Is someone trying to buy Reuters?
Over the last two weeks it seems like more and more major media organization are vulnerable for takeover by a major corporation.
Another scary trend in media is the buying up of every new idea buy the big corporations. The latest offer that has been through out was made by Microsoft. After years of trying to create a half decent search engine to compete with the likes of Yahoo and Google. Microsoft has decided that if you can't be them buy them when they made a proposal to buy Yahoo for $50 billion. Lets put this into perspective Google purchased YouTube for a mere $1.65 billion and NewsCorp bought MySpace for $580 million. Is Yahoo really wroth 25 times the combine cost of both of these sites? In the long run maybe.
According to a blog on the Huffington Post by James Boyce the host of "Heading Left" on BlogTalkRadio a weekly radio show, a major city newspaper will fold in the next twelve months.
It seems a little hard to consider a guy who has never worked for a newspaper (according to his bio.) an expert on the industry but there are a few things that I agree with in his blog.
It is very pathetic that newspapers which such a rich traditions as the Boston Globe have to offer a $40 rebate on their monthly subscription. It sounds a lot like what many American car companies such as GMC and Ford did a few years ago by offering huge rebates to entice new customs.
Meanwhile Toyota's market share continued to grow while they were selling cars that cost thousands more then their American counterparts. Toyota realized that by making high quality products they could add value to their product and justify their high prices.
The problems with huge rebates is it lowers the value of your product. Rebates are a good short term gimmick, but if you use them for to long customer start to expect them and only turn to you because you are selling a product that they can afford rather then something they actually want.
He is right that circulation has been falling since March 2005 at almost every major newspaper and many newspapers like the Washington Post have posted scene double digit profit declines int he first quarter of this year.
Good content in hide demand now more then ever before, since the Internet has opened up the floodgates of rumors and conspiracy theories as it makes it too easy for every cook to create their own soapbox.
Newspapers are still the place most people go for in depth coverage and the place that TV and Radio station turn to when they want to make it appear like they provide in depth coverage.
The world of Citizen Journalism and blogging is still very unorganized to post a major threat to newspapers. The best blogs are too specialized to have a huge effect on newspaper readership. You still have to read 10 or 20 blogs to get the latest news on the same topics that most newspapers provide. The blogs made be kept more up-to-date and provide links to every article that is ever publish on a particular subject but they can only do so much.
The development of Yahoo paying bloggers could lead to more news web sites and search engines paying blogger to act like freelance journalists to provide intriguing content. Freelance Bloggers working by themselves on a single topic can only do so much.
I believe that what can save newspapers from their not so certain doom is figuring out a better way to more advertise on-line from off. Lets face it no one reads the newspaper for the ads no one ever did!!
But on most newspaper websites it is becoming harder and harder to avoid all the pop up ads that come up every time you click on a article. The ones that jump out and cover the screen so that you can't read what is underneath them or close them are one of the most annoying things that a tel-marketed ever dreamed up.
Newspapers should look for a way to work with advertises to provide personal advertising based on the reading habits of their customers. They need to create ads that compliment their coverage of entertainment and arts rather then annoying ads that making reading the newspaper online such a pain in the neck.
No matter how annoying you make things I am still going to read the paper online just because its easier and cheaper then picking it up from the newsstand every day. This is a fact don't act like your customers are doing something evil or illegal by reading online.
Whatever happen to adapting to what the customs wants instead of resenting it.
Making the advertising less annoying and more person is one way to fix the revenue stream, One way to provide more intriguing content is to focus on local news or even provide a web site for Hyperlocalism coverage. Another way is to ask readers about what they think the newspaper should cover. To use a survey or focus group or just an open call for comments to give them a say in the way that the newspaper set its coverage priorities.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Evolution of civic journalism
The citizen Journalism movement
This is a good article about the origins of citizen Journalism and the part that citizen journalists played in breaking the scandal over the firing of eight U.S. attorney.
Commenting on the important role for such a new media that is not corporate dominated and owned, but that is able to fulfill the role of citizen journalism, Linda Milazzo writes, "New Media voices ... won't permit another president to disregard the will of the people as the "Old Press" wantonly do, a new press will have free unencumbered voices, much of which arise from the Internet."(12)
Citizen Journalism has played a big part in the middle east when the mainstream media is often run by the government and their are severe restriction on freedom of speech. In China, Iran and Egypt several bloggers have been arrested for casting a spotlight on social justice.
OhmyNews International is a good site to go to for stories about citizen journalism since Oh My news was one of the first major media organizations to promote citizen journalism.
Iraq still remains the most dangerous assignment for Journalists according to the Committee to Project Journalists as the death toll for Journalists killed since 2003 reaches 100. This also is one of the reasons why American journalists rarely leave the settle of the green zone to capture the story of Iraq civilians. The best way to get their story as I state in early blogs is to go on the Internet and search out blogs and video blogs create by Iraq citizens.
The Sunlight Foundation is pooling citizen journalists to investigate the government. One of the projects gives directions of how to see if representatives are putting their spouses on their campaign payrolls.
So far they have investigated 438 member and found 19 spouses who were paid by a member's campaign committee-totaling $636,876 since January 1, 2005.
They have also sent letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging her to lobby for legislation to require members file their personal financial information as part of their campaign for government transparency.
Here is a good blog about the development of blogging and how the mainstream media has turned towards bloggers and citizen Journalists for help with reporting.
The L.A. Times published a debate between two journalists about the current state of the news media and its future. They both seem to agree that the Internet is
opening up a whole new world and dramatically transforming the possibilities for journalism.
and To secure its future, Big Media is going to have to try something it hasn't excelled at in recent years: Producing a quality product.
More and more websites from The Chicago Tribune with Triblocal to neighborsgo are going up all the time that act like community bulletin board with community-generated content, where people can post info and picture on local events. In a sense these sites let average citizens contribute to a profiles of their home town Like MySpace made the art of creating you own profile popular. In a way these sites can also give little towns a chance to advertise themselves with real stories from people without all the spin that tourism office's dream up.
This is a good article about the origins of citizen Journalism and the part that citizen journalists played in breaking the scandal over the firing of eight U.S. attorney.
Commenting on the important role for such a new media that is not corporate dominated and owned, but that is able to fulfill the role of citizen journalism, Linda Milazzo writes, "New Media voices ... won't permit another president to disregard the will of the people as the "Old Press" wantonly do, a new press will have free unencumbered voices, much of which arise from the Internet."(12)
Citizen Journalism has played a big part in the middle east when the mainstream media is often run by the government and their are severe restriction on freedom of speech. In China, Iran and Egypt several bloggers have been arrested for casting a spotlight on social justice.
OhmyNews International is a good site to go to for stories about citizen journalism since Oh My news was one of the first major media organizations to promote citizen journalism.
Iraq still remains the most dangerous assignment for Journalists according to the Committee to Project Journalists as the death toll for Journalists killed since 2003 reaches 100. This also is one of the reasons why American journalists rarely leave the settle of the green zone to capture the story of Iraq civilians. The best way to get their story as I state in early blogs is to go on the Internet and search out blogs and video blogs create by Iraq citizens.
The Sunlight Foundation is pooling citizen journalists to investigate the government. One of the projects gives directions of how to see if representatives are putting their spouses on their campaign payrolls.
So far they have investigated 438 member and found 19 spouses who were paid by a member's campaign committee-totaling $636,876 since January 1, 2005.
They have also sent letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging her to lobby for legislation to require members file their personal financial information as part of their campaign for government transparency.
Here is a good blog about the development of blogging and how the mainstream media has turned towards bloggers and citizen Journalists for help with reporting.
The L.A. Times published a debate between two journalists about the current state of the news media and its future. They both seem to agree that the Internet is
opening up a whole new world and dramatically transforming the possibilities for journalism.
and To secure its future, Big Media is going to have to try something it hasn't excelled at in recent years: Producing a quality product.
More and more websites from The Chicago Tribune with Triblocal to neighborsgo are going up all the time that act like community bulletin board with community-generated content, where people can post info and picture on local events. In a sense these sites let average citizens contribute to a profiles of their home town Like MySpace made the art of creating you own profile popular. In a way these sites can also give little towns a chance to advertise themselves with real stories from people without all the spin that tourism office's dream up.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Is there a legal limit to what you can post?
Viacom, copyright Material, etc.
Can user-generated news site that depend on readers to provide the content allow users to release copyrighted material even encryption code?
On Tuesday, Digg had to remove a link to an article containing the the HD DVD encryption key, that programmers can use to crack the copy protection code on the new disc format.
Readers response by voting for links that contained the code and bashed Diggs attempt to remove the link, which overwhelmed the site filters. Eventually Digg founder Kevin Rose gave the go-ahead to post the code in a not posted on the site.
"You've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company."
The encryption codes should be covered by the 1998 Millennium Copyright Act but their are several loopholes.
Now that Digg has caved to its users and allowed them to post the code, attorney Gregory Rutchik of the San Francisco-based Arts and Technology Law Group says the site could be sued by the AACS.
However since the code was already made public for several moths on blogs and other websites including Conde Nast's Wired.com.
The revolt of the readers has completely changed Diggs policy about taking down links according to the executive director Jay Adelson
We usually give the claimants the benefit of the doubt and take things down, thinking that it's better to be safe than sorry," says Adelson.
This also brings up the fact that no matter what the big corporations do their are millions of hackers out their trying to find a way to hack the next encryption key. What is the point of taking legal action to protect a key when it is leaked all over the Internet?
Two weeks ago attorneys for the Advanced Access Copy System used in both Blu-ray and HD DVD sent out out letter to several websites demanding that they remove references to the encryption key.
After this letter was filed and passed around the Internet Hackers started post links on Diggs, slashdot
and any other website that would allow it.
Wired.com is even taking a poll of readers on how long it will take someone to post the new key online after AACS LA updates their HD DVD encryption key. So far 38.2 percent answered less than a month.
I guess they think that no matter what the AACS comes up with the encryption key will end up on a website somewhere in a matter of months. As hackers around the world work together to open up this new technology to everyone.
Maybe that is one good thing about the Internet. It is almost impossible for anyone to regulate what you can and cannot post on the Internet. So the speed with which copyrighted material and encryption code ends up on the Internet makes any legal action that big corporations take almost irrelevant.
Can user-generated news site that depend on readers to provide the content allow users to release copyrighted material even encryption code?
On Tuesday, Digg had to remove a link to an article containing the the HD DVD encryption key, that programmers can use to crack the copy protection code on the new disc format.
Readers response by voting for links that contained the code and bashed Diggs attempt to remove the link, which overwhelmed the site filters. Eventually Digg founder Kevin Rose gave the go-ahead to post the code in a not posted on the site.
"You've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company."
The encryption codes should be covered by the 1998 Millennium Copyright Act but their are several loopholes.
Now that Digg has caved to its users and allowed them to post the code, attorney Gregory Rutchik of the San Francisco-based Arts and Technology Law Group says the site could be sued by the AACS.
However since the code was already made public for several moths on blogs and other websites including Conde Nast's Wired.com.
The revolt of the readers has completely changed Diggs policy about taking down links according to the executive director Jay Adelson
We usually give the claimants the benefit of the doubt and take things down, thinking that it's better to be safe than sorry," says Adelson.
Now, he says, all of that has changed. "Our users have said that's not good enough," he says. "And we've made a decision to stand with them on this issue."
Beyond the ethical and legal questions that this opens up we also have to look at if their is a legal limit to what you can put on the Internet. Viacom argued that everyday people cross the legal line when they upload a video to YouTube when they decided to sue Google over YouTube clips, for $1 billion.This also brings up the fact that no matter what the big corporations do their are millions of hackers out their trying to find a way to hack the next encryption key. What is the point of taking legal action to protect a key when it is leaked all over the Internet?
Two weeks ago attorneys for the Advanced Access Copy System used in both Blu-ray and HD DVD sent out out letter to several websites demanding that they remove references to the encryption key.
After this letter was filed and passed around the Internet Hackers started post links on Diggs, slashdot
and any other website that would allow it.
Wired.com is even taking a poll of readers on how long it will take someone to post the new key online after AACS LA updates their HD DVD encryption key. So far 38.2 percent answered less than a month.
I guess they think that no matter what the AACS comes up with the encryption key will end up on a website somewhere in a matter of months. As hackers around the world work together to open up this new technology to everyone.
Maybe that is one good thing about the Internet. It is almost impossible for anyone to regulate what you can and cannot post on the Internet. So the speed with which copyrighted material and encryption code ends up on the Internet makes any legal action that big corporations take almost irrelevant.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Media layoffs hit new low
the Problem with Big Media
On Monday, April 30th The Associated Press reported that newspaper circulation had fallen another 2.1 percent in the last six months. This downward spiral of circulation has inspired major layoffs from several major national newspapers. In the first quarter of 2007 media companies have announced 4,391 layoffs a 93 percent increase from last year. Newspapers are not the only one's layoff people;
with six percent of the media job cuts coming from the magazine publishing and 12 percent from television.
In the middle of the coverage of the Virginia Tech Massacre NBC breaks its own record for the lowest prime-time viewership for the second straight week with an average of 6.2 million viewers.
Paying to reach everyone through a single dominant platform such as a general interest news outlet is a proposition that makes business sense for fewer and fewer advertisers.
Media organizations assemble and sell audiences, and the broad audience that a value-neutral news reporting operation tends to attract is no longer in demand, online or off.
What can still work, online and offline, is specialized content that appeals to a particular audience. The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times are outperforming other papers.
While a few people are afraid that we are head toward a "Daily Me." where the media fragments into different niches to satisfy the desires of different marketers Google is making context-sensitive ads the industry standard. Every article and every video clip will find its own audience as people use search engines to pick and choose what they want.
No one wants to buy the whole paper if you are not going to read half of it. Why should you sit through a entire newscast when I all you want to know is did the Cubs win their last game?
While everyone else in the media is cutting back and crying over spilled milk Robert Murdoch is still smiling as he looks to add to his empire.
What is he doing now?
After Launching MySpace in China, Murdoch is planning a business-news television channel to challenge CNBC.
To gain a little prestige he is offering to buy Dow Jones, which owns the Wall Street Journal. This announcement rocketed Dow Jones shares up 58 percent.
Is the Media turning into Big Brother?
On Monday, April 30th The Associated Press reported that newspaper circulation had fallen another 2.1 percent in the last six months. This downward spiral of circulation has inspired major layoffs from several major national newspapers. In the first quarter of 2007 media companies have announced 4,391 layoffs a 93 percent increase from last year. Newspapers are not the only one's layoff people;
with six percent of the media job cuts coming from the magazine publishing and 12 percent from television.
In the middle of the coverage of the Virginia Tech Massacre NBC breaks its own record for the lowest prime-time viewership for the second straight week with an average of 6.2 million viewers.
Paying to reach everyone through a single dominant platform such as a general interest news outlet is a proposition that makes business sense for fewer and fewer advertisers.
Media organizations assemble and sell audiences, and the broad audience that a value-neutral news reporting operation tends to attract is no longer in demand, online or off.
What can still work, online and offline, is specialized content that appeals to a particular audience. The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times are outperforming other papers.
While a few people are afraid that we are head toward a "Daily Me." where the media fragments into different niches to satisfy the desires of different marketers Google is making context-sensitive ads the industry standard. Every article and every video clip will find its own audience as people use search engines to pick and choose what they want.
No one wants to buy the whole paper if you are not going to read half of it. Why should you sit through a entire newscast when I all you want to know is did the Cubs win their last game?
While everyone else in the media is cutting back and crying over spilled milk Robert Murdoch is still smiling as he looks to add to his empire.
What is he doing now?
After Launching MySpace in China, Murdoch is planning a business-news television channel to challenge CNBC.
To gain a little prestige he is offering to buy Dow Jones, which owns the Wall Street Journal. This announcement rocketed Dow Jones shares up 58 percent.
Is the Media turning into Big Brother?
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