Streetcourner.com.au is a new local news and citizen journalism site from Macquarie Media, owners of 2GB and 2CH. I like the local pitch and that people can submit their own local news. I also like that this is connected with a classifieds offer – although I wish the pricing was clearer.
The Forum, a citizen journalism news site created by folks living in several villages in New Hampshire has just won a Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism. Great kudos for such a grassroots citizen journalism site.
It’s been a while since I wrote here about citizen journalism – my view has not changed. There remains an opportunity for newsagents to embrace citizen journalism and give people a voice. We have the geographic spread. It would reinforce our community connection and demonstrate how small business can make the kind of difference big businesses usually only talk about.
The Sydney Morning Herald is seeking content from would-be citizen journalists with it’s above the masthead pitch. They have setup a mobile phone number to which content can be sent by SMS. The SMH move is a good example of newspapers embracing new media technology to better connect with their community.
I opened my local Leader newspaper last night to see page this Page 10 story about nook.com.au a new community and blogging site from Leader Newspapers. The pitch in the article says it all:
For Leader, nook.com.au squarely targets keeping people engaged at a local level.
This is what a local newspaper is all about. From my test drive I’d say nook delivers the goods. It’s easy to navigate and brilliant at connecting people. The site design is simple and appealing to first time bloggers.
Beyond connecting people and providing the community with another online voice, nook will provide Leader Newspapers with material for its print product. On many fronts nook looks like a winner. It’s part blogging, part community connection, part citizen journalism and part commercial. And, no ads – but I would like transparency on what makes something featured.
News Limited should be well pleased with their new baby.
Courtesy of Jay Rosen’s Press Think blog I have found Placeblogger, a new place where you can “discover, browse, and subscribe” to over 700 local blogs. It launched January 1 and while only US blogs are listed at the moment it’s well worth a visit.
What’s a placeblog? Here’s what the site says:
Placeblogs are sometimes called “hyperlocal sites” because some of them focus on news events and items that cover a particular neighborhood in great detail — and in particular, places that might be too physically small or sparsely populated to attract much traditional media coverage. Because of this, many people have associated them with the term “citizen journalism,” or journalism done by non-journalists.
MNSpeak is the best example from the Placeblog top 10. It publishes news which mainstream media news sites and newspapers are unlikely to cover or at least cover in the way it does. These local news sites are the future of news with newspapers and mainstream websites moving to more blended coverage.
Back in 2005 we had a half hearted crack at creating a local news site, called local news daily. We built the site in Drupal and sought out retired journalists to get us going. One thing led to another and we let it slide. Maybe the time is right now to get newsagents engaged in the Local News concept. Hmmm… In the meantime, check out Placeblogger and see what they’re up to in the US. It’s exciting.
TIME magazine’s Person of the Year is YOU – in recognition of people being more in control of information than ever before thanks to social media sites. A consequence of the involvement of YOU is greater transparency. This is what people like about the social media sites, they have a voice and there is no gatekeeper silencing them.
Last week, before the TIME announcement, Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief at Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, blogged about what radical transparency would look like at WIRED magazine. At the heart of radical transparency is YOU – readers being put at the heart of the magazine in pursuit of creating a better product. It respects the new YOU focused two-way publishing model of today compared to the one way approach of yesteryear.
I’d love to know what Australian magazine publishers make of Anderson’s post and the comments of others on his six tactics of transparent media. Newsagents ought to read it as well as they have a business model which does not connect with the era of YOU.
Since my post yesterday suggesting newsagents establish themselves as free WiFi access points two players in the comms marketplace have made contact to discuss how this could be achieved. Unfortunately, like many suppliers dealing with newsagents they grossly undervalue the national coverage newsagents offer.
Newsagents’ business model based around newspaper, magazines and lotteries is being severely disrupted by mobile technology. A free WiFi offering, while not the solution, would put back into consumers’ minds as being relevant. For the comms partner newsagents offer instant visibility since the network tracks more than 15 million visits every two weeks.
A smart comms company might bundle in an internet kiosk at no cost and call it Australia’s Listening Post or something like that – to push along our fledgling citizen journalism movement.
François Bayrou, a presidential candidate for UDF in the elections to be held here in France next year was welcomed to the stage with some delegates yelling out their displeasure at a political candidate interrupting the advertised program. I was inclined to agree but he soon won me over. Here was a candidate saying that mainstream media is not taking much notice of him and that blogs offered to drive democracy through greater transparency. He cited the Howard Dean campaign for US President in 2004. Maybe he should connect with Joe Trippi – the architect of the Dean online campaign. Of course at a bloggers conference this was what we wanted to hear – that blogs matter, that they are essential to democracy and that the filtering by some mainstream media organisations of news and opinion is unhealthy. The detractors seemed happy by the end of Bayrou’s conversation.
In this an other presentation I am asking myself: where are newsagents in this? Nowhere, not in the online world or the blogosphere. The world is in the middle of huge change in how we access and share information. Newsagents used to be at the hub of that. They (we) need to find a new traffic generator hub.
Former Israeli Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres spoke for an hour at LeWeb 3 this morning. 1,000 tech geeks and bloggers sat in silence as he shared his views about the world and, more specifically the Internet. He graciously answered questions from the audience.
I didn’t come to LeWeb 3 expecting to encounter a world leader like Peres and was surprised to hear yesterday that he would attend. Walking up to the venue today the consequences of his attendance were evident with police and security in strong attendance and a bag search before entry – yesterday there was none of this.
Peres surprised me. He was passionate, engaging and well informed. He came across as honest in his comments and answers – maybe they are traits of a politician out of office. He sees the blogosphere as vital for democracy and breaking down borders. He sees it as crucial to transparency and essential to a more peaceful world.
Peres called on bloggers to blog for democracy. I took some of his comments as a criticism of mainstream media and the control they exert on what we know and what we ought to think.
Here are some quotes I found compelling from Shimon Peres speaking this morning:
Our task is to imagine and create, not so much to remember.
Young people have stopped reading the newspaper and stopped watching TV.
States, countries, borders and governments are no longer too important. They were important when we lived off the land. When science and technology took over and became the source of wealth why do we need borders? You can’t conquer wisdom.
You are so crazy to be popular that you forget why you became popular.
I cannot see a political solution to the Middle east. I can see an economic solution wich will drive a political solution.
We cannot live under one flag or one opinion.
Democracy is the right to be different, the right to make mistakes and the obligation to correct them.
If we spent what the war in Iraq costs in one month, US$30 billion, and spent that on commerce in Iraq, the outcome would be better.
Israel is going solar. It is better to hang on the sun than Saudi Arabia. The sun is more democratic.
Don’t look at the past, it’s a waste of time.
I have not taken much notice of Peres in the past except watching the occasional news report. The Middle East is a long way from Australia and, well, I tend to focus more on local stories and stories which directly affect me. I felt ignorant listening to him today. Ignorant that I had not taken more notice. I suspect others in the audience felt this as well.
At the end of his time at LeWeb, Peres was delivered a spontaneous and long standing ovation. Delegates were honored to have him speak and moved by his words. His presence at a blogging conference adds to the credibility and importance of the blogosphere. He sees blogs as a legitimate – and two-way- communication channel.
Peres’ presence is like a hand of encouragement at the black of all 60 million bloggers around the world.
Take 1,000 IT people involved in online businesses from around the world – from developers to venture capitalists – and you’re bound to get reality checks on a range of fronts. Le Web 3 brings these people together in formal conference sessions, informalk networking and a fascinating, compelling and intimidating start-up room. I’m here learning for the Find It online classifieds business being rolled out in partnership with newsagents. But there are more take aways than those which relate to Find It. Here is a summary of my key take-aways today.
First up, every second attendee is sitting in the conference hall laptop open and reading and writing during the sessions. More male than female. I’d guess the average age at early 30s.
Newsagents are getting left behind. I know I go on here like a cracked record about this but you onle have to come to a conference like Le Web and see how disconnected we are with the new worl in our bricks and mortar businesses. We must get this to survive.
They are generating content as they go – participating in live and relevant polls which speakers comment on from the stage.
Newsagents have no conection with the world of user generated content.
We’re hearing that user generated content is key. Quality content. A chap from yahoo said driving quality content was the holy grail. But then he said that while there;’s crap at YouTube, that there is some quality makes the site compelling.
The newspapers and magazines we sell in newsagencies deliver, in the main, quality content. There’s some, short term, comfort in that.
There was talk of a big impact of Web 2.0 on middlemen and in particular TV networks. IPTV is about connecting content producers with consumers. The TV stations are the losers in this. Consumers are proving they want content where and when they want. TB networks work against this. In an IPTV world the TV program is replaced by an a la carte menu.
Newsagents are middlemen for the most part. We make money from selling product people can get individually elsewhere. We need our own reasons to exist.
Free is the game in town. Free broadband. Free online software. Free content. Monetisation comes from advertising and other less obvious revenue models.
If you look at the change in newspaper cover prices in Australia over the last ten years compared to the change in advertising rates over the same period and you can see that publishers agree. In real terms, Australian newspapers sold in newsagencies are closer to being free today than ten years ago. Niche titles – foreign language newspapers – price their product as if the content is valuable.
More than this has been covered so far but I’m not about to blog about take-aways which will benefit Find It and my other businesses.
So far Le Web 3 has been exciting, challenging and very enjoyable.
Newspaper Outlook 2007 in an excellent report by Earl Wilkinson, CEO International Newspaper Marketing Association (INMA). It confronts issues some newspapers have difficulty reporting in their pages (especially Australian newspapers) – the process of transitioning their revenue model from one based purely on print to one based primarily online with some print model. The US$195 report is compelling reading for newsagents as it 75 pages of evidence that the foundations on which newsagencies were created in the 1800s have shifted. As Wilkinson writes:
Unfortunately, the transition will be most painful for the people who are least informed about the over-arching trends in media industry: the editorial community.
I’d replace “editorial community” with “newsagents”. Newsagents don’t feel the change, certainly not to an extent to accept it as real. Not here in Australia yet at least. Newspaper sales are strong. Enough are experiencing growth for newsagents to be confident.
As this report indicates, the future for newspaper publishers is away from paid for copies and the traditional model. Wilkinson says that the “destination is clearâ€:
Internet-First
Local Journalism
Always On and Interactive
Core Product Smaller
Lower Profit Margins
Wilkinson sees a newspaper outlook in 2007 based on publishers moving more investment from traditional product to online and achieving more profit from online. Newsagents must listen to this message. While I don’t expect them to stump up the US$195 for the INMA report, they must take note that here is a respected executive from publisher circles saying that the game we have played for decades is over, it’s a new world and investment in your business must reflect this.
As the IFRA Beyond the Printed Word conference wound to an end this afternoon in Vienna I was left with more questions than when the conference began. Publishers I talked with see a rapidly approaching cliff in terms of print sales and ad revenue and some are rushing to find replacement revenue. Some openly say that the paid (over the counter or subscription) newspaper as we know it will be dead, in Europe at least, in a matter of years and will be replaced with an entirely new premium print model. They are the early adopters of new models. They are balanced with others who are yet to treat an online presence other than a poor cousin to the print edition.
Back to the questions I arrived with: Is there a common strategy being adopted by publishers to find sustainable online revenue? Who is doing it well? Will online provide the revenue the shareholders in publishing firms are used to? Do the publishers get it that they are no longer newspaper publishers but, rather, media companies? Is there a place for the current distribution system (newsagents) in their thinking about the future? Do publishers really understand the Internet? Is there a revenue model which can work?
In hindsight the questions were naive in that this is all very new and publishers are learning as they go.
I saw heard about some excellent initiatives – Naples News is one, demonstrating what a newspaper with a circulation of 50,000 can achieve. What they are dong is way advanced on any Australian news site. They created this within a year. Core to their success was them taking the online move seriously from the top down and driving change. Check out their restaurant reviews and sports scores – yeah, the sports side of the side is truly amazing. The power available to the reader makes them the expert thanks to smart organisation of data.
The conference is proof that publishers the world over are taking the online challenge seriously and that print circulation marketing today is more about delaying rapid decline than achieving growth. I know there are publisher executives in Australia who disagree with me. Let’s check in in a year, two years and five years and see if I am right. If we follow the US and European examples sales will fall. However, I accept that our marketplace is different so who really knows when the inevitable change will hit. The keys are broadband take up, lower cost wireless devices and peer pressure. My plea to Australian newspaper publisher executives is – don’t get newsagents investing beyond what is absolutely necessary in and chasing paid circulation growth. Newsagents themselves need to ensure that every capital investment is for their future and not just to help publishers tread water.
Newsagents are middlemen. This makes us servants. We are not part of any publisher’s online strategy. I’m okay with that. Publishers need to do what is right for their shareholders. For our part, newsagents need to see the future and act now. We need to break out of being middlemen. We need to get smart about online. We need new revenue streams and they need this now for it will take years to change the habits of consumers.
Just as publishers have come to conferences like Beyond the Printed Word, so, too, should newsagents congregate and discuss their life after print. This is the biggest challenge in the 120 years our channel has existed.
While I am leaving the conference with more questions than when I arrived I have a better understanding of how publishers see the online opportunity and some of the strategies being employed and for that I am grateful.
It’s a brave conference which gets 16 year olds on stage to critique newspaper websites. That’s what happened this morning at the Beyond the Printed Word conference in Vienna. This team of bright 16 years shared their views, warts and all. Here is a selection of their comments:
Ads get in the way of content. They don’t like clicking on a video and having to watch an ad before the video. (You could hear the gasp when they said this.)
Pop up ads are annoying.
Most banner ads are not appealing.
They don’t like sites with too much colour, too much animation or swirling fonts.
Sites need to be easier to navigate.
It is frustrating having to register to get the content you need.
As soon as you are sent to another site, when you click a link, they quit.
Having a dating service on a news site is degrading. It’s useless.
They have a preference for proper news sites as opposed to citizen journalism.
Sites chasing young people should be designed by young people – they can tell when a 40 year old is trying to design young.
Not much interest in using mobile phones to access news. (more mutterings from the audience given many are playing in this space.)
I can’t do the hour long presentation justice here.
Some key take-aways for me were that peer pressure drives site traffic. When asked if they would switch to another social media site most of the 16 year old panel said no unless their friends switched. The big surprise was their strong reaction of advertising and their dislike for paying for anything. This is a huge challenge for any online content site chasing this demographic.
How does this connect with Australian newsagents? Well, we’re chasing this market and since they are buying fewer newspapers than the generation before them, their insights will help determine what we need to do in-store to be attractive to them.
This was an excellent session, most invaluable.
Our Find It online classifieds offering is rated among the Top Web Applications in Australia in an article by Vishal Sharma. We’re in good company. I particularly like gnoos, The Podcast Network and Perth Norg. Perth Norg is a brilliant Perth based citizen journalism site.
It’s interesting to read that our TV networks are embracing citizen journalism concepts to attract content. We’re only 18 months behind the rest of the world. Check out this (incomplete) list of Citizen Journalism initiatives in the US.
Content is king to any media outlet. Good content. This means professional filtering if the citizen generated content is to be on the same platform as professionally generated content.
Thanks to Micro Persuasion I have found out that BlogBurst is offering a syndication service that places selected blogs on mainstream media destinations such as: the San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News. This is clever innovation. It respects the value good blogs can add to an existing media outlet, it recognises that reporting is changing and it opens an opportunity for mainstream media brands to build a more relevant connect to today’s online news consumer. Citizen Journalism is alive and well and making its way to smart newspaper websites.
seattlepi.com reports that Newsvine raises US$5 million for their CJ site. This is the most recent of several similar funding arrangements for Citizen Journalism sites. It will be interesting to see if any or any significance spring up in Australia. My sense is that European and Americans are more engaged with news and more frustrated with mainstream outlets and that’s why we’re seeing more activity there.
MediaPost reports that the Austin American-Statesman plans to launch a free community blogging service on its websites. There are already blogs at its main news site and their entertainment site.