Howard Owens

Pay-per-click, contextual advertising will be around for a long time and make some people very rich, but where I see a lot of untapped potential for publishers is in video advertising.  Lost Remote has more.

Just don't do prerolll ....

Here's a good story for newspaper people to read: Mistakes Made on the Road to Innovation, from Bussiness Week. It's mainly about Kodak, but the lessons could be applied to newspapers.

It is taking time for Kodak to understand that it is an image company, not a film or camera company. Perhaps it should take lessons from Western Union. (WU ) Founded in 1851, the company has managed to ride each successive wave of change in its history rather than getting swamped. (A bankruptcy protection filing in the early 1990s was caused by management mistakes rather than external threats.) After handling the first transcontinental telegram in 1861, it spotted the opportunity to transfer money by wire 10 years later. Then, a series of firsts: a city-to-city facsimile service, a microwave communications system, a commercial satellite network, and online money transfer.

Why has Western Union been able to adapt to severe disruptions and survive over so many years? It never confused the business it was in with the way it conducted its business. At its core, Western Union was about facilitating person-to-person communications and money transfers -- whether via telegraph, wireless networks, phone, or the Internet. "We always saw ourselves as a communications company," says president Christina Gold.

I've heard it said that newspapers need to learn they are not in the news business, but the information business. I disagree. I think we're in the community business.

Previous: The Telegraph is Dead. Long Live the Telegraph

The housing market may have cooled, but the demand for real estate blogging hasn't.  Mark Glaser has the scoop.

Chris Anderson is picking up a new theme -- radical transparency.

Perhaps the most interesting of these is the shift from secrecy to transparency. The default communications mode of companies has traditionally been top-down, with only executives and official spokespeople permitted to discuss company business in public. The standard rule, explicit or not, was "That which we choose not to announce is not to be spoken about." Aside from some special exemptions, such as conferences where those employees trusted enough to go chatted guardedly with outsiders, employees were cautioned that what happened at work should stay at work. Loose lips sink ships, etc.

But over the past few years, a new breed of executive has emerged, and with them a new attitude toward controlling the corporate narrative. From Microsoft to Yahoo!, the public face of the company is increasingly employee bloggers who are trusted both internally (allowed to blog without legal or PR review) and externally (they're just regular folk like us!). The consequence is that much that was once hidden is now open for all. These rarely include big disclosures (the real secrets stay secret), but instead tend to be about routine issues that dominate the day-to-day life of engineers and project managers. The small cost of some competitor getting early wind of a new feature is more than outweighed by the good will generated among customers by candid insights into product development. So far, so Naked Conversations.

What really interests me, however, is when this goes even further. Not just transparency, but Radical Transparency. The whole product development process laid bare, and opened to customer input. Management in public, via blog. CEOs venting, without benefit of legal counsel, in late-night postings.

I'd like to think that I've always been a pretty honest guy, but starting in about 2002, when I started blogging, I really took up the torch of transparency. I make a conscience effort in all aspects of my life to be as open and honest as I can be, and even in a place as public as my blog. That said, it isn't always easy. After posting something, I I sometimes question whether I should "give that much away" about my thinking or plans. And there are also certain restrictions that I'm under that have nothing to do with my present employer, but still limit what I can say (even without a signed piece of paper, for example, I feel it's not my place to reveal things I might know about, say, Scripps). I also have to be careful what I write when posting it might be detrimental to a former co-worker or friend. Transparency isn't easy, but I still think it's necessary. One of the benefits for me has been, however, that by sharing so many of my thoughts, I often get challenged by very smart people. That makes me smarter. That, I think, is a good thing.

Am I radically transparent? You tell me.

So there is a secret Google advertising network and only elite publisher get to play, according to John Chow.

The Google Display Advertising Network was created so Google can go after Fortune 1000 companies, which buy advertising to build a brand more than to sell a product. Google already dominates text and CPC ads so going after display and video ads is the next logical step. Google offers display and video ads to AdSense publishers on CPC and CPM format already. However, the formation of the Display Advertising Network is a clear signal that Google really want to push this forward.

This is how disruption works -- start at the low end and work your way up. Google is just doing it at hyper speed.

Link via Search Engine Journal

Lucas Grindley asks a good question: On Black Friday, how did your shopping site do?

Driven by the allure of new revenue, most of the largest newspaper sites have launched comprehensive “shopping” sections. Readers had a lot of time to get acquainted with these new services during the past year. But I doubt they are very interested.

Check your shopping stats. If there isn’t a spike in usage, the section is failing. If there is a spike, the section is on the right track.

It would be interesting to know if any newspaper.com sites have gotten the shopping site right, or how well (or poorly) the best of them are doing?

William Bulkeley has a very simple observation: Old media survived on a business model of forcing people to buy things they didn't want.

Photography and publishing companies shouldn't be surprised when digital technology upends their industries. After all, their business success relied on forcing customers to buy things they didn't want.

Photo companies made customers pay for 24 shots in a roll of film to get a handful of good pictures. Music publishers made customers buy full CDs to get a single hit song. Encyclopedia publishers made parents spend thousands of dollars on multiple volumes when all they wanted was to help their kid do one homework paper. The business models required customers to pay for detritus to get the good stuff.

Inevitably, their industry revenues are shrinking now that consumers can use digital technology and the Internet to select only what they want.

This is just another variation on the Innovator's Solution: Figure out the job consumers will hire you to do and then do the job.

What do people want from newspapers? Well, they want a lot of different things, but most people don't want it all all of the time. And often they don't want ink on their fingers or a stuffed recycling bin to get it. Advantage digital.

When I first announced my new job, a friend who grew up near Rochester immediately raved about Nick's and the "Garbage Plate."  I still haven't tried it, but at least I've seen the video.

The NAA finally has a blog. Beth Lawton is blogging for the Digital Edge.

Today's entry, following up on Steve Outing's E&P column, how do you grade newspaper.com sites?

Disclosure: I'm on the New Media Federation board of directors (an NAA-sponsored group).

One of the reasons I wanted us to aggressively pursue video in Ventura was video seemed like an opportunity. When you consider all the ways that newspapers are being disrupted, why not spend a little time to try and figure out who newspapers can disrupt -- among the chief candidates: Local television.

I don't think it's yet too late for newspapers to get aggressive about video, but time is running short. Other disruptors are already established. Michael Arrington is now recommending that we just go ahead and declare television dead and move on.

Rob Curley wants to make newspaper video more like television video. I say, let's make it different. Let's make it more like the web. Studio55 vs. TimesCast. At least to start, and when we get to Curley's magic three years out, and we're streaming directly to the big device in the living room, then we can evolve from Toyota Corolla stage to the Lexus LX model. By then, we should understand what that model should look like. We don't know that today, but I bet it ain't like broadcast television.

UPDATE: Jack Lail gets it.

If innovation and disruption come from small startups (or startup-like operations) who come out of nowhere with a product that is good enough to meet a need, then operate like they do.

Two guys in a garage or dorm room didn't create a behemoth Internet portal with mail, maps, movies and more; they created a collection of links. It grew into a behemoth. Craig Newmark started with an email to friends and grew it into Craigslist. Start with what you can do and make it better. Just do.

UPDATE II: A poster at B-Roll.net takes a swipe at my "mypoic arrogance" and notes, fairly, that not all TV news coverage is bad. That's true of course, but the opening is in the fact that most of it is bad, which the poster cops to.

Bold words from an industry hemorrhaging market share. Honestly, I wish them all the luck in the world, for the amalgamation of our two mediums would greatly improve the information stream - and where better to showcase it than on-line? Trouble is, too many in the print realm dismiss local TV efforts as entirely without merit. They gleefully point to the lowest common denominators, the “Killer Dust-Bunnies Hiding Under Your Child’s Bed” series-piece syndrome. Granted, the worst of my lot is guilty of such tripe, but I for one don’t deal in this bottom-feeding and neither do those who share my logo. Print folk would do themselves a huge favor by putting aside their contempt and taking a long hard look at the very best of broadcast news, starting with the NPPA reels readily available on-line.

In my own defense, I just want to say that I've always said newspaper video needs to evolve and get better, and I've sent videographers to study with TV shooters -- we have a lot we can learn. Also, this isn't about individuals. It's about instiutions. Television news as an institution as a lot to answer for when it reaches the pearly gates. Of course, print journalists have their own sins to atone for. So, it's about instiutions and opportunities. I see opportunity in another institutions weakness. See ya at the lunch table, Lenslinger (why is that handle familiar to me?)

UPDATE III: Lenslinger also has a blog and his post is also available here.

UPDATE IV: A TV photoguy who goes by the charming handle "Turdpolisher" responds. I left a comment along the lines of, "You're so busy being defensive that you miss the point."

The Praized Blog presents 16 Rules for Social Media.

I think 16 over complicates things. Here's how I would edit down the list (I've also changed wording).

1. Keep content fresh, which leads to more in-bound links.
2. Make tagging and social bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links (i.e., trackbacks)
4. Make your content portable so it can easily be added to other sites
5. Be a resource -- link to anybody and everybody (including competitors) so that your visitors always find your site valuable
6. Reward frequent users (promote their work, develop a ranking system)
7. Participate (join the conversation as an equal)

And that, my friends, is what all newspaper.com sites should be doing.

This is too funny -- Chris Prillo arguing with himself over competiting video services using the video services. (via Steve Outing)

Journalists love awards. A Pulitzer, of course, is the granddaddy of all media awards. So today's announcement, that the board will now consider a range of online initiatives, will probably do more to drive online innovation in content than any range of API studies. Besides accepting submissions related to online databases, interactive media and video, the board is also putting an emphasis on local reporting. These are key strategic targets for the online newspaper industry, so this is welcome news.

Steve Yelvington shares three Pew graphs that show participation sites are dominating audience growth over more tradition-bound rivals. This pretty much mirrors my much less scientific look at traffic in August using Alexa.

Ten years ago, David Siegel was the biggest name in web design. Even before his book, "Creating Killer Web Sites" was released, Siegel was a household name to HTML authors. Before there were blogs, Siegel had the prototypical personal web site.

I stumbled across Siegel's name the other day and thought -- "whatever happened to ..."

Interestingly, his once seemingly lavish and groundbreaking personal site can still be found archived here. The site included a blog of sorts.

Siegel taught us how to use tables for presentation and how to use the single-pixel gif trick to manipulate element placement. These were not, are not, things you are supposed to do with HTML. But in a time before style sheets, what was a visually oriented designer supposed to do?

In looking through his past, I found a couple of articles in which he renounces high-end web design, such as this one based on a 1998 interview.

But Siegel does accept one final reason why the beautiful sites he pointed to in 1995 and 1996 have not gained ground. Consumers didn't like them. Take Discovery Channel Online, which once boasted one of the Web's most elegant opening pages. The site has returned to a more conventional and less exciting scrollable table of contents. Most lovers of Web design would deplore the change. But as Siegel notes, Discovery carefully tests all elements of its site with its users - and the less beautiful site tested much better.

Apparently, Mr. Siegel has moved on to dark chocolate. His later-days blog seems abandoned. Meanwhile, Discovery is now pretty damn fancy -- hardly simple. It probably has something to do with broadband. Siegel was pretty creative for a couple of years. It's worth wondering, if he'd stuck with it, what he might have created in the age of DSL and CSS, and what rules he would be breaking to do it?

[dels]web design, david siegel, killer web sites, 1996[/dels]

Steve Outing wants to see more blogging and more video out of newspaper.com sites. I do, too. He rightly points to SignOnSanDiego as a long-time leader newspaper video, but I need to add that my friends in San Diego are falling behind the times. Their video needs to be served through Flash players, as well as improve overall accessibility.

Peter Cole has a column in The Independent that is just fundamentally wrong. Cole argues that Google's $500-a-share price is fueled by newspaper journalism. While never once mentioning Google search, Cole talks about Google News as the aggregator that "hoovers up" all that great newspaper content and makes billions putting advertising against it -- as if without newspaper content, Google would be selling for $5-per-share.

But here's the glaring, obvious and wrongheaded flaw with that argument: No ads are placed on Google News -- NONE AT ALL!

Google has done very well with contextual advertising against organic search results, and some newspaper content does occasionally appear in those results. But that has nothing to do with Google News, which is all Cole writes about, and newspaper results in organic search are only a relatively small portion of the overall content universe.

Google News does a pretty good job of driving traffic to newspaper web sites -- and they do it all without charging newspapers a dime for freely advertising their content. Cole has the equation completely backwards.

[dels]google, newspapers, content, advertising[/dels]

A judge in Canada has ruled that a blogger is a journalist. What's interesting the ruling is the judge doesn't wade into the fray of the journalists vs. blogger debate. He merely makes the assumption that a blogger is a journalist and worthy of the same protections.

After  reviewing videotape from a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation crew at the scene, sometimes in slow motion, the judge found that it contradicted testimony of the arresting officer, Sergeant John Parks.

“Members of the so called mainstream media were taking photographs and filming in the same area without interference from the police,” the judge wrote in a 20-page decision. “I believe it’s fair to say that the defendant was doing nothing wrong at the time he was approached by Sergeant Parks and placed under arrest. He was simply plying his trade, gathering photographs and information for his blog alongside other reporters.”

The judge also said that the police had no right to delete about 200 photos stored on Mr. LeBlanc’s camera.

I think it's obvious that a person who has the means to disseminate information has the same right as a paid professional to be at the scene of an event and document it.

In my previous post about my Mom's 80th birthday, I promised a part 2 video. I'm embedding it below. It is a tribute both to my family and to my home state. Regular readers know I'm leaving California, so this is part of the farewell. Even if I never return to California (and Matt Welch, to whom I gave my California history book collection, says I will), California bloodlines will always run through my soul. The song is is from Dave Alvin's latest release, West of the West. Ironically, I bought all the songs on the CD digitally during my first trip to New York.

I've also posted all of the photos, and then some, that make up the two videos on Buzznet.

[googlevideo]3722510713657301059[/googlevideo]

[dels]family, video, california[/dels]

I stopped worrying about my e-mail sign off 10 years ago, but according to this NYT piece, many people are still trying to figure it out.  But I find now that my habitual "Best, H." sign off isn't admired by all.

She may have been the only one who thought that. The return message closed with the dreaded “Best.” It left her feeling as though she had misread the evening. “I felt like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of formal. I don’t think he liked me,’ ” she said, laughing. “A chill came with the ‘Best.’ ” They have not gone out since.

“Best” does have its fans, especially in the workplace, where it can be an all-purpose step up in warmth from messages that end with no sign-off at all, just the sender coolly appending his or her name.

“I use ‘Best’ for all of my professional e-mails,” said Kelly Brady, a perky publicist in New York. “It’s friendly, quick and to the point.”

If you get an e-mail from me, here's hint: Don't read too much into "Best, H."

The Californian has a story about politicians using the Web to push agendas against media outlets. Of course, the Californian is in the midst of its own exchange of nastygrams with local DA Ed Jagels. The fight would be more interesting, of course, if Jagels hadn't shown up with a straw and paper wads at the OK Corral.

[dels]ed jagels, politicians, media, bakersfield[/dels]

A group of locals have gathered together to create a new alternative newspaper called Random Times. Good title, at least.

But is it necessary?

If your goal is to get published, or to publish view points you don't see represented in the mainstream media, then the time and expense of a new print publication hardly seem worth it. Ironically, the local MSM, primarily via The Bakersfield Californian, offers numerous outlets for writers. Sure, none of these publishing vehicles pay, but some of them can lead to a byline in print and before a larger audience than a small, start-up tabloid is going to reach.

TBC offers Your Words on B.com, Bakotopia, the Voices and Mas. While I can't officially speak to the editorial policies of these publications, or make any promises, I'm pretty damn confident that alternative view points, if well presented and aren't profane, can find an airing in these outlets.

And if your goal is to present alternative view points, would you rather preach to the choir of coffee shop and indie record store patrons or reach a more mainstream audience where you might actually be ale to have some influence. Only MSM can give you reach into suburban households.

If your goal is to make money, forget it. The last people to get rich off alt-dead-tree publications were 1960s college kids. They've made their millions and retired. Print is dying. Online is where it's at. In fact, if you want to hit the local MSM where it hurts, disrupt them online. Print means nothing.

I'm the last person in the world who wants to encourage further use of TBC products, but I'm just trying to apply some common sense here. I just don't see the benefit of starting a new alternative print product. If I'm wrong, great for the guys doing it. I know it's a lot of work to put out a newspaper, so while I disagree with the approach, I say good luck to the Random Times crew.

BTW: What I can see of it from Nick's post (check the YouTube video at the bottom), it looks well done. I need to find me a copy. I am curious about it.

[dels]print, newspaper, alternative press, media[/dels]

If you need an RSS tool, chances are you can find it here. And here's good advice on promoting RSS.

The blog PuddleGum says MySpace is dying.

The problem I foresee is that it won't be long before the MySpace bubble bursts. Since most of their users are teenagers, studies show that the masses will naturally migrate to the next big fad, similar to the way they change their circle of friends. Popularity of a website is measured on how long the average user stays on their site and MySpace has already reached its pinnacle, peaking at 2 hours and 25 minutes in October of 2005.

...

MySpace is dying, and three million artists will either realize the importance of having their own well developed website or they'll chase after the next trend, hoping to rebuild their fan-base. I'd rather focus my energies developing my own traffic than nursing off of a corporate monster.

To be sure, there are reports of teens deleting profiles and adults spending more time on the site, but the site still gets a lot of traffic and activity. So the question is, is this a canary-in-coal-mine moment for MySpace, or just the natural churn cycle of a publishing vehicle? Will it evolve, or will it wither?
Teen magazines, for example, have been around for decades, but the readers Tiger Beat had in the 1960s were not the same people who subscribed in the 1980s. Today, some teens will grow bored with MySpace and move onto things they see as more mature pursuits. That doesn't mean their younger brothers and sisters won't build MySpace profiles.
One question: Is MySpace more like Shaun Cassidy* or pet rocks or more like Rolling Stone (which started out serving one demographic and grew into something slightly different as the audience changed)?

If I owned MySpace, the thing I would be most concerned about is the failure of the platform to evolve and advance.

PuddleGum says the main point of its post is to encourage bands to get more professional about their Web presense. That is certainly good advice.

*NOTE: I wanted to make sure I spelled "Shaun" right, so in researching I found his IMDB page -- looks like he grew and evolved pretty nicely from his teen idol days, so maybe there is hope for MySpace.

[dels]myspace, publishing, fads, teens, shaun cassidy[/dels]

Richard Rosenblatt, former chairman of MySpace, has a new gig and $200 million he's prepared to spend on acquiring new media companies.

Rosenblatt: We like all types of user generated content but we feel that (1) there is too much (2) it is not vetted enough and (3) it is not categorized well by vertical. Our goal is to provide users with the best tools to express themselves, allow them to easily search and find what they are looking for based on the vertical they are interested in, and allow them to get to the most relevant content based on its quality as determined by other users. We like user generated content that allows users to express themselves and showcase their personality. We like to focus on things that creating user generated content that has lasting value.

Why can't newspapers get away with charging for content online, except for highly specialized content? Because readers don't see the labor that went into creating the story, which is the only aspect of the product that has tangible economic value. They only see the digital output, which increasingly and instinctively they know didn't cost anybody very much money on a prorated basis. Most of the cost burden has already been assumed by the consumer in the form of hardware and ISP charges. And as Chris Anderson points out, technology is just getting cheaper.

I'm skeptical about podcasting. Sure, the Ventura County Star was the first daily newspaper to launch a podcast, and I am always willing to give a good idea for a podcast a shot, but I keep wondering: where is the audience?

Jack Lail notes a couple of news stories about podcasting keyed off a study that says the daily podcast audience is just 1 percent.

Meanwhile, the number of podcasts produced is exploding. Is critical mass arriving or is content being put up that will just go unheard? Will video blogs overtake podcasting before it even begins? Where exactly does podcasting fit in?

The problem with a podcast is it takes time to download, and if you intend for it to be portable, move it to a portable MP3 player -- and if you're like me, that MP3 is filled with music. You then need time -- like a commute, which we don't all do -- to listen to a podcast.

If I'm not going to download something and take it with me; if I'm going to be in front of the computer anyway -- I'd rather just watch my news or entertainment. If I had a video iPod, I could see myself being more inclined to download video news and entertainment than audio, especially in advance of a cross-country plane flight. But maybe that's just me. On the other hand, it's been two or three years now and the audience hasn't really developed, all the while video downloads are going through the roof.

[dels]podcasting[/dels]

This NYT story starts with a cute, promising lede, but doesn't follow through. I feel no more enlightened after reading it than I did before. It's supposed to tell me something, I think, about how big media is grappling with the changing media world. It is supposed to do that by looking at changes in corner offices. Unfortunately, no two recent changes look a like and so there doesn't seem to be a common theme. Except that the article is just as confused as big media.

UPDATE: It looks like Lost Remote got more out of the article than I did.

[dels]media, executives[/dels]

You may not know what CAPTCHA means, but if you've ever left a comment on a blog, then you've probably had to type in a mix of letters that you copy from image files. CAPTCHA is designed to cut down on comment spam. It prevents automated programs from filling out web forms and submitting them.

The only known way around CAPTCHA is human eyeballs and human hands.

Fortunately for spammers, and unfortunately for the rest of us, there is a whole third world of cheap labor out there just waiting for a few pennies-per-piece work, and as this post points out, the technology is starting to reach these parts of the world.

Look at it this way: The future of spam will raise the standard of living for many people.

Jason Calacanis says you can game Alexa, and he's out to prove it. I have no doubt he's right. I'm surprised this sort of effort hasn't been more widespread.