March 17th, 2010 by Wadds

Reputation Online on Times Online blocks

Vikki Chowney was kind enough to ask me for my thoughts on the news yesterday that Times Online has blocked Meltwater from spidering its site for her latest article on Reputation Online - Meltwater in a tizz over Times block, but does really anyone care?

Here’s my interview with Vikki in full.

The action by The Times to block News Now and now Meltwater is another example of a publishers setting out the battlelines in the fight to challenge the business model of aggregators and online clipping agency. The move will inevitably hurt Meltwater. Clients rely on it to provide a comprehensive service and a fragmented monitoring service isn’t helpful if you are charged with managing the reputation of a business.

But it’s odd that The Times is taking this direct action against Meltwater and News Now yet News International is not exercising the NLA’s new web clipping license despite being an NLA member. It shows the ongoing turmoil in publishing industry and it attempts to shift from print to online.

The publishing industry is in real pain as it attempts to monetise its content online. Ad revenues have collapsed and circulation figures are down. Publishers are seeking to create new business models around their content online and believe that third parties that generate income from aggregating and monitoring their content should share the income they generate.

Attitudes will change over the next 18 months as newspaper publishers raise paywalls in front of their sites – and news articles are replaced by summaries in Google News searches.

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February 10th, 2010 by Wadds

Financial cycles: 1940 City editorial

I love old newspapers. They provide a direct and very physical connection with the past.

Here’s a City editorial from a 1940s edition of The Evening Standard that I bought at the weekend. Its striking because the article could have been written yesterday.

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February 1st, 2010 by Wadds

The Independent’s pricing-model for print copies of web articles

I’ve just spotted that The Independent is taking a proactive approach to charging for the commercial use of its online content. Users are offered a menu of options when they print an article from the online edition of the newspaper.

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December 3rd, 2009 by Wadds

NLA web clipping licence to go ahead; “small number of paid web aggregators” yet to sign up

I have followed the NLA’s plan to licence the use of paid-for business-to-business web content from newspaper web sites since the NLA announced its plans in June (search my blog for content tagged NLA for more information). Since then publishers have started to raise pay walls and take on Google in a bid to monitise content.

Six months is a long time on the Internet and especially so for newspaper publishers running loss making web operations.

The NLA said today that the web licensing scheme will go ahead from 1 January 2010. Press clipping agencies, web aggregators, PR agencies and client organisations that track web clippings on newspaper web sites will need a licence. Free consumer services will not be affected.

In September the NLA said that the move will generate an estimated £2 million and while this won’t make a significant dent in the £1 billion production budget of the UK newspaper industry, it will ensure that publishers recover a contribution from the after market for web clippings.

In a press release issued today the NLA said that it has reached agreement with almost all press cutting agencies but that it still needed to agree terms with “a small number of paid web aggregators”.

“Newspaper publishers, which own the NLA, have written to the remaining aggregators to express their full support for the NLA’s initiative. The letter makes clear that the publishers and NLA will pursue non-compliant aggregators with technical and/or legal measures as necessary.”

In agency-land any move to implement additional costs will be inevitably be challenged but the ongoing debate about monetising newspaper web content will help the NLA’s case.

The PR industry has responded badly to the NLA web licensing proposals because it has a mindset that content from newspapers web sites is free. And that’s true for now but its starting to change.

We have no way of knowing whether paywalls will work and how newspapers will manage their relationships with search engines. We’re only beginning to see some early indications.

In the meantime the NLA is proceeding with its model to recover revenue for its members.

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November 18th, 2009 by Wadds

The Newspaper Club Postcode Paper project

Newspaper Club is building a service to help people make their own newspapers.

During the last week it has developed the Postcode Paper project in a bid to demonstrate its publishing prowess and put some of the data from the Government’s beta data.gov.uk data repository into people’s hands.

It’s a prototype of a service for people moving into a new area.

“In our exercise we imagined you might receive it after paying your council tax for the first time. It gathers information about your area [from data.gov.uk], such as local services, environmental information and crime statistics.”

How neat is that? Newspaper Club has seeded 50 copies of the Postcode Paper to a room full of civil servants in a hope that they will be excited by the possibilities and open up more government data to the public.

Newspaper Club is planning on launching early next year when it will offer a basic product of a 12–page, tabloid–size newspaper in black and white or colour in quantities from 5 to 5000.

“If you’re experienced with design software you’ll be able to upload a PDF to us and we’ll sort out printing and delivery. Or, if you need a bit more help, we’ll have a tool where you can upload your own text and pictures and we’ll help you lay it out on the page so it looks lovely. Then you can get it printed etc.”

(via @hrwaldram)

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November 9th, 2009 by Wadds

Twitter Tim.es: crowdsourced content from Twitter network presented in a newspaper format

twitterTwitter Tim.es is a bid to combine crowdsourcing and media models. It works incredibly well.

It uses content posted in a network on Twitter to created personalised online newspaper.  The free web application spiders your Twitter network and presents content discussed by people in your network and a level deeper. Stories are ranked by the number of conversations.

Check out my Twitter Tim.es at twittertim.es/wadds.

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October 15th, 2009 by Wadds

Mainstream media audiences booming – unpicking the data

Accepted wisdom says that the audience for mainstream media is in decline in an inverse relationship to the growth in our appetite for social media. But it simplify isn’t the case. Mainstream media consumption is on the rise.

I’ve spent the last few weeks unpicking the latest audited audience statistics to find out what is really happening in mainstream media-land in the UK.

The most recent audience figures from BARB (broadcast TV), RAJAR (radio) and ABC (newspapers) show a decline in our appetite for print but year-on-year rises elsewhere. And while print audiences may be falling, ABCe figures report unprecedented audiences on the web.

Herein lies the issue and the opportunity for mainstream media publishers: audiences aren’t in decline but they are fragmenting across the web. Despite the rise of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube people remain firmly loyal to mainstream media brands.

This is a narrative about an industry undergoing a radical shift in its search for a new business model following the breakdown of the advertising and subscription funded models.

I haven’t got any answers but here are the actual numbers.

print_MSM_j
Table: Newspapers online (ABCe via MediaTel and Press Gazette – August 2009)

online_MSM
Table: Newspapers print (ABC via MediaTel and Press Gazette – August 2009)

BARB_j_jpeg
Table: Television multi-channel viewing summary (BARB – 20 Sept to 28 Sept)

RAJAR_j
Table: Radio (RAJAR – Q2 2009)

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September 24th, 2009 by Wadds

“Unhyperlocal”

Russell Davies has spotted the flaw in using a network of local bloggers as a cost-effective model for developing local content. I blogged about this issue last month.

Here’s what Russell has to say.

[…] writing about my neighbourhood worries me deeply. Because the people and shops and cafes are going to notice that you’re writing about them, and if you’re in any way critical they’ll know and glare at you, and you’re going to feel really bad.[…] There’s a difference between slagging off a restaurant you don’t intend to go back to and walking past the same place every day.

I’ve tried it and its not comfortable. There is no doubt hyper local media is viable and that local bloggers are able to provide the content and reach of a regional newspaper but the issues of personal anonymity and legal protection need be tackled.

Russell again.

[…] if hyperlocalism is going to work in the UK maybe it needs to be aggregated rather than authored (somehow, I’m not really sure what I mean by that) or it needs some imprimatur of professionalism that says “I’m just doing my job”.

The twin issues of personal exposure and the backup of a publisher need to be resolved if hyperlocal media is going to work.

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September 15th, 2009 by Wadds

Google in bid to bring physical magazine experience online

fastflipGoogle made another bid yesterday to stake out a role in the future of the newspaper industry with the introduction of Fast Flip.

This new innovation from Google Labs repurposes digital content from newspaper web sites and enables readers to browse articles much like if they were browsing through a physical magazine or newspaper. Articles are organised by popularity or personal preference.

Google is baiting publishers with the promise of revenue of a significant revenue share from ads on Fast Flip’s pages.


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September 14th, 2009 by Wadds

Could Google recover revenue for the newspaper industry online?

According to Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab, Google is developing a micropayment platform that would provide a number of mechanisms for newspaper publishers to charge for content online.

Google’s proposals come in response to a request for information to technology firms from the Newspaper Association of America’s for revenue-content proposals.

In the document […] Google outlines its “vision of a premium content ecosystem” that includes subscriptions across multiple news sites, syndication on third-party sites, accessibility to search, and various payment options, including small fees for access to individual pieces of content.

Technology is one thing. But what the newspaper industry needs is new models. I’m surprised that the proposals aren’t braver. If Google’s ad network was overlaid wholesale on a newspaper web site would it generate sufficient revenue to make it a viable commercial proposition?


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September 11th, 2009 by Wadds

NLA engages directly with critics

I was in the audience at The Guardian yesterday morning for a briefing with the NLA’s managing director David Pugh.

The NLA has received an onslaught of criticism since it announced that it would introduce a licence for web clippings from January 2010.

After yesterday’s briefing I firmly believe that the NLA has failed to communicate the rationale and remit of the new licence. Much of the negative comment results from misinformation and the NLA’s tradition approach to communications.

The NLA has briefed PR Week, the CIPR and the PRCA and responded directly to blog criticism. It frequently cites its eClips web site as the authoritative source of information on the topic and while it is exhaustive it isn’t the easiest site to navigate.

But after yesterday I believe that the NLA needs to work harder to take its message to its audience in a more accessible format. In social media parlance it needs to follow the conversations. And to be fair it has started to do this by arranging briefings such as yesterday’s session.

So what did we learn from the sesson? The web clipping licence is a bid by the NLA to recover a contribution from the after market for business-to-business web clippings. It isn’t a tax on web clippings or a bid to licence URLs.

The new web licences will cover digital content on national and local newspaper websites with the exception of the Financial Times and News International publications which have their separate licence requirements.

Clipping agencies such as Cision and Durrants, scrappers such as Meltwater, and PR agencies, all generate revenue from monitoring press coverage online. Clippings are a currency that drives the PR industry.

The NLA believes that newspaper publishers as the original producers of this content should receive a share of that income. The initiative is expected to raise up to £2 million per year for NLA members.

The PR industry has responded badly to the proposals in part because of poor communication on the part of the NLA, but also because it has a mindset that content from newspapers web sites is free.

In 18 months as newspaper publishers raise paywalls in front of their sites and content disappears from Google news searches this attitude will change.

Here lies the real issue of web copyright. The media industry’s approach to online is in turmoil. We have no way of knowing whether paywalls will work and how newspapers will manage their relationships with search engines.

In the meantime the NLA is making a bid to put a model in place to recover revenue for its members. As I have said previously ultimately the future health of the media and technology innovation will dictate the conclusion of this debate.

Neville Hobson interviewed David Pugh after yesterday’s session for a special edition of his For Immediate Release (FIR) podcast which he said he’ll likely post later today.


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August 29th, 2009 by Wadds

Future of print media on Sky News

I did a slot on Sky News yesterday about the future of print media. Here’s a follow-up article that I wrote for the Sky web site that discusses the commercial pressures in the UK newspaper industry, the prospect of charging more for internet news content and the future of the TV licence in the UK.


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August 27th, 2009 by Wadds

Local bloggers need anonymity and legal protection

My blog post comparing the role of the journalist with that of a local blogger triggered intense discussion in the comments.

I’m signed up as a contributor to a project in the North East and said that as a member of a community there are absolute no go areas as I need to stay on friendly terms with neighbours.

The post has attracted comment from several hyper local bloggers contributing to projects through the UK and further afield. Almost all are concerned about personal exposure and the lack of backup both in terms of the support of a newsroom and the legal infrastructure of a publisher.

Have a read if you get chance. There is no doubt hyper local media is viable and that local bloggers are able to provide the content and reach of a regional newspaper but the issues of personal anonymity and legal protection need be tackled.

Related posts:

Why local bloggers may never compete with local media – 12 August, 2009
Journalists: devalued and misunderstood?
– 7 July, 2009
The Newcastle Journal’s hyperlocal project (and a new channel for chicken updates)
– 24 June, 2009
Trendwatch: Hyperlocalism
– 28 May, 2009


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May 15th, 2009 by Wadds

Thinking Digital: Exploring new publishing models

Wired deputy editor Ben Hammersley joined the ranks of speakers at Thinking Digital this afternoon that have called time on the traditional publishing model.

“[The premise that…] people won’t pay for content is a myth propagated by big media. The reality is that people won’t pay for their media anymore,” he said.

Hammersley said that consumers will pay for quality, crafted content pertinent to their personal interests.

“Content publishers need to stop chasing numbers and pursue quality, elegance and craftsmanship instead. Digital is enabling interesting stuff to be made [and distributed] at low cost to small audiences,” he added.

Russell Davies and Ben Terrett from the Really Interesting Group may have cracked the means for content producers in the digital environment to publish their work in a physical newspaper format.

The duo is behind the Things Our Friends Have Written On The Internet 2008 project, a beautifully designer newspaper of content drawn from around their digital networks. The publication was so admired that it has inspired a Flickr group.

Davies and Terrett have now raised funding from Channel 4’s seed fund 4iP to develop a tool to enable anyone make the transition from content on screen to a printed format.

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