You know I'm a big believer that online pairs nicely with print. You won't hear me saying that books, newspapers, magazines, and the like are dead. In fact, my own Eaglon publishes online and offline in tandem for Media Bullseye and Cork & Knife.
That's why I was not surprised, but definitely pleased, to see the news that the German version of Wikipedia will be published in book form. Read more here.
If you think the media is slow to understand the dramatic changes taking place in their own industry, you may not be surprised to know that Congress is even more in the dark. Recent reports suggest that some politicians would seek to handcuff the American media at a crucial juncture in the industry's history.
Read my commentary on this subject here.
It's not just about time. That’s the point that Dave Winer and Scott Karp are missing. Nor does every – or for that matter probably many – readers visit news sites repeatedly throughout the day. Once again, this seems like it might be a case of those of us in the echo chamber believing we are the norm.
Scott and Dave both basically argue that news sources should provide a chronological view of their news. They both frame it as an option, but clearly press for it to be the default view.
But this overlooks the fact that not all news sites are like the AP news wire providing breaking news. In fact, for many years I had access to the raw AP feed for my job and I found it to be a sometimes interesting, but often frustrating, way to view the news. It was chronological – which was great when it was a hot story I was following, but not so useful for the vast majority of news stories.
Good reporting does more than simply regurgitate the facts as quickly as possible. A powerful news article will actually have a shelf-life of more than a few minutes until the next story is published.
When the New York Giants won the Super Bowl, was that any less newsworthy at 3 pm than it was at 11 am the day after? Of course not. Did the facts change at all to merit a new story being written in the meantime? Nope. So shouldn’t it still play high up on a sports web site or a New York newspaper web page? I think so.
Certainly a chronological feed would have value to true newshounds – and as Dave points out for editors themselves. But given that most readers don’t spend all day reloading the New York Times, CNET, or BusinessWeek, let’s not get too carried away.
If you read this blog, you know that I am fascinated by media and disruption. So it was natural that Eaglon's next publication should be focused on just that intersection and named Media Disruption. There's already a bunch of good stuff up there (in my humble opinion), including an in-depth profile of Rafat Ali's ContentNext Media led by his flagship blog PaidContent (it may be the most comprehensive individual piece about Rafat's media empire to date, based on my survey of other articles).
Of course, it's not even 24 hours old and there are also articles about Martha Stewart and Emeril getting hitched, the "web-ization" of network TV scheduling, and more.
Check out Media Disruption and stay on top of the latest on this hot topic.
It has been a lot of work, but Media Bullseye finally gets to see the light of day. It is the result of a partnership between two companies I am involved with. The first, CustomScoop, I suspect most of you are familiar with. I co-founded that company in 2000 and it has been an active and successful participant in the media intelligence marketplace ever since. The second is one that I founded earlier this year, Eaglon. This startup already publishes Cork & Knife, focused on fine food and drink.
Eaglon's mission is to create multimedia magazine titles that marry text, audio, and video and delivers content both online and in print to consumers. It will own and operate independent titles (like Cork & Knife) but it will also partner with other organizations and companies to create co-branded publications (like Media Bullseye). I envision this second category as a sort of modern "in-flight-style" magazine that provides valuable content to readers, viewers, and listeners, while also helping to raise an organization's profile and credibility.
For the debut of Media Bullseye, I wrote an article explaining this theory of turning any company into a publisher. I explain how I think it might work and what needs to be done to be successful.
I am grateful to a lot of people for helping get this launched in a timely fashion (we wanted to make sure we were up and able to cover the SNCR event in Boston this week). First of all, the team of folks that I work with is second to none. In particular, Sarah Wurrey, Ian Muir, Phil Charles, and Jen Zingsheim-White all made significant contributions. And I am especially thankful to some of the early outside contributors to Media Bullseye, including Chris Brogan, Chris Thilk, and Scott Monty.
You will certainly hear more from me in this space about Media Bullseye and Eaglon, but for now just go check out Media Bullseye for yourself. (And feel free to tell your friends, Twitter followers, blog readers, and podcast listeners all about it if you find it valuable.)
This week Shel Holtz kicked off quite a discussion with his post "Why Hasn't Podcasting Gone Mainstream?" I have been participating in the dialogue in the comments on his post, but I think it merits a complete post of its own here.
Shel argues that it is a problem of infrastructure. He says that watching video online is easy, while audio is comparatively hard.
One survey found that more than half of all podcast listeners don't use a portable device. Is it because that is too difficult or is it because that's where they want to listen?
I certainly understand the argument that listening to podcasts isn't exactly simple if you want to sync to a portable device, but I don't think that's the answer to the challenge by a long shot. It is part of it, sure, and I include it among my 10 reasons for slow podcast adoption (below), but ultimately if people want to hear truly compelling content they will work hard to get it. Just look at the lengths people will go to get Police concert tickets or to buy a Wii.
Here then are the top 10 reasons I can think of why podcasting isn't yet mainstream.
Rather than dismissing old media, in this case radio, as many new media mavens are fond of doing, we ought to study it and learn from it. Fundamentally, I don't believe in new media per se. As Christopher Penn commented not long ago (I forget where), "media is media."
Chris Brogan graciously agreed to speak with Disruptive Dialogue about his advice to "media makers" who want to make a living off of creating media. This is a topic he has written about on a number of occasions, but perhaps most comprehensively in a blog post over the summer.
(Click here to listen to the 15 minute interview.)
In the interview, he stressed that his advice applies primarily to those who want to make money directly from their media content, as opposed to people who create media for their friends and family or even professionals who simply aim to raise their profile and build their reputation. This is, in his words, for "someone looking to pay their way."
At first, many successful podcasters or video bloggers "lived by their show name." Chris wanted to make sure that people understood that what they ought to be creating instead is a production company brand rather than simply a show brand. In so doing, it becomes easier to create spin-off enterprises, to sell a particular effort to another company, or fold a failure without taking the brand down with it.
In addition, Chris talked about how he has a less than 2 minute segment in each Marketing Over Coffee podcast to help build his own brand ("Social Business Class"). This represents an example of what he describes as designing content that can be "slotted in" to a larger content production. He notes that sometimes larger media enterprises may be looking for chunks of content to incorporate into their efforts, and if a media maker creates his material in such a way that it can be easily adopted, it may be able to expand its reach through partnerships.
The comments on Chris' original post were echoed in this interview in which he discussed the fact that a successful media enterprise will often create a community which will enable revenue opportunities beyond advertising. But fundamentally, media creators must be sure to understand the needs of advertisers and ensure that they are collecting the appropriate traffic and demographic data that potential sponsors will want to know. He laments that many content builders don't have the "business sense" that they need to make a living at what they do and urges them to gain that knowledge.
The interview then turned to a discussion of the merits of audio versus video as a business model, including a brief look at Shel Holtz's post on that very topic today. Chris noted that his original post has frequently been misconstrued to be making a case against audio in favor of video. In fact, he notes that he loves audio-based media and that a lot of video actually works better as audio because the video doesn't add value. In particular, we talked about the Scoble Show which we both often listen to rather than watch, although we agreed that Robert does some of his shows where the visible content adds significantly to the understanding and impact.
"I don't think people who are investing money are right now very interested in audio overall," Chris warns. He senses more innovation in the video space which excites investors, and he recalled a recent conversation where he noted how hard it is for consumers to record and post audio online as opposed to video which has a lot of consumer-friendly solutions available.
Chris notes that the Student Loan Network not only has the Financial Aid Podcast, but they also have begun to dip into video in order to do things like show how to make a perfect cup of coffee (to save money by not going to Starbucks). It underscores his point that the future will be made up of "media makers," not single silo audio, video, or text creators. Blended, or multimedia, offerings will be the ones that succeed.
Regular readers know that I rant and rave about how content really doesn't want to be free -- and shouldn't be. But with the announcement this week that the New York Times would stop charging for access to its columnists and much of its archives, the clamor about free content roared back to life. Add in rumblings from Rupert Murdoch about maybe possibly making the Wall Street Journal content available online outside of a pay wall and the story gained even more steam.
Here's my asterisk: access to content without a subscription fee is by far the most successful model so far. Especially for people producing commodity content, which for the most part is what newspapers today provide. By "commodity content" I mean stuff that readers can get elsewhere. If there are free options that are almost as good, consumers will clearly not pay for access.
But, you say, the New York Times columnists are clearly not commodities, like the news itself. Surely they create unique content from unique voices. Hardly. Some of them are great writers and occasionally they offer up some new insight. But for the most part, opinion writers are a dime a dozen. I have done plenty of op-ed writing myself in the past and I can tell you that, especially with the dawn of the Internet, there are plenty of places to go for good commentary without a subscription.
But even with this asterisk, I stand by my statement that content doesn't want to be, shouldn't be, and in fact isn't free. The Times clearly hopes to generate additional advertising revenue by opening up their site to more eyeballs. And that's great. Good content exists if and only if it generates revenue. As I have said in my New Media Cocktail e-book, that "revenue" may or may not be cash-based, but content producers must receive something of value in exchange for their time.
So hang that asterisk up but keep the value coming.
In the two months I have been running Cork & Knife, I have begun to really feel for the media. I thought I got a lot of lame pitches as a blogger, but I must tell you that it is nothing compared to the stuff that comes across my desk daily now as a result of of publishing a multimedia magazine focused on fine food and drink.
I get generic pitches that are completely unrelated to the actual content of my publication and no sense of the audience I am targeting. I get offered more free books and products than I could ever imagine (some helpful, some not). And remember: this is but a new, small media outpost. What the established players deal with must be mind-boggling.
I guess you really don't know how it is until you walk a mile in another man's shoes, do you?
It's very odd to switch sides. OK, I haven't really switched sides exactly, but I am now on both sides of the fence. Let me explain. For much of my career, I have been involved in public affairs and public relations, first in government, then in the non-profit sector, then as a consultant/advisor, and finally as a vendor. In all those jobs, my focus was on educating -- and hopefully influencing -- the media.
And now I have a venture that is the media. Cork & Knife is a multimedia magazine I founded earlier this summer to serve those interested in fine food and drink. It has truly been an education to be on the other side of the fence. Reaching out to companies to get quotes. Dealing with PR practitioners who want to have their material published.
Of course, as a blogger with some degree of reputation, I have had to deal with this a bit already. Like most bloggers with any links at all, I get pitches every week from one company or another. In addition, as someone who does some angel investing, I get inquiries that are somewhere between a plea for coverage and a request for an investment.
But this is different. I find myself now in the position of doing things in reverse of the way I have always done it. For instance, I am building a list of publicists for restaurants, wineries, and others involved in the food and drink industry in order to educate them about Cork & Knife. Like every other media publication, I want original stories. And as someone who has been on the other side of the fence, I know that PR people have the information and interest in supplying tips, leads, and content.
But how to do that exactly? I know how to build media lists. There are plenty of services that do that. But for a fledgling media outlet or publication, reaching out to PR practitioners is a whole different ball game.
If I have any readers with suggestions, advice, or comments, I'd certainly welcome them. The whole experience gives me a brand new appreciation for the working media. It's certainly a tough job, but I'm enjoying it. Of course, it is challenging to head up more than one company at a time. But I've been doing it for years with a fair amount of success, so hopefully I can continue doing it.
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