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Posted 12:45 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Sam Donaldson: 'We Made a Mistake'
Steve Outing on journalistic ethics
J.D. Lasica has been coming up with some good stuff for Online Journalism Review lately. Today, he's got a piece about ABC News' conflict of interest with the Disney-produced movie, "Pearl Harbor." (ABC is owned by the Disney Company.) It's pretty clear that ABC crossed the line by mixing promotion of the movie with a Sam Donaldson webcast about the 60th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He interviewed Donaldson, who admitted at one point, "I think we made a mistake" in juxtaposing a 7-second clip from the movie with historical footage.
Posted 12:15 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Pack Up and Leave
Jade Walker on dot-com casualties
I know many writers who use free, online storage sites. They post interview notes, background research, and past articles in these virtual file cabinets as a convenience. Each site is easily accessible from any computer connected to the Internet. But what do you do when the storage site suddenly disappears?That's the problem Myspace.com users will face today. In fact, they only have until 5 p.m. PDT to download their files onto a home computer or disk. "After this date, Myspace free consumer site will be closed. Myspace customers will not be able to access their accounts, and, to ensure your privacy, all stored files will be deleted."
Posted 11:42 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Can Voice Portals Save E-publishers?
Carla Passino on 365 Corp's latest venture
Another blow fell on online content publishers yesterday, when 365 Corp announced widening losses. Once touted as one of the most successful e-publishers in the UK, the troubled group now has to make some profit pronto, and hopes to achieve this by launching its voice portal, called Eckoh, later in June. Eckoh, which uses a sophisticated speech-recognition technology, will provide both content and services in response to voice commands from callers. Users will be able to do anything from placing a bet to getting professional advice or picking up e-mails via a fixed-line or mobile phone.Call me skeptical, but I do not see how this can ensure profitability for 365 Corp. The project is undoubtedly interesting, and I wish 365 Corp every success, but the revenue model Eckoh depends on is the same mix of dial-up charges, subscription fees, advertising, and commerce that is failing to deliver any profit to online publishers. If it doesn t work on the Web, why should it work on the phone?
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Posted 10:35 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Real Newspapers on the Web
Katja Riefler on an alternative to PDF newspapers
The Rhein-Zeitung, a German regional newspaper and pioneer on the Web, just announced the "first real navigable and clickable newspaper on the Internet." It has developed a technical solution to present the print edition of the newspaper on the Web exactly as it is in print — same layout, full text, and advertising — without using the PDF format. You see a small image of the paper, you can chose which article or ad you want to read, and the next mouseclick will bring you there. Links within the articles are clickable, the classifieds are linked to a searchable database. Joachim Turk, CEO of "RZ-Online," the outsourced Internet company of Rhein-Zeitung, hopes to win new subscribers and to use this new tool for multimedia in the future. Unfortunately you can't see the system live — it's open only to subcribers for the next month — but perhaps you'll want to have a look at these screenshots.
Posted 10:09 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Tombstone Tidbits
Jade Walker on virtual obituaries
One of my favorite duties at the New York Times on the Web is compiling the monthly death column. Obituaries in the Times have long been revered for their insight, historical significance, and personal detail. Now the Obituaries page features classic obits of luminaries pulled from our extensive archives. This month, read about the lives (and deaths) of Victoria Woodhull, the first female U.S. presidential candidate; Elmer Sperry, an inventor with almost 400 patents; and William Golding, author of the classic book, "Lord of the Flies."
Posted 12:42 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
A Serious Look at Weblogs (Part 2)
Steve Outing on weblogs
The second part of J.D. Lasica's examination of the weblog as new journalistic tool is on Online Journalism Review, "Weblogs: A New Source of News." Quick summary: Weblogs won't replace traditional news forms, but they will grow to be a supplement that covers news that the traditional media ignore or miss.
Posted 12:12 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Audiotext on the Way Down
Steve Outing on newspaper phone info services
Audiotext services never caught on in a big way. The phone dial-in services, which feature a voicemail-like interface to find information like stock quotes and weather forecasts, have been around longer than the Web. Newspapers, in particular, have been audiotext providers for many years, though none got rich off the concept. In my local newspaper (the Boulder Daily Camera) today, I read that it had canceled its audiotext service, InfoCall. Boulder, Colorado, is a well-wired community, and most people use the Web or other sources when they want information like that provided by InfoCall. Technology marches on, and there will continue to be casualties.
Posted 12:01 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Kaycee's Life and Times
Steve Outing on an Internet hoax
The New York Times weighs in today with an account of the Kaycee Nicole cancer-death hoax. Reporter Katie Hafner interviewed the Kansas homemaker who was the mastermind of the hoax.Be careful who you trust on the Net.
Posted 11:44 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Thumbs Up!!
Rich Gordon on Startup.com
If you have the opportunity, go see Startup.com, a new documentary that vividly captures the experience of launching a new Internet venture during the frenzied dot-com era. It may not make mainstream theaters, but it will certainly make the circuit of art-film houses in major cities — and presumably will be out on video and DVD soon. It's been getting very good reviews (for instance, from Roger Ebert and the Washington Post). The filmmakers had amazing access to the team that built the late govWorks.com, capturing intimate discussions that some participants didn't know were on film — or now wish were not.Two elements of the documentary really rang true to me, as someone who lived a somewhat less frenzied version of the startup experience inside a traditional publishing company. First, despite the excitement of the dot-com era, the startup experience really wrought havoc with personal relationships. And second, no matter how well you plan and execute, there come moments in the evolution of a startup when you lose control of the process. Even if your site isn't ready, you have to launch on the date you said you would. Even if you have a lifelong friend, you may have to sacrifice him (or her) to satisfy the investors.
Posted 7:51 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Tiger Makes His Move (on the Net)
Steve Klein on online sports content
Everyone knows (don't they?) that the most popular athlete on the Internet is ... you were going to say Tiger Woods, weren't you? Sorry, but it's Anna Kournikova. As to why, well, let's not go there right now, OK? But given Tiger's competitive nature, not to mention the aggressive approach of IMG, Wood's rep firm, that could be about to change. Woods' site will move from (but still be accessible on) CBS SportsLine and be produced by TWIinteractive (TWIi), the interactive arm of IMG.The stand-alone, celebrity-athlete model has not proven effective on the Internet, according to a story on TheStandard.com: "These days, the hybrid model is the only model. That's a fact that should be taken to heart by anyone trying to make money with a combination of sports and the Web." Says Todd McCormack, CEO of TWIinteractive, "We're not looking at this as an endorsement, but as a strategic asset we have to protect to manage a player's commercial and professional career. This is the way it would have gone if the marketplace hadn't been so crazy at the beginning." The article concludes: "The biggest message is that Tiger's Web rights, and therefore everyone else's, are now just a means to an end, rather than an end in themselves. Even for an icon like Tiger, Internet rights can't stand alone."
Posted 1:48 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Don't Write for These People!
Steve Outing on writers' blacklists
WritersWeekly.com publishes a list of publications (print and online) that you might want to avoid if you're a freelance writer. On its WARNINGS page is a list of publishers who allegedly treat writers poorly, don't pay up, have lousy contracts, etc. If you're a publisher, you don't want to be on this list. Says one writer who's owed money by a publisher: "He lied several times, and told us he had mailed checks, when he didn't. He's really a sleaze, and others should know not to work with him!" The list is a short one, but it nevertheless provides a nice public service to the freelance community. (Of course, if I were the publisher of WritersWeekly, I'd worry about getting sued if a contributor's attack on a publication turned out to be wrong.)There are also a few other writers' blacklist sites that keep tabs on no-/slow-paying publishers and writer scams: Jenna Glatzer's Warnings Page, The Short Order Scam Alert, National Writers Union Writer Alerts (click on Writer Alerts), and Literary Contest Caution.
Posted 12:46 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Making E-business Like It's 1999
Carla Passino on why Italy has avoided dot-com crisis
Strange as it may sound in these days of Internet gloom, Italy seems to have escaped the worst of the dot-com crisis. (Though ISP-cum-portal Seat, Italy's leading Internet player, has been badly hit by the plunge in technology shares.) Walking down the streets in any Italian city is like entering a time warp. Billboard after billboard, it is a long sequence of offers from ADSL providers, portals, and assorted dot-coms, while the local press trumpets the achievements of the new economy from giant ISP Tiscali's acquisition spree across Europe to traditional industries taking advantage of e-marketplaces.Why is this the case? Since the Internet bubble never really happened in Italy, it never really burst. Internet take-up in Italy was among the slowest in Europe, so the country never experienced the dot-com craze that hit the U.S. and the U.K. Investment in online projects was relatively slow and prudent, resulting in sound businesses that are often associated with or owned by established bricks and mortar companies. This is particularly true of the online content industry, where the most interesting experiments, such as news portal KataWeb, were launched by long-standing newspaper and magazine publisher Gruppo Espresso. Like anywhere else in the world, Italian content providers have yet to find a viable business model. But unlike their British or American counterparts, they are not under as much pressure to deliver short-term results to the detriment of long-term profitability.
Posted 11:49 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
A Paid-Content Opportunity
Rich Gordon on a revenue source for publishers
On Tuesday, the New York Times had an interesting article about my former employer, Knight Ridder. As it happened, I also saw the article in the print edition of the newspaper — and I noticed something interesting. The online edition had one accompanying graphic, which was all but invisible (behind a "multimedia" link). The print edition had that graphic prominently, plus another interesting graphic and three photos. This is normal for most newspaper sites, because they rely on automated production tools that don't connect to newspaper graphics systems. But in this case, at least, the graphics really added to my understanding of the story — so the online version was substantially inferior. Could this be part of the solution for online content subscriptions for newspapers? Maybe "text-only" would be free, with the graphics-enriched edition being paid. Or with the right payment systems, papers could sell photos and graphics individually. There are some technology hurdles, to be sure. But with the right kind of links with the story ("Buy a copy of a chart showing Knight Ridder stock's performance compared to other newspaper companies"), this could be an interesting new revenue source.
Posted 5:41 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
No More Pop-Ups!
Rich Gordon on some horrible online advertising
David Coursey of ZDNet tapped into some strong feelings today with an article called "Pop-up ads are driving me nuts! How about you?" Check out the "talk back" comments for some of the strong feelings against the pop-up (new browser window) ads. The "positive" side is also represented, with one writer calling these annoying ads "the price you pay for free Internet content." Another writer points out that click-throughs on pop-up ads are much higher than for banners and suggests that he could support pop-up ads if limited to one per visit to a particular site. It seems obvious to me, though, that whatever the benefits to the advertiser, pop-up ads drive most users crazy. I'd much rather see advertisers and sites start using the Flash-based "big box" ads like those on CNET.com and News.com. These ads are just as intrusive as pop-ups, but a lot more user-friendly. Problem is, deploying these ads requires: (1) redesigning your pages; (2) reconfiguring your ad-serving software; (3) including a Flash "sniffer" with every ad tag; and (4) finding designers capable of building good Flash-based ads. The pop-up ads require nothing more than elementary JavaScript — which explains why they're proliferating.
Posted 2:14 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
How to Lose Archive Customers
Steve Outing on online newspaper archives
Note to Dallas Morning News Web site executives: You've got a problem with how you manage your Web archives. Former DMN staffer Sophia Dembling wrote to me citing the paper's Web site as an example of how NOT to set up paid archive services: "I'd like to steer you to what I think is a Big Crock. I'm a former staff writer and then a freelancer for the Dallas Morning News, so it hurts me to pay for access to their archives anyway, since they have my stuff on there without permission. However, in doing research for a book recently, I paid $12.95 for a month's access to the paper's archive. BUT, the month-long subscription is limited to 35 articles only and the abstract you get off the search does not include the keyword hits so you can't tell by looking at the abstract if the story is relevant to your needs or not. I reached my download limit only days into my month-long subscription. That makes me sooooo mad, I'll probably do the rest of my research at the library rather than coughing up more money. Greedy publishers are just shooting themselves in the foot."Sophia's note brings up a pet peeve of mine. I continue to think that news publishers charge too much for their Web archives. As her note suggests, by not offering consumer-acceptable prices, many price-sensitive consumers forgo using the services. Professional researchers who need to search across multiple publications can pay high rates on Lexis-Nexis, et al. Consumers will use single-publication Web archives when a reasonable price structure is offered.
Posted 10:51 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Media Convergence?
Norbert Specker on definitions
Technology development has always preceded the words that described it. And of the words invented to describe the change, not all grasped the true potential (Steamhorse), most were misleading (Info-Autobahn), and most changed their meaning depending on who used them. Point in case of course is Convergence. Henry Jenkins is director of the Program in Comparative Media Studies at MIT and offers various interesting perspectives on the term "convergence." Technological, economical, social, cultural, and global. Much points in the direction of what I have started to call "Pervasive Content."
Posted 10:46 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Is This Journalism (2)? Yes, Of Course
Katja Riefler on Dutch innovations
Haven't we talked about the fascination of personal weblogs recently? Here is another example: 24-year-old Dutch guy Ramon Stoppelenburg decided to stop dreaming about exploring far-away countries. Instead, he travels the world at no expense with the help of the Net-Community. At the first of May, just six weeks after asking the world to invite him for a day on his new homepage, "Let me stay for day," he started his hitchhiking roundtrip from his hometown, Hilversum. He promises not to spent a cent on this trip — and gets support from Netizens as well as from the media and sponsors. Everyone who helps him gets to be part of his big adventure. Every day is documented in detail on the site.So are the Dutch people especially innovative in using the media? Remember that "Big Brother," which was tremendously successful in German Internet and TV, was a Dutch invention. And while the Dutch now watch "Big Diet" or "Starmaker," the French people get crazy about "Loft Story."
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Correspondent.com is a dedicated secure environment connecting the worldwide community of independent journalists, editors and publishers.
Apply today at www.correspondent.com.
Posted 10:39 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Usability Pros Rake in the Bucks
Amy Gahran on salaries
The latest Alertbox column by Jakob Nielsen contains the results of a salary survey that he conducted at a recent usability conference series. In addition to gathering data from 1,078 user-experience professionals who attended the conferences, he also gathered data from an unspecified number of "designers and writers" who also attended. Based on this, one of Nielsen's conclusions was that writers earn, on average, $9,709 less per year than usability pros. I'm not necessarily questioning that figure — but I would like to know what kinds of writers were included in the survey. Personally, I know of very few online writers who attend usability conferences. I doubt whether that sample is representative of the online writing profession.
Posted 10:26 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
SMS Interviews
Norbert Specker on short answers
The Sunday paper in Switzerland calls itself ... Sunday Paper (Sonntagszeitung) and offers a journalistic twist on SMS (the Short Message Service that can send and receive text messages to and from mobile telephones): SMS Interviews. Question: 160 characters; answer: 160 characters. This Sunday, Zoe Jenny, shooting star in the literature scene, was the partner. A short analysis of the interview reveals that nothing was asked and nothing was said — but then, nothing was changed either. (The text messages of both parties were published unedited.) It will be very interesting to see how the form develops. On a practical level it has a lot of merits: The interview can be conducted over an extended time period, via the one device nobody lives without here in Europe; it is extremely cost effective, not intrusive like a phone call. On the downside: It is amazingly easy to say nothing in 160 characters. (BTW: I am anxiously awaiting the first study that looks at SMS messages from a linguistic perspective. Do the messages get more sophisticated? Do people communicate more "to the point"? Or is it rather a comic strip style language that prevails?)
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