Sips from the Firehose
A blog that seeks to filter the internet into a refreshing, easily-gulped beverage
Oct 31
Posted: under Digital Migration, Newspaper Deathwatch.
Tags: E-ink devices
Just as a follow-up to my earlier post on the Time, Inc. restructuring — CEO Ann Moore spoke in front of the Audit Bureau of Circulation about the generally dismal state of the magazine publishing industry, which she reckoned is being hit by “an economic tsunami.”
Not all that much new about what Time is [...] [...more]
Just as a follow-up to my earlier post on the Time, Inc. restructuring — CEO Ann Moore spoke in front of the Audit Bureau of Circulation about the generally dismal state of the magazine publishing industry, which she reckoned is being hit by “an economic tsunami.”
Not all that much new about what Time is doing, although the analysis that “escapist” brands are going to see a short-term spike fits in with the ongoing trends in entertainment … kinda like how during Great Depression I, moviegoers flocked to see Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers movies, so they could escape for a time from the grim reality of unemployment, poverty, Dust Bowl & bread lines.
“By this October it was looking like 1931,” she said. “[Time Inc.] has never had so many advertising clients in trouble at the same time. The declines are stunning.” Moore added that she didn’t care if it technically isn’t a recession. “It is one for us.”
She also name-checked Maghound, a kind of Netflix for magazines. I’d like to say that I see a significant upside to this, but I really don’t. If I like a magazine, I subscribe to it. If I don’t, I allow the subscription to lapse. I’m not going to be changing up the subscriptions every month the way that I re-order my Netflix queue.
The one money quote that made it to the top of AdAge’s story teaser is this:
One of Ms. Moore’s more cathartic assessments, and one which elicited the most audible response from attendees, was her defense of Time Inc.’s own shake-up, and other reorganization strategies like it, saying that “if you’re still sitting on your five-year plan, you’re delusional.”
Technorati Tags: Time Inc. restructuring, ABC, economic tsunami, delusional planning
Oct 31
Posted: under Digital Migration, E-ink devices, New Marketing, Newspaper Deathwatch, Newspapers, Platform obsession, Wrongheaded solutions.
Tags: E-ink devices
This is getting really, really close to the vision of the future that all the e-Ink dweebs have been yammering about for, oh, the last 40 years or so. The idea of an object that marries the (perceived) strengths of a newspaper with the electronic display have become something of an obsession for old-guard newspaper [...] [...more]
This is getting really, really close to the vision of the future that all the e-Ink dweebs have been yammering about for, oh, the last 40 years or so. The idea of an object that marries the (perceived) strengths of a newspaper with the electronic display have become something of an obsession for old-guard newspaper editors/publishers/curmudgeons. More on that in a bit.
For now, check out this nifty little Kindle-a-like…
I particularly like how the display can now handle much better grayscale, and especially how you can use a stylus (finger?) to control the display, write your own notes, etc. The form factor of stuff welded to a hunk of plastic is obviously just a “placeholder,” so the ugly industrial look right now doesn’t bother me.
We’re still missing the part where we can roll the damn thing up and stick it in a backpack or back pocket … but, given the delicate liquid crystals in the display, that vision of what the display can/will be is most likely a mirage anyway. Also, I don’t think I’d recommend treating any of the rather toxic & corrosive battery technologies with such cavalier violence either.
With all the numbers that have come out this week about how the newspaper (and magazine) print products are convulsing in violent death throes, much faster than even the most pessimistic among us had feared, a vision of what the future of the news product might look like as shown here is somewhat heartening.
And yeah, I know. Focusing in on a physical object that the news is delivered on is like a restaurant critic obsessing over the china pattern on the plate that the duck a l’orange is served on.
However. To extrapolate to the more trenchant issues in the newspaper industry – it’s more important to focus in on whether the duck is moldy, or the duck appears a day after you order it, or the other diners start pelting you with the green beans almondine while the waiter steals your wallet and screams in your ear about a real-estate opportunity… [Wow! I think I just waterboarded that metaphor! W00t! Yay me!]
While I love the idea of using one of these things to read the news, to have it in my pocket or carried around with my other junk, constantly updating me as to what’s going on … my fear is that newspapers & media companies will focus in on this as a possible magic solution to their problems. This isn’t because the people in charge are bad, or stupid, or any of the other calumnies flung their way by the increasingly smug digerati (and mea culpa, I have been guilty of that myself on occasion).
It’s because newspapers are run by corporations these days, and corporate guys look to concrete, hard solutions to problems that they can wrap their minds around. Problems with product distribution call for investment in shiny new trucks or routing equipment or big heavy steel cranes … things that you spend money on, that are built of metal and that have big engines in them that make the floor shake a little bit, and that make you feel like you spent your money on something substantial, something that has value.
In contrast, spending a buncha coin on a squishy, touchy-feely thing like “changing corporate culture,” or “re-imagining product possibilities,” or empowering entrepreneurial spirit” … well, a good example of this is the war in Iraq. Or the war on drugs.
We spend massive sums on technological, physical solutions to what is basically a mental & spiritual problem. We bomb the shit out of Fallujah, or build big radar dirigibles to patrol the border for cocaine smugglers, and wonder what it is that went wrong when the problem just morphs into some other face, and continues somewhere else, away from the heavy iron Death Machine we’ve constructed.
Thoughts?
Technorati Tags: Amazon Kindle, e-ink, newspaper death spiral, digital migration, Daily Prophet
Oct 29
Posted: under Digital Migration, New Marketing, Newspaper Deathwatch, Newspapers, advertising, new media.
Not a good week in journalism. And this cover story was, unfortunately, quite prophetic for a lot of Time, Inc. staffers.
Of interest, amidst the “can you braid this into a noose for me please?”-type news, is the announcement by CEO Ann Moore that Time Inc. is cutting staff as part of a reorganization plan: [...] [...more]
Not a good week in journalism. And this cover story was, unfortunately, quite prophetic for a lot of Time, Inc. staffers.
Of interest, amidst the “can you braid this into a noose for me please?”-type news, is the announcement by CEO Ann Moore that Time Inc. is cutting staff as part of a reorganization plan:
…effective tomorrow, we are going to implement a much more centralized management structure, organized into three business units that will group together titles that share similar audiences, advertisers, and the talents and skills of their staffs. The goal is to enable our company to move faster, go to market smarter, save significant costs, and employ our editorial resources more efficiently.
Well, that part sounds pretty good. But this next bit kinda leaves me scratching my head. They’re organizing the company into three “Business Units”:
* News: the existing print and digital properties in the TIME group, the Fortune|Money group, and the Sports Illustrated group, as well as Life.com and GEE. John Squires, EVP Time Inc. will manage the News Business Unit.
* Style and Entertainment: the existing print and digital properties in the PEOPLE group, InStyle, Entertainment Weekly, and Essence. I will act as the EVP for this group so the Style and Entertainment Business Unit will report to me.
* Lifestyle: the existing print and digital properties of Real Simple, This Old House, All You, Southern Living, Cooking Light, Sunset, Health, Cottage Living, Coastal Living, and Southern Accents, along with MyRecipes.com and MyHomeIdeas.com. Sylvia Auton, EVP Time Inc. will manage the Lifestyle Business Unit, while also retaining responsibility for IPC Media.
Apparently, this is to take advantage of one of the other key areas of the reorg, which is to set loose the Ad Sales staff on selling ads across a range of related properties. Which, in theory, would make sense — but I’m not sure that any internal measures are going to change the dynamics hitting national mags. When the Big Three automakers teeter on the brink of bankruptcy, offering them easier access to your ad pages because you can now sell them space in a dozen mags, rather than just a couple, is not really a game-changer.
Moore goes on to tout recent collaboration across Time Inc. properties, such as when Sports Illustrated shared photos to the TIME.com website, or the magazines sharing content, such as a Time cover piece on the economy that was written by a Fortune staff writer.
Why does this feel like making a virtue out of a necessity? Of course the SI photogs are shipping their photos to the TIME sites. That’s because TIME can’t afford to send their own photogs to Beijing to cover the events. And the fact that TIME has to rely on a writer from another magazine to provide the necessary perspective on THE GIGANTIC STORY OF THE MOMENT is evidence of the fact that TIME is getting so thin on staff that they have to reach out to magazines that still have core competency in economic issues to try to make sense of the global meltdown. Once upon a TIME, such people already on hand, working in the newsroom on deep, insightful stories.
BTW – I’ve been noticing that TIME hardly even runs ads anymore. Again, I remember the good ol’ days, when the mag was so crammed with ads that it was hard sometimes to read the stories, because they had to jump across so many pages. I can’t remember the last time I saw a double-truck car, computer or tobacco ad in TIME.
Likewise, missing in all of this is any real description of where the money is going to come from. Go ahead, click over and read the memo. I can’t figure it out. There’s brave talk about how the company is still profitable and making money, doing good work, the website is growing, yada yada … but other than streamlining some internal business processes, I can’t quite make out where there’s a description of the new revenue streams or multimedia products that TIME is developing that will grow to offset the circulation and readership declines.
And philosophically, creating more silos in your business is not really a step forward when it comes to the web. The mere fact of yanking a bunch of content from one arbitrarily created designation and sticking it under a newer, fancier title … really doesn’t mean all that much to the page traffic that’s coming in from Google.
Now then – if Time, Inc. had announced that it was going to be creating new topic verticals (retirement investment planning, children’s health, mobile electronics) as part of a wide-ranging web initiative … where the best writers, photographers, artists, etc., from ALL OF TIME’S PROPERTIES, clustered to create content for specific interest niches that would appeal to readers and advertisers alike … and that they were doing this as part of a long-term transition from a world where the branding on an ink-on-paper cover actually meant something … rather than a world where what matters is the SEO results that drive audience traffic to your content … and that Time, Inc, then went on to create these fascinating cross-property conversations between their writers … you know, something around which you also empower social clustering and affinity groups to comment on, add to, and repurpose your content …
…then that would have really blown me out of my chair.
Technorati Tags: TIME layoffs, reorganization, digital migration, TIME magazine, deckchairs on TItanic
Oct 24
Posted: under Blogging, Blogs, Multimedia, New Marketing, Online Video, journalism, new media.
Tags: New Marketing
One of the key moments in “Colors” came when “Pacman,” the young hothead cop (Sean Penn) was incorrectly identified as the guy that mistakenly shot an innocent black kid during a raid gone wrong. The word came down that the gangs, in retaliation, had “green-lit” Pacman for a retaliation payback assassination.
The other gang strike [...] [...more]
One of the key moments in “Colors” came when “Pacman,” the young hothead cop (Sean Penn) was incorrectly identified as the guy that mistakenly shot an innocent black kid during a raid gone wrong. The word came down that the gangs, in retaliation, had “green-lit” Pacman for a retaliation payback assassination.
The other gang strike force cops protested that it wasn’t Pacman that had done the bad, stupid shooting – it was actually a cop who was Pacman’s enemy, and that they should tell the gangs the truth.
Bob Hodges (Robert Duvall), the grizzled old cop, says basically, “What difference does it make? If they think he did it – he did it.”
What does this 20-year-old gang movie have to do with the much-maligned Republican vice-presidential candidate? Well, stick with me here.
After watching Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live, and in the interviews airing this week on NBC, it’s becoming increasingly clear that she’s not a complete and total doofus. Yeah, maybe she’s not a total policy wonk, able to spout off the import-export stats on Burkina Faso off the top of her head, but she’s clearly not as bad as her public image would lead you to believe.
She can talk coherently, when she’s not so over-coached and micro-managed – it’s the panicking handlers’ fault that she comes off as a malfunctioning robot, spouting nonsensical phrases. She’s never going to be one of our leading governmental minds, never going to have a memorial dedicated to her next to Jefferson or Lincoln … but she’s also not quite the drooling, babbling dimwit she appears to be.
It’s also clear that that doesn’t matter.
Palin arrived on the scene, basically a blank slate, tabula rasa. The rollout of this new product at the GOP convention was greeted with a lot of fanfare – and initial euphoria.
In product marketing terms, the packaging was great.
The problem was that McCain’s handlers had nothing prepared beyond the initial product rollout. Big initial marketing push, lots of glitz & glamor, the American people take the product into their homes …
…and that’s when the troubles began.
See, they really hadn’t thought this whole thing through. They hadn’t prepared for what was going to come next. In much the same way that the invasion of Iraq was botched because nobody who was (allegedly) in charge stopped to ask, “And then what? After we destroy the Iraqi army and take over the country … then what? What’s going to happen next?”
In retrospect, this all becomes sickeningly clear.
Again, in product terms – the American people took this into their homes and tried to figure out what made it tick. The media, doing their jobs, tried to figure out what this newcomer to the scene was all about. And, in response, the Republican party had prepared … nothing.
You’d think they’d have the equivalent of what NBC does for the Olympics for the athletes – little pre-shot segments of the athlete at home, in training, interviews with family and coaches talking about the dedication that was needed for this underdog athlete to brave the odds and pursue her dreams… c’mon, you can see this in your mind’s eye already, right? All leading to a flatteringly lit scene with the athlete sitting in a loveseat with her adoring husband in front of a cozy fireplace, talking about the day she almost succumbed to her self-doubts, but (choking up a bit here), her faith in herself and the support of her family (stifled sob) carried her through…
If that had happened in the three weeks after Palin was introduced to us, we’d be having a completely different conversation about this election right now.
Instead, there were the disastrous interviews with Katie Couric, which led to the skits on Saturday Night Live. After the first skit, there was still a chance that Palin might be able to turn things around.
And then came this little gem from last night:
This pretty much sealed it.
Palin’s image is now cemented. She’s a doofus who, along with her fellow odious doofus, George W. Bush, is costing McCain his shot at the presidency.
It doesn’t matter anymore if she’s not what we think she is. In much the same way that it no longer matters whether or not Al Gore invented the internet, or Dick Cheney personally subjects prisoners to torture.
We think they do, so they do.
A lot of this damage was caused by the ham-handed way the McCain campaign dealt with the New Media. They’ve been late to that party this entire campaign. I don’t know if that’s because McCain doesn’t understand this medium, doesn’t care, or if the handlers that were so adept at playing the media back in ‘04 have gotten fat & lazy with their successes.
And yeah – the selection of Palin without having a plan to deal with What Comes Next is indeed an indictment of McCain and his decision-making process (one of the key objections that just won’t go away). Snap decisions that later wind up being disastrous? I think we’ve had just about enough of them these last eight years…
In the movie Colors, Pacman is saved only because a prisoner rats out the plot to kill him, and the gangs attention then turns to silencing the rat. I don’t see any possible equivalent on the horizon that can save Palin, particularly in light of the recent revelations about her shopping habits, the cost of her makeup person, the fact that she and her husband are having to testify under oath today in “Troopergate,” and damn, just about everything else. Her image has been set, the die is cast, and from this point forward, all information that comes out that affirms our collective perception of Palin as a moron will get accepted and spread around, while contrary information is buried under the weight of all the “Can you believe what just came out of her mouth this time?”
Oh yeah – for safety’s sake – here’s the segment from Colors that I linked to above – damn YouTube links have been kinda sketchy lately. Enjoy the cheesy party scene. I can’t figure out if the redheaded kid is Carrot Top, or the villain from “Children of the Corn.” Both?
Technorati Tags: Palin, Colors, image control, SNL skits, marketing, new media
Oct 17
Posted: under Uncategorized.
Tags: cynaide, hollywood, nitroglycerine, props
Saw this little shelf of goodness at the prop house next door while I was walking through, drawn by the sounds of persistent machine-gun fire.
What’s that, you say? Automatic weapons fire interfering with your afternoon perusal of Digital Genius Magazine? Why yes – the movie studios are finally overcoming their fear of a crippling SAG [...] [...more]
Saw this little shelf of goodness at the prop house next door while I was walking through, drawn by the sounds of persistent machine-gun fire.
What’s that, you say? Automatic weapons fire interfering with your afternoon perusal of Digital Genius Magazine? Why yes – the movie studios are finally overcoming their fear of a crippling SAG strike and greenlighting about 45 movies into production in the next couple of months. So the big semis are going to start waddling through the alley behind my house again, and the Oompa-Loompas scurrying around the Hand Prop House will be singing happy daily rental fee songs.
Anyway.
In light of the continuing fun news about the economy, and a galactically bad stomach (and I suspect the two are linked – I’ve been Googling various iterations of “peptic ulcers”), these bottle struck me as a perfectly reasonable alternative to my other regimen, of curling up in bed and groaning.
We will now return you to your regularly scheduled New Media snarkery.
Oct 16
Posted: under Community, investors, new media.
It’s still kind of a guessing game as to the motivations behind it, but Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey is out, and Evan Williams, the co-founder of the addictive microblogging service, has moved back to CEO from chairman.
Suspects in the shakeup include:
The generally shitty economy, where companies are making moves the same way investors are with [...] [...more]
It’s still kind of a guessing game as to the motivations behind it, but Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey is out, and Evan Williams, the co-founder of the addictive microblogging service, has moved back to CEO from chairman.
Suspects in the shakeup include:
- The generally shitty economy, where companies are making moves the same way investors are with the stock market – because they’re scared and figure they had best “do something”;
- FriendFeed has been slowly peeling away Twitter users;
- The persistent appearance of the FailWhale;
- The persistent NON-appearance of a business model.
On the Twitter blog, Williams says:
We’re entering a new phase now and there are new kinds of challenges ahead. Healthy companies acknowledge the need for change even during the best of times. As Twitter grows both internally and externally, we took a good look at our path forward and saw the need for a focused approach from a single leader.
Single leader, eh? Focused approach. Even during the best of times (which means that these have clearly not been those). Hmm.
…and then, as if from afar, we hear the echoes of shouting matches in the executive suites and the sounds of many Oreos being hurled at high velocities, shattering on the smeared whiteboards…
I like Twitter. I’m using it more & more to keep track of all the cool stuff my friends & contacts are dabbling in on the web. Hope they can figure out a way to extract the $$ from the traffic stream.
Technorati Tags: twitter ceo, business model, failwhale spouts, failing economy
Oct 07
Posted: under Digital Migration, Mobile advertising technology, Multimedia, Web Tech, advertising, monetizing mobile content, new media.
I know how you feel, Barry.
This quote from an excellent Wall St. Journal interview with one of the smarter (and more ruthless) guys in the media biz. He’s coming forward to explain why he busted up IAC.
“You really want to get a headache? Try to understand Internet advertising. Social-networking advertising is being discounted [...] [...more]
I know how you feel, Barry.
This quote from an excellent Wall St. Journal interview with one of the smarter (and more ruthless) guys in the media biz. He’s coming forward to explain why he busted up IAC.
“You really want to get a headache? Try to understand Internet advertising. Social-networking advertising is being discounted because there is so much inventory [of available ad spots], and because methods have not yet been found to make it very effective. Will that get figured out? I absolutely believe it will. What form will it take? Absolutely unknown.”
Technorati Tags: Barry Diller, internet advertising, social networking, monetizing content
Oct 06
Posted: under Blogs, Design, Digital Migration, Multimedia, Newspaper Deathwatch, Newspapers, Online Video, Web Tech, advertising, journalism, new media.
Tags: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, New Media Migration, Newspaper Deathwatch, Xing
I hate like hell to keep doing quick, off-the-cuff bites at such big topics, but maybe I should just resign myself to accepting the web ethos of not trying to do all things at once. Yeah, yeah, I know – “Eat the elephant one bite at a time.”So here’s an interesting coinkydink: two items I [...] [...more]
I hate like hell to keep doing quick, off-the-cuff bites at such big topics, but maybe I should just resign myself to accepting the web ethos of not trying to do all things at once. Yeah, yeah, I know – “Eat the elephant one bite at a time.”So here’s an interesting coinkydink: two items I bookmarked to read later – and actually got around to reading (pause here for an astonished gasp) – struck me as having a stronger relationship than was initially apparent.
First was this bit from the Economist, about how professionals are starting to really flock to online social networks:
On LinkedIn, the market leader, members have been updating their profiles in record numbers in recent weeks, apparently to position themselves in case they lose their jobs. The two most popular sites, LinkedIn and Xing, have been growing at breakneck speed and boast 29m and 6.5m members respectively. And, in contrast to mass-market social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, both firms have worked out how to make money.
The article goes on to raise two interesting points 1) if Facebook can start becoming friendlier to business users it might start actually making money, and 2) professionals are shit-scared about the economy and looking at social networks as great “Career Insurance” places to schmooze people you met once at a conference, snarfed their biz card and never had a use for.old friends.
Next to this was a piece from BusinessWeek, another in the seemingly endless series of kidney punches from the biz community about how newspapers are doomed, done for, goners, forks stuck into them and vultures already descending.
So who would profit from a disappearing newspaper? Local TV and cable, for starters. The city daily is still the biggest single media entity in virtually any market. Its main pitch to advertisers is brutally simple: We have more craniums to dent with your message than anyone else.
(snip)
Which brings me to a disquieting conclusion. The obvious venues for all this displaced journalistic energy are a gazillion new independent online endeavors, be they individual blogs or bigger efforts like MinnPost.com. They will make for fascinating media ecosystems within individual cities, and some will become hits. It is much less certain whether ad dollars will follow. Ultracheap classifieds site craigslist has simply “destroyed revenue,” [emph. mine - dlf] says Dave Morgan, a former newspaper executive who founded behavioral targeting firm Tacoda, and revenue that no longer exists won’t shift to new ventures. Others point out that key newspaper advertisers—local auto dealers and realtors, say—already have many outlets for ads online, not least of which are their own Web sites or national sites such as Cars.com that serve up targeted ads.
For those sensing untapped riches in ads from pizzerias and dry cleaners, well, good luck, says Borrell. “Local is a very unorganized and dirty business,” he says. “People look at local as this one-ton gorilla, but in fact it’s 2,000 one-pound monkeys.” And no publisher can afford to sit down with a city’s 2,000 small fry to sell each a $50 ad. The bitterest pill of all for newspaper denizens is that, while nature abhors a vacuum and all that, in this case there may not even be one left to fill.
Yowch. So newspapers will all just die, and by this point in time, they’ve become so irrelevant and useless that nobody will even really notice that they’re gone? Sheesh. Start passing out the pistols & hemlock in America’s newsrooms, eh?
El Tiempo
I’m going to have to disagree with this nihilistic conclusion. Yeah, I know the local online niche ad market is impossibly fragmented, and it would cost a publisher more to pay an ad sales rep than that person would produce in revenue. Solution: don’t pay the ad rep. Do what El Tiempo in Bogota calls “auto-pauta,” or DIY ads. BTW, I really do recommend you click through on that link to El Tiempo. They are one of the smartest operations out there, they are making piles of cash off internet ads, and they are constantly (ruthlessly, relentlessly) refining their approach.
Moreover. When you look at what the social networking sites are really selling their users, you start to come to the conclusion that what a local newspaper – correction: what the local newspaper of the future – offers can be a lot more compelling.
Think about what the users really want from these social net sites. Chatting with friends, yeah sure. Blowing your own horn in a socially acceptable way, yessiree. Looking for the next step up on the ladder? Well, yeah … but the problem with a lot of the listings on the social net services is that they are from all over the place. Yeah, you can filter them. But we all know that most of the really good jobs are never spamadvertised like this. We find them through referrals – which is where recruiters/headhunters come in. And local friends & business acquaintances.
One of the fastest-growing areas on LinkedIn is the “Question” section, where pros reach out to other pros in their groups, and ask something that’s on their mind. They’re trying to have conversations.
That should be taking place at a newspaper site. Sooner or later, it will. Either the papers will replicate it and include it in their future selves, or they will do a Borg takeover. The paper is a much more logical place for this kind of activity – it includes access to the reference materials from the past, a panel of trained experts to step in and help moderate the discussions, or kick new discussions off with provocative questions, and a huge archive of relevants facts and materials that can be used to make the conversations that much more valuable.
Example: One of the questions I’m participating in on LinkedIn is where to put your money now that the market is tanking so badly. There are some very smart market analysts chiming in here. But it would be nice to be able to have a window/panel open on the screen showing the various stock tables, and perhaps links to content locally that makes the point that some foreign markets are going to be able to ride out this storm, while others just get crushed.
The fact that biz users, those who have education & disposable income, have had to range far afield in search of information that they need to use in their careers, is an indictment of the lack of creative thinking at newspapers. It will take time and effort to reverse the momentum … because the very users that papers covet most are abandoning papers.
