Author Archives: Scott
Price discrimination and the future of media
I was going to write a post this week about the value of publicly funded journalism (I may save it for next week), until I stumbled onto this mind blowing video I squirreled away in my bookmarks a couple weeks ago.
It’s a presentation by Nicolas Lovell, given at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, last August. He’s talking about the business of content industry and the “free to play” model.
Lovell’s key argument revolves around a simple economic concept known as price discrimination.
Quick background:
Content Farms: good or evil?
OK, so I briefly discussed content farms before, when I talked about hyper-local behemoth, Patch.com.
The reality is, content farms are a growing business. This includes AOL’s Patch and Seed.com, Demand Media, Yahoo’s Associated Content and Examiner.com.
Not only are these organizations making money, they’re hiring journalists in droves. This comes at time when most media organizations are losing money and laying off writers.
Of course, the journalistic merits of these operations are pretty suspect. For the most part they’re more worried about search engine key-words than journalism
I thought Mediashift’s recent article about Examiner.com brings up some interesting points.
It’s like I’m taking crazy pills: A review of Funding Journalism in the Digital Age
There are a bunch of other topics that I’ve been working on, not to mention the next part of my rant on how the internet changed journalism, but I’m reading a book for my J4000 class and I just need to comment on it.
The book in question is Funding Journalism in the Digital Age by Jeff Kaye and Stephen Quinn. It was published in 2010, so it’s still a relevant discussion (for now).
I have several problems with this book, but before I tear into it, I should mention that it’s not all bad. It does an excellent job of exploring some very interesting ways different organizations have tried for financing modern journalism.
A message to everyone who actually reads this thing
I’d just like to send a shout-out to everyone who actually reads this blog.
First of all, thank you for reading. When I started this, I wasn’t sure anyone would give a damn. As it turns out, at least a few people care about what I have to say. I hope I can keep producing material worth reading.
Second, having had some success and being back at school, I’m going to try to make this into a more permanent project. I’m going to redesign the site and start posting regular updates on Sunday evenings.
Online media is running circles around established papers
Gawker Media now gets more unique-users-per-month than any paper other than the New York Times, according to a memo sent out by Gawker owner Nick Denton last week.
Gawker joins rival, The Huffington Post, as the second online media source to attain this distinction.
The journalistic merits of HuffPo and Gawker aside, it seems new media organizations have the drop on print newspapers when it comes to online.
While newspapers stick to their traditional story writing and distribution methods, blogs emphasize the so called “dark arts” such as search engine optimization. Gawker even pays their writers a portion of the ad revenue from their stories
Could apps allow newspapers to charge for content again?
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said last week he believes apps for devices like the iPad could be a saving grace for the news publication business.
For years newspapers have relied on a double stream of revenue: charging for advertising and charging customers per copy. While many have tried to duplicate this online, success has been marginal.
Recent examples include Rupert Murdoch’s pay wall for The Times of London website, which has had less than favorable results.
As Arianna Huffington noted in an interview with Business Insider this summer, it all comes down to what consumers are willing to pay for.
Wharton School guys completely miss the boat
I wanted to comment on this article, posted on Business Insider Wednesday, because it plays into what I talked about in my last rant.
Eric Clemons, a Wharton School professor, and Nehal Madhani, a Wharton School graduate, argue in favor of putting strict copyright rules on news. They say this is the best way to protect newspapers.
The theory is newspapers will regain some of their competitive advantage if aggregators, like Google News, have to wait a certain period of time before posting their stories
Now, as I said, these guys are from Wharton, so they’re no dummies. Yet, they completely miss the mark on this one.
Local coverage: Online journalism’s final frontier
Online local news coverage has been making headlines lately.
All Things D reported Monday that AOL plans to continue full-steam-ahead with its ultra-local network, Patch. This comes just one week after the launch of the D.C. area news site TBD.com, which has already made some serious waves.
So what’s the big deal with local coverage?
Local advertising has always been the online equivalent of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Around $100 billion is spent each year on local advertising in the U.S. Given the population ratio, the number in Canada is probably around $10 billion.
Is journalism actually entering a golden era?
Mike Mandel suggested in his post last week that journalism may not be so doomed after all. In fact, he argues journalism is on the rise.
He backs this up with statistics that show non-conventional journalism jobs are growing, despite waning employment in “traditional” journalism sectors.
This brings up an interesting point. Sure, the old business model of newspapers is failing, but the need for public discourse, and the responsibility for journalists to encourage it, isn’t going anywhere.
The truth is, journalists can no longer be content with the conventional news grind. They need to adapt to this new (and very exciting) environment.
Business Insider gives a very honest outlook on print journalism
This is a little old, but I wanted to comment on it.
Business Insider posted a really blunt look at the newspaper industry last week and things don’t look so good.
They really hammer home how small online revenues are compared to print revenues. The New York Times only makes online about one tenth of what it makes offline.
A newspaper needs to cut their staff by about that much to fully transition online, just like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer did last year.