jumping off point for fascinating article after fascinating article.
3. Make it timelessly trustworthy
4. Make it always informative
There is always something interesting on The Drudge Report. Always. No matter when you check the page, there’s something to read. Some days, Drudge keeps his headlines on the important topics of the day. But on slow news days, Drudge knows we need our fix, so he’ll dig up a bunch of interesting, but less major news items. No matter what, there’s something there to read.
5. Make it completely irresistible
Much noise has been made of Drudge’s hyperbolic headlines, but you gotta give the guy this: they’re often completely irresistible. Who can resist clicking “NYT: IMF Head Arrested in New York, Accused of Sexual Attack… Developing…” or “HUCKATEASE: WILL HE OR WON’T HE?” or even “DISNEY settles suit after woman claimed she was fondled by Donald Duck…”?
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/5-lessons-matt-drudge-can-teach-the-rest-of-the-media-world/10396
Newsroom systems too old-fashioned
Strangeattractor reporting:
Most newspaper CMSes are more WordPerfect from the 1980s than WordPress. That’s why you have journalism outfits setting up blogs on Tumblr. Creating content on tools like Tumblr is like falling off a bike instead of trying to write caligraphy with a telephone pole. You can build a robust, advanced content management system without making the tools to create content so piggishly ugly, bewilderingly confusing and user surly. However, newspapers code their workflows into their CMSes. The problem is that their workflows aren’t fit for modern purpose.
Newspaper newsroom workflow is still print-centric, apart from a very few exceptions. The rhythm of the day, the focus of the tools and much of the thinking is still for that one deadline every day, when the newspaper goes to the presses. From this post by Doc Searls on news organisations linking to sources (or not linking as the case may be), see this comment from Brian Boyer about his shop, The Chicago Tribune:
Most newspaper CMSes are more WordPerfect from the 1980s than WordPress. That’s why you have journalism outfits setting up blogs on Tumblr. Creating content on tools like Tumblr is like falling off a bike instead of trying to write caligraphy with a telephone pole. You can build a robust, advanced content management system without making the tools to create content so piggishly ugly, bewilderingly confusing and user surly. However, newspapers code their workflows into their CMSes. The problem is that their workflows aren’t fit for modern purpose.
Newspaper newsroom workflow is still print-centric, apart from a very few exceptions. The rhythm of the day, the focus of the tools and much of the thinking is still for that one deadline every day, when the newspaper goes to the presses. From this post by Doc Searls on news organisations linking to sources (or not linking as the case may be), see this comment from Brian Boyer about his shop, The Chicago Tribune:
http://charman-anderson.com/2011/05/18/linking-and-journalism-the-workflow-issueAt the Chicago Tribune, workflows and CMSs are print-centric. In our newsroom, a reporter writes in Microsoft Word that’s got some fancy hooks to a publishing workflow. It goes to an editor, then copy, etc., and finally to the pagination system for flowing into the paper.
Oudated newsroom workflows and CMS's
Niemanlab reporting:
Fitting linking into news’ workflow: A discussion about linking has been simmering on Twitter on and off over the past few weeks, and it began to come together into something useful this week. This round of the conversation started with a post by web thinker and scholar Doc Searls, who wondered why news organizations don’t link out more often. In the comments, the Chicago Tribune’s Brian Boyer suggested that one reason is that many newspapers’ CMS’s and workflows are print-centric, making linking logistically difficult.
CUNY j-prof C.W. Anderson responded that the workflow issue isn’t much of an excuse, saying, as he put it on Twitter: “At this point ‘linking’ has been around for twenty years. The fact that this is STILL a workflow issue is almost worse than not caring.” This kicked off a sprawling debate on Twitter, aptly chronicled via Storify by Mathew Ingram and Alex Byers. Ingram also wrote a post responding to a few of the themes of resistance of links, particularly the notion that information on the web is inferior to information gained by old-fashioned reporting.
British journalist Kevin Anderson took on the workflow issue in particular, noting how outdated many newspaper CMS’s are and challenging them to catch up technologically: “It’s an industrial workflow operating in a digital age. It’s really only down to ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it’ thinking that allows such a patently inefficient process to persist.” Publish2′s Scott Karp gave an idea for a solution to the CMS mess.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/05/this-week-in-review-what-twitter-does-to-us-google-news-gets-more-local-and-making-links-routine/?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6cb69dc98c-DAILY_EMAIL
Fitting linking into news’ workflow: A discussion about linking has been simmering on Twitter on and off over the past few weeks, and it began to come together into something useful this week. This round of the conversation started with a post by web thinker and scholar Doc Searls, who wondered why news organizations don’t link out more often. In the comments, the Chicago Tribune’s Brian Boyer suggested that one reason is that many newspapers’ CMS’s and workflows are print-centric, making linking logistically difficult.
CUNY j-prof C.W. Anderson responded that the workflow issue isn’t much of an excuse, saying, as he put it on Twitter: “At this point ‘linking’ has been around for twenty years. The fact that this is STILL a workflow issue is almost worse than not caring.” This kicked off a sprawling debate on Twitter, aptly chronicled via Storify by Mathew Ingram and Alex Byers. Ingram also wrote a post responding to a few of the themes of resistance of links, particularly the notion that information on the web is inferior to information gained by old-fashioned reporting.
British journalist Kevin Anderson took on the workflow issue in particular, noting how outdated many newspaper CMS’s are and challenging them to catch up technologically: “It’s an industrial workflow operating in a digital age. It’s really only down to ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it’ thinking that allows such a patently inefficient process to persist.” Publish2′s Scott Karp gave an idea for a solution to the CMS mess.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/05/this-week-in-review-what-twitter-does-to-us-google-news-gets-more-local-and-making-links-routine/?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6cb69dc98c-DAILY_EMAIL
Kobo Continues to Break New Ground with Reading Life 4.4
Googereader reporting:
The Reading Life app was made available for iPad and iPhone, as well as the Android-powered smart phones, and was well received among Kobo’s customers, but with the recent emergence of the newest version—Reading Life 4.4—the user ratings have spoken for themselves.
The new app has moved into the top position in the Apple App Store and has resulted in a 20% increase in downloads from version 4.3. Within the first week of its appearance, more than 25,000 new bookshelves were created and Kobo users are spending as much as 10% more time in the app than with previous versions. Internationally, the 4.4 version is enjoying the highest user ratings of any e-reading app in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.
MH: I like Kobo, try it out
http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/kobo-continues-to-break-new-ground-with-reading-life-4-4
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Study: Tablet ownership will double by 2012; seen as alternative to TV
Zdnet reporting:
Dubbed as “Digital Home 3—The Democratization of Technology,” which surveyed residents in 5,000 homes (4,000 U.S., 1,000 Canadian), here’s a snapshot of the highlights found in the study published by the USC Marshall Institute for Communication Technology Management:
Dubbed as “Digital Home 3—The Democratization of Technology,” which surveyed residents in 5,000 homes (4,000 U.S., 1,000 Canadian), here’s a snapshot of the highlights found in the study published by the USC Marshall Institute for Communication Technology Management:
- Tablet ownership in North American households is projected to increase from 8 percent in 2011 to 27 percent in 2012. The biggest growth in tablet users will be among 13-44 year olds.
- The profile of current tablet users is revealing: 70 percent are between the ages of 18 and 44. They are slightly more likely to be male than female, and they largely live in high-income households. Members of ethnic groups, including African Americans, Latinos and Asians, are nearly twice as likely to buy a tablet in the next year as Caucasians.
- Tablet users consume twice as much media as the mainstream, and they increasingly want to control what they watch by using the device in the future as an alternative to traditional television.
- Smartphone ownership will increase from 29 percent in 2011 to 40 percent in 2012.
- The highest penetration of smartphones will be in the Latino and Asian markets.
The Conversation, the startup Australian news site, wants to bring academic expertise to breaking news
NiemanJouralismLab reporting:
What would happen if you had close to 1,000 academics available to contribute to the breaking news cycle? Would it change the course, and the discourse, of news? Andrew Jaspan thinks it will. Jaspan, formerly an editor at The Age, the Melbourne-based newspaper, founded The Conversation, an Australian nonprofit news site, in order to combat problems that are just as present in Oz as in other news environments: shrinking newsrooms and a sound-bite-driven broadcast culture.
But The Conversation's approach is a novel one: While the site uses professional journalists as its editors, it uses academics to provide the content for the site. The goal, says the site's charter, is to provide "a fact-based and editorially-independent forum" that will "unlock the knowledge and expertise of researchers and academics to provide the public with clarity and insight into society's biggest problems" and "give experts a greater voice in shaping scientific, cultural and intellectual agendas by providing a trusted platform that values and promotes new thinking and evidence-based research."
...As Jaspan explained: “Our model is not so much to use the university as a source of news, though we do report research findings as news. What we really try to do is use academics and researchers to analyze live news events, like the killing of Osama Bin Laden through to the Fukiyama earthquakes or whatever [other] complex news stories…. We are using people who are experts to give greater depth to the understanding of complex and live issues.”
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/05/the-conversation-the-startup-australian-news-site-wants-to-bring-academic-expertise-to-breaking-news/?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bf96900a94-DAILY_EMAIL
What would happen if you had close to 1,000 academics available to contribute to the breaking news cycle? Would it change the course, and the discourse, of news? Andrew Jaspan thinks it will. Jaspan, formerly an editor at The Age, the Melbourne-based newspaper, founded The Conversation, an Australian nonprofit news site, in order to combat problems that are just as present in Oz as in other news environments: shrinking newsrooms and a sound-bite-driven broadcast culture.
But The Conversation's approach is a novel one: While the site uses professional journalists as its editors, it uses academics to provide the content for the site. The goal, says the site's charter, is to provide "a fact-based and editorially-independent forum" that will "unlock the knowledge and expertise of researchers and academics to provide the public with clarity and insight into society's biggest problems" and "give experts a greater voice in shaping scientific, cultural and intellectual agendas by providing a trusted platform that values and promotes new thinking and evidence-based research."
...As Jaspan explained: “Our model is not so much to use the university as a source of news, though we do report research findings as news. What we really try to do is use academics and researchers to analyze live news events, like the killing of Osama Bin Laden through to the Fukiyama earthquakes or whatever [other] complex news stories…. We are using people who are experts to give greater depth to the understanding of complex and live issues.”
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/05/the-conversation-the-startup-australian-news-site-wants-to-bring-academic-expertise-to-breaking-news/?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bf96900a94-DAILY_EMAIL
The newsonomics of the missing link
Nieman Journalism Lab reporting/Ken Doctor:
Let’s go back to the time before Palm Pilots, at the dawn of consumer digital civilization itself, a time of AOL, Prodigy, and Compuserve. Hunched heavily by the analog world on his shoulders, Pre-Tablet Man has slowly begun to raise his head, through successive innovations of laptops (!), pocket-sized cellphones, smartphones, smarter phones and early e-readers. Now, as we enter Year 2 of the iPad era, it seems like our digital man is almost standing up straight. The digital world has moved from geek chic to consumer commonplace. Our digital devices have become on/off appliances, no manual necessary.
...1. Reality: Print is in permanent decline.
That’s what 21 consecutive quarters of decline (year over year) in U.S. newspaper print ad revenue tells us (“The newsonomics of oblivion“). Consumer magazine revenue has moved barely positive, but is still substantially below pre-recession levels. Print is there to be milked, as long as it can, in the digital transition. Fewer newspapers are being sold, and they are thinner and thinner.
The tablet link: The tablet is a print-like replacement for newspapers and magazines. Publishers privately report (and an increasing spate of reports from Instapaper to RJI to Yudu) that tablet readers read the tablet much more like the newspaper than the way they read news websites. Longer session times. Longer stories. Early morning and evening reading. Pre-tablet, publishers had no potential replacement...
Read more at:
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/05/the-newsonomics-of-the-missing-link/?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bf96900a94-DAILY_EMAIL
Let’s go back to the time before Palm Pilots, at the dawn of consumer digital civilization itself, a time of AOL, Prodigy, and Compuserve. Hunched heavily by the analog world on his shoulders, Pre-Tablet Man has slowly begun to raise his head, through successive innovations of laptops (!), pocket-sized cellphones, smartphones, smarter phones and early e-readers. Now, as we enter Year 2 of the iPad era, it seems like our digital man is almost standing up straight. The digital world has moved from geek chic to consumer commonplace. Our digital devices have become on/off appliances, no manual necessary.
...1. Reality: Print is in permanent decline.
That’s what 21 consecutive quarters of decline (year over year) in U.S. newspaper print ad revenue tells us (“The newsonomics of oblivion“). Consumer magazine revenue has moved barely positive, but is still substantially below pre-recession levels. Print is there to be milked, as long as it can, in the digital transition. Fewer newspapers are being sold, and they are thinner and thinner.
The tablet link: The tablet is a print-like replacement for newspapers and magazines. Publishers privately report (and an increasing spate of reports from Instapaper to RJI to Yudu) that tablet readers read the tablet much more like the newspaper than the way they read news websites. Longer session times. Longer stories. Early morning and evening reading. Pre-tablet, publishers had no potential replacement...
2. Reality: Online engagement is inadequate.
The tablet link: The tablet offers a way to re-engage readers, a corollary to the tablet’s replacement potential. The biggest problem for news publishers isn’t (a) that the digital ad world only produces pennies on the old ad dollar, (b) the low share of digital ad revenue they get, or (c) a changing cabal of digital startups from Yahoo to Google to Apple that are stealing their business. Their biggest problem is online engagement. News producers work in a world of massive cost, funding well-paid newsrooms and all the legacy supports from advertising to finance to circulation. That investment made a lot of sense when readers really engaged with their products. Consider that in the heyday, your average newspaper would command 270 minutes (4.5 hours) of attention per household per month. Consider that online, the average engagement time is five to 15 minutes per month.Read more at:
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/05/the-newsonomics-of-the-missing-link/?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bf96900a94-DAILY_EMAIL
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)