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Posted 4:59 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
I'll Take the E-mail From Now On
Steve Outing on PR releases and terrorism
PR Newswire today sent out an e-mail to the journalists participating in its media database — which includes preferences for how they want to receive press releases — asking if they want to change how they receive information from companies. PRN uses that information when one of its clients wants to send out a press release to journalists interested in a particular topic. In light of the anthrax media attacks, the press wire is being prudent in giving reporters and editors the option of reducing postal mail in favor of 100%-safe e-mail. While no anthrax has arrived in media offices as part of press releases, it's prudent for PRN to not only help allay journalists' fears of postal mail, but also to help ensure that its clients' press releases don't end up in trash cans because of Anthrax hysteria. To change your preferred method of receiving press releases from PRN, e-mail mrg@prnewswire.com.
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Posted 1:44 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
New Journalism Award Includes Online Category
Amy Gahran on environmental journalism
Last night, at the opening reception of the 11th annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists, Dan Fagin of Newsday announced a brand-new SEJ program of awards for reporting on the environment. One thing I really like about this competition is that it's taking online news into account right from the start. One of the nine categories is "online reporting" open to all journalists around the world who have covered environmental news — including self-published independents. Deadline for entries: April 1, 2002. Details and entry form can be found on the SEJ website.
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Posted 1:31 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Islam on the Web
Carla Passino on Muslim sites
This week's edition of Ciberpaís (the online supplement of Spanish newspaper El País) carries an interesting review of the portals of Islam. Although in some Islamic countries, such as Afghanistan, local regimes have forbidden or severely limited Internet access, there are numerous online resources on and for Muslims. Among the most prominent is, unsurprisingly, AlJazeera.net, the website of the Qatar news network, which, according to Ciberpaís, aims to become "the foremost source of information for the Muslim world," CNN style.The vast majority of Islamic portals are in Arabic, but websites in English (such as Arab World News) and Spanish (such as Webislam) are also available. Some sites, like Ajeeb, provide a rough translation of any Web page from Arabic into English. Predictably, the war against Afghanistan features heavily on the Muslim Web. However, the take on the war is less homogeneous than one may expect. Well worth having a look around. And these are useful sources for journalists.
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Posted 1:19 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Credibility Study Results to Be Released Soon
Katja Riefler on online journalism
Don't forget to check the Online News Association website at the end of next week. Howard Finberg just announced in Geneva at the "Beyond the Printed Word" conference of IFRA that ONA will release the results of its Online Journalism Credibility Study on October 26 or 27. Very generelly speaking, the study showed that users perceive the credibility of websites differently than did professional journalists. For consumers, online news media are as credible as their offline counterparts. But there are a lot of factors that affect the credibility of a website that you might not be aware of: Constantly updated sites with high traffic get better scoring; .org domains are presumed to be more credible. Journalists who answered the survey do worry very much about the professional values of digital journalism. Finberg therefore tried to collect more information: Do employees without a journalistic background make editorial decisions? Are there any written policies or guidelines regarding editorial independence on websites?
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Posted 10:41 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Out of the Way and Online
Andrew Stroehlein in Georgia (the Tbilisi one, not the Atlanta one)
The Web finds you, no matter where you are. I have been in the former Soviet republic of Georgia on business for the past week, and with only a few thousand people online here and not even a single online store, I didn't really think Georgia would be E-Media Tidbits territory. I learned how wrong I was when, on Wednesday, I finally got a rare day of sightseeing.I travelled from the capital, Tbilisi, to the David Gareji Monastery, a beautiful, 6th-century cluster of stone buildings on the remote border with Azerbaijan. After three hours of driving through a thick fog to cover about 40 miles of spine-cracking roads, we arrived at the monastery, where there was no electricity, no running water, and no amenities of any kind — and just forget mobile phone coverage. Only four monks live there now, and one young monk showed us around the tomb of Saint David and the other holy sites in this isolated patch of rock on the edge of the world. After a few minutes, however, his English started to fail him somewhat, so he apologized, saying, "If I can't explain everything today, please have a look at our website." I thought I misunderstood, but, indeed, the David Gareji Monastery is online at the Patriarchate of Georgia's site.
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Posted 10:37 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Management Saves the Day
Jade Walker on an intriguing way to keep a dot-com alive
The451.com, a technology and media website, was recently saved from the dot-com graveyard by an unlikely saint. Earlier this week, the site's investor pulled out and the company was forced to lay off 25 employees, Media Guardian reported. Things looked grim. Then on Thursday, chief executive Martin McCarthy led a management buyout of the website. "The 451 team will continue to produce a quality, innovative service. We will listen more closely and write more crisply. We won't forget that we are here to serve you," McCarthy told readers in an e-mail. Clearly, he puts his money where his mouth is.
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Posted 4:53 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
So, It Does Work!
Carla Passino on the results of a survey on media consumption
The British Periodical Publishers Association has recently divulged the findings of a Magazines of America survey on magazines and Internet consumption. According to the study, Internet advertising generates more actions (intended as either inquiries or sales) than any other medium except magazines. 24% of the survey respondents said that they would either get more information or actually purchase a product or service publicized on the Web. The Internet, it would appear, is 1.15 times more effective than TV, three times more effective than newspapers, and six times more effective than radio. Advertisers, are you listening?
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Posted 3:55 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Embryonic Online Media Market Takes Shape in Sri Lanka
Madan Rao on South Asian e-media
With a population of about 19 million, the South Asian island nation of Sri Lanka has a literacy rate of 91% and the highest per capita GDP as well as the most deregulated telecom sector in South Asia. The UNDP Human Development Report 2001 classifies Sri Lanka as "innovative and adaptive" in the use of new technology. A third of the population here speaks English. Around 30 companies have received ISP licenses, such as Lanka Internet, Ceycom, Eureka, LankaCom, Celltel, Dynaweb, Sri Lanka Telecom, and Ionosphere. The number of PCs in the country may be close to half a million; there are about a million fixed-line phone connections; and the overall Internet user base is estimated at close to a million — but actual figures are hard to come by. Most Internet users are in Colombo, followed by Kandy and Galle. E-commerce in Sri Lanka is at an embryonic stage, and a small Internet ad market helps sustain the popular sites like Info.lk, EzBiz.lk, Sirasa.com, TamilNet, InfoLanka.com, and the websites of the newspapers Observer and Daily News.
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Posted 9:55 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Day on TV, Made Possible by the Net
Steve Outing on Sept. 11 TV coverage
Journalism students and scholars have a wonderful new resource available to them: TelevisionArchive. This public-interest site has collected video TV news coverage of the events of Sept. 11 — from the period following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon — from broadcasters around the world. As a tool for journalism students studying the different ways that media from various countries handled the story, this is amazing. While the postage-stamp size of the videos is of course a severe limitation, it's nevertheless useful — a wonderful historical document. (Here's information about TelevisionArchive's founders and mission.)
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Posted 4:49 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
MSNBC.com Goes Arabic
Steve Klein on online news coverage
Here's a news approach from MSNBC.com worth applauding: The company has introduced an Arabic-language version of its website in partnership with an Arabic site called Good News 4 Me. In an article in Wired.com, Michael Salata, the company's business development manager, said, "There is a need for unbiased news in the region, and we hope to go beyond state-run media." The site, according to Wired's Farhad Manjoo, will feature a daily selection of MSNBC's news stories.
BBC, it should be mentioned, has had an Arabic language news service on its website for some time as well.
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Posted 3:52 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Why Users Won’t Cough Up for Content
Carla Passino on paying for online content
While an increasing number of European media groups looks at introducing premium content, a recent study by Forrester Research warns that Web users will not pay for information alone. It pains me to say that Forrester is probably right. Users will refuse to cough up for content that they can easily find elsewhere for free. But they will pay for information that they perceive as valuable: anything that can help people make or save money, for example.Annette Hamilton had figured this out way back in 1998, when she wrote: "Making Web content pay off is not easy. However, research indicates it is possible. As long as your information is an inch wide and a mile deep. Will make readers money. Or will entertain them in a manner they perceive to be unparalleled." News sites had better find another source of revenue.
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Posted 10:29 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Are We Turning Off to the News?
Steve Klein on the dangers of personalization and customization
Before Sept. 11, most Americans knew little more about Afghanistan than it was a place we didn't want to be. These days, with personalization and customization a routine part of life on the Web, it is increasingly easy to filter news and information according to individual preferences. And therein lies a danger, according to Cass Sunstein, a law professor and First Amendment expert at the University of Chicago. The Wall Street Journal's Tom Weber revisits Sunstein's book, "Republic.com," in which the professor warned that with the help of technology, people wind up seeing only what they want and may not be exposed to ideas outside their preconceived areas of interest. To Professor Sunstein, that's a troubling development for democracy, and recent events have underscored this.
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Posted 10:05 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Get Ready for Dispersed Newsrooms
Steve Outing on attacks on media
Anthrax attacks on media outlets not only terrorize the journalists within, but also can easily shut down buildings and make it difficult to produce a newspaper, magazine, or news broadcast — as we've seen already. As Jason Gay reports for New York Observer, it's time for media companies to have out-of-building contingency plans so they can keep publishing or broadcasting. In this age of the Internet, it is possible for journalists to efficiently work from home. Editors can coordinate from a home office; photographers can send in images over phone lines; reporters can file from home or the field; etc. It will be a lot easier not to have to pull together a plan at the last minute, of course. If you don't have a contingency plan for producing your news product in the event that your building is off limits, get to work. (We could see it: TV anchors broadcasting from their homes. Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, et al, no doubt have emergency studios at the ready. Local TV news stations may not have that luxury.)
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Posted 7:23 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Anthrax Will Boost E-mail to Media
Steve Outing on terrorism's aftermath
As Jim Romenesko noted in his MediaNews weblog today, the Arizona Daily Star has stopped accepting "snail mail" letters to the editor. Newspaper readers are asked to send in letters via e-mail, website form, or fax, or drop them off at the newspaper office sans envelope. Reason: the anthrax scare and a desire to keep employees who handle mail safe. I've long expected letters to the editor to eventually go all-electronic. It's more efficient for the newspapers, since the e-mail and Web-submitted letters don't have to be re-typed in, which often results in errors. Expect other newspapers and media to follow suit quickly. This was always inevitable; the anthrax scare just moved up the timetable.PR people should also take note of this. Reporters, understandably, will from now on be wary of opening snail-mailed correspondence. If you want your press release opened by a reporter, send it electronically.
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Posted 6:04 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Pay-Per-Content Comes to Europe
Carla Passino on the boom of premium content in Europe
The Times will start charging for access to its archives as of November, according to NetImperative. Although the site will continue to offer free content drawn from both The Times and the Sunday Times newspapers, as well as Web-only articles, more premium services will be introduced later in the year. The British broadsheet is the latest in a long series of European news publishers to turn to online pay-per-content in an attempt to boost revenues. At the end of September, French media giant Ouestfrance launched regional news portal ouestfrance-enligne.com — an ambitious venture that combines a subscription model with pay-per-view. In Italy, leading publisher Gruppo Espresso announced that it is considering charging for the print content that it repurposes on its websites, while Web-original content will remain free for the foreseeable future.Although I supported The Times when it introduced a £10 fee for its online crossword in July, I very much doubt that a pay-per-content revenue model will work for news sites — especially when the likes of CNN.com and the BBC Online continue to provide top-quality coverage gratis. But I am particularly worried about the strategy proposed by the Gruppo Espresso: By charging only for its repurposed print content, it seems to imply that Web-original content is somehow second-rate. What do you think? Click the Discuss link below.
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Posted 5:52 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Don't Mess With Their E-mail ... Or Else!
Steve Outing on e-mail publishing advice
Yesterday I moved three discussion lists (which I've operated for many years) to Poynter.org. This entailed giving list participants new instructions and addresses to send mail. And because of a technical limitation of the list software used, some user settings were lost during the transition and I was forced to ask list members to reset their preferences themselves. Hoo-boy, did that upset a lot of people. I got barraged with e-mail complaints, many quite nasty. You'd think for a free service that people would be gracious, but while the majority were, a good number vented their rage at me.Because of that technical limitation, I had no choice; the transition was as smooth as I could possibly make it. But this episode did demonstrate just how emotional people can get about their e-mail inboxes. Brian O'Shea of InsideCentralFlorida.com, a member of one of those lists, nicely summed up the situation when he wrote to me: "If there's a lesson in the brouhaha over the list change, it's that we so-called professionals are acting just like typical online community members. When you make a change in our online routine, it upsets us — a good lesson for online managers to be reminded of now and again."
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Posted 10:36 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Playoff Teams Rule MLB.com
Steve Klein on online sports sites
Seven of the eight (baseball) teams to earn Major League playoff berths are among MLB.com's top 10 individual websites, according to rankings from Nielsen/Net Ratings. The surprises are the three non-playoff teams in the top 10 — No. 2 San Francisco Giants, No. 6 Chicago Cubs, and No. 7 New York Mets — and the Oakland A's, who made the playoffs but not the top 10. The Atlanta Braves, with 12% of MLB.com's overall audience, were No. 1, followed by the St. Louis Cardinals at No. 3, the New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners tied at 4, the Arizona Diamondbacks and Houston Astros tied at 8, and the Cleveland Indians at No. 10. One addition tidbit: Males outnumber females 2-to-1 in MLB.com audience composition.
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Posted 10:30 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Content Management: Brainpower First, Technology Second
Amy Gahran on content management systems
CMSWatch, an online magazine covering the burgeoning field of content management (CM) systems, just published a column (that I wrote) offering an editorial perspective on CM systems. In short: a CM system cannot do much good unless the organization already has in place sufficient editorial expertise and systems, as well as a sound content strategy. What I see happening too often with CM system deployment is not just putting the cart before the horse, but rather watching the cart and horse take off without the driver! See "Match Your CM System to Your Content Strategy."
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Posted 10:25 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Turning Down the Volume(.com)
Steve Outing on another site lost
HBO-funded website Volume.com is the latest flashy Web content venture to expire. An urban/African-American website launched last year, Volume.com surpassed the 1 million unique users mark for the first time in August. The staff had hoped to keep it going independently, but couldn't attract enough money in the current depressed investment environment. Another online media outlet bites the dust.
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Posted 6:15 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Rivals.com Gets an Insider Rival
Steve Klein on online sports sites
Rivals.com has a rival, and it's an old "friend." Jim Heckman, who founded Rivals.com, has started TheInsiders.com, a premium website that charges users a monthly fee for specialized content about NFL, college, and high-school teams. Calling itself "the world's leading and ever-expanding network of recruiting and team-specific college, professional, and high school sports websites" (I thought that kind of language had been thrown out with all the bad Internet dishwater), the Seattle-based site includes the original Rivals core-engineering team and has partnered with former pro quarterback Bernie Kosar's Kosar Investment, Inc., and Doug Moore's Vulcan Media.According to an article by Monica Soto in the Seattle Times, Heckman's new company has raised $1.9 million in private funding and has 17 employees. It will compete with the newly relaunched Rivals.com and, to an extent, top 10 collegiate portal FansOnly.com, which does official team and league sites. TheInsiders.com charges $5 monthly for access to an unofficial team site and $6 for recruitment information on high-school sports players. "What we're doing right now at TheInsiders.com is what I believe the company should have done as soon as the IPO (for Rivals.com) blew up," Heckman said. The original Rivals.com failed, Heckman told Soto, because "its expenses were too high and it switched too slowly to selling subscriptions for its content."
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Posted 2:04 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Risking Cannibalization
Rich Gordon on how traditional media faces the competition
Ever since the Web came along, traditional media companies have faced a decision: protect their existing businesses or move aggressively to compete online. There are a couple of interesting articles today about how two very different kinds of companies are wrestling with this decision now. The New York Times (registration required) tells the story of how newspaper companies are competing with Monster.com in online recruitment advertising. Multichannel News describes how MSNBC has been streaming its entire television feed on its MSNBC.com website. In both cases, it's obvious that the leadership of the traditional media company is wary of being too aggressive online. But at least in the case of Knight Ridder and the Tribune Co., the newspaper executives seem to realize (maybe too late) that they have to go toe-to-toe with Monster.com — even if it risks losing print revenue. In the case of MSNBC, executives are trying to limit live streaming to short periods encompassing major breaking news. The worry: that cable systems carrying the network will object to the competition. MSNBC president Erik Sorenson said the network wants the website to stream the entire broadcast feed only "in a crisis situation, and to stop doing it fairly quickly."
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Posted 1:12 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Journalism Groups Complain About Reduced Access to Info
Amy Gahran on freedom of the press
This past weekend, the Council of Presidents of National Journalism Organizations published a letter of concern regarding the problems that some journalists are encountering in trying to obtain information on subjects related to terrorism. The statement reads:
"We as leaders of national journalism organizations express our concern over the increasing restrictions by the United States government that limit news gathering and inhibit the free flow of information in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. We ask members of our organizations to carefully monitor government actions and contest them when warranted. We recognize that these are perilous times when unusual measures must be considered. However, we believe that these restrictions pose dangers to American democracy and prevent American citizens from obtaining the information they need."This statement was endorsed by 20 Council members at a meeting last weekend. The remaining members are expected to endorse it soon. AP news coverage of the meeting: "Journalism Groups Critique Security," by Joel Eskovitz.
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Posted 10:50 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
A Network for Government Only
Amy Gahran on GOVNET
According to the Oct. 11 edition of ZDNet, "The Bush administration has apparently decided that the Internet isn't secure enough for its needs and has proposed a new network be created to communicate critical government information." On Oct. 10, the General Services Administration published an RFP for a project named GOVNET — a secure network that would support communications between government agencies and other authorized users.This network may be a good idea that could lead to some bad abuses — particularly if it is used to sequester information that actually should be available to the public. If GOVNET is created, I'd hope that citizens' and journalism groups take an active role in setting guidelines covering what should remain public.
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Posted 10:06 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
SportsLine.com Is No. 1 Sports Site
Steve Klein on online sports sites
It would seem that Sportsline.com's emphasis on fantasy sports is paying off: The CBS-affiliated sports portal is No. 1 in the Nielsen/NetRatings for the week ending Oct. 1, with a unique audience of 2.15 million and average-time-spent online at 26 minutes and 19 seconds. The real thing, the NFL Internet Network, dropped from No. 1 to 2 with a unique audience of 2.1 million and average time of just over 17 minutes. Rounding out the top 10: ESPN.com at No. 3, NASCAR Online at 4, CNNSI.com at 5, MLB Properties at 6, the Sporting News at 7, FansOnly.com at 8, the NBA Internet Network at 9, and the NHL Internet Network at 10 (with a unique audience of 273,000 and average time of almost seven minutes).
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Posted 10:02 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
No Ads ... Yes Ads ... No Ads ... Yes Ads
Steve Outing on Web ad wars
As reported here a couple weeks ago, German company MediaBEAM had devised a way to foil ad-blocking software for Web browsers. Visitors to websites that use its software would see a demand that if they want to see the sites' content, they must either disable their ad-blocking software, or pay a fee to see the content (sans ads). Now (predictably) comes news that a programmer already has figured out a way around this system. But MediaBEAM claims to already have devised a fix to disarm the new scheme. As the author of this article in the Australian Industry Standard notes, "The arms race continues."
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