May 15, 2008
Newspaper People Receive News Challenge Grants
 John S. and James L. Knight Foundation yesterday announced the winners of the News Challenge grants for 2008.
The News Challenge is a program that grants seed money to individuals and groups to use digital media to promote journalism in a geographic area. Oh, and the projects need to be completed with open-source programs. The Knight Foundation set aside $25 million, or about $5 million for five years, to fund these grants.
This year, two U.S. newspaper-focused people won grants. They are Dan Pacheco of The Bakersfield Californian (and one of the minds behind Bakersfield’s InsideGuide and Bakotopia), and Ryan Sholin of GateHouse Media, where he is director of community site publishing.
Pacheco’s project will focus on niche publications. Here’s the project description from the News Challenge site:
Printcasting will allow individuals to easily create ad-supported, customized publications with a mix of local news and information. The software will help aggregate feeds from news organizations, bloggers or newsletters, for example, so that would-be publishers can pick and choose among them to create a niche publication. The Printcasting model then will guide users through placing articles, photos and ads onto a template that either could be delivered by e-mail or printed at home and distributed. For example, a publication for reef-diving photographers could include ads for nearby dive shops or underwater cameras. The idea is to pair localized ads and content to create targeted publications.
Sholin’s project will connect reporters who are working on similar projects across regions through social networking.
Reporters working on similar topics will be able to communicate and share ideas using a social networking tool and a web site created through this project. The site will indicate how many journalists across the country are working on the same issue, such as declining tax bases or water problems. Reporters then could exchange resources and approaches, or use one another’s communities as examples in their own stories. Journalists in small newsrooms often feel isolated. Given the opportunity to communicate with others, a reporter can add context to articles and, perhaps most importantly, know when a seemingly small local story is part of a larger regional, or national, trend.
Other projects in the News Challenge focus on mobile news, community-produced video content, radio and new editorial management systems.
Also, Web-celeb Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Martin Moore received a grant to create a system that will help the public find fair and accurate news.
The News Challenge site has descriptions for all the projects, as well as biographies of all the grantees. For the 2007 grants, MediaShift blogger Mark Glaser hosted a group blog for grantees called Idea Lab. I believe that blog will continue.
May 14, 2008
Behind the Winning Entries: DallasNews.com Real Estate Video Tours
Weekly, now through the end of summer, I’ll be posting one of the winning Digital Edge Award entries from the 2008 awards. All the entries are available in the report “ Behind the Winning Entries,” but posting them here over time may make them more digestible and spark ideas in your newsroom as different issues come up in your communities. Here’s our latest installment:
Best Digital Classified Innovation (circulation > 250,000): Dallas Morning News Real Estate Video Tours
 Entry submitted by:Karen Davis
Interactive Creative Director
DallasNews.com, The Dallas Morning News
(214) 977-8222
Strategy: The sales team recognized the potential of true real estate video tours and the need for quick action. They took sales pieces out to advertisers and talked them through the proposed video experience. The response wasn’t the typical “how much will it cost me”. Instead, we experienced “how soon can I get this”? The team sold 80 videos in less than 30 days.
Innovation: Launching a program in the real estate market in November is risky as builders are often looking to liquidate. But, there was no price objection when we went to market because no one else was offering true streaming video home tours. Panning still images were being presented as video at that time and advertisers quickly saw the advantages of this offering. We got a good price by being first to market and by offering video production, hosting and allowing the advertiser to link to the video from their own site.
Adaptability: This type of program in easily adaptable in other markets and other verticals. We are in the process of offering a similar technology for store tours in our shopping area.
Impact: The results surpassed our initial expectation. We received $80,000 in incremental revenue in just two months. Advertisers loved it and commented it was a great driver to get people out to the properties. The videos alone generated 8,219 page views.
May 13, 2008
Economics of Social Media: New Revenue, New Business
The following is a guest posting from Randy Bennett, vice president, New Business & Audience Development at NAA.
On April 29, I attended paidcontent.org’s Economics of Social Media conference in Los Angeles. The event covered topics ranging from online video to traditional media role in social media to advertiser perspectives. Full coverage of the event is available at paidconent.org.
Here are a few highlights:
“Social Media is the New Local.”: So says Marketwach.com founder and venture capitalist Larry Kramer. We all know that the Internet has redefined consumers’ perspectives on “community.” New social media tools, according to conference speakers, have accelerated that shift. While a few speakers acknowledged that local (i.e. geographic) community is still important – and profitable – social media tools have elevated the importance of extended communities (friends, business, shared interests), or, as almost every speaker defined it, users’ “social graph.”
The “Activity Web:” Fabled venture capitalist Geoff Yang described the emergence of the Web as a platform for “social activity” like visiting a mall. Web publishers, he advised, should focus on how to leverage social media tools to facilitate social activity such as shopping, gaming, site seeing, etc.
Monetizing Social Media: Several speakers focused on the need for marketers to get into the conversation in a non-intrusive way. In other words, be relevant without being obnoxious. Kinsey Wilson, executive editor of USA Today, said “advertisers want to be associated with new and innovative, but at the same time, they want the safe and proven.” Another theme was that “monetization follows audience.” Speakers suggested that you don’t need “mega-hits,” as long as you’re attracting a loyal audience that advertisers care about.
Yahoo! EVP Jeff Weiner said the challenge is “to identify consumer ‘intention’ ina social media environment. How can we identify and serve advertisers based on that intention?” (e.g. marketing to two people communicating about sushi restaurants in L.A.).
And MTV’s EVP of digital advertising Nada Stirratt offered four challenges for making more money:
1) Get into the results’ business
2) Gain scale with a broader portfolio
3) Provide better ad sales service (operations, processes, bodies)
4) Learn how to thread advertising into the middle of the conversation
“Curators of Content”: The notion of Web publishers, including newspapers, as curators of content, has gained much traction. The strategy is to aid users’ discovery process by providing the tools, organization and editing that will lead them to relevant, and quality, content. USA Today’s Wilson described his company’s three-pronged “curating” strategy, which includes 1) producing original content, 2) facilitating content creation through social media tools, and 3) aggregating/tagging content to provide relevant results.
Similarly, Sports Illustrated’s digital chief Jeff Price said his company’s strategy includes: unbundling its content from the Web site, building programs to sell content wherever it resides and using SI content and tools to empower conversations happening on the social networks.
Steve Wadsworth, president of the Walt Disney Internet Group, shared their strategy of “creating quality content and building a consumer base around that content that is sustainable for the long term.” Disney is not creating a platform (which aggregates thousands of small communities). Disney is providing context: leveraging brands into large communities with a common purpose.
For more information on these sessions and more, go to www.econsm.com.
May 09, 2008
Zooming In on Online Video: A Development & Growth Guide
Last year, research from the Newspaper Association of America revealed that the majority of newspaper Web sites features video. Results from this 2008 NAA survey, which looks more closely at the area, show newspapers' video operations are quite extensive. This is a pleasant and encouraging surprise from an industry going through a difficult period of change.
To help newspapers further develop their video initiatives, NAA has developed a guide to online video.
May 07, 2008
Newsroom Barometer: Partly Sunny Skies Ahead for Industry
World Editors Forum, Reuters release report
There are some really interesting results in the World Editors Forum/Reuters Newsroom Barometer report, released late yesterday. Zogby International conducted the survey. Here are a few of the results, with comments:
56 percent believe most news will be free in the future, up from 48 percent in 2006. This is good for democracy, giving more people access to more information, and maybe good for advertising, since more people may see advertising if the content around it is free. However, print circulation revenue does contribute a bit to most news companies’ bottom lines, so we’ll have to see how the numbers play out.
63 percent believe within 10 years, the most common form of news consumption will be electronic (online, mobile or e-book-style readers). This one is also mixed: Good for the environment (less paper), but we all know quite well that online CPMs and print advertising rates are very different. Even The New York Times Assistant Managing Editor said this week in an online chat that NYTimes.com revenues would not support the entire newsroom.
86 percent said an integrated print/online newsroom will be the norm in the near future. It’s good that news organizations are realizing this – integration, cross-platform collaboration and more will make the end product better, both in revenue and audience. However, as the report notes, many newspapers have bridges to cross before they get to that point.
According to the John Zogby’s analysis of the report, “For these editors the future is self-evident and our survey shows that they see the writing on the newsroom wall. The evolution of the 4th Estate is no longer questions of if, when or how. Editors now know the solution: Innovate. Integrate. Or perish.”
May 06, 2008
Behind the Winning Entries: Vita.mn
Weekly, now through the end of summer, I’ll be posting one of the winning Digital Edge Award entries from the 2008 awards. All the entries are available in the report “Behind the Winning Entries,” but posting them here over time may make them more digestible and spark ideas in your newsroom as different issues come up in your communities.
Best Local Guide or Entertainment Site (circulation group 250,000 or more): Vita.mn
Entry submitted by:
Matt Thompson
Minneapolis Star Tribune
(612) 673-4000
Vita.mn, the Star Tribune’s database- and user-powered arts and entertainment site, is now about a year old. In that time, we’ve implemented a new design, new functionality, blogs, articles, and an innovative user-reward scheme called “karma.”Users have responded by writing more than 10,000 top-ten lists for more than 800 topics, tagging more than 27,000 items, submitting more than 1,100 venue reviews and delivering more than 1.9 million pageviews.
One of our biggest experiments and biggest successes with vita. mn over the past year has been “karma”, the system we created for determining the site’s most valuable users. Users receive karma points for creating and contributing content, and receive exponentially more karma when their contributions inspire other users to participate. Every month, we award prizes to the users who’ve earned the most karma during the month. This has proven to be a popular, enjoyable, effective and transparent way of giving back to the users who contribute the most. The community of users that has coalesced around the site treats karma like a spectator sport, coming back each month to view the fun. (Read a conversation about October’s karma contest here.)
Lists showed early promise as being one of the flagship features of vita.mn. That promise was fulfilled this year with a special franchise issue of the associated weekly print product – “The List of Lists.” The issue was a reverse-publishing triumph, featuring a 19-page spread created by aggregating more than 3,000 lists written by site users.This user-centric take on the typical arts-and-entertainment weekly’s “Best of ” issue brought in plenty of positive buzz from blogs, local businesses and advertisers, and especially from users.
We’re now pioneering an approach to blogging that complements vita.mn’s interactive, democratic style. Our “Alexis on the Sexes” blog aggregates the site contributions of our sex and dating columnist – top-ten lists, venue reviews, event comments, forum posts and more. This means every post, as well as being interesting content in itself is an invitation to users to engage with these features of the site. Disagree with Alexis’ review? Post your own.
The past year has seen the addition of user-submitted photos for venues and events, which appear on the home page and most section fronts, as well as on the appropriate listings pages.
We’ve added interactive maps to venue and event pages. We recently partnered with a company,
InRadio, to deliver a Flash widget, updated weekly, featuring music from artists performing in the Twin Cities during the upcoming week(you’ll find this widget on the home page).
In October, we launched a redesign that drew nothing but positive reaction from users and bloggers. As part of this redesign, we made the site’s section fronts more dynamic, using the power of tagging to pull in relevant lists, guides and discussions from all over the site.
May 02, 2008
How to Get Your News on Google News Fast!
Short answer: API
A person from Google (who’s name I didn’t catch!) came to the NewsTools 2008 Conference this afternoon and gave a very helpful rundown of how to get your breaking news article onto Google News faster….
Newsroom and Community Connection Map
More from NewsTools 2008
Please check out these two awesome diagrams. They’re not directional, point-A-to-point-B maps. These are value network maps: The first diagram looks at the old news story (who’s involved, where the connections are between audience, source, producers, advertisers, etc.); the second one, below, looks at the emerging news ecology (editors as “sense makers” and a very different pathway between the audience, sources and others). These brilliant maps were drawn up by Sherrin Bennett with collaboration from the Journalism That Matters team.
For me, the maps were like a massive brain-dump (in the most positive sense of the term). A lot of us here at the NewsTools conference had pieces of these maps in our heads, in that we all had at least a theoretical understanding of these networked online and offline connections in the news world. The maps make these ideas concrete.
Separately, Robert Niles of the Online Journalism Review wrote about some of the problems with journalists, based on conversations he had yesterday at the conference. Among them: Impatience with unsolved problems (and a low tolerance for imperfection), and an unwillingness to serve drinks and dessert (the fun, lighthearted and interesting stuff) along with the vegetables (hard-hitting, investigative pieces) of journalism.
May 01, 2008
NewsTools 2008: Coverage
I’m in Sunnyvale, Calif., attending NewsTools 2008, part of the Journalism That Matters series. The conference brings together 150 technology people (social network builders, programmers, online community managers), journalists from legacy media companies, bloggers and broadcasters.
The goal of the conference is to look at participatory journalism and technology and discuss the opportunities and possibilities. In an e-mail to participants, Bill Densmore (of the Media Giraffe Project and one of the conference organizers) wrote, “We’re willing to share (perhaps irrational) exuberance about the future of journalism and participatory democracy – a sense of possibility, not dread.”
Tonight, Scott Karp (of Publish2) and Vineet Gupta (of Daylife) led a small-group discussion about aggregation as content, link blogging and how reliably sending people to interesting and useful places elsewhere on the Web can build loyalty. Google is one of the most popular sites in the world, Karp pointed out, and all Google does is send people off to other sites. Newspapers that present not only their own content, but also present relevant and interesting links to other content, can build audience loyalty the same way.
In the spirit of that conversation, I’ll send you off to blogs that are covering this conference more thoroughly than I can alone.
April 29, 2008
Behind the Winning Entries: Austin360.com
Weekly, now through the end of summer, I’ll be posting one of the winning Digital Edge Award entries from the 2008 awards. All the entries are available in the report “Behind the Winning Entries,” but posting them here over time may make them more digestible and spark ideas in your newsroom as different issues come up in your communities. Here’s our eighth installment:
Best Local Guide or Entertainment Site (circulation group 75,000 to 250,000): Austin360.com
 Entry submitted by:Tim Lott
General Manager, Statesman.com
Austin American-Statesman
(512) 399-6611
To mark Austin360.com’s 10th year, staffers rolled out a variety of projects in 2007 designed to reinvigorate the site and encourage increased visitor participation. These included:
The A-List: Want to know what’s hip, hot and happening in Austin? Check out The A-List. Each week, we send photographers to selected events across the city, where they snap pictures and hand out cards promoting the site. The resulting galleries and blogs have been a huge hit, helping contribute to year-long, double-digit increases in page views.
It’s so popular, in fact, that event promoters now actively lobby in hopes of being picked. Your A-List: An expansion of The A-List, Your AList, gives readers control of the Web site. Each week, we let them tell us where to find the best of everything in Central Texas with our four new “best-of” polls. In the first month alone, more than 90,000 votes were cast. Winners get certificates and banners.
Soundcheck360: Austin is the “Live Music Capital of the World,” so it only makes sense that Austin360 would give the city’s musicians a place to showcase their work. That’s where SoundCheck360 comes in. In addition to listening to approximately 500 full-length tracks, visitors can also read about each featured band and view photos. The player also accepts videos.
Austin City Limits and South by Southwest Music Festivals: Austin360.com is the source for details on the city’s two annual music festivals, Austin City Limits and South by Southwest (SXSW). Multiple resources are deployed to ensure our coverage – before, during and after – is the most comprehensive on the Web. Our Austin Music Source blog features the latest reviews and updates, and our staff photographers and videographers capture the scenes – with a little help from The A-List crew.
Reader participation is also key – we actively solicit reader photos and feedback on our blogs. This includes our first-ever Austin Movie Awards. The reader poll wrapped up on the same day that the Oscars were presented. We’ve also launched multiple “hot or not”-style polls, including contests such as a search for the biggest “Star Wars” fan and hottest bachelor and bachelorette contest, coinciding with an Austinite’s appearance on “The Bachelor.” Reader blogs also get considerable play on the site.
We want readers to know they have an ownership stake in Austin360.com. It’s not our site; it’s theirs, and we’ve worked to show them that all year long.
Austin American-Statesman
April 28, 2008
AdAge Launches Newspaper Deathwatch
Maybe it’s the cloudy, rainy weather today in Virginia that’s got me bummed out. Or, maybe it’s AdAge.
The publication has started a series called “The Newspaper Deathwatch,” the first article of which appeared today.
April 24, 2008
Behind the Winning Entries: Lawrence.com
Weekly, now through the end of summer, I’ll be posting one of the winning Digital Edge Award entries from the 2008 awards. All the entries are available in the report “Behind the Winning Entries,” but posting them here over time may make them more digestible and spark ideas in your newsroom as different issues come up in your communities. Here’s our seventh installment:
Best Local Guide or Entertainment Site (circulation < 75,000): Lawrence.com
The World Co.
Entry submitted by:
Director, Mediaphormedia
The World Co.
(785) 843-1000
Lawrence.com is The World Company’s indie-souled, alternative publication in Lawrence, Kan., that serves as the converging spot for culture, events, and the arts for the local scene and the primary means to get the most out of your entertainment life in Lawrence.
The community calendar has a huge number of listings ranging from local bands to national touring acts to local artists' gallery shows. Want a reminder of an event? Simple: just sign up to get a text-message at a specified time before before the event or get an e-mail the day before.
Already out on the town? Check our mobile edition and access our entire calendar to find out what there is to do.
Lawrence.com has one of the most in-depth local music guides on the planet with a definitive library of local bands, musicians, venues and mp3s. Music lovers can subscribe via RSS or iCal to their favorite venue’s events or their favorite local band’s shows. Aficionados can search specific categories of events (alt rock, blues, experimental, whatever your tastes) or all events.
Dining out in Lawrence is made easy with a fully searchable restaurant guide that includes all Lawrence restaurants. Eachrestaurant page has in-depth information on price range,payment forms accepted, drink specials, locationdrink specials, location information, and even a Google map.Our restaurant database has an advanced search, so users canfind places that accept non-local checks, that serve vegetarianfood, or even places that have a heated smoking area.
If you’re looking for a movie, Lawrence.com provides listings for local and area theatres; reviews and links for trailers; and even reader reviews.
Lawrence.com delivers entertainment and cultural options to our audience wherever they like.
April 23, 2008
Some Newspaper Web Sites Reaching 20 Percent of Their Market
Scarborough releases Newspaper Audience Ratings Report
Just in case you missed it, Scarborough Research yesterday released their 2008 Newspaper Audience Ratings Report, which shows print newspaper, online and total audience ratings for 161 newspapers in the U.S.
Some of the newspapers’ Web sites in more tech-friendly/tech-heavy markets are reaching almost 20 percent of the market (or more!), which is great! It’s not as much as the print newspaper, of course, but it’s healthy and growing. Those include Austin American-Statesman (19 percent), The Washington Post (22 percent), The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (18 percent), The San Diego Union-Tribune (18 percent), and several others that had 16 or 17 percent.
April 22, 2008
NAA's FTC Comments
My keeping-up-with this blog has gone down a bit as we continue to work on a fairly large project about video on newspaper Web sites. However, I wanted to make sure everyone saw this, from NAA's Public Policy newsletter:
NAA Files Comments on FTC Behavioral Advertising Guidelines
In recently filed comments with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), NAA expressed concern over the Commission’s proposed behavioral marketing principles, arguing that the FTC has not demonstrated any real harm generated by the practice of online behavioral targeting. NAA’s comments centered around the fact that online newspapers play a unique role by providing news and information to local communities, generally at no cost, mostly due to the revenue generated by targeted advertising. NAA also raised concerns that efforts to provide users with targeted editorial content could be adversely impacted by restrictions on data collection. Though the proposed principles are guidelines and not regulations, NAA cautioned the FTC to avoid “any actions that would infringe upon the freedoms of speech and of the press and the selection of content that appears on newspaper Web sites.”
The FTC’s proposed principles call for online businesses to provide a clear and conspicuous notice to consumers that data is being collected, along with a means for consumers to opt-out of having such information collected. The principles also address issues such as data retention and the collection of sensitive personal information.
April 16, 2008
Behind the Winning Entries: Chicago Tribune Shopping Channel, Metromix Boutiques
Weekly, now through the end of summer, I’ll be posting one of the winning Digital Edge Award entries from the 2008 awards. All the entries are available in the report “Behind the Winning Entries,” but posting them here over time may make them more digestible and spark ideas in your newsroom as different issues come up in your communities. Here’s our sixth installment:
Best Local Shopping & Directory Strategy (circulation > 250,000):
ChicagoTribune.com Shopping Channel and Metromix Boutiques
Tribune Interactive
Entry submitted by:
Suzanne Sutherland
Marketing Analyst
Chicago Tribune/Tribune Interactive
(312) 222-3232
Previously relying on ShopLocal.com as its shopping resource, Chicago Tribune Interactive (CTI) decided to expand its presence and build a more robust shopping product. It took a two-pronged approach to shopping/ecommerce and created two new products in late 2006. The goals were:
1. Create an aggregated destination and improve access to all shopping/style related content & functionalities
2. Improve access to ShopLocal through improved messaging and contextual integration
3. Increase advertising opportunities and improve click thru rates through contextual placement
4. Leverage the Metromix user’s affinity for shopping and test a telesales group
The efforts paid off in the new Shopping Channel and Metromix Boutiques. The Shopping Channel showcases the fashion related content from the Chicago Tribune, the ability to search for local products and to shop the Sunday circulars through ShopLocal integration, shopping blogs, videos, coupons and more.
The Boutique Directory features paid local listings that are promoted and searchable via neighborhood and product category. Each boutique has its own microsite and features coupons, photos, store information and consumer reviews.
The shopping team researched the competitive landscape and determined the two key differentiators for CTI were its strong editorial newspaper content and its young urban MMX audience.
Both sites faced multiple challenges during production. First, both sites needed buy-in to combine the editorial content, shopping services and advertising in a more integrated fashion. Limited production resources also played a role as CTI had to build the shopping channel in Nov. 2006 and again with a network-wide redesign in July.
The boutique product is built on Planet Discover’s directory tool and it was the first of its kind, which brought numerous challenges with vendor tool education and product debugging. There was a significant learning curve for the telesales group selling boutiques. Ad, product and customer service teams needed to understand the product and the best ways to sell and service it.
Both products are highly adaptable both in concept and in functionality. Both sites were built on platforms that could be adopted throughout the Tribune Network of newspapers. The underlying concepts could be adopted in other markets.
The products are highly successful. Shopping now provides an engaging interactive shopping experience highlighting local personalities and editorial, shopping tools and partners. Its page views have increased 166 percent from January 2007 to October 2007. Its content offerings have expanded beyond fashion to include home style, health and beauty. An increased use of photo galleries and related story links within articles has resulted in higher page views and consumer engagement.
The channel has also been an advertising success. Retail/fashion advertisers who run within Shopping typically receive higher click-through rates than in their other positions within chicagotribune.com.
Most importantly, the editorial team has increased its participation with Shopping and is providing more content and feedback, which leads to an even better product presentation.
The Boutique Directory has over 55 local stores, a 35 percent increase in page views since January 2007 and over 60 percent penetration into the directory from its front page.
Both products offer the Chicago consumer important shopping content, shopping aides and they offer advertisers contextual and compelling ways reach the Chicago consumer. CTI will continue to expand on this success.
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