The Now/ledge

A Guide to the 'Now' Revolution in News

March 5, 2010 • 00:51 0

Social media and the TV connection

A new post by Hitwise analyst Heather Hopkins is highlighting an interesting (but perhaps not too surprising) trend regarding news consumption on Facebook vs Google News.

Facebook sends news traffic to:

  • The Weather Channel
  • CNN.com
  • Yahoo! News
  • MSNBC
  • People Magazine

    • Google News, on the other hand, sends news traffic to:

  • The New York Times
  • The Wall Street Journal
  • The Washington Post
  • Reuters
  • CNN.com

    • Note the difference and possible conclusion: Facebook is great at directing news to broadcast sites, presumably for breaking news and live events; Google, by contrast, sends traffic to high reputation newspaper sites, presumably for the broader picture.

    This data coincides with what the TV industry already knows: social media is helping to create an online water-cooler conversation, encouraging people to spend time online and on TV at the same time.

    Case in point: NBC showed the Golden Globes on both coasts in the U.S. for the first time this year, in a nod to the symbiotic relationship between TV and social media; ultimately, people witnessing a live event want to be attached to each other.

    Filed under: Facebook, Social Media, Twitter ,

    February 27, 2010 • 01:24 0

    Worrying: Facebook patents the Newsfeed

    Patents are nothing new in the tech industry; giants like Intel and Apple have played this card for years to deliver the goods that we’re now so familiar with.

    But what happens when your activity online suddenly becomes a patent fight?

    Facebook this week was granted a patent on — guess what — its Newsfeed.

    According to the patent filing, the Newsfeed is:

    A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment is described. The method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items, as well as limiting access to the news items to a predetermined set of viewers and assigning an order to the news items.

    Can you imagine a social web experience in 2010 without a news feed?

    This is a massive game changer as it take the fight straight into what everyone else is trying to do right now: help users discover relevant and interesting stories flagged through their primary filter — their friends.

    As I wrote previously, status updates will be the most valuable consumer content in the next two years as a gold mine of insights into user behavior and preference. Facebook’s move to create a moat around this is troubling.

    So is this the end of the line for other companies? Probably not. In fact, this could be a good thing. Since many of us hate the way Newsfeeds are presented, this is a fabulous opportunity for innovators to present social news in new ways.

    How would you like to see your social news feed?

    (Illustration: Geek and Poke/Creative Commons)

    Filed under: Facebook, Social Media

    February 5, 2010 • 10:54 1

    Is Facebook now a major news site?

    I always knew it would happen, but not this quickly.

    According to data crunched by Hitwise, Facebook is now the fourth largest source of traffic to news and media sites, sitting just behind MSN.

    With its dizzying growth and the new options it creates for content publishers, Facebook could avoid the vampire stigma attached to machine aggregators like Google News.

    This is how Facebook compares to Google News as an upstream source of traffic to news sites:

    Facebook, in a blog last week, extolled the virtues of its news-distribution abilities, pointing to what it considers the best filter for you: Your friends.

    In this era of social news, information is more ubiquitous than ever before and the rate at which we consume and share news has never been quicker. Your friends on Facebook help you cut through the clutter so you can read what’s most relevant to you, discover new items and carry on thoughtful discussions.

    It’s clear that Facebook can deliver the traffic, but can it help publishers monetize on the social media site itself? Right now, distributing on Facebook creates two problems for publishers:

    First, you’re further fragmenting the conversation by splitting comments (although this can be avoided in some degree through Facebook Connect). Second, there’s no meaningful way for you to advertise and target your news consumers on Facebook.

    Despite the traffic it sends, many more people are reading and interacting with news content directly on Facebook. Most users don’t care where the news comes from, as long as it is deemed credible and accurate. So what can be done to monetize that user base?

    For Facebook to succeed, it needs a deeper engagement with publishers who will have to start counting beans at some point. What do users do after they read your article on Facebook? How many people do they recommend it to? How many of their friends follow through by clicking on the link? And why aren’t there keyword ads?

    Distribution and dialogue are great. But at some point, you’ll still have to monetize it.

    (Photo: U.S. Navy, Sailors at Naval Air Station, Beaufort, South Carolina, listen to a radio broadcast of news of Japan’s surrender, 14 August 1945.)

    Filed under: Social Media , ,

    February 2, 2010 • 00:11 0

    Small steps to building a cross-platform online newsroom

    ABS-CBN is the latest media giant in Southeast Asia to try and build an integrated news operation.

    This is no easy task. Having worked in TV, radio, print and newswires, I have seen many companies attempt to reach the Holy Grail of content production: A combined, agile news operation working across all platforms, especially in online and mobile.

    On Monday, Charie Villa started her first day on the job as head of ABS-CBN’s online news site and its mobile counterpart. A seasoned broadcast journalist (former Reuters), Villa was head of newsgathering at the TV network.

    This puts her on strong footing, but she faces the tough challenge of getting all the parts to play together. Indeed, many attempts at the “convergent newsroom” have failed for a number of reasons.

    Operationally, multimedia journalists — while good at reducing total headcount on the books — aren’t completely productive out in the field. You can’t shoot photos while conducting interviews; you can’t break news on Twitter while trying to transcribe a speech. And you sure as hell can’t crop and upload a photo while trying to track down a source on the phone. Let’s not forget styles — TV and print writing are still far apart. Quality suffers.

    Financially, many mega-media companies still can’t justify the investments into new media, such as online and mobile. In emerging markets like Southeast Asia, the online advertising market simply doesn’t exist. If the board wants to grow profits, TV, radio and publishing are still top priority. Have you tried justifying the cost of a dedicated social news team?

    My advice (unsolicited, of course) is to take baby steps. You can’t fully federate the skills of a journalist in the field. Choose your primary distribution point (social media, TV or radio) and stick with it. Help your journalists figure out which hat to wear first, and what will be the second.

    Second, fight hard to get the training budget to help your multimedia journalists think as social media marketers. Yes, this is another hat they will have to wear. The payoffs won’t come quickly enough for the finance department, but will help you raise the next generation of journalists. Like it or not, marketing has a lot in common with journalism in Web 2.0.

    Third, build the community. Journalists are more than just news gathers and news isn’t just about what’s happening. In the new world order, “shepherding” the community is a core skill. Seed the conversations and keep bringing your users together.

    All the best.

    Filed under: Social Media , , ,

    January 28, 2010 • 02:14 0

    Finding value in the content ecosystem

    I hate the c-word.

    Content. It refers to this huge murky cloud of online articles, video, photos, comments, Tweets, status updates, etc. And it’s a commodity without a price tag.

    Despite its inherent supply and demand, it’s hard to identify a price or any proper way to value “content.”

    In a recent study titled “How News Happens,” the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that of all the outlets that produced news in Baltimore, almost all of them simply repackaged or repeated previously published information.

    Of the media that actually created new “news,” 95 percent of them came from traditional media — most of them newspapers.

    The report triggered a number of questions, in particular: Is the real value of content found in original reporting — the stuff you mainly find in newspapers?

    Let’s try a broader approach. There are three systems to consider, and each has a unique value attached to it:

    1. Traditional “gumshoe” reporting: This is the bread-and-butter reporting that you find in newspapers and wire services. It’s the kind of stuff you learn in journalism school — how to source and produce your own original stories.

    2. Social news reporting: Value is created in the shepherding of articles and links. Here, personal brands matter most as value is created in the person who forwards, links or seeds the dialogue in the community.

    3. Commentary: This is the pinnacle of the personal brand. Commentators such as op-ed writers in the newspaper model add spit-and-polish to the newsflow by “value-adding” an expert view to original reporting.

    Where are you creating value in the reporting that you do?

    (Photo: U.S. Naval Historical Center. Vice Admiral C. Turner Joy, USN, Senior UNC Delegate, (left) with Rear Admiral R.E. Libby, USN, UNC Delegate, (center) examine a Chinese typewriter at the UNC Advance Camp)

    Filed under: Newspapers, Publishing, Social Media ,

    January 10, 2010 • 15:02 5

    The rise of the news shepherd

    I made the shift to online journalism in May 2009. While I’ve made many crossovers in my 15 years in the industry (radio-TV, TV-newswires), this move to the online world marked the biggest change in both editorial mindset and daily workflow.

    Many of my former colleagues have been asking me about the differences and how that’s changed my thinking about journalism. So let me start by pointing out what I think represents the biggest opportunity and challenge for journalism: the rise of the news shepherd.

    I’m not suggesting for a moment here that the audience is a single, monolithic unit (it’s often fragmented). The shepherd analogy here represents the role of the journalist. He or she is no longer the anonymous “neutral” witness of history. In the online world, the journalist often rides on his personal brand, delivering and seeding news and conversations.

    In the next two years, I’m convinced that job descriptions for journalists will include requirements such as:

    - strong personal brand online, with at least 400 followers on Twitter, 500 friends on Facebook, 300 connections on LinkedIn
    - ability to seed conversations and cultivate dialogue in online communities
    - a strong eye for stories that can be further developed into strong conversations online
    - ability to quickly and effectively moderate conversations

    In short, journalists will be hired not only for their access to news makers and other sources, but also for their ability to rally and drive conversations in online communities.

    This has been one of the biggest lessons for me in the last few months at Yahoo!, where I’ve been working with producers and community managers to seed and drive conversations. And I’m convinced this will be the biggest opportunity for online journalism that reaches beyond the latest technological fads. New platforms will wow and amaze, but ultimately, it still comes down to the audience and what you do for them.

    One of the best things about “working” the community is that it will help deliver the context to stories that online journalism so badly needs. At Yahoo!, our Answers product is one of the best ways for us to do that — provide context. News is more than just what’s happening now; you need the community to develop context (that’s a subject for another blog post!).

    There are of course two big challenges to this shift.

    First, many newsrooms will resist the rise of “personal brand” journalism in which reporters are building their own personal communities. Reality check — TV stations have been using anchors as “personal brands” for years.

    Second, newsroom managers will have to recognize that moderating and cultivating a community is a full-time job. Allocate your resources accordingly. Hire top notch social media editors to drive your strategy and empower them as your frontline consumer-facing messengers.

    How many shepherds do you have in your news team?

    [Photo: Russell Lee, Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range, Madison County, Montana, 1942]

    Filed under: Social Media , , ,

    January 8, 2010 • 08:29 0

    Tweetdeck goes primetime at Sky News

    Sky News is installing Tweetdeck on all computers, marking a significant shift in the thinking at live TV newsrooms.

    This is a clear endorsement of the role of Twitter in the ‘now’ revolution as a tool to track and gather news and other information. TV newsrooms have been slow in making that shift, so kudos to Sky News for leading that change.

    Sky has always been an early adopter, having appointed Ruth Barnett as social media or “Twitter correspondent” as early as March 2009. That move put Twitter in the center of the company’s online breaking news strategy. The Sky News account detects when new stories are getting posted and distributes them across Twitter. Sky also recently started the @skynewsbreak account, which broadcasts breaking stories first on Twitter before they appear on the company’s own website. Sacred cows are getting slaughtered in 140 characters.

    And there’s more coming. Facebook Connect is apparently on the roadmap ahead of this year’s general election. The site will also be using more liveblogging to stir conversations.

    What’s your newsroom doing with Twitter?

    Filed under: Publishing, Social Media , , ,

    January 6, 2010 • 22:24 0

    Did the pursuit of the ‘now’ kill storytelling?

    Michael Kinsley has a funny column in the current edition of The Atlantic. In it, he argues that people are abandoning newspapers for the Internet not because of technology, but the simple fact that print articles are too long.

    The software industry has a concept known as “legacy code,” meaning old stuff that is left in software programs, even after they are revised and updated, so that they will still work with older operating systems. The equivalent exists in newspaper stories, which are written to accommodate readers who have just emerged from a coma or a coal mine. Who needs to be told that reforming health care (three words) involves “a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system” (nine words)?

    I don’t agree. Well, not completely at least.

    It comes down to this: People are busier. They (We) have more competing activities and face numerous distractions even while sitting at our workspaces. Pings, tweets, new emails, text messages. Arrgh.

    It’s not about the length of the article — it’s about the storytelling. Concision has never mattered more. And in this age, if you can’t get your point across before the next tweet comes in, you’ve lost the plot.

    In effect, our pursuit of the “now” has killed storytelling. Who cares if a reporter is giving enough “color” to the piece? News is now faster than ever. And in shorter sentences. And connects faster. That’s compelling.

    Filed under: Newspapers, Publishing, Social Media

    January 2, 2010 • 00:34 3

    Do newspapers have to die for news to survive?

    What better way to start sizing up the new year.

    Do newspapers have to die for news to survive? In a recent article in The Economist, the magazine offered a reminder that the industry is still evolving, as it has been for more than 150 years.

    Case in point: the arrival of the electric telegraph in May 1845. Yes, pre-Twitter, news existed.

    The telegraph was an immediate threat to newspapers, whose survival hinged on the speed of fast boats, carrier pigeons and express trains. The arrival of the telegraph was thus greeted with the same worries that we have in 2010 about what the internet is doing to the news business.

    So what’s so different about where we are today?

    In a nutshell (and I know I’m simplifying this), technology has bridged that elusive “last mile.” While newspapers have gone on to flourish post-1845 (due largely to an increased volume of both news and demand), they faced issues with distribution. Social news today — where news finds you — has turned the industry on its head.

    The biggest question for news in the “now revolution” is context. Oddly, we’re not the first generation to call for that. In 1891, W.J. Stillman, a journalist and critic, complained in the Atlantic Monthly:

    “America has in fact transformed journalism from what it once was, the periodical expression of the thought of the time, the opportune record of the questions and answers of contemporary life, into an agency for collecting, condensing and assimilating the trivialities of the entire human existence… The frantic haste with which we bolt everything we take, seconded by the eager wish of the journalist not to be a day behind his competitor, abolishes deliberation from judgment and sound digestion from our mental constitutions. We have no time to go below surfaces, and as a general thing no disposition.”

    So 150 years and a little more, we are still looking for context. But here in 2010, there is much to be thankful for as new technologies allow us to work with better maps, better illustrations, better graphics — and by adding the voices of readers, a more measured experience.

    Context is key. Do newspapers need to be around to make that happen?

    Filed under: Newspapers, Publishing, Social Media

    December 22, 2009 • 15:10 1

    The ‘now’ revolution in 2010: My predictions

    2009 was the year of the microblog (Twitter, Tumblr, Meme). What does 2010 have in store? Here are my predictions for “now” revolution in the Southeast Asian market for the coming year.

    1. Professional content: Expect to see a push to cultivate and support a generation of professional bloggers in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia as the market for paid content connects with a rising class of professional writers. Keep an eye on Indonesia and the Philippines — their strong traditions in journalism will form the pillar for this.

    2. Corporate social media: Companies will stumble in trying to find the right mix of resources — PR, editors, product teams — to direct engagement with their customers. The realization will hit home: It’s expensive to build and engage a community. Many will fail with half-baked social media strategies.

    3. Innovation: New technologies will pave the way for the creation of independent news startups in the region, following in the footsteps of The Huffington Post and Gawker. Cheap, efficient technologies in content management will help companies get up faster. Massive opportunities here for systems integrators to deliver fast, scaleable backend systems to keep up with the traffic. A key question remains: Will advertisers be ready?

    4. Open collaboration: It isn’t over yet. Facebook Connect will help new startups leapfrog the difficulties in building a user base. An “instant” community is coming together, faster.

    5. “Mobile-lizing” content: The next ten million internet users will come online for the first time on their mobile phones. Handsets will get cheaper and apps will get more sophisticated. No brainer. The real challenge here is for publishers to start building a compelling experience on mobile phones from the ground up — and not simply dump web content on phones. Does anyone have a good idea of how consumers want to see content displayed on their phones? Not yet.

    Filed under: Newspapers, Publishing, Social Media, Tools ,

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