Home
Yule Heibel's Library tagged → View Popular, Search in Google
"How News Orgs Are Turning to Staff, Technology & Users to Improve Comments"
Fascinating interview with Darian Shirazi (age 23), the CEO of fwix.com (founded Oct. 2008), which sorts through ~200,000 pieces of news every day, "analyzing and filtering stories from tens of thousands of local sources." How? An automated news wire, the company has developed algorithms that allow it to search through all this content for nuggets of pertinent/ valuable information.
-
What role do you see automated aggregation services playing in the news ecosystem?
Aggregation is going to be a way in which news companies supplement their original content. There are several services that are attempting to do this like OneSpot and Mochila, but nobody has really tackled the problem of filtering content by user behavior or linguistic quality. We have a myriad of different algorithms we’re using to judge these two aspects of content to determine which pieces of content should be surfaced over others.The true value to news in the future will be filtration of content and using technology to ensure that published news speaks well to user preferences and reader expectations. There aren’t enough editors in the world and there isn’t enough money to pay hundreds of editors to filter the growing online content universe.
How does news aggregation impact local newspapers?
I think that the problem with the local newspaper is that it focuses too much on “generally applicable” stories. When I say ‘generally applicable,’ I’m referring to crime articles or republished AP content. Local newspapers have lost their touch as the medium for communicating the metropolitan Zeitgeist - likely due to declining revenue and, therefore, smaller staff.Many people think the demise of the local newspaper is because of the Internet or Google; the truth is that Craigslist and eBay have done the most damage to the economics of the industry (ads and classified ads). The challenge is now reducing costs of getting content and filtering the content for users. I think that aggregated news is definitely information overload, and that’s why we’ve focused on building the filters and normalization - all proprietary technology - that makes this aggregated news more readable, useful and valuable. Of the stories we aggregate, only 5-10% of them actually reach users through Fwix.com.
Can automated systems evaluate the quality of news content?
Yes. Academics have been writing about judging content quality for years. Several algorithms are available for determining the quality of content and the relevance of content to specific keywords, locations, or topics. There are only a few hundred people in the world that have experience developing these algorithms into production.How does aggregation impact revenue for niche, small sites or larger ones?
For larger news companies and sites, we’ve found that local content opens lots of doors in the advertising world. Media buyers who represent large brands like Best Buy and The Home Depot are looking for ways to sell advertising around local content. National brands with local presence are eager to sell advertising to consumers who are consuming local content.An advertisement with coupons for the local Home Depot isn’t useful when shown next to an article about the current state of political strife in Iraq, but is quite applicable when shown next to an article written by a San Francisco home improvement blogger. Large news companies looking to sell local advertising need local content to do this well and we believe we are the best provider of that content. The costs of building out content for every metro in the US are also too great for news companies. Technology is the only way to do local well.
For smaller sites, engagement and additional ad revenue are probably the most valuable benefits of integrating with Fwix. We offer ad click revenue to blogs that add our widgets, which is called AdWire, to their site. Additionally, bloggers and smaller news sites have seen value in getting return visitors who are looking for a mixture of original content and syndicated local content.
Love this catalog/ summary by Mark Coddington.
During my recent bout of civic activism with our JohsonStreetBridge.ORG awareness initiative, a HUGE chunk of my unhappiness and subsequent (still, alas, enduring) depression stemmed from the fact that for a variety of complex reasons, I found myself forced to betray most of the principles listed by Coddington. It still breaks my heart, and perhaps it's the everlasting testament, when all is said and done, for why Victoria BC will never, ever get a clue. In this town, people still play by the old media rules. And that can only mean that there's absolutely no room for me. Anyway, read Coddington's primer - he links to good stuff.
QUOTE
"When I dove into the future-of-journalism world, I quickly found that a few of these phrases function as shorthand for big, fundamental ideas. (...)
Consider this your dictionary for those phrases."
UNQUOTE
A rather amusing look at history according to Victoria's mainstream media (in this case by Times-Colonist reporter Bill Cleverley). Wow, this is quite the ellipsis...
If there's one thing I'm learning from the whole Johnson Street Bridge issue and process is that one apparently can't trust our media to get the stories right.
Great article by Clay Shirky on the changed status of media production, who owns it, who controls it, with an astute take on abundance. ("That era, when media were shaped by the scarcity of production and by the judgment of professionals, has ended.")
-
Prior to the internet, the costs of reproduction and distribution created an asymmetry of access: every time someone bought a radio or a television, the number of media consumers increased by one, but the number of producers didn't budge. The internet, on the other hand, moves the basic mechanism of reproduction and distribution into a lattice of shared infrastructure, paid for by all and accessible to all.
-
Add Sticky NoteThe computers connected to the edges of this network are not imbalanced as in the old model, where it cost a great deal to own a TV station but little to own a TV. Instead, they are balanced like the telephone - if you can listen, you can talk; if you can read, you can publish; if you can watch, you can record. This does not mean the average user can write a compelling novel or create a good film, but being able to produce anything at all is a huge change, relative to the consumer's previous silence.
-
Yule Heibel on 2009-05-19- bingo.
-
- 2 more annotation(s)...
Excellent summary of a lecture by Emily Bell (head of digital content at Guardian News and Media). Bell gave the lecture at University College Falmouth, where she was just appointed visiting professor in the media degrees program. Her topic: "Journalism Ten Years From Now" - excellent insights. Bell also discusses the business model for journalism of the future: where will the money come from to support it? And there are some very surprising insights here, starting with "News has never been profitable."
-
Unlike net-culture visionary Clay Shirky, though, Emily doesn't think that print journalism has no future. Print will remain an important part of reaching the audience - but it will not be the primary conduit for journalism in ten years' time. Instead, going by the 'clues' we can pick up from the way journalism is changing today, journalism in ten years will have some or all of the following characteristics:
-
1. It will go where the audience is.
- 14 more annotation(s)...
Fabulous short video clip of Monica Guzman explaining how to be an awesome news commenter
Interview with Jim Brady, ex-Washington-Post executive editor, about the state of newspapers today, online v. print, etc.
-
One of the ways people describe successful online ventures is saying that they're "of the Web," not merely "on the Web." Those sites use the unique advantages of the Web to present information and connect with users, rather than transferring traditional approaches online. Are major news sites these days "of the Web"?
Brady: I think more and more sites fit that description every day. But it's a big shift, and I'd be lying if I said I felt like everyone had made that leap. To me, it comes down to this question: Do you view the Web as a platform or a medium? If you work at a paper or TV station that merely views the Web as a way to distribute content from your legacy product, then I think you're doomed on the Web. If you view it as a platform, as a way to tell legacy stories differently, to share the floor with your audience, to consciously inject your content into the broader ecosystem of the Web, then I think you'll be fine. -
The business model is clearly trailing, of course, but the business model on the print side is in free fall, and I don't see it coming back. So digital has to pick up the slack, and it's on us to figure out how to make that happen.
- 4 more annotation(s)...
Business Week takes a look at how print media are going niche/ specialty/ local - and surviving/ making money. "The Bakersfield Californian is an anomaly in the newspaper business. While other papers are shutting their doors and filing for bankruptcy, it's expanding. The reason is the paper's 2005 launch of an online social network, called Bakotopia.com..."
-
The Web site has caught on to the point where Bakersfield Californian now publishes 20,000 copies of a free magazine with content from Bakotopia twice a month. The articles range from reviews of the local theater scene to goings-on at various hot spots.
-
Newspapers had hoped that their Web sites would help them replace evaporating print revenue. But an online ad typically garners one-tenth of the revenue of a print ad, estimates Rick Edmonds, media business analyst at the Poynter Institute. "The phrase in the industry is, 'You are trading dollars for dimes,'" he says.
- 4 more annotation(s)...
A Silicon Valley CEO addresses the newspaper business model. While not written in response to David Carr's NYT piece, it's a great riposte and refutation of same. Favorite bit:
QUOTE
Companies in Silicon Valley depend on having a fast-paced culture of innovation where no ideas are bad ideas, all voices are heard, technology is embraced not feared, and you are irrelevant if you aren't open to change. To achieve aggressive goals in competitive environments, teams have to work together without hidden agendas or obsessive attention to where in the chain of command a new idea originates.
UNQUOTE
I especially like the last clause in the last sentence. That "obsessive attention to where in the chain of command a new idea originate(d)" has dragged many a good idea into the Kingdom of the Cynical.
-
One day I was invited to a meeting to brainstorm about, of all things, the width of the Wall Street Journal. After I made a suggestion that was somewhere between novel and off the wall, the then-publisher leaned on the table, looked at me and said: "How old are you, young man?" The suggestion was clear: If you're under 40, you can't possibly understand the newspaper business. I still wish my response, though impolitic, had been: "How old is your thinking?"
-
While I don't have a quick fix for the newspaper industry's problems, I know one thing: The very companies that are ensuring newspapers' online traffic/existence should be leading the dialogue on their survival. Yahoo, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and AOL (NYSE: TWX) - not the editors, journalists and cadre of analysts who have led the newspapers to the brink - should be put in charge of identifying ways to keep a select number of news outlets viable.
- 3 more annotation(s)...
Rebuttal by outside.in's CEO to David Carr's NYT wishful thinking piece on locking down content and throttling the aggregators.
-
- The cost to create and distribute information has dropped to almost zero.
- Consumers don’t go find news, a recent study (I’ll find attribution) quoted someone saying “if the news is important enough, it will find me!”
- Audience and therefore ad impressions are diffused to thousands of sites, including, yes, blogs.
- Ad networks have more inventory in any given market than the big newspaper in town.
Here’s what is going on out there:
-
“no more free rides to aggregators”. This one hits a bit close to home. At Outside.in we aggregate local media, but we also add value to that media by organizing by location to make it easier for consumers and for newspapers themselves. (We then pass all that extra metadata onto anyone who wants to use it: newspaper or blogger.) The problem with Carr’s idea here is that consumers have already decided that they expect an incredibly customized and personal news experience. It’s “Me-centric” not “newspaper centric”.
- 3 more annotation(s)...
This is the article everyone agrees is all wrong: David Carr argues that newspapers should lock the barn doors even though the horse has long left the stable...
-
¶No more free content. The Web has become the primary delivery mechanism for quality newsrooms across the country, and consumers will have to participate in financing the newsgathering process if it is to continue. Setting the price point at free — the newspaper analyst Alan D. Mutter called it the “original sin” — has brought the industry millions of eyeballs and a return that doesn’t cover the coffee budget of some newsrooms.
The big threat would be that newspapers could lose the readers they have, lots of them. The mitigating factor is that a lot of those readers aren’t paying anyway.
-
¶No more free ride to aggregators. Google announced that it would begin selling ads against Google News, with almost no financial accommodation to the organizations that generate that news. The book industry — of all Luddites — has extracted cash from Google, as did the wire services. Google, The Huffington Post and Newser have built their audiences and brands on other people’s labors.
Most aggregators are not promoting newspaper content; they are repurposing it to their own ends. Newspapers’ audiences are harvested and sold divorced from the content that attracted them in the first place.
- 2 more annotation(s)...
Blog post by Steve Sherron on why and how to do hyperlocal blogging.
QUOTE
"...I am convinced that my best chance for success is going to be in my local market. I have discovered since I began this journey that local folks are starving for attention and publicity for their business or organization. Most do not understand SEO. Few have web sites. There is a gap and a need just waiting to be filled."
UNQUOTE
Interesting tips on SEO etc.
-
My main concern from day one has been to research and select a few keywords and keyword phrases and start building content. Google found my site immediately and now I’m slowly ranking for my selected keywords. I’ve managed to rank #1 for a few longtail keywords.
-
My hometown paper does not do such a hot job covering local news and events. This lack of coverage creates an opportunity for a hyperlocal blogger: Who is covering your local Crime Stoppers BBQ? Who is covering your local weather events?
- 3 more annotation(s)...
QUOTE
Contributing to this catastrophe has been newspapers’ stubborn refusal to consider any news-gathering and -analysis model other than the one that they were used to, one that, most crucially, relegated consumers to the role of passive readers instead of engaged users. It’s a mistake that happens all over the Big Media Debate: misinterpreting the limitations of our print past as prescriptions for our media future.
UNQUOTE
-
(1) Media platforms should be bundled into technology platforms;
(2) Premium access—one better than the failed TimesSelect project—will bring in revenue;
(3) Publishers should work more on matching advertisers with users, which is a suggestion that might finally help break the growing, pernicious primacy of Google in raking in Internet ad dollars.
-
It’s also a holistic point of view that does not raise the phony dichotomies publishers have been beating their heads against for more than a decade: paid content versus advertising; print versus digital; professional journalism versus “user-generated content”; blogging versus reporting.
- 19 more annotation(s)...
"The business model – which is another way of saying the underlying purpose – of just about everything is changing right now, and that includes the university and the newspaper."
Interesting idea by Manifest Magazine (Wahyd) to "replace" Cambridge MA's Out of Town News (which will close 1/1/09) with a print-on-demand shop.
Related to this: I left comments on Scripting.com and Doc Searls' weblog (both blogged this).
QUOTE
Newspaper revenues in 2009 will plummet while online revenue will grow, states Preview 2009 - a survey of 400 daily newspaper executives by Toronto-based marketing research firm Kubas Consultants.
The online survey of both US and Canadian newspapers, of all sizes, revealed that more executives projected a downward spiral rather than increases in seven out of eight ad revenue categories -including employement classifieds, the "next disaster area," at - 16% projected change, says the report. While online ad revenues appear to grow at 13.6%, automotive and real estate classifieds, among other categories, will see decreasing growth in ad sales of -15.5% and -13.8% respectively.
UNQUOTE
But what are Canadian newspapers doing? "...they are more focused on improving sales technology and upgrading printing equipment." Upgrading *printing* equipment???
Read later.
Must read later; filed for now.
Article about attempts by some alternative news organizations to recreate themselves as non-profits. Lots of interesting angles, from the demise (or at least being under siege) of traditional newspapers to the rise of alternative business models (embodied by the "watchdog" sites referenced by the article's title) for paying journalists/ newsrooms to stay in business.
-
As America’s newspapers shrink and shed staff, and broadcast news outlets sink in the ratings, a new kind of Web-based news operation has arisen in several cities, forcing the papers to follow the stories they uncover.
Here it is VoiceofSanDiego.org, offering a brand of serious, original reporting by professional journalists — the province of the traditional media, but at a much lower cost of doing business. Since it began in 2005, similar operations have cropped up in New Haven, the Twin Cities, Seattle, St. Louis and Chicago. More are on the way.
-
The fledgling movement has reached a sufficient critical mass, its founders think, so they plan to form an association, angling for national advertising and foundation grants that they could not compete for singly. And hardly a week goes by without a call from journalists around the country seeking advice about starting their own online news outlets.
- 10 more annotation(s)...
Selected Tags
Related Tags
Top Contributors
Groups interested in newspapers
-
Media/Journalism
Items: 38 | Visits: 79
Created by: Paul Ryan
-
Lebanon Newspapers
Items: 21 | Visits: 56
Created by: Simon Cooke
-
News media
Items: 8 | Visits: 525
Created by: Dylan Okimoto
Diigo is about better ways to research, share and collaborate on information. Learn more »
Join Diigo