We believed…that if you didn’t understand the Internet your business would be destroyed. And we were right.We also believed — and we didn’t even think of it as a separate belief — if you did understand the Internet, your business wouldn’t be destroyed. And we were wrong about that. — Clay Shirky (Columbia University, November […]
Recently the Associated Press faced a firestorm of criticism for launching advertising in its Twitter feed. Martin Belam, formerly UX lead for the Guardian, weighed in on the difficulties of developing a business model for media. Try and charge for content and everybody will tell you that a universal paywall can never work. Erect a
Martin Belam on Media Business Models: Try to Make Money And Your Audience Turns on You Read More »
Images matter. Poor use can irreparably damage your work. via Deadspin
Why Having a Photo Editor is a Good Idea Read More »
Craig Silverman writes “Regret the Error,” a regular column on Poytner.org covering the media’s funniest errors and corrections. In the end-of-year spirit, he’s gathered up his favorites — from CNN and Fox reporting that the Supreme Court struck down ObamaCare, to more NSFW fare. Here’s my favorite, from the Atlantic: This post originally referred to
2012 Best and Worst Media Errors and Corrections Read More »
This week, Rick Edmonds at Poynter, Ryan Chittum at CJR, and Mathew Ingram at Gigaom debated the state of the paywall at news sites. Not surprisingly, there is little consensus whether or not subscription paywalls are a deadend or the wave of the future. However, there is one kind of paywall that I haven’t seen
Paywall Media — Why Not Bundle? Read More »
The New York Times’ Tanzina Vega reports on a type of automated ad buying called programmatic or real-time bidding (RTB), the latest advancement from the ad network community. The general idea is that an ad buyer bids on every page where a prospective buyer goes, in real-time. The intended result is to get an ad or series of ads to follow the customer across the web. The unintended result is that it lowers the revenue of every media property that participates.
Why Digital Media Can’t Rely on an Advertising-Only Business Model Read More »
The media is finally figuring out figures. The coverage of Nate Silver’s tremendous success at statistical analysis has shown both that sophisticated data analysis can be newsworthy — and have tremendous real-world impact. According to the New Republic, on Nov 5th, Silver’s 538 blog garnered over 20 percent of NYTimes.com’s traffic. (deadlink: http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/109714/nate-silver-the-times-biggest-brand) While publishing
Media Enters the Age of (Statistical) Reason Read More »
They look like this: Just for the record: The quote is from Yoda in “Star Wars,” not Dumbledore (“Harry Potter”), and the image is of Ian McKellen as Gandalf. Also, here’s another wildcard, the image isn’t from “Lord of the Rings” It is a promotion still from the film “The Hobbit.” The Dark Glass via
When Fact-Checkers Have Nightmares Read More »
In the past two years, many large media properties have begun focusing on delivering “sharable” content — articles aimed at increasing links in social media. This is somewhat in contrast to a common strategy of the previous years: creating “searchable” content, aimed at increasing an article’s presence in search. However, in spite of the emphasis,
Delivering ‘Likeable’ Content NPR-Style Read More »
Mark J. Perry, author of the popular Carpe Diem economics blog, says that advertising revenue is in the kind of freefall that he calls ” another one of those huge Schumpeterian gales of creative destruction.” Here is his evidence: via Mark J. Perry’s Carpe Diem blog
Will Newspapers Be Gone in Five Years? Read More »