Mediaconcepts and digitalization of media: July 2013

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The potential perils of paywalls

Nieman Journalism Lab reporting:
“Newspaper paywalls — the hype and the reality: A study of how paid news content impacts on media corporation revenues”:
The researcher looks at the available data on outlets around the globe, including The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Times and The Sunday Times (U.K.), The Australian, and various outlets in New Zealand, Finland, and central Europe. The study is constrained, perhaps even hampered, by the fact that media outlets do not necessarily disclose full information about their online operations and revenue flows.
In any case, the researcher adds to the heated debate over paywalls by drawing the following conclusions: “It can be argued that online news paywalls create additional income for news corporations, but at the current revenue levels they do not offer a viable business model in the short term. Some newspapers have started to lower prices for their online news content and to offer discounted packages in order to enhance their subscription numbers, but in the short term this is most likely to erode their digital revenues.”
Over this relatively small sample, the study estimates, online subscriptions account for about 10 percent of publishing/circulation revenue. But even this figure is threatened by “softening” paywalls and decreasing subscription prices. Although the findings of the paper are only “provisional,” the researcher notes, the broader potential downsides of paywalls are given heavy emphasis.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/07/whats-new-in-digital-scholarship-tracking-sopa-when-filter-bubbles-arent-bubbles-and-the-uses-of-incivility/

s part

As part of our ongoing collaboration with Nieman Journalism Lab, we’ve rounded up the latest in digital- and media-oriented scholarship — picking highlights from disciplines such as computer science, political science, journalism research and communications. (Note: this article was first published at Nieman Lab, and is now archived here in full.)
This month’s edition of What’s New In Digital Scholarship rounds up the findings on various hot topics, including: drone journalism; surveillance and the public; Twitter in conflict zones; Big Data and its limits; crowdsourced information platforms; remix culture; and much more. We also suggest some further “beach reads” at bottom. Enjoy the deep dive.
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“Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2013: Tracking the Future of News”: Paper from University of Oxford Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, edited by Nic Newman and David A. L. Levy.
This new report provides tremendous comparative perspective on how different countries and news ecosystems are developing both in symmetrical and divergent ways (see the Lab’s write-up of the national differences/similarities highlighted.) But it also provides some interesting hard numbers relating to the U.S. media landscape; it surveys news habits of a sample of more than 2,000 Americans.
- See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/internet/whats-new-digital-scholarship-june-2013#sthash.HPajyp9r.dpuf

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

How news organizations are experimenting with ‘digestible digital weeklies’ on mobile devices

Poynter reporting:
...
Hoping to seize on the advantages of both models while ditching the downsides, two venerable monthly magazine brands are experimenting with a third publishing option that’s somewhere in the middle: digestible digital weeklies.
Enter Esquire Weekly for iPad and The Atlantic Weekly for iPad and iPhone, launched in May and June, respectively....
With Esquire Weekly and The Atlantic Weekly, two monthly legacy print publications are trying different formulas for getting compact editions in front of readers with a frequency they can’t achieve in print and a level of curation they can’t achieve online. The two take different approaches to content selection, target audience and distribution, but what’s most important about these new initiatives is what they have in common: ease and frequency of delivery, tender editorial care, digestible length and, surely, low cost of production.
They’re also, crucially, products that could only work on the tablet...
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/mobile-media/218609/how-news-organizations-are-experimenting-with-digestible-digital-weeklies-on-mobile-devices/

Ads Above the Fold Are Not More Viewable So why are they priced at a premium?

AdWeek reporting:

Roughly half of online ads are going unseen, per various reports. This is creating a nightmarish scenario for advertisers who face the prospect of wasted spending while publishers are left having to reassure buyers whose confidence in the medium is shaken.

Google and others are responding with tools that promise to ensure advertisers their ads are being seen. One outcome of this is that the long-held assumption that ads at the top of the page are most viewed is being challenged. That’s potentially worrisome for publishers who have been selling those ads at a premium.

But now, there’s new evidence to that effect coming from an unlikely source. The Washington Post is going public with research showing that visitors scroll quickly on certain types of pages, and when they do, they’re more likely to see ads low down on the page than at the top...

...Based on the research, the Post created an ad unit to combat quick scrolling by following the viewer for the first seven seconds of scrolling. After seven seconds, the “Superview” unit floats back to the top of the page. Tests with four vendors resulted in viewability increases of 9 percent to 19 percent. When one vendor, Moat, tested engagement, it found the unit scored 31 percent higher than the control unit...

...Other publishers have introduced new units and redesigned their sites to maximize ad viewability. Forbes has its “conversation” unit that stays with viewers as they move down the page. Earlier this year, it lowered the position of its leaderboard unit to improve its chance of being seen by quick scrollers. Mark Howard, chief revenue officer, said both units have seen improved views and interaction....

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/ads-above-fold-are-not-more-viewable-151331?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=AWK_TodayPress&utm_campaign=Adweek%20Newsletter%20Template%20-%20Brandweek%20-%20July%2012

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

5 Ways to Fix Book Publishing

The Daily Beast reporting:

This model of literary production is doomed. The idea that there should be centralized, massively consolidated, bureaucratic organizations known as the major trade houses, with multiple layers of editors, vast publicity departments, and books fed to them by an entity known as literary agents, only to take repeated losses and rely on a few stars to help them break even, is bound for extinction.

Is the current publishing model salvageable? Or is it time to scrap everything and start over? If book publishing is to survive, something drastic will have to occur. The technology already exists to make publishing a democratic venture, driven from the bottom up rather than the other way around.

The discussion of the crisis of publishing persists mostly at a pedestrian level. The alternatives offered are minor fixes, taking existing production, distribution, and consumption methodologies for granted. We don’t need to figure out how to maximize sales with the latest e-reader. We need to reconceive the concepts of writing, editing, and reading, and subject every institutional component to radical critique. It isn’t a question of which reading device is best, or how publishers will make up for the loss of Borders, or how they can squeeze more money out of the present distribution model.

The crisis of publishing is really the crisis of writing and reading. The publishing industry today generally obstructs the free flow of energies between readers and writers. It is a broker for celebrity authors, taking the entire literary culture on a downward slope because the definition of “commercial” is constantly being dumbed down. Hence, cookie-cutter books, formulaic sensations, highly publicized advances, the anachronistic book tour, and literary stars with all the trappings of their brethren in the movie and fashion industries. Rather than pushing more of the product that publishers already offer, the nature of the product itself must change. Yes, there is a crisis in publishing, but this is good because it means that the public isn’t buying the hype....
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/12/5-ways-to-fix-book-publishing.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_afternoon&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_afternoon&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet

Are Traditional News Operations Really Ready for Innovation?

Mediashift reporting:
As news professionals — and journalism educators — rethink their businesses, they are championing the words “innovation” and “disruption.”

But do they really understand the complexities and the costs (both financial and cultural) of innovation and disruption? And are news organizations truly prepared to innovate, or they are merely playing a kind of organizational “keep up with the Joneses” (a phenomenon that scholar Wilson Lowrey would call “institutional isomorphism”)?
Since the news industry is one of research and explanation, it seems reasonable to look at what we know about innovation and compare that knowledge with what news organizations are actually doing. This might be helpful in determining whether they are likely to accomplish meaningful innovation in journalism and, if not, what may need to change.

Sameness, Difference and Innovation

In his seminal work, “The Diffusion of Innovations,” scholar Everett Rogers argued that sameness (which the scholars call “homophily”) creates cultures that are easy to manage, but relatively unlikely to innovate anything meaningful. Difference (“heterophily”), on the other hand, is more likely to spark innovations but it is much more difficult to manage.
A look into the culture of the news business, then, will provide clues as to whether that business is likely to innovate.
At the risk of oversimplifying the research, it seems that news organizations embrace sameness to the point that they are right down defensive about it.
Back in 2001, the Readership Institute at Northwestern University found that news professionals embrace sameness (link opens PDF). It said that “newspaper cultures are more defensive than other organizations — and the results are fairly uniform across all newspapers. In a defensive culture, employees lose sight of the overall goal, get lost in details, and make little effort to coordinate with others.”
To look at an example of this, a study that I conducted with Ball State colleague Mary Spillman found that newspapers are significantly more likely to share information with organizations that are like their own than they are with organizations that have cultural differences. Newspapers, as expected, embrace sameness and eschew differences in their partnership. Our study is scheduled for publication in the fall edition of Newspaper Research Journal.
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2013/07/in-fostering-innovation-news-industry-educators-first-have-to-confront-a-past

The False Hope of Hyperlocal

Digiday reporting: Hyperlocal news has failed to live up to its promise. Chances are it never will.

Once expected to fill the void left by shrinking and shuttering local newspapers, community-based digital news sites have not taken off quite the way the New York Times predicted it would as recently as 2009: EveryBlock is now in the scrap heap, as is Placeblogger. Outside.in was acquired by Patch, whose editors have been flooding JimRomenesko’s inbox for months, asking him to air the awful state of affairs at Patch. “I love Patch,” wrote one Patch editor to Romenesko at the beginning of June. “However, from what I see on the ground, we are on our last legs.”

An ambitious project by the Times itself, called The Local, recently dissolved after launching in 2009. It now operates as a shell of its former self under the uninspiring name “The Nabe” with no New York Times logo, or journalists, attached.

So what happened? Many of the problems come down to the structural challenges of building a business dependent on mom-and-pop businesses. Local businesses were never willing to fork over big dollars for banner ads, and national advertisers targeting local audiences never materialized, leaving hyperlocal sites with sizable revenue shortfalls. And since the height of hyperlocal optimism in 2009, advertising has grown better at targeting local audiences, essentially rendering the ads available on hyperlocal news sites irrelevant.

“The hyperlocal models haven’t proven scalable in terms of content and advertising sales,” said analyst Peter Krasilovsky. “We haven’t seen an alternative solution pop up for providing community content that people find valuable, and that’s disappointing.”

http://www.digiday.com/publishers/the-false-hope-of-hyperlocal/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Digiday%20Daily%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=DD%20Daily%202.0

Tutkimus: Naistenlehdet ja netti

Outi Sonkamuotkan opinnäytetyö käsittelee painetun naistenlehden ja sen nettisivujen

keskinäisiä rooleja, joita tutkittiin pääasiassa kvantitatiivisin

menetelmin. Roolien lisäksi selvitettiin painetun naistenlehden lukijan,

naistenlehden nettisivujen käyttäjän sekä molempien sisältöjen käyttäjän

profiilit sekä lukijoiden ja käyttäjien sitoutumisaste molempiin sisältöihin.

tutkimus toteutettiin maaliskuussa 2013 nettikyselynä. Otoskoko oli 502.

tutkimuksen keskeisin tulos oli se, että painettu naistenlehti on naisten

lehtikonseptin ydin, jota nettisivut tukevat.

lisäksi kävi ilmi, että painetustalehdestä etsitään ensisijaisesti rentoutusta, nettisivuilta tietoa ja vinkkejä

sujuvaan arkeen.

digitaaliset sisällöt kiinnostivat vastaajia, mutta niidenkäyttöaste ei kyselyn ajankohtana ollut suuri. Painetusta lehdestä ei haluttu luopua.

Naistenlehtien lukijoista aktiivisimpia lukijoita, tilaajia ja irtonumeron

ostajia olivat sellaiset lukijat, jotka käyttivät painetun lehden rinnalla myös

nettisivuja.he olivat sitoutuneita painettuun lehteen.

he myös kertoivat mielipiteitään tuotteista ja palveluista lähipiirilleen useammin kuin muiden

verrokkiryhmien edustajat. Pelkkää painettua lehteä lukevat olivat tyypillisesti myös erittäin sitoutuneita painettuun lehteen ja jakoivat usein mielipiteitään tuotteista ja palveluista lähipiirinsä kanssa. Pelkästään nettisivuja

käyttäviä vastaajia oli todella vähän, joten nettisivujen käyttäjän profiilista

saadut tulokset ovat korkeintaan suuntaa antavia.

http://www.aikakauslehdet.fi/content/Liitetiedostot/pdf/Naistenlehdet_ja_netti.pdf

Allrecipes.com to Launch Print Magazine

Mashable reporting:
While much of the magazine industry is shifting resources from print to digital, recipe website Allrecipes.com, which was acquired by magazine publisher Meredith Corporation a year and a half ago, is investing in print instead.
Meredith announced Monday that Allrecipes is preparing to launch a print edition, the first issue of which will hit newsstands in mid-November. The forthcoming title will publish six times per year, starting with a rate base of 500,000. Two-year subscriptions are currently being offered for $12 on Allrecipes's website.
SEE ALSO: 'Allure' Magazine Still Thriving in the Age of YouTube
Allrecipes is also getting its own TV segment on The Better Show, a syndicated series that will begin airing on the Hallmark Channel in September.
The launch, to our knowledge, marks the first major web-to-print extension in the industry. Style.com made headlines when it launched a print magazine in late 2011, but the magazine has had limited distribution and only publishes twice per year.
Some may think it unwise for a digital media property to get into the print business, but print advertising in the food category was up 10.1% in the first quarter of the year, compared to an industry average of +0.9%. Two of Hearst's food magazines, Food Network Magazine and HGTV Magazine, have both repeatedly raised their rate bases since launch, hitting 1.55 million and 800,000 this summer, respectively. Conde Nast's Bon Appetit saw a 41.8% increase in ad revenue in the first quarter.
http://mashable.com/2013/07/15/allrecipes-print-magazine/?WT.mc_id=en_my_stories&utm_campaign=My%2BStories&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter