New York Online News Association Meetup Group Formed
I’ve organized a New York Online News Association meetup group. It’s for New York City metropolitan area members of the Online News Association. If you work in online news media in the tri-state NYC area, please join us. Similar groups were recently…
Why I Won't Be at NEXPO 2005
I’d attended the Newspaper Association of America’s Connections newspaper website conference during each of the past ten years (it was originally and is again a side conference held during the NAA’s annual NEXPO newspaper exposition). However, I let my membership lapse during…
Editorials as Paid Content? Expert Witness about Newspaper Vending Boxes?
My company’s business is the busiest it’s been since the height of the dot.com boom in 1999, which is another way to say that we’re swamped. Or maybe swamped isn’t an apt verb because there’s no muck involved. The work onsite for…
The Digital Edition Dirigibles
At the highest inhabitable level of the Empire State Building in New York City is something redolent of the University of Missouri’s new EmPRINT digital edition project. When the Empire State Building was designed in the late 1920s, architects gave its top…
The Roach Motel of Intellectual Property Protection
Starting with his posts on the WELL in the early 1990s and through his work as staff legal counsel to the Electronic Freedom Foundation, I
What They, Not the Publisher, Want
What’s more important to a media company nowadays: A CMS (Content Management System) or a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system? Publishers will tell you that CMS is. But they will be wrong. Legacy media companies (newspapers, magazines, and TV and radio stations)…
The Two Types of People in New Media
“There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don’t.” –Robert Benchley, American Humorist (1888-1946) There are two types of people who work in the new media…
Why I’m at Critical Mention
Every few years in new media, I find a consulting client whose business plan, product or service, and managers are refreshingly sharp, competent, and unusually opportune. In those rare cases, and particularly if it’s a startup venture, I’ll trade some of Digital…
Talbott Leaves Editorship of Now Profitable Salon
Congratulations to David Talbott, who weathered the storm of the dot.com bust and guided his baby Salon.com to profitability. The New York Times today reports (registration site) that he’s now stepping down as its editor-in-chief but retaining the title of chairman. He’ll…
The Rising Popularity of Video News Online
Finally, a report (PDF format)) from the Online Publishers Association about which I agree! Its study of 27,841 Internet users on 25 of its members sites found that watching video online is becoming increasingly popular and that news videos were the most…
WAN-IFRA Merger Off
Merger talks between two of the world’s largest newspaper associations have broke off. For the past months, the World Association of Newspapers and Ifra had been discussing merger, but this morning WAN announced that talks had ceased, at least for the foreseeable…
Online Video Increased 80%, radio 76%, in 2004
AccuStream iMedia Research reports that the number of video streams online increased by more than 80 percent last year, for a total of 14.2 billion streams. Almost 80 percent of those streams were broadband (defined as 100 Kbps or higher). One of…
Optimizing Registration Pages
If your news website requires registration or you’re thinking of converting it to requiring registration, Dave Daniels, research director for Jupiter Research’s Customer Relationship Management and Marketing Operations practice areas, offers some simply suggestions for optimizing registration pages.
R.I.P. Lucien Carr, 1926-2005
Lucien Carr, Gordon Joseloff, and Gary Paul Gates at UPI reunion, Oct. 2003. Beat luminari, killer, and wire service journalist Lucien Carr, one of the most interesting characters with whom I’ve had the pleasure to work, passed away Friday. Who was Lou…
My Predictions for 2005
I’m generally skeptical that any new year will bring mark changes. However, for the first time in many years, I foresee six marked changes in the online publishing will occur this year: (1). The most obvious will that verbal bloodshed will erupt…
Back from the Holidays
After a long holiday period, I’m back in my office and now working on a broadcast industry project that I’m not yet at liberty to disclose. (I hope to tell more about it later month).
Reorganization for Belo Interactive
Earlier this month, Wes Jackson was promoted vice president and general manager of Belo Interactive, replacing Eric Christensen who at the end of this year will leave the company for another venture. Jackson had been vice president of sales for Belo Interactive.…
Garry Kebbel Laid Off
Without being laid off or fired, you can’t legitimately claim to be a guru in the online news industry. It’s like getting bloodied in battle. For example, I think 2000 was the year when Steve Yelvington, Howard Finberg, and Leah Gentry were…
Hey, You Guys Who Run U.S. Newspaper Chains!
Hey, Tony Ridder! Yes, and you, Doug McCorkindale! Don Newhouse! And the rest of you guys who run large chains of U.S. newspapers! I know that each day you read The Wall Street Journal because you think that its stock market coverage…
New-Media Newspaper Activity in Japan
Japan has 102 daily newspapers. Here is a snapshot of their new-media activities: 83 operate website 26 also provide video on those websites 39 have e-mail editions 39 syndicate contents others companies’ sites 36 provide services (such a teletext) on cable television…
Hitachi to Sell Unrollable E-Paper in 2006
Hitachi plans to begin selling a color-capable electronic paper in 2006. Rather than use organic light-emitting (OLED) diodes, the way that Philips’ e-paper does, Hitachi’s device will use a liquid crystal displays (LCD) 3-centimeters thick and equipped with a special panel that…
3G version iPods; Satellite Radio vs. Webcasting
Speaking of 3G (below), BBC technology analyst Bill Thompson, at first skeptical of 3G, compares it against iPods and changes his mind. Among his comments: But just as the World Wide Web was the “killer application” that drove internet adoption, music videos…
3G Mobile Content in Ireland
Vodafone Ireland has released its pricing list for 3G broadband mobile phone customers: Unlimited access to Barclays Premiership goals, match previews and post-match interviews for ?9.99 per month. On a promotional basis, that service will be free to customers until February 2005.…
OK, So What Will Be A Good Use of RSS for News Publishers?
[UPDATE: Some blogs which have linked to this item call it my vision of the newspaper of 2010. Calling it that is inaccurate. I believe that e-paper devices will be in common use by 2010 and that consumers will use these device…
AOPUK Discussion of RSS
Since writing my posting earlier today about RSS, I’ve chanced to read the UK Association of Online Publishers’ story about its forum last Friday entitled ‘Making a success of RSS‘. That story is unfortunately an example of the hype and reportorial dynamics…
Nico MacDonald on Web Design
Netimperative features an interview with Nico MacDonald, author of the excellent book What is Web Design. An excerpt: “The most common, if understandable, mistake is to assume that the Web is the best medium to use. In reality the PC-based Web browser…
A Short List of Newspaper RSS
Tom Biro of theMediaDrop.com has compiled a list of U.S. ‘newspapers’ that offer RSS feeds. It contains: 42 daily general-interest newspapers. 54 college or university newspapers. 32 business journals or weekly newspapers. One online publishing industry commentator yesterday called it a “long”…
Headline of the Week
Oracle Gets PeopleSoft, At Last — Information Week, 13 December 2004 I’m not sure that double entendre is what Larry Ellison in mind.
Digital Newspaper Strategies at the Financial Times
A month ago, I’d mentioned Nigel Pocklington‘s appointment to the newly created role of director of online publishing for the Financial Times. From London, Kieren McCarthy points me to an article he wrote today in The Independent about Pocklington’s role at FT.com…
Crowning the 'Number One" Online Activity: Change the Channel
The Online Publishers Association often induces statistics to prove that content is king online. This association’s first attempt was two years ago, when it released statistics that purported to show U..S. consumers spent $675 million for online content in 2001, a 92…
U.S. Newspaper Web Sites That Charge for Access
During my absence last month, a professor of journalism e-mailed me to review and correct his list of U.S. newspaper websites that charge for access. I do have a master list of daily newspapers throughout the world that charge for access, but…
New Chiefs at Yahoo! News and FT.com
Although The Daily Telegraph is missing two online pioneers (see below), two other pioneers of online publishing have new jobs: Yahoo! has hired Wall Street Journal Online founder Neil Budde as executive producer of Yahoo! News. And, promoting within, the Financial Times…
The Telegraph at Year Ten, Minus Two Pioneers
The Daily Telegraph of London is celebrating its tenth year of online publication, but without two of the pioneers who put it there. Hugo Drayton started in 1994 as marketing director the Electronic Telegraph and, largely on that success online, rose to…
True Mobility: GPRS, WiFi, and Bluetooth all in Hand
When I emphasize how important mobile devices will soon become to online publishers , I speak from the experience of a user. I’m on the road about 14 days each month, and I can now leave my laptop at home. In August…
Garcia Predicts Conversion of American Broadsheets to Tabloid
More than a year ago, we wrote about Mario Garcia, a world renown expert on newspaper design, predicting that the majority of the world’s newspapers would became tabloid-sized within his lifetime. Garcia a few years earlier had predicted that a large number…
Reuters Retreats Two Years on NewsML
This past weekend, most of the stories about the online news industry focused on Associated Press President & CEO Tom Curley‘s keynote speech at the annual conference of the Online News Association. Though it was good to hear that the AP has…
Regret at Not Attending ONA Conference
I regret that I won’t be attending this year’s Online News Association annual conference, to be held Friday and Saturday in Hollywood. Instead, at the request of Ifra, I’ll be in New York on Friday afternoon lecturing, on the subjects of e-mail…
Mobile and Digital Edition Ideas from 'Beyond the Printed Word'
The annual IFRA/WAN/FIPP Beyond the Printed Word online publishing conference was held in Prague yesterday and today. A summary of the presentations is available from WAN and there is an interesting conference moblog. Here from the conference (my thanks to the IFRA…
BBC News Popup Translations to Learners of Welsh
You don’t you read Welsh? If not, how will you know the Diweddaraf Newyddion o’r Cymru (Latest News from Wales)? It’s hard to use y we (the Web) if you don’t understand the language. The BBC understands, so its New Media Department…
Bloggers Blew It: Much Posting, Little Impact
Let’s gore a sacred cow. Or lets let Frank Barnako of CBS MarketWatch’s eponymous Frank Barnako’s Internet Daily do it. The headline above tops the commentary leading his report on Wednesday. “No one reads blogs,” Barnako writes. Yes, Technorati is tracking 4…
More Thoughts on U.S. Circulation Declines
I’ve more thoughts about the accelerating declines in circulations of major U.S. newspaper: Many newspaper executives are blaming the new Do-Not-Call anti-telemarketing lists for a large portion of their newspapers’ recent circulation declines. That is disingenous. In reality, the blame should be…
Free Fall for U.S. Newspapers' Circulations
There is more and more evidence that U.S. newspaper circulation has begun a possibly fatal free fall. Beginning around 1964, daily newspapers’ print circulations in the U.S. began steadily to decline at a compound rate of approximately half a percent per year.…
My Thanks to London
I’m back from a week checking out the online publishing scene in London. My thanks to my hosts
Contacts in London?
I’ll be in London this Sunday through Thursday on business. I’d like to meet some of the Londoners in new-media about who I’m read or heard. If you’re one of them and care to have a pint with me then, please feel…
I'm Signing Off ClickZ
During the past 30 months for JupiterMedia’s ClickZ online marketing information site, I’ve written 39 columns about charging for online content. Writing them has been fun. The $100 honorarium JupiterMedia has paid me for each has bought some nice dinners. But I’ll…
My 'Individualization of Content' Speech at APME
I spoke Saturday as the final speaker at the Associated Press Managing Editors annual conference, in Louisville, Kentucky. The conference’s subject that day’s was Newsrooms of the Future: Blueprints for Editors and Readers. Among the nine other speakers, Belden Associated President Sammy…
Misconception About Widespead RSS Use By Traditional Online Publishers
Earleir this month, Rich Skrenta of Topix.net wrote about the misconception about how widespead RSS syndication is among traditional online publishers. “Only 7% of the sources Topix.net crawls have XML feeds. I’d estimate that only a few hundreds of the top 3,000…
US Magazine to Launch Free/Paid SMS Celebrity News Service
US Magazine later this month will launch a subscription SMS service for celebrity junkies, reports Technology Marketing magazine. US is targeting this service at educated, relatively affluent, North American women with an average age of 32 who live in metropolitan areas. Called…
Hugo Drayton leaves Daily Telegraph
The Guardian today reports that Daily Telegraph Managing Director Hugo Drayton has left that newspaper. There had been speculation that Drayton, who published the United Kingdom’s largest-circulation (one million) broadsheet newspaper, would last now that Hollinger International has sold the Telegraph Group…