@DNA2008: Who is getting it in the digital age?

Posted by Martin Stabe on 3 March 2008 at 11:06
Tags: DNA2008, De Persgroep, Drudge Report, Facebook, Financial Times, Japan, Mobile Phones, Online, Reuters, South Korea, schibsted

At the Digital News Affairs Conference in Brussels, Richard Gizbert of Al-Jazeera’s media programme The Listening Post asks a “on surviving the digital news age” to name some organisations that are “getting it right” in the digital age.

Here are the suggestions they came up with:

Drudge Report
A tiny three-man operation that aggregates news now makes a fortune for its creator and drives a huge proportion of the major news media’s online traffic. “He is essentially an online DJ creating online sense of consensus about what the important story is,” says Stephen Marshall, founder and creative director of the Guerilla News Network. Drudge, he suggests understands how audiences want obtain news online.

Schibsted
But Christian Van Thillo chief executive of Belgium’s De Persgroep disagrees, because Drudge is not an example of a big media company succeeding online. The best example of big media getting it, he says is the Schibsted. With its enormous online reach and profits, the publisher of Norway’s leading tabloid VG is a clear leader online. Schibsted, he says was first to market, has great sites, a big team, focussed management, full support of the company. But he warns against extrapolating Schibsted’s success to ambitions for other markets, because, he says, commercial broadcasting is not as developed in Norway as an alternative for advertisers.

Financial Times
Maria Molland, senior vice president and global head of strategy and business development at Reuters, says there are small pieces of larger companies that are doing interesting things. She names the launch of the Financial Times’s exclusive executive social networking site as an example. More specialiast social networks are the future, she suggests. “I think that Facebook is going down,” she says, “Who wants to be on a social network that your parents are on too?”

South Korea
Tyler Brûlé of Monocle nominates a country rather than a company: South Korea (and also Japan). What impact has this highly advanced digital society’s mobile phone culture had on the newstand? “Look at what it’s done for print in thouse countries - it’s made all of those publishers fight back ever harder”.

New research on UK newspapers’ online business models

Posted by Martin Stabe on 5 July 2007 at 14:11
Tags: Financial Times, Guardian, Independent, International Herald Tribune, Mail on Sunday, Star, Sun, Times, Times Online

National newspapers’ online editors and managers are increasingly seeing print and online editions as complementary products, and at some titles concern about cannibalisation has “diminished to the stage where they are not a significant influence on strategy”.

These are among the key findings of newly-published research in the business models of national newspaper web sites by Jack Herbert and Neil Thurman of City University.

Ironically, perhaps, given its findings about the diminishing importance of paywalls at newspaper web sites, the definitive version of the study is only available to subscribers of the academic journal Journalism Practice. Non-subscribers can download it for £14.

However, a pre-print version is available from City University’s web site.

The report is the result of interviews conducted last summer with the online editors or managers of the national newspaper web sites.

Sites are charging for news, columnists, archives, digital editions, e-mail alerts, mobile services. But in a buoyant advertising market, many of the sites are finding it advantageous to make more of their content available for free to increase overall traffic, the study finds.

None of the sites charge for general interest news, a finding the authors attribute to the “availability of this relatively generic content for free”

Times Online’s former editor Peter Bale told the researchers that the site had experienced a “huge” increase in traffic when it dropped pay barriers to overseas users and has also opened its archives.

Even those running sites with paywalls, like Independent online edition, FT.com, and Scotsman.com could see the potential benefits of dropping the barriers.

Advertising is the main revenue stream for national newspapers’ web sites, with up to 90 per cent of revenues coming from advertising. The study also found that revenue from online services and commercial partnerships is growing rapidly. It accounted for a third of total profits at Telegraph.co.uk, and was growing by 20 to 30 percent at Guardian Unlimited.

Several of the editors and managers interviewed indicated that they were increasingly unconcerned about cannibalising their print editions. Alan Revell of Associated Northcliffe Digital told the researchers that a survey of Daily Mail readers had found that they did not view DailyMail.co.uk as a substitute for the print edition, and that the site’s presence did not affect frequency with which they buy the printed edition.

Pete Picton, editor of Sun Online, told the researchers that the real competition competition was the Internet as a whole.

“[T]here is cannibalization by the Internet, not by the Sun Online per se,” he said.

The theory of cannibalization, the researchers found, is based on the assumption that that people stick with a particular news brand, regardless of medium. That idea may now be “completely dead”, Richard Withey of the Independent told the researchers. Simon Waldman of the Guardian agreed, stressing the behaviour of “promiscuous readers” online. Exactly: the attention economy is hungry for our lunch.

Some other key findings from the interviews with online editors:

• Digital editions are only providing marginal revenue streams and see them as an imperfect technology
• Email services were a growing area and editors were excited about their
  revenue potential
• Concerns about cannibalization “have diminished to the stage where they are not a significant influence on strategy” at the Guardian, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express.

Expert Eye: The new vids on the block

Posted by Ian Reeves on 24 May 2007 at 09:45
Tags: Belfast Telegraph, Computing, Eastern Daily Press, FHM, Financial Times, Guardian, Haymarket, Hull Daily Mail, ITN, InStyle, Journalism, Lancashire Evening Post, Magazines, Media Week, Mirror, Nationals, New Scientist, Newspapers, Northern Echo, Nuts, Roo, Sun, Telegraph.co.uk, Times Online, VNU, YouTube, Zoo, icBirmingham, video

Ian Reeves looks at how he printed press is experimenting with video, from locals to the big players.

11 comments

Nominees announced for newspaper innovation gong

Posted by Martin Stabe on 21 March 2007 at 13:20
Tags: BBC, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, Guardian Unlimited, MEN Lite, Manchester Evening News, Newbury Weekly News, Newbury today, Pinkun.com, Reading Chronicle, Sunday Telegraph, Telegraph.co.uk, Times Online, telegraph, thelondonpaper

Reading Chronicle editor Simon Jones has good reason to be boastful: his paper’s Polish edition has been nominated for The Fujifilm Grand Prix Award for the “most significant contribution to future newspaper success” at the 2007 Newspaper Awards.

The Kronika Reading is certainly in good company. Other nominees for the award are the Telegraph’s new newsroom, the Financial Times’ mobile news reader, the Guardian’s afternoon PDF edition G24, and free papers MEN Lite and thelondonpaper.

Meanwhile,
BBC News Oniline, Guardian Unlimited, the Manchester Evening News, Newbury Today, Pinkun.com, Telegraph.co.uk, and Times Online are nominated for the “Electronic News Site of the Year”, an award described as “The Press Computer Systems Award for all electronic news sites”.

British Press Awards: Bragging rights

Posted by Martin Stabe on 22 March 2006 at 10:32
Tags: Art Newspaper, British Press Awards, Financial Times, Guardian, Independent, Independent on Sunday, Mirror, Sun

Now that the British Press Awards have been announced, let the bigging-up begin.

The papers are busy bragging about their successes. The Mirror yesterday said Sports Writer of the Year Oliver Holt is “simply the best”. Today the tabloid’s web site boasts that it “scooped three gongs at the prestigious British Press Awards proving we are unbeatable for news and sport.” In addition to Holt, the Mirror’s Stephen Moyes won Scoop of the Year for the “cocaine Kate”. The paper also also took Team of the Year for its 7 July coverage.

[Update: Strangely, a new version of the story has just gone up on the Mirror web site, changing the boast to the more modest "proving our unbeatable talent for news and sport". That version also appears in the dead-tree form. Perhaps the Mirror can be beat, after all.]

Rival redtop the Sun yesterday brags of scooping “an amazing hat-trick of gongs“: reporter of the Year Oliver Harvey, Showbusiness Reporter of the Year Victoria Newton the “Harry the Nazi” splash that won Front Page of the Year.

The Indy notes that Hamish McRae “beat an impressive field which included the new editor of the Sunday Telegraph, Patience Wheatcroft”, to win Business and Finance Journalist of the Year while Francis Elliott of the Independent on Sunday was named Political Journalist of the Year. Also noting Elliott’s award is the News & Star in Cumbria, where he once worked.

The FT’s Columnist of the Year Lucy Kellaway got just a one-sentence nib on the front of yesterday’s Pink ‘Un, but the Guardian carries news of its “Newspaper of the Year” title in the biggest font size possible above the masthead. Inside, the City Diary begins the inevitable nitty-gritty gossip about who was sitting where:

One Indy staffer who has no need to strike is Jason Nissé. The business editor of the Independent on Sunday yesterday crossed the journalism/PR divide to join Barclay’s press office. Nissé was straddling both his past and future careers on Monday night, sitting on the Barclays table at the British Press Awards. We hear he also bonded in the past with Barclay’s former press chief Chris Tucker (who left to travel the world) over a mutual love of Arsenal.

The Art Newspaper didn’t even win, losing out to the Mirror for Team of the Year. But being singled out for special commendation was honour enough for the specialist title, which was a surprise finalist for its in-depth coverage of the Sheikh Saud affair. The paper notes Jon Snow’s words when presenting the award: “The judges were very impressed with the Art Newspaper’s brilliant scoop by a small team which exposed one of the great art stories of the decade.”

British Press Awards: Columnist of the Year

Posted by Caitlin Pike on 20 March 2006 at 20:26
Tags: Financial Times, Journalism

Writers of a regular bylined column are eligible for this award. The judges were looking for the ability to “nail” a subject, and for agenda-setting journalism.

The Columnist of the Year is Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times. 

Do old media risk becoming irrelevant?

Posted by Martin Stabe on 10 March 2006 at 09:44
Tags: BBC, Blogs, Citizen journalism, Financial Times, Journalism, Mashups, Podcasting, Reuters, Wikis

On the essential reading list this week is the speech by Reuters chief executive Tom Glocer at last week’s Online Publishers Association conference. In the speech, which was later published in the Financial Times, Glocer explained why “old media must embrace the amateur“. (Also available from Reuters as a Word document [DOC])
Refering to Daniel Defoe, Samuel Pepys and James Boswell, Glocer argued that people akin to today’s bloggers or “citizen journalists” have always existed: “The difference now is the scale of distribution and the ability to search”.

Glocer advises media organisations to become “seeders of clouds” who produce high-value new content, “providers of tools” that allow news consumers to recombine disparate content as they see fit, and become better “filters and editors” who provide a valuable service by finding the scarce valuable droplets in the information deluge.

Old media, Glocer says, have a choice: “integrate the new world or risk becoming irrelvant”. FT.com will be holding an online Q&A with Glocer about his views next Wednesday and are currently inviting readers to e-mail their questions for Glocer to ask@ft.com.

In a related item on on the must-read list, journalism’s best-known advocate of these participatory media, Dan Gillmor, has begun writing a series of articles for BBC News Online. The former San Jose Mercury News columnist, author of We the Media, and director of the Center for Citizen Media explains the tools whose widespread diffusion he sees as the democratising of media production: blogs, podcasts, wikis, discussions, multiplayer games and mashups. It’s a nice overview of these terms.

News sites’ .eu domain names

Posted by Martin Stabe on 8 March 2006 at 14:04
Tags: Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Economist, Financial Times, Guardian, Independent, Independent on Sunday, International, News of the World, Observer, Online, Sun, Sunday Mirror, Sunday Times, Times

Kieren McCarthy — one of the blogging freelances recently mentioned in a Press Gazette feature — had a story in yesterday’s Times about the new .eu top-level domain for European web sites. The story behind the story is on his blog today.

At present, only registered trademark owners and others who can document a legal claim to a particular name can register with the European names registry EUrid. Owners of big online brands like Amazon and Skype, McCarthy reports, are fretting over whether they will be able to secure their .eu domain names before 7 April, when registration is expanded to a free-for-all “landgrab” for the general public:

… they have good reason to worry, according to EURid, the company behind the domains. “We will give the domain to the first company that applies with a valid trademark,” explained spokesman Patrik Linden.

That means even big names are not necessarily safe. Linden confirmed that Amazon had now been approved as owner of its .eu namesake, but pointed out that there was a Volvo Amazon car in the 1960s, so the car manufacturer could well have a legitimate claim.

Another car manufacturer, Volkswagen, has won a battle of the brands over Polo.eu. It beat both Ralph Lauren and Nestle to the name by a matter of minutes, according to domain name management company NetNames.

Clearly this also affects news organisations’ web sites? Are their European domain names safe?

The Telegraph has won a race for telegraph.eu. Associated Newspapers controls dailymail.eu. The Beeb has registed bbc.eu and skynews.eu is controlled by BSkyB. Also secure are itv.eu and itn.eu.

Surprisingly, perhaps, News International has grabbed thesun.eu, newsoftheworld.eu, sundaytimes.eu and thetimes.eu. But one RM Peddemors, a resident of the Netherlands, has staked claims to timeonline.eu. The same individual is also claiming economist.eu and observer.eu. Only Guardian Newspapers is appears to be challenging the claim to their trademark.

The German postal service has registered express.eu, and four companies (not including Trinity Mirror) are claiming mirror.eu.

The domain ft.eu is set to host a salmon-coloured financial news web site, but some of the other more Euro-friendly papers seem to have missed out.

Neither the Irish or British incarnations of the Indy will have independent.eu: That went to Swedish bank Independent Finans AB. Even normally web-savvy Guardian seems to have missed out: although they have secured guardianunlimited.eu, Guardian Flachglas GmbH, a glass manufacturer in Thalheim, Germany, has snapped up guardian.eu. One other domain name that a Guardian employee has recently been diligently buying up in various TLDs is still available on .eu.

FOI and private equity

Posted by Martin Stabe on 7 February 2006 at 10:04
Tags: Financial Times, Freedom of Information, International

BusinessWeek has a story about traditionally secretive private equity firms’ concerns about the FOI law in the US state of Ohio. Financial journalists and researchers are using the law to investigate the private equity holdings of public-sector pension funds. If the pension funds decide to release their data, many private equity funds may stop working with public sector clients to avoid further disclosures.
The issue is not unique to the United States. About a year ago, when Britain’s FOIA came into force, the Financial Times reported a similar conflict brewing in the City. This is an issue worth watching.