MediaVidea

There is a problem with the content business in India. What problem?

Labels: india, news business

posted by Pramit Singh @ 4:33 PM 0 Comments

Why the news business deserves all its troubles, the Chilean Mine Edition

Labels: news business

posted by Pramit Singh @ 7:03 PM 0 Comments

Are iPad News Applications Merely Glorified CD ROMs?

The iPad news application is an eye-candy business model. But fancy page-flips, large icons, large photos, interactive advertisements that track your activity won't force users to pay up in the long run. For people like me, long weaned on a free, hyper-linked internet, aka the web, iPad applications are nothing more than expensive, glorifed CD ROMs of the mid-1990s era.

Google News has a basic page flip and you do not need to pay up. When broadband becomes ubiquitous, what's stopping websites in having all the bells & whistles in the iPad style?

Interfacelab analyzed Wired magazine much-hyped iPad app, which sold upwards of $100,000 in first 4 hours of sales, basically due to the 'novelty factor'. Interfacelab says about Wired's application:

The only real differentiation between the Wired application and a [1990s] multimedia CD-ROM is the delivery mechanism. While providing little interactivity other than a fancy page-flip, the application is made of XML and images, including two for the text of each page in portrait and landscape mode. This seems to be why the application is 500MB.

On the other hand, an iPad application that has lots of 3D models and visualizations is something that users might like. Are news organizations listening?

Labels: ipad, news business

posted by Pramit Singh @ 7:39 PM 0 Comments

Economic Times Journalist barred by SEBI for forging letters to rig stock prices

As it is, Financial Journalism is not a high point in the annals of Indian Journalism. In its interim order, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) barred two promoters of Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd, and 228 others, including Rajesh Unnikrishnan, Assistant Editor, The Economic Time.

The Economic Times, India's largest selling business daily, is part of the Bennett Coleman Group. Flushed with cash from its print media operations, the group created Times Private Treaty, an investment group that does dubious 'stock for ads and editorial coverage' deals with companies.

Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd was a client of the said Treaty Operations. The Times Group has special editorial people to deal exclusively with Times Private Treaty clients in all of its major editorial offices.

Result: Hapless journalists who are forced to do what the master says - forget investigative reporting, work on his master's share market earnings.

In the Pyramid Saimira case, the journalist has been accused of forging a letter so that it appears to be a SEBI letter. Not surprisingly, this story has been largely ignored by the business press in India. Among the mainstream newspapers, only the Indian Express and DNA carry it.

Related:
What we must learn from India's largest Newspaper
The sorry state of Financial Journalism in India
The Indian Media would like us believe there is no recession

Labels: india, news business, scam

posted by Pramit Singh @ 3:02 PM 3 Comments

On Newspapers asking for preferential treatment from Google

Newspaper publishers have reportedly asked Google CEO Eric Schmidt if Google would change the search algorithm to move their brands up in the SERPS. Before we ask how legitimate this would be, consider this:

1. Google's value as the Go To search engine would go down, if it were to do such a thing. Possibility of this happening: Less than zero.
2. Are all the stories in these big newspapers original reporting? How much of the daily output is rewriting of wire stories?
3. Contrary to perception, as Techmeme Gabe Rivera points out, big newspapers like the New York Times aggregate links too.

Labels: news business, newspapers

posted by Pramit Singh @ 6:33 PM 0 Comments

A set of interesting 'future of media' polls on Bighow Polls

To look at what the future holds for newspapers, I have created four polls and look forward to seeing what you think about the issues at hand:

1. What will you miss the most when newspapers are gone?

2. Which among these is the best news business model?

3. What print media business will you miss most?

4. Which media brand will you miss most?


and this one for fun:

5. Who is most useful new media guru?

Labels: bighow, future, news business, poll

posted by Pramit Singh @ 4:01 AM 0 Comments

14 news business models: which is the best one?

Zachary M. Seward, at Nieman Journalism Lab and Alan Mutter recently came up with the cost "to sustain every American newspaper in perpetuity as non-profit organizations" - $114 billion.

Two problems:
1. This will save only the editorial staff. 2. Who says newsroom journalists have a monopoly over original journalism?

So, what models for the news business do we have at present? Here are 14 news business models to choose from:

1. Public funds investigative journalism on a case-by-case basis: e.g. Spot.us [Dave Cohn's site]

2. Angel funding for investigative journalism: e.g. Propublica [funded by Craig Newmark]

3. Government funds Journalism: e.g. BBC [great work, autonomous], Prasar Bharati (India) - Not so great output due to government interference

4. A Non-profit Trust funds Journalism: e.g. The Guardian

5. Regular Donation Drives funds Journalism: e.g. NPR [Radio]

6. Small, localized, Print on demand newspapers: e.g. theprintedblog.com - aggregates from local blogs

7. Small, online only news teams [max. size 10] focused on a niche/locality: e.g. Paidcontent, Gigaom

8. A mix of free papers for young people and special editions with analysis for an older crowd

9. Subsidize serious reporting with consumer service coverage [gadgets, celebrities, lifestyles, shopping]: e.g. NYT's Lifestyle publications make the real money

10. Subsidize serious reporting with non-intrusive business line extensions: e.g. Dilbert creator Scott Adams created a computer file storage business with his character's name. Other options include being more like an ad agency for advertisers.

11. Small Newsroom of Investigative reporters, brand name bloggers and community managers, who aggregate and summarize everything else (reviews, opinions) from blogs and other sources: e.g. The Huffington Post

12. Subscription based site plus free articles: e.g. Economist.com, FT.com, WSJ.com - all are business titles

13. iTunes type Pay for each article using micropayments.
Problems: 1. Articles are not pieces of music that people can listen repeatedly 2. Micropayments are intrusive.

14. Newspapers consortiums join forces with distributors like Google or Yahoo: Something like Yahoo Buzz plus Google Adsense.

The discerning reader will note a few overlapping ideas in the above list: small newsroom sizes, mostly online, print only when you have to, focus on original reporting.

Next: Vote for your favorite news business model for these changing times over at Bighow Poll.

Labels: business model, news business, poll

posted by Pramit Singh @ 3:50 AM 6 Comments

What We Will And Will Not Miss When Newspapers Are Gone

Seth Godin gives a figure - 2% - the budget share of investigative reporting and serious coverage of important issues at a typical paper. Seth goes on to write what he will miss when the printed newspapers are gone and his main point is: some things are best found on the web and some things only a resourceful newspaper can do.
Some people say that the majority don't care about investigative journalism.

But the customer isn't always right. Besides, investigative journalism pays out through book deals, film/TV deals and most importantly, by building brand value. People still remember The Washington Post through the Watergate Scandal.

Things that we will not miss

- Sports, weather, op-eds, comics, books, theatre, restaurant and movie reviews: already available on the web
- Beat Reporting: Better done online with readers' help
- Page long ads and ads covering the front page
- The stuff that goes in newspaper production & distribution: trees, woodpulp, printing presses, typesetting machines, delivery trucks, those stands on the street and the newsstand
- Media Owner's political opinions masquerading as news
- Unnecessary health scares
- Stories about Britney Spears, Angelina Jolie, Rhianna and how great Justin Timberlake is
- "Product news" story that is just a Press Release
- "Fresh news" that's just rehashed from other sources without attribution

Things that we will miss

- Local news
- Investigative journalism: Special reports, deepr investigations
- Intelligent coverage of national news
- Editorials and op-eds that are genuine conversation starters
- Abuse of power - Uncovering corrupt officials; Examining pieces of legislation
- Political and Social Satire Cartoons: excellent sources of education
- Infographics: another excellent source of information
- The newspaper legal staff: necessary to back you up when you are up against the big guns.
- Jobs generated by publishing newspapers. Printing jobs, office jobs, delivery jobs
- Our physical relationship with the paper - and the ink. + the typography and design [e.g. The Times Magazine's elegant look]
- Cutting and sharing articles
- Crosswords and Sudoku
- The Serendipity. You never know what's on the next page
- The Sunday Section. Window shopping the Sunday ads.
- Sharing the big weekend paper with family during breakfast: and shared news experience in general
- The letters page (online, only The Economist has been able to replicate it through the letters section).
- Alternative distribution media - inserts, goods through the newspaper deliveryman
- Local Newspaper of record: Worldwide, newspapers serve important legal functions - Notices to Creditors, Calls for Tenders, Obituaries/estate notices, Notices of Hearings/Public Meetings, etc.) that are important to meet regulatory requirements
- No need of batteries and power to read the news [unless it is nighttime]
- Not being able to tell what is 'real news' and what is 'created news'

- Alternate uses for the paper: packing materials, burning, ass wiping...
- Free Clothing and blanket for the homeless.

Vote for your choice:
I have created a poll on Bighow Poll about 20 things that we will miss when newspapers are gone: What will you you miss?

Recommended Reading
Jeff Jarvis: Newsroom Economics
Cutting up the Newsroom

Labels: news business, newspapers, poll

posted by Pramit Singh @ 3:38 AM 1 Comments

The Truth about Cats and Dogs: Original Reporting vs. Original Opinion version

Let's get it straight: Reprinting Press Releases is not Original Reporting; rehashing opinions of hundred others is not Original Opinion and the Blogosphere is about conversations & interesting opinions - not something to be put through a cookie cutter so the suits can understand it better.

Blogger Simon Owens tries to spin a fast one whereby he picks the top 100 blogs in Technorati, and tries to prove the newspapers' charge that blogs do not carry original reporting. Here's what I think:

1. Newspapers are not about original reporting:
These are just business entities who happen to have access to capital to pay for newsprint and salaries for journalists, most of whom are forced to write yet another post about what Michael Phelps is up to nowadays (earlier, it used to be Britney Spears). The average newspaper thus is a highly capitalized business making ist money from reprinting cheap wire stories, among other things.

2. The blogosphere is about interesting and stimulating conversations:
You can justly accuse bloggers of rewriting stories (mostly, to be able to ping Google frequently ("we are updated now, come search us"), and parroting widely held, hence boring opinions.

But, it is not true that bloggers talk about what is written in the newspapers only.

Many bloggers (and group bloggers) are known for their original point of views on issues. Often , bloggers raise the art of conversation to a point that the issue at stake is taken seriously by the everyone concerned. In India, a TV journalist found this one to be true the other day.

3. Technorati Top 100 is not about authority:
The Technorati Top 100 is about age, manipulation and persistent rewriting. Many of the bloggers who have made great names and done great things, who I read on a daily basis are not on the Technorati Top 100. In fact, I read few of the Top 100 blogs. There is just no value or uniqueness out there.

Barring a few individual bloggers who blog for their passion, the top 100 is full of professional websites with professional writers (read, traditional media sites) using blog as a publishing tool.

Sites like Engadget are blogs only in the sense that allow comments, otherwise they are huge, successful newspapers running on blogging software.

Other bloggers on the list, like Seth Godin are not bloggers at all. Seth writes well, very well. But, he does not participate in the conversation, He does not allow comments on his blog.

Other top bloggers routinely remove comments they don't like. In this aspect, these guys are like the old broadcasting types.

Other bloggers who make the Technorati List start by flattering the egos of those made the list before them.

4. Techcrunch cannot be said to be doing original reporting when most of the stories are glorified Press Release stories:
Some think Techcrunch is the Red Herring of Web 2.0, the pre-eminent publication covering web 2.0. Far from true.

Red Herring in the late 90s was nothing like Techcrunch. Jason Pontin, the editor of Red Herring that time, wrote one of the first critique of the first web bubble.

The best bubble warning Techcrunch has done so far is reprinting a presentation from Sequoia, the venture capitalists.

Owens' micro research (looking at 200-odd posts over a couple of days, people read more in a couple of hours in their feed reader) says that Techcrunch had the highest amount of original reporting, 37% among blogs.

Most of this original reporting is about - "this service has shut down", "this service has launched".

Having read Techcrucnh since it was launched in 2005, I have rarely read analysis stories and trend stories on the blog, which web 2.0 entrepreneurs needed more than the latest startup to be copied.

Having said that, there is better value in the comments where readers provide their useful opinions and analysis. There you go, that is the value of blogs - conversation.

5. Original Opinion over everything else:
The first rule of journalism is said to be, "Question Everything". The data is there to be found and analyzed. Where were the newspapers and their army of journalists while subprime crisis was imploding?

Among blogs, I know Gawker Media writing can be quite biting but it must be said that Gawker media writers ask the hard questions. I admire Owen Thomas's hard analysis on what works and what doesn't in the New Media area.

Why do you think Gawker thrives? If it were for merely linking to other blogs, it would have perished long ago.

6. Filter Blogs are the op-ed pages of today:
Group blogs like Boing Boing have a large following despite what Simon Owens calls 'Linking'. The filter blogs point to the best articles, to the experts. The Boing Boing writers are a passionate lot and have managed to excite others with the range of topics they cover.

Journalists such as Jay Rosen keep track of what's happening to the news business on a daily basis, pointing out to the latest trends through their blogs and through Twitter. These guys are today's explainers, the job that newspapers were supposed to do.

Among newspapers, the Economist has made a name for its irreverent take and incisive analysis of stories. So much for original reporting.

Tell me honestly, how many other newspapers do the job of explaining by informing?

6. What is Original Reporting anyway?:
There is big, humongous cloud hanging over the term. Owens defines original reporting as as "pulling any data that wasn’t already freely available on the web.” By this measure, even Simon's survey isn't original reporting. Anyone can access the Technorati rankings and look at what the blogs have on offer.

So, was Simon talking about classified government archives?
Because most other data can be had for free or by paying someone.

Given the limited resources a bloggers has, there are a few things a blogger can do if she/he is demanded to do original reporting :
Do interviews; Write a feature/long articles - step by step, analysis, trend spotting, well thought out critiques, aggregate links to stories other peoplke are writing on an issue, wikipedia type profiles...
these are some ideas.

I also suggest look closely at what the mainstream media is covering, you will much that they they miss and gloss over.

7. Everyone can do Original Reporting:
As I see it, there is only one difference between a citizen reporter and a resourceful newspaper: resource.

FYI, this blog post of mine does not meet the standards set by Owens.
I am only linking and commenting, that's all.

Must buy myself a newspaper company.

Labels: blogging, news business, news2.0, simpleguide

posted by Pramit Singh @ 7:35 PM 5 Comments

The Satyam Fraud: A simpleguide to the continuing Irrelevancy of Indian Media

At last, we proved that India indeed is the best. The Satyam Computer fudging of Rs.8000 crores on account books, amounting to $1.6 billion, is almost three times the fudge work done by the 'McKinsey-advised' wise guys/erstwhile media poster boys at Enron 6.5 years ago, which was small change, $600 million only (Rs2400 crores, at dollar rates for that period).

The Enron scandal caused Andersen Consulting to go down for a while and reincarnate itself as Accenture, the IT solutions provider.

Does a similar fate await PriceWaterHouse Coopers, one of the top 4 accounting firms in the world? Only time will tell.

But, you ask yourself, "How come the Indian media did not spot Satyam fraud in time?'

Looking at these key numbers for the Indian media, you expected better things:

- We have the second largest newspaper market in the world, having read 99 million newspaper copies in 2007 and we publish the largest number of paid-for titles in the world.

- There are more than 372 TV channels in India.

- By 2006, India had more than fifty 24-hour news networks, operating in eleven different languages, including 14 major Hindi News channels, 4 English News channels [NDTV, CNN-IBN, Times NOW, Headlines Today] and three Business News Channels in English [NDTV Profit, CNBC, UTVi] and One Hindi Business Channel [CNBC India].

- The government network, Doordarshan has a vast footprint of its own.

- We have three big business magazines [Business Today, Business World, and Business India], three big business newspapers [Mint, Business Standard, Financial Express and Economic Times] and two major business newspapers in Hindi [Business Standard, Economic Times].

- We have four major News magazines [India Today, Outlook, Frontline, and The Week].
Does anyone read news magazines in the age of the web?

I am not counting those preparing and roting for government job exams.

- By 2008, there were at least 60,000,000 Internet users in India; almost 6.0% of the country's population was online one time or another.

Impressive numbers for a country on the make.
But, a depressing track record.

What makes the Indian Business Media, along with the News Media, so ineffective?
Is it all all noise and no signal?

You can bet a major of these usage numbers arise from the IT workers and many of them will have blogs.
How many are blogging about the operational side of the business?

Many of my friends in these IT firms blog but mostly you get the same old photos from their latest trips, the music they listen to and so on. It is just 'vanity personal blogging'.

MINT, the business newspaper had done a 'day in the life' of a benched IT worker.
We need more such first-person life experience stories.

Why was no business journalist able to expose the fraud?
Why was there no insider at Satyam willing to break ranks and tell the truth?
In case of Enron, it took an insider, Sherron Watkins to blow the whistle.

Instead of 'Investigate Raju', there was some 'Support Raju' group at Orkut. [Ironically, this item got much traction on the TV news channels]

You can say the media is lazy.
You can say there are vested interests at work and thus PR-puff pieces and PR-rewriting is rife on most media outlets.
You can say the media has huge up-front costs and so making money from advertisers at all costs comes from everything else.

And you are right in all the above cases.

1. The Media is greedy for ads from real estate firms.
No one is asking how long Indians will continue to afford to pay huge installments on hugely inflated salaries for ultra-expensive houses.

For long, there has been a housing shortage in India and so far, we have seen few affordable housing projects.
Pretty soon, the easy money for the real estate firms will dry out, if it is not already. And, so will the ads.

No journalist bothers to ask whether she/he can indeed afford the expensive homes on sale.

2. The Media is greedy for ads from education companies - Business College, IIT tutorials...
I have written about the IIPM scandal, and how few among the big media outlets cared to investigate whether the claims made by the said business school were true.

How could they? After all, IIPM was the seventh largest print advertiser.

The burgeoning private education business in India warrants a better attention.

3. The media has so far stayed away from probing the IT-services business, it being the champion for the country and all.
We need more stories about life inside these firms - business practices, hiring and firing practices, tax benefits enjoyed, cost of land acquired through the government and so on.

We need more stories about the India 2.0.
Is it that indeed shining? If yes, what are the implications for the huge gap between the two Indias we are creating?

Questions, questions.
The rule is: If there is any doubt, there is no doubt.

I could go on and on and you might say, "Well, the U.S. media did no better in warning the people about the sub prime crisis."

And, you would be right.

The U.S, media is paying a big price for its failures.
The power is shifting from the print and TV to online brands.
The decline of news brands in America and the West has more to do with changes in technology.

It is also about people's need for more views, more reports.
It is about more analysis.

Above everything else, it is about the need for truth.

And, you wonder how long the shining India news story is going to last.

Labels: business, india, news business, simpleguide

posted by Pramit Singh @ 6:25 PM 2 Comments

Someone please tell Google to Buy The New York Times

In 2006, I gave 7 reasons why Google should buy The New York Times, helping the cause of great journalism in the process and finally do at least one great content play. No, Knol doesn't quite cut it.

The Deal pays the Google-NYT idea a relook.

Buy The Times and hive it off as a non-profit.

Labels: google, news business, newyork times

posted by Pramit Singh @ 11:34 PM 0 Comments

The Editor is dead, Long live the Editor

Jack Griffin, President of Publishing house Meredith says "We don’t hire editors anymore. We hire content strategists." Spoken like a founding member of the World Desperate Publishers Union. The Onslaught of the internet is doing strange things to people.

I look at these new-fangled posts at some publishing houses:
- Content Strategists - Community Conversation Ambasadors - Community Conversation Editor

The organizations that have these positions perhaps to convince themselves that "Yes, we understand what web 2.0 is".

In some measures, that is not a bad thing if you have your other bases covered.

By other bases, I mean content.
Content always first.

Engaging the reader community is a good thing.
Question is, how far will you go?

You did well by using web 2.0 tools.
The erstwhile 'cool' magazine Fastcompany.com now allows readers to publish blogs on the site.

For a while, you might convince the reader that you 'care'.

Nevertheless, putting more resources to cover issues that readers care about is far more important.
It is bad form (and a bad idea) to depend upon the reader to come up with the goods - to do free work for you.

Out here, in India, I see the other side of a service economy. On the plus side, it encourages you to see much more managerial talent, well versed in global MBA-speak, honed after years of work in our MBA factories.

However, the usage of Jargon is spreading like a contagion. You see someone calling the Project Manager as ‘PM’ and team members as 'Resources' and it spreads through the organization first and then outside.

A friend, working in an e-learning company complained about everyone using the same catchphrases:"At the end of the day,”, "As in", "Meaning", and virtually the same style of making Powerpoint presentations. More on this in some other post.

Some brilliant soul decided to call writers as content writers and it has spread like a virus, shitting out related terms - content developer, content editor, content lead, senior specialist lead...

When I joined as an editor at a Blog Network, the management told me that I was also responsible for bringing in the traffic. Having no mainstream media background, I took it as a challenge. I cannot say I succeeded in bringing in great traffic but I learnt New Media on the Job.

The Guardian newspaper has new posts - Tag Editor (helping reporters tag articles better) and Search Editor. These positions complement, not displace the editor's job.

The Guardian is one of the few newspapers who understand that the editor of the future needs to understand and then master New Media tools and techniques.

A short survey of the New Media toolset reveals the following: SEO, usability, design and layout best practices, public forum management, story and comment voting, ‘readersourcing’ (using readers to help in a story), reader engagement best practices, SMM (social Media Marketing), basics of video and audio content production (& promoting it using video sites like Youtube and Social media sites).

I do not know what a content strategist does. But I do know it does not take a two year New Media course to master all this. and the smart editors are already adapting to the new realities.

The movies and the recording industries face a bigger challenge from the internet.
However, I do not see the Film Director being renamed as Film Strategist, Film Co-ordinator, Film Marketer...

To sum it all up: out with the jargon and in with the New Media skill set.

Link thanks to Buzzmachine

Labels: angry journalist, journalism, news business, tip

posted by Pramit Singh @ 4:05 PM 1 Comments

What the Angry Journalist Thinks: A Tag Representation

You must check out the AngryJournalist.com site, where journalists from across the world are venting out their rants about their jobs and the state of the news industry in general

The above tag cloud is just a representation. For better juice, head here and to this comment from angry journalist #470 where a young journalist is urging others to stop whining.

The Tag Cloud was generated using the Tocould.com service, which sadly does not provide links for the resulting tag cloud page. I just pasted the whole text onto a box and generated a Tag Cloud. ToCloud does provide a html version of the tag cloud but I am afraid I don't know hoe to integrate it with Blogger.

Idea: What would an Angry Blogger not making any adsense money might think?

Labels: angry journalist, journalism, news business, tag cloud

posted by Pramit Singh @ 2:48 PM 0 Comments

What the Newsroom Fat Layer looks like (and what to do about it)

Alan D. Mutter has written about what many seasoned journalists would call the 'touchy' issue of "How many people have to read a story before it goes in the paper?". His article comes in response to the recent news about the New York Times planning to lay off 100 people from the editorial pool.

It is more than a quality issue. It is a focus issue.

Let's have a look at my brief question list:

1. Do you need more people to cover Britney Spears, the G8 summit, Davos meet, Sports Event?

An enlightened mind said this, pardon me for not remembering who:

"The real problem for news is not that there are too many reporters, but that there are too many reporters in the wrong places."

2. Do you need more people to cover Gadgetporn, something that pays the bills for many top blogs?
Instead, you can easily rewrite using the data from the RSS feeds.

3. Finally, do you need more people to cover issues that readers care about?
Editors may say that people care about whether Britney gets custody to her kids but then you can easily get the story from the Wires instead of putting a dedicated reporter.

Jeff Jarvis has posted results about a survey where he asks readers about newspaper jobs and sections they would cut off. Early results have come in and people have indicated what section/job they would cut:

Financial tables 43.06%
Sports section 21.65%
Sports columnists 8.00%
Entertainment section 3.76%
Movie critic 3.76%
Business section 2.59%
Syndicated features 2.59%
TV critic 2.59%
Music critic 1.88%
Book critic 1.65%
Comics 1.65%
Foreign bureaus 1.65%
Lifestyle section 1.41%
Washington bureau 1.18%
Editorial columnists 0.71%
Copy editors 0.47%
Online site 0.47%
Top editors 0.47%
Editorial page 0.24%
Photographers 0.24%

What this survey tells you is that there are certain things other people are covering better than you and you are probably better off using data from Wire services and RSS feeds instead, saving costs in the process.

Locking at the graphic above and the survey results, make your own judgments.

Labels: blogging, citizen journalism, news 2.0, news business, newspapers

posted by Pramit Singh @ 3:14 PM 0 Comments

The four models for paying journalists

I will try to summarize the three main models of paying journalists for the news they bring to the public:

1. Regular Pay: The safest option. Alas, the print advertising money that paid your salary is shrinking under the onslaught of the internet.

The problem is acute enough so that even journalism teachers are starting to question this noble profession.

2. Micropayments: Where your readers pay you on each article read basis. Micropayment was once believed to offer reader and the writer a more flexible option than subscriptions. However, so far, no one has found a hassle free method of making micropayments.

3. Public Support: This method is currently in vogue. Web sites such as Newassignment.net have come up, channelizing outside funding to journalists who want to do investigative reporting.

Although, it appears sound (and noble as well) in nature, the big problem is:

Who gets the money?

Since there can be an indeterminate number of people in any ongoing investigation, proportioning money can be hard. Harder than doing the investigative work itself :-)

4. Advertising: Many journalists (Oma Malik, Rafat Ali) who have left their mainstream media jobs to start their own largely blog-based news sites and blog networks find the ad model appealing.

This is something that they can easily implement - book a domain, set up wordpress, add all the necessary accessories, sign up for Google Adsense, paste the code provided by Google and Voila! You are set.

However, since the ad model is the easiest, it is also the hardest to stand you from the huge crowd.

To succeed using the ad model, you will need to:
Find a profitable niche, develop a unique voice and work hours building and nurturing your target audience - commenting on other blogs, participating on forums etc. It is a long slog.

I am sure there are other models to pay journalists. Please share.

{Note: Model No. 1, the Pay Model is thriving here in India, where the print media is projected to make more money as a booming economy and a young, upwardly mobile demographic means that more Indians have access to reading matter than ever before. More on this, later]

Labels: adsense, blogging, citizen journalism, journalism, news, news business, online journalism

posted by Pramit Singh @ 2:47 PM 0 Comments

Newspapers are dead, long live the news

The reader is less concerned with the future of newspapers than what happens to news itself.

Faced with onslaught with the internet, the newspapers are in a self-flageling deep funk ,what reporters would like to term as a ‘transitional phase’.

Once when they are through this difficult period, having adopted technology on a huge scale and seen off non-working existing brands, the focus will once again be on the quality of the news itself.

1. Focus will be on the next generation newspapers’ connection with their readers.

Veteran technology journalist Dean Takahashi muses,

“All newspapers thought they were in the newspaper business…they overlooked that what they are doing is communicating with people and that's the broader business.”

2. There is a huge elephant sitting in every newsroom, past and future, immortalized by the incomparable “Citizen Kane”: The Owner.

Simon Jenkins writes about the myth of “golden age of the press”.
Media Moguls, from Hearst to Murdock have always sought control of the editorial voice and the news has suffered as a result.

In this web 2.0 era, when Digg Mobs rule, blog network owners diss their rivals and companies like Google own a wide variety of online properties, the issue of control will be more intensely fought.

The company that indexes this article may also one day own the wireless spectrum and bandwidth facilities.

The mob versus the big corporation:
if either wins, news loses.

3. The quality problem (or variety, depends on who’s complaining).

- Will we see a news economy dependent on the likes of Britney Spears and celebrity circus to make money?
- Is more investigative journalism, aided by creatively funded Crowd journalism (newassignment.net) going to show the way to better news?

4. The ‘most appropriate’ news business model.

The choice is between non-profit Trusts (BBC, Guradina) versus For-profit Conglomerates (News Corp) or Family-owned outfits (New York Times, Times of India)

Whatever the future, remember guru Jeff Jarvis' words,
“There will be more news and there will be more news reporters”.

Long live the news.

Labels: news, news business

posted by Pramit Singh @ 4:35 PM 1 Comments

Media Quote of the week

"People will pay for porn, but they won't pay for Friedman"

- Brooke Gladtone after NYT opens its archives and ends TimesSelect paid service

[Note: I am not sure the Times’ change of strategy and opting for a search-driven advertising-based model means the end of paid news content model. It is too much of good thing for Google to be true in the long run]


Via Romensko

Labels: new media, news business

posted by Pramit Singh @ 4:25 PM 0 Comments

The Future of news: Read more, write more, partner more

As was expected, yet another attempt from mainstream media to define and analyze the boom in user-generated news was hotly debated and trashed in equal measure on blogs and news sites.

Project in Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) analyzed headlines on social news sites (Digg, Reddit, Deli.cio.us) comparing them with mainstream media headlines.

The only useful thing I found was that people forwarded ‘How To’ lists and advice more than other story types. The rest of the findings were along expected lines:

- The increasingly fragmented online readership
- Frontpages of MSM and Social News sites rarely match: since both have different editorial setups. Editors rule on MSM sites and the crowd is supreme on social sites.

Not wanting to comment on the usual outrage of bloggers , I have three takes on this:

1. Those who like to read love the new setup
Read the best of mainstream media and your favorite bloggers. Never before did I have so much data on any given issue at hand. Now, I can read the NYT and Guardian’s take on Hillary vs Obama and then look at how bloggers and members of Digg and Reddit have aligned themselves on the issue.

Given the abundance of available information, the modern editors’ bias is easily brought into focus now than before.

Now, the reader can ask the editor ‘if you knew A was B, why did you say that…?

2. The power of comments, link forwarding and bored people
Social News is driven by the hordes of bored workers in offices and in dorms everywhere, who submit links, forward links and comment their hearts out on the social news sites.

I believe comments on news items on social sites are richer than the news items themselves.

Among news anization, Guardian’s Comment is Free is a worthy attempt and I never miss reading the comments below any readable Guardian column.

3. Let’s work together
That’s what owners/editors at established news organizations should be telling to social news sites, bloggers, commentators and other enthusiastic participants, making it possible, and profitable, to both parties to include each other’s content in their offerings.

For your consideration:
A: Local paper + best of local bloggers
B: Local paper’s shoddy, mostly fluffy tech coverage and what bloggers think about Apple’s iPhone tactics and why doesn’t Apple do something about the battery?
C: New York Times plus Best of Digg and Del.icio.us

Rather than bicker about what is news, what is not, or whether bloggers are useful or whether social media is making us dumb, let work together and create 'news that is fit to comment and act upon?' (Sorry, NYT)

Labels: del.icio.us, Digg, news 2.0, news business, research report, social news

posted by Pramit Singh @ 4:55 PM 0 Comments

BBC and Microsoft: Best buddies in town

To watch BBC's video programming online, you need to install iPlayer which needs Microsoft Windows installed on your computer. As Defective by Design says, it is like dictating 'you must own a Sony TV set to watch BBC TV'.

There's more: you must also accept Microsoft-inspired Digital Rights Management (DRM) that the iPlayer imposes upon you.

I never knew watching news video online would require so much hassle. BBC's online media initiatives were supposed to be harbingers of things to come, setting up BBC as an innovation leader.

The BBC runs more than 500 excellent news sites. However, in this case, DefectivebyDesign argues that BBC's 'Microsoft-friendly' approach stems from the simple fact that important persons within the BBCorganization and the British Government are pretty close to Microsoft. The BBC's Director of New Media and Technology was openly sharing platform with Microsoft and touting DRM. Moreover, the man who is in charge of BBC Future Media & Technology, Eric Huggers earlier held a variety of senior posts at Microsoft.

It is no coincidence that Bill Gates has an honorary knighthood. Just the other day, I watched a detailed Bill Gates interview on BBC's tech program "Click Online", where the billionaire talked eloquent about bringing computing to the poor - he did not mention $ 3 Windows, plans to finish the OLPC, among other things. Which was fine but I was surprised that the interviewer did not ask any hard question, reducing the program to a good PR exercise for Microsoft.

DefectivebyDesign is running a campaign to pressure BBC to stop using the current 'pro-Microsoft' iPlayer. You can sign up here.

The BBC has considerable global reach. We should hope that it remains as objective in its tools selection as it is with its news.

Platform Agnostism is the way to go.

Labels: BBC, Microsoft, news business, news channels, OLPC, online rights

posted by Pramit Singh @ 12:40 PM 0 Comments

Will someone please write the history of all those who were made by blogging?

As usual, the mainstream media made a hash of understanding new media, and while we are at that, understanding any new piece of technology. The WSJ seems to have been sloppy with fact-check about how old blogging is (hint: ask Dave Winer).

Michael Arrington adds in to say that it is time someone wrote the history of blogging.

My money is on someone writing a comprehensive history about how people used blogging to meet specific ends – making money, creating new media brands, bringing change, uncovering facts, building careers...it is a big list and there are many people to interview.

Start with the tactics (and timing) behind the success of big blogs including Mike’s Techcrunch, Gawker and Weblogsinc network, Treehugger, and a host of other champions.

P.S.: The emphasis should be on tactics.

Labels: Blog networks, blogging, controversey, news business

posted by Pramit Singh @ 2:23 PM 0 Comments