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Posts Tagged ‘mobile’

Social media still growing strong

Posted in Mobile media, Online media, tagged , , , , on September 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »


You could summarize the results of the new Nielsen Social Media Report as “all the trends you’ve heard about are still happening,” except there are a couple of details that seemed a little surprising. Topping the list: Internet users over the age of 55 are driving the growth of social networking through the mobile Internet. I did not know that and would not have guessed it. Less surprising is social media’s growing ubiquity: Social networks and blogs account for nearly a quarter of total time spent on the Internet, and nearly 4 in 5 active Internet users visit social networks and blogs.

I can’t tell how good or bad some numbers in the report are, such as that Americans spend 22.5 percent of their Internet time on social networks and blogs, and just 2.6 percent on current events & global news. As Steve Myers points out at Poynter.org, blogs could include news blogs, and portals post news stories. And he doesn’t point it out, but many news organizations now make social networks, especially Facebook — where Nielsen says Americans spend more time on than on any other U.S. website — a key part of their efforts to engage the audience, so people could be on social networks and still be on a news-related site.

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Breaking News: Sun consumed by nuclear fire

Posted in Mobile media, Online media, tagged , , on June 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »


At 1:22 p.m., my work was interrupted by an email-arrival notice; the Washington Post had sent out this breaking news alert: “Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney announced Thursday that he will seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.” This raises the issue of just what it is journalists are trying to accomplish when sending out a breaking news alert. It is technically true that the Post’s announcement was “breaking news” — Romney officially launched his run for president. He pulled the trigger. The paperwork is filed, and now he is subject to all the election requirements of a declared, official candidate. … However, is there any sentient individual not only on Earth but within interstellar range of the Earth’s television signals who feels the slightest twinge of surprise at this news? Any? … No? Then to my mind it’s not worth an alert, and I would wager that a great many other recipients of the alert are thinking the same thing. (For example.) If the Post made a habit of broadcasting this level of “news” via email alerts, a good many people would wonder whether it was worth the subscription for emails that interrupt work or make their phones beep/vibrate to alert them to utterly obvious or expected developments.

If you have any responsibility for such alerts to consider your own emails, before sending one you have to ask yourself: Will your audience consider them to be news that is worthy of the interruption? You send alerts to reinforce your identity as a source of fresh information important to your area (or topic). When you send out things no one really considers to be news, you convey the opposite message.

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Keith Urban is not an ovum (Urbahn either)

Posted in Mobile media, Online media, Social media, tagged , , , on May 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

visualization of the bin Laden death tweets

Brian Solis reflects on the spread of news about Osama bin Laden’s death and, from there, launches into a brief history of media on the Web. (I’m not exaggerating much; the title is “The End of the Destination Web and the Revival of the Information Economy.”) Not only is it chock full of information, it’s chock full of visuals, such as the above, which has nothing to do with the fertilization of a human egg.

You may wonder about some of his statements or observations — probably about where he switches from what has gone before to what is going on now (or needs to be, for media organizations that hope to survive). But it’s a useful read for journalists as a reminder of the wider information world and its continued movement.

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Yearning for the robot news overlords

Posted in Mobile media, Social media, tagged , , , on May 16, 2011| 2 Comments »

You will know that Skynet has arrived and the ultimate war against the humans is imminent when someone invents a hyperlocalization news tool like that described by Jeff Sonderman in his commentary for Poynter.org about Google News’ new “news near you” service. In summary: Google takes aim at the mobile market by using your mobile device’s geolocation info to feed you more or less hyperlocal news results; Jeff says it’s great as far as it goes, but he wants more — more headlines, more curation, more socialization. His area, metro Washington, D.C., used to have something close to what he wants — it was called TBD.com, and it was killed in its crib a few months ago. Actually, Jeff is looking for the robot version, a “killer app,” and a certain level of personalization — a step beyond hyperlocalization:

“To create a market-dominating filter of local news, someone will need to curate the pool of aggregated news to match each reader’s interests, browsing history and social network activity, in addition to his or her location.

“The killer app would be one that filters a breadth of local aggregation like Outside.in through a hyperpersonalized social filter sought by mobile services such as News.me and Trove combined with the personal browsing and search history of Google.”

And he’s right. If someone can invent a computer program that can do all that, it will be a killer, all right — it might kill the need to have humans involved in the news-delivery process (that would be the group usually called editors or producers) at all.

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Lessons learned from a killing

Posted in Online media, tagged , , , , on May 15, 2011| 2 Comments »

(Originally posted on Feb. 25, 2011)
Allbritton Communications unceremoniously demoted TBD.com to the status of glorified E! channel this week. If you remember all the way back to last year, when some people (like me) had high hopes for TBD as a model for local news online, read CJR’s interview with Jim Brady, who stepped down from leading TBD late last year when it must have become obvious that Allbritton intended to decapitate TBD. One thing that is true is that TBD’s model — aggregating news throughout the community, whether from partners or from competitors — was a success, as far as measured by traffic: In January, just five months after its debut, it attracted 1.5 million unique visitors, nearly double its December total of 838,000 and far surpassing November’s total, 715,000, the internal figures show; over the past three months, TBD’s traffic was substantially higher than Web sites operated by local TV stations WRC (Channel 4), WUSA (Channel 9) and WTTG (Channel 5), according to Compete.com.

“I’d even go so far to say that that model is, for a local news site, sort of indisputable. The debate over whether you work with people in your community, or whether you just say, ‘Here’s our website, and here’s all the stuff we produced today and that’s it,’ I think that has to be over. Newspapers had that power because they had the power of distribution. But on the web, people are going to go to all different sites, and so if you can be that place that connects people to good content that they’re interested in regardless of source, then you’re going to be the place they start their day. And on the web, that’s how you win: you have to be in somebody’s short list of sites they always go to. People would say, ‘Why are you linking off-site? You’re driving people away from your site!’ But what’s the counter-argument to that, that if you never link off-site, then people will never leave your website?

“I mean, they’re going to leave your website anyway, whether it’s to go check their e-mail or go to TMZ.com or whatever. So the concept that you’re losing people by doing that, is actually the opposite of what’s actually happening — which is that you’re building loyalty by performing the role you’re supposed to perform, which is to be a conduit for useful information.”

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Immediacy wins

Posted in Broadcast media, Mobile media, Online media, Print media, Social media, tagged , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted on Oct. 8, 2010)

While helping the boss to gather material for a presentation that included examples of how Media General newsrooms increasingly are using new tools, one example drove home why reporters/photographers/videographers should have smartphones with not just photo but video capability. It was not at all an obvious case. The obvious ones are things like hurricanes, major fires, really big stuff that calls for having as many electronic eyes and ears in the field as possible. This one, though, was an everyday traffic accident. The above video from WNCT of a motorcycle-truck wreck seems, on the surface, to have not much going for it. But what made the hair on my neck stand up was how it differs from the traditional print or even TV coverage of such an event. The reporter moves around the scene. The camera pans slowly. If I were from there and drove that street, I could place it exactly in my mind. Still images can’t do that. A bigger, more expensive camera could do that too, but somehow the phone camera provides a sense of immediacy that is much stronger. Or maybe it’s seeing it on the computer screen, potentially minutes after the wreck, that makes it feel more immediate.

News staff without mobile news reporting ability is a waste of resources.

Coincidentally, while I was working on this post, Ryan Sholin — a frequent blogger on the subjects of new media and the future of news — had a post of his own making the same case but probably better. Certainly with more explanation. Summary: “Because we have inexpensive ways to gather and distribute video in larger numbers to our readers and viewers and users in a fragmented audience, equipping a larger number of reporters with easy-to-learn, easy-to-edit point-and-shoot cameras is a logical choice that makes sense for our readers.”

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Thinking mobile

Posted in Mobile media, tagged on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted on Oct. 5, 2010)

The number of smartphones (iPhone, Droid, etc.) is exploding, so it would seem that mobile devices are the emerging frontier for both reaching news audiences and engaging with them. Steve Buttry has advice for getting started feeling comfortable with mobile devices, and it starts with simply using your own cell phone for a lot of things other than phone calls. If it’s not already something you do, that probably means forcing yourself to take a minute here and there and use it.

Among the other advice is an idea for getting the newsroom to think mobile:

“Buttry also recommends experimenting with a one-off mobile project focused on a special event of high interest in your community.

”Whenever something is happening that lots of people in your community will be traveling to—like a bowl game, state fair, or papal visit,—support them on the road. They won’t be seeing your print edition, and their laptop is back in their hotel room. So mobile has a much greater reach. One-off projects can connect strongly with audiences and advertisers. But even if this experiment is a complete bust, don’t sweat it. It’s time limited. You’ll still learn important things that will help your ongoing mobile operations.'”

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The new-media world is trembling

Posted in Online media, tagged , , , , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted on Aug. 9, 2010)

The biggest news of the week in media may be today’s launch of TBD.com, Allbritton Communications’ new hyperlocal site in Washington, D.C. Many people who devote either their jobs, a large chunk of their free time or both to pondering the future of news media have been eagerly awaiting it. Now that’s it’s here, the early reviews, like this one, or this from Mashable, have been good but not overwhelming — more like “It’s a good start; let’s see what happens.” The editor of the site admits it’s a work in progress — which is why it’s named TBD, “to be determined.”

The editor’s letter to readers includes some details about staffing that had not been widely circulated before, as far as I know:

“TBD has about a dozen reporters. One of them writes nothing but lists. One is all over pedestrian life. One holds politicians throughout the region accountable. Three carry a year-round obsession with the Redskins. Three are covering some of the fastest-developing communities in the region. Three are the final authority on all things arts and entertainment.”

That obviously does not sound like a lot of reporting power for a city as large as Washington. But the site’s focus is on using aggregation and a massive network of independent bloggers to create a come-here-first-for-your-news destination:

“TBD has an aggressive news-filtering machine powered by an entire staff of journalists who scan the region’s blogs, newspapers, and magazines every day. They categorize all the stories from sources in our coverage area so that you can find them with virtually no effort. Just tap your ZIP code or neighborhood into the “My Community” box, and you’ll get the entire “news feed” for your area. Never again will you end up out of the conversation. Moments ago, I entered my ZIP. I found 55 stories written over the past 72 hours from 30 sources.”

The great hope being invested in this site is because to date no one has found the model to make hyperlocal sites profitable on a large scale (emphasis on large). And even if TBD works, it is paired with two Washington-area TV stations, one of them a 24-hour news channel, which may mean some things would not translate to other markets. But it’s the new-media show to watch, and it may answer questions about the viability of online news. If nothing else, it could alter some features of news sites’ designs.

UPDATE: Lessons every news site can learn from TBD’s launch.

8/10 UPDATE: A view from the broadcast perspective:

“On many levels, TBD is worth talking about. It’s the first aggressive effort in local TV circles to compete in a new world of online/mobile news. Allbritton added about 50 people for the site, roughly as many staffers already working on the TV side. And it combined its online brands: WJLA.com and Newschannel 8’s website now redirect to TBD.com. Allbritton is so serious about TBD, it’s rebranding its cable news channel, Newschannel 8 with TBDTV.

“It also is taking a fresh approach to local news: a ‘platform-neutral’ approach to sales, agnostic aggregation (link the competition!) and a citizen blog network with a revenue sharing arrangement, to name a few. …

“(T)his is the first time that a local media group — especially in the TV space — has wrapped these ideas together and aggressively launched them with an investment to back it up.”

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A moment to feel some nostalgia

Posted in Broadcast media, Online media, Print media, tagged , , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted on July 16, 2010)

Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten reflects on the ways the newsroom has changed in recent years:

“Call me a grumpy old codger, but I liked the old way better. For one thing, I used to have at least a rudimentary idea of how a newspaper got produced: On deadline, drunks with cigars wrote stories that were edited by constipated but knowledgeable people, then printed on paper by enormous machines operated by people with stupid hats and dirty faces.”

He finds much wrong, to his traditionalist’s eye, in the new, Web-oriented way of doing things. He has some good points. He also seems to recognize what’s in the past is in the past and staying there. We all have to.

UPDATE: As if to underline my last line (what was my last until I started this), along comes a look at the implications of the rapid growth of mobile Web use, which within five years is expected to surpass Web use on computers:

“It won’t be enough just to build branded mobile applications that repurpose content across all of the different platforms. That’s like newspapers taking the print experience and replicating it on the web as they tried back in the 1990s. Rather, we will need to rethink, remix and repackage information for an entirely different modality than platforms of yore.”

In other words, if you think the newsroom has changed, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

This video may or may not make you feel better about it.

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He’s doing part of your planning for you

Posted in Mobile media, Online media, tagged , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

(Originally posted April 13, 2010)

Mobile-First Strategy http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/3707622

View more presentations from Steve Buttry

If there’s a large event that’s going to attract many people from your market — a big festival, a sporting event, a concert — you have a built-in opportunity to get your live coverage and updates to a motivated audience. Better yet, here’s the outline for how to do it (the link provides a better, fuller explanation than the above slideshow). Here’s why you should print that out and save it:

“These events are ideal because the people involved have a shared interest that you can serve for content. Advertisers from your community and the distant community share interests with this audience. The people are not going to be reading a print edition of your home newspaper (even if you ship to the venue, you won’t reach many of the people) and they won’t be watching a TV station back home. They will be away from their office computers and if they travel with a laptop, they will leave that in the hotel room most of the time, while they are at the arena (or the National Mall) or out enjoying the host city at restaurants, bars and tourist attractions. But more and more, these travelers will have smart phones that will make great vehicles for distributing your content about the event they are attending, for engaging them in conversation about the event and for enlisting their help in covering the event and the related community travel experience.”

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