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Media trends digest
– 2008
Business & farms connected 29 January
From the ACMA PR bunker: Research released today by the Australian Communications and Media Authority shows that Australia’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the rural sector are reasonably connected online and on the phone, with 92 per cent of SMEs and 74 per cent of farms having an internet connection, and 93 per cent and 85 per cent respectively reporting the use of a mobile phone.
‘The research suggests that SMEs and the farm sector are keen adopters of communications technology to assist in managing their businesses,’ said Chris Chapman, ACMA Chairman. ‘Both sectors also indicated that the internet had a significant impact on transforming their business practices and improving processes.’
More
Growing up online 28 January
PBS in the USA has just aired a documentary on the phenomenon of kids growing up online, via its Frontline series.
Here’s what the network’s intro says: Jessica Hunter was a shy and awkward girl who struggled to make friends at school. Then, at age 14, she reinvented herself online as Autumn Edows, a goth artist and model. She posted provocative photos of herself on the Web and fast developed a cult following.
"I just became this whole different person," Autumn tells Frontline. "I didn't feel like myself, but I liked the fact that I didn't feel like myself. I felt like someone completely different. I felt like I was famous."
News of Jessica's growing fame as Autumn Edows reached her parents only by accident. "I got a phone call, and the principal says one of the parents had seen disturbing photographs and material of Jessica," her father tells Frontline. "I had no idea what she was doing on the Internet. That was a big surprise."
In Growing Up Online, Frontlinetakes viewers inside the very public private worlds that kids are creating online, raising important questions about how the Internet is transforming childhood. "The Internet and the digital world was something that belonged to adults, and now it's something that really is the province of teenagers, " says CJ Pascoe, a postdoctoral scholar with the University of California, Berkeley's Digital Youth Research project.
"They're able to have a private space, even while they're still at home. They're able to communicate with their friends and have an entire social life outside of the purview of their parents, without actually having to leave the house."
As more and more kids grow up online, parents are finding themselves on the outside looking in. "I remember being 11; I remember being 13; I remember being 16, and I remember having secrets," mother of four Evan Skinner says. "But it's really hard when it's the other side."
More
FT integration works
Editors Weblog: Since the Financial Times integrated its newsroom in 2006 and moved into a new one in 2007, it has been among the few British newspapers to increase its circulation, ad revenue and profits. Changes in the editorial process resulting from integration included “storybuilding,” new work shifts and lunch-hour training sessions.
More
Wiki use banned
Journalism.co.uk: Agence France Presse has banned its journalists from using Facebook and Wikipedia as sources, the agency's London bureau chief told a Lord's Committee.
More
Sun Ed puts online in perspective
Rebekah Wade, the Editor of The Sun in the UK, recently told a parliamentary committee that the online revenue for the paper would take another 15 years or so to became significantl, and that one of the web’s key roles was to recruit new, younger, readers.
See this report at Journalism.co.uk
Free music on demand
Reuters via Benton:
Last.fm, the social music network owned by CBS
Corp, said on Wednesday it is introducing a free
service for fans to listen to their favorite
songs on-demand. The new service is being
launched in partnership with the four major music
companies, as well as over 150,000 labels and
artists. When fans in the United States, Britain
and Germany search for an artist on the Last.fm
Web site, they can now stream the artist's song
for nothing or pay to download an MP3 version of
the song via Amazon.com. Last.fm said the
streaming service is funded by advertising
revenue, which is shared with the music
companies. The move comes nearly six years after
Last.fm first started reaching out to music
companies to license songs to stream on its site.
More
Migrating ads with video
TV Week (USA) via Benton:
Looking to increase revenues, a number of online
video creators are turning to new ad strategies,
including product placement. Besides product
placement, some video online creators are
focusing on selling ads on their own Web sites
and promoting that site as the preferred viewing
destination. Also, technology firms such as
Blip’d and Blinkx are introducing technology
solutions that let ads travel with video around
the Web. They are doing this because most video
bloggers have learned that while some fans may
watch a Web show at the home site, most viewers
watch Web shows on YouTube, MySpace or Facebook.
But the ads don't always travel to those sites.
Product placement ensures an ad is married to the video.
More
Bollywood unveiled
Ever wondered what makes Bollywood tick? Danny Jeyaseelan takes us backstage for a look in a feature we’ve posted today.
He writes: Song and dance sequences are a formulaic cliché of Indian movies, but they are the most defining and distinctive feature of the Indian film. Music director Kalyanji says, “In India life begins and ends with music. For instance a newborn baby is greeted into the world by songs … there is a song and dance when he weds and dies.”
Leading choreographer Farah Khan believes, “What is saving Indian cinema from being engulfed by Hollywood is our song and dance routines, because they just can’t imitate that.” Still, there must be more to the film that simply song and dance. After all, 12 million people in India alone visit the cinema everyday, making it the most-viewed motion picture industry in the world.
Full story (PDF)
Newspapers thriving in Asia
CS Monitor via Benton: Soaring circulation. Expanding newsrooms. A
growing public hunger for, and appreciation of, a
free media. As the ailing US newspaper industry
gasps for air, its counterparts in Asia are
breathing in the exhilarating oxygen of success.
Rising incomes and literacy levels -- in an era
of growing press freedom, democracy, and private
media ownership – have lit a rocket under
newsrooms across the region, say newspaper
editors, industry analysts, and media executives.
Seven of the 10 best-selling daily newspapers are
in Asia, which also has the three largest
markets: China, India, and Japan, in that order.
In 2006, circulation in Asia rose 3.6 percent,
compared with a 2 percent fall in North America,
according to the World Association of Newspapers.
More
Pakistan media on short leash
NY Times via Benton: With the notable absence of two hard-hitting
political talk shows, Pakistan’s most popular
private television news channel was allowed to
resume cable broadcasts within the country on
Monday, ending a blackout that had lasted more
than two months. The channel, Geo, and other
television networks, were taken off the air after
President Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of
emergency in the country on Nov. 3 as he
suspended the Constitution, fired the Supreme
Court and blocked all independent news media.
Almost all of the news networks were allowed to
resume broadcasting by December as Mr. Musharraf
lifted the emergency, and after the networks had
agreed to sign a controversial “code of conduct.”
But executives at Geo, known for its aggressive
news coverage, refused to sign and so it remained off the air in Pakistan.
More
Getty Images worth $1.5 billion?
PidContent.org: Getty Images, the world’s biggest supplier of stock pictures and video (and increasingly a digital player) has put itself on the auction block and could fetch more than $1.5 billion
More; Getty Images
210 million net users in China
News Observer via Benton:
The Chinese government said Friday its internet
population has soared to 210 million people,
putting it on track to surpass the US online
community this year to become the world's
largest. he official China Internet Network
Information Center, also known as CNNIC, said the
online population grew 53 percent, from 137
million reported at the same time last year.
According to the government's Xinhua News Agency,
China is only 5 million behind the United States
online, a figure consistent with some American
estimates. One-third of Chinese Internet users
surf through cybercafes, according to Xinhua.
More
Blogs influence news
Watershed via Benton: Blogs are not only having an impact on the speed
and availability of news but also influencing the
tone and editorial direction of reporting,
according to a survey of US journalists by
Brodeur, a unit of Omnicom Group. New media
(social media and blogs) are having an impact on
many aspects of reporting, particularly the speed
and availability of news, Brodeur said. The
majority of journalists said blogs were having a
significant impact on news reporting in all areas
tested - except news quality: The biggest impact
of blogs is in the speed and availability of
news. Over half also said that blogs were having
a significant impact on the “tone” (61.8%) and
“editorial direction” (51.1%) of news reporting.
More
WSJ will not be free
Reuters via Benton: News Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch said on
Thursday he would not make all online Wall Street
Journal content free. "We're sort of dividing it
up. Those things that you can get more or less as
a commodity on different sites about finance,
that will certainly be free at the Wall Street
Journal," he said. "The really specialized
(material) giving the greatest insights, that
will still be a subscription service."
More
Net neutrality fight far from over
Anyone who thought the net neutrality battles would fade into the background will have to reconsider that view. Recently, the big broadband providers have been criticized for blocking -- or considering blocking -- what they deem to be pirated content online or charging more for people who use more bandwidth. In the latter case, Time Warner Cable started testing a tiered pricing structure in Beaumont, Texas, where they charge by the gigabyte of usage. “One of the things to consider is the impact that peer-to-peer software is having on the network,” a Time Warner spokesman told InternetNews. While tiered pricing could help unclog networks from heavy users, it might also hurt nascent movie download services from Apple and Netflix, according to BusinessWeek.
Meanwhile, the FCC said it was opening an investigation of Comcast possibly blocking BitTorrent feeds, a practice the service provider denies. But content filtering from the ISP level is still a very real possibility, as AT&T discussed its plans to filter at a CES panel, with the support of NBC Universal. “We are very interested in a technology-based solution and we think a network-based solution is the optimal way to approach this,” AT&T exec James Cicconi said on the panel. Of course, the network operators admit that any filtering will have to pass muster with consumers and regulators -- which could be a tough test to pass.
Online Publishers Assn
Mobile websites get boost
Slowly but surely, the mobile revolution is starting to gel for publishers and advertisers. Jupiter found that 40% of US web publishers have launched special mobile sites, with 22% more planning to do so in the next year. Jupiter believes mobile display and search ads will bring in $825 million by 2012.
But in Europe, where the mobile market is more mature, Jupiter predicts mobile display and search ads will ring up $1.93 billion by 2012. By that year, the research firm says 40% of Europeans will be accessing the mobile web because of better devices and cheaper access.
Marketers stateside are paying attention to the increased mobile usage in the US, with 55% of top marketers planning to increase their mobile ad buys in the next six months, according to an Advertiser Perceptions survey. Marketers said that basic text ads were the most popular mobile format for ads, used by 70% of respondents, with 69% planning to use them in the next six months.
Online Publishers Assn
Avoid representing the scourges 24 January
The Pope, on the Feast of St Francis de Sales: “The media must avoid becoming spokesmen for economic materialism and ethical relativism, true scourges of our time. Instead, they can and must contribute to making known the truth about humanity, and defending it against those who tend to deny or destroy it. One might even say that seeking and presenting the truth about humanity constitutes the highest vocation of social communication.”
(Note: de Sales is regarded as the patron saint of journalism)
Full text at the Vatican (also mirrored here)
Farewell The Bulletin 23 January
 It came as no great surprise, given the title has been in the red for many years, but it was nevertheless sad to see Australia’s oldest magazine, The Bulletin, closed down. It’s widely believed the magazine was kept alive because former ACP boss Kerry Packer appreciated the political and cultural influence it provided, but with his passing, and the migration of majority ownership in the company from the Packer family, the future looked grim.
Here is what the company said of the mag’s demise:
The Bulletin is Australia’s longest running magazine and was launched in 1880.
In the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures, The Bulletin had 57,039 in sales (Sept 07), which is down from circulation highs of over 100,000 in the mid 1990s. This trend is consistent with that experienced by many leading weekly news and current affairs magazines globally and is somewhat symptomatic of the impact of the internet on this particular genre.
“This is a sad day for all of us at ACP Magazines. The Bulletin has been an institution in Australian publishing and has provided its loyal readers with the best quality, in-depth news and current affairs analysis in the country. The Bulletin has often set the political agenda, broken many important stories and won many awards for journalism over the years,” Lorson said.
“We have invested heavily in the title with top editorial, photographic and design staff who have been devoted to making The Bulletin the best of its genre. However, despite our best efforts, the magazine has simply not been commercially viable for some time. With limited prospects for improvement, the time has come to make a very tough decision.”
ACP Magazines Group Publisher Men’s & Specialist Titles, Phil Scott, said The Bulletin’s Editor-in-Chief John Lehmann had done an outstanding job since joining the magazine in mid 2006.
“John and his staff have maintained The Bulletin’s commitment to quality journalism and tackling the tough issues. Under his guidance it has won a Walkley Award and three Magazine Publishers Australia Awards,” Scott said.
Ian Law, Chief Executive Officer PBL Media, said the decision to close The Bulletin had been made reluctantly.
“We all had a sense of pride in the title. John Lehmann and his editorial team produced a top quality publication and should be commended. But the reality is that the publication has been running at a loss for a number of years and we could see no prospect of this trend being reversed,” Law said.
See this Mike Steketee piece in The Australian
Open up those highways
The Economist (USA edition) via Benton:
Broadband has become as vital a tool for
producers and distributors of goods as it is for
people plugging into all the social and cultural
opportunities offered by the web. Easy access to
cheap, fast Internet services has become a
facilitator of economic growth and a measure of
economic performance. No wonder, then, that
statistics show a surge in broadband use,
especially in places that are already prosperous.
What accounts for the differences among rich
countries?
Two or three years ago demography was
often cited: small, densely populated countries
were easier to wire up than big, sparsely
inhabited ones. But the leaders in broadband
usage include Canada, where a tiny population is
spread over a vast area. The best explanation, in
fact, is that broadband thrives on a mix of
competition and active regulation, to ensure an
open contest. A lack of competition-boosting
oversight is one reason for the poor record of
the United States (and indeed for New Zealand,
another unexpected laggard). Most Americans have
a choice of only two broadband providers, either
a telecoms or a cable operator. This virtual
duopoly suits both sorts of provider, and neither
has raced to offer its customers faster access.
In some American states, prices have risen; in
most other countries they have dropped. As
broadband grows more popular, the political mood
may change in many countries. At present,
consumers are often misled by the speeds that
operators promise to deliver. Soon regulators can
expect to face pressure to ensure truth in
advertising, as well as to promote easier access.
Pressure will also come to correct another
problem: most operators cap the amount of traffic
users may send and receive each month, and nearly
all provide far less speed for sending than for
receiving. In other words, broadband doesn't
really offer a two-way street. This will matter
more as users turn into creators of content, from
videos to blogs, and ask to be treated with due respect.
More
The harsh reality of product placement
NY Times via Benton: As the writers’ strike keeps the television
networks scrambling to fill their schedules, the
producers of reality shows are gladly stepping in
to fill the vacuum. And with the propensity of
those producers to incorporate the products of
sponsors into the programs, don't be surprised if
the vacuum bears a brand name like Hoover or
Dyson. It is typically easier to weave a product
into an episode of a reality show than into a
scripted series. For one thing, the contestants
in reality shows are usually more willing to
pitch products than the actors in scripted
programs. Actors prefer to worry about their art
-- and their long-term value as endorsers of a
certain soda if viewers have already watched them
cheerfully drinking a different brand. Also,
viewers seem more tolerant when products turn up
in settings that are deemed realistic rather than
fictitious. A result is that the networks are
expanding their reality plans, particularly as
the ratings for some strike fare are surpassing
the viewership for the scripted shows they replaced.
More
No longer just a game
Immersive online worlds such as Second Life and
World of Warcraft attract populations that
outnumber Sweden's. And now, scientists are
following players down the rabbit hole in hopes
of learning more about the real world. By tapping
into the behavior of an estimated 73 million
online gamers, they hope to study the effects of
public policy with an ease and specificity that
only computers can deliver. The tools are not yet
perfected. But the potential is too strong to ignore.
More
Lachlan is back 21 January
Lachlan Murdoch is stepping into the media fray, setting up an investment fund outside News Ltd to buy an interest in the remaining Packer media holdings, covering 25% of CMH/PBL, while remaining on the board of News. The group includes 25% holdings in Channel Nine, Foxtel and internet properties such as ninemsn and carsales.
Report by The Australian
No freebies from setting Sun 18 January
Rebekah Wade, the editor of Britain's top-selling Sun newspaper, said the rise of giveaway titles and the demise of local vendors were hurting sales but ruled out making the paper free to combat falling circulation.
Official industry figures on Friday showed The Sun's circulation had fallen below 3 million for the first time since 1974. The Sun is published by News International, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
More: The Guardian
Plus…
Yahoo Biz via Benton: Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp, the global media company,
does not issue direct orders about which political party his
best-selling British newspaper, The Sun, should support -- or what
stories it should print, its editor told British lawmakers Wednesday.
During a meeting last year with the House of Lords Communications
Committee, Murdoch described himself as a "traditional proprietor"
where the paper was concerned, exercising "editorial control" over
big issues like Europe or which party to back in a British general
election. But addressing the committee's inquiry into media ownership
on Wednesday, Rebekah Wade, the paper's editor, said this did not
mean Murdoch issues orders on which British political party to favor
or what stories to run in the next day's paper. The Sun's much-sought
election support is a "consensus" decision involving her, Murdoch and
other top officials at the paper, Wade said. Murdoch's management
style has long been a matter of curiosity in Britain, where in
addition to The Sun, he owns The Times, The News of the World and
controls satellite broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting.
More
Newspapers hesitant over pay-to-view
A recently-published peer-reviewed paper highlights how hesitant western newspaper websites are to adopt a pay-to-view policy.
See this link at First Monday
Editors weblog updates
Integration & free papers
In 2006, the Manchester Evening News madethe paper free in central Manchester, while keeping paid-for distribution in the city’s outskirts. At the heart of this commercial move lays a greater will to adapt to the decline of print ad revenues by becoming a converged media group, and the Evening News now boasts the UK’s most integrated regional newsroom.
More
UK: Telegraph video soars, audio podcasts don't work
Media Guardian: Telegraph.co.uk's video-oriented online strategy is paying off, as video on the site drew 3.4 million hits on the site in November, by some 794,000 unique users. Ed Roussel, the digital editor of Telegraph Media Group, also explained why podcasts don't work.
More
BBC's iPlayer could revolutionise viewing
Brand Republic: More than one million visitors went to BBC's newly launched iPlayer site during the fortnight ending 7 January. Over three-and-a-half million programmes have been watched via the iPlayer since it was launched on Christmas Day.
More
Note: The ABC is playing with a similar idea, called ABC Now – see this link.
Big music names face talent stampede
C-Net via Benton: The big problem the music industry faces is the sudden
stampede of brand-name artists away from the traditional recording
companies. Record companies have always depended on the revenue and
cash flow generated from platinum-selling artists to finance new
talent. If that revenue stream disappears, how can they compete? If
you're a big enough star, you just don't need a record label anymore.
In fact, even if you're an unknown, some have shown that you don't
need a major record company behind you to be successful. The bottom
line is that music has lost its economic value to consumers. But it
still has emotional value. People will never stop listening to music.
They've just stopped paying for it. So the challenge comes in
figuring out how to capitalize on that emotional value. There are
lots of ways to do that and people are sure to find them and
transform the landscape.
More
EMI woes down to management
While recording giant EMI has publicly blamed its woes on internet piracy, many pundits believe that the real problem it and many of its peers face is poor management. This is something which is borne out by the firm’s recent and very public split with several of its big names.
VNUnet.com reports that companies which have embraced online retail have flourished. It says: As major recording labels like EMI slash staff and revise revenue forecasts, the online music business is reporting strong growth and sees 2008 as a bumper year.
More
Stones leave EMI
The Telegraph: The Rolling Stones have painted it even blacker for the beleaguered British record label EMI, as they became the latest band to sever links with the company.
More
Threats, defamation & commercial viability
The unauthorised biography of Tom Cruise, by writer Andrew Morton, has been in the news for the last week following the decision by Pan Macmillan not to publish locally, and local retailers such as Dymocks plus Angus & Robertson not to offer it.
The US publisher, St Martin’s Press, is however stocking up thanks to the title’s notoriety – helped in no small part by the Church of Scientology’s noisy protests and threats from Cruise minders to sue for defamation.
A key difference between our defamation law and that of the US is that locally the defendant has to prove truth as a basic defense (or establish another) – a standard not required in America. Across the pond, it is the plaintiff’s responsibility to prove malice.
Any defamation action is expensive and effectively kills the commercial viability of the book on the tiny local market. It’s somewhat ironic that the fuss has greatly lifted the profile of a tome which is receiving mixed reviews.
See this Daily Mail story
PR & Media 101
Meanwhile the Scientology folk are displaying a flawed understanding of how media works. The organisation’s threats over anyone showing a recently-released video, showing Cruise ranting on semi-coherently about his religion has effectively united western media to run the item – thus greatly increasing its exposure.
See this example at The Independent
Huckabee shows the way
Perhaps the Scientologists could learn something from US Republican (and former Baptist minister) Mike Huckabee, who has used free media exposure so effectively that one cable TV presenter now refers to him as a co-host.
See this story at The Hill
Hamlet’s Blackberry: why paper is eternal 11 January
William Powers, a media critic at the National Journal in the USA some time ago contributed to the ongoing discussion over the future of paper publishing with this interesting piece.
It says, in part: “Though paper appears to be a relatively “dumb” medium, it…performs tasks that require special abilities. And many of paper’s tricks, the useful purposes it serves, are…products of its long relationship with people. There are cognitive, cultural and social dimensions to the human-paper dynamic that come into play every time any kind of paper, from a tiny post-it note to a groaning Sunday newspaper, is used to convey, retrieve or store information. Paper does these jobs in a way that pleases us, which is why, for centuries, we have liked having it around.”
See it at this link; Also mirrored here
Bank crisis spreads to virtual world
The Age: There's a banking meltdown in Second Life, too.
The world's creator, Linden Lab, has announced it will regulate the virtual banks strictly from now on, after one collapsed amid a credit crunch.
More; Second Life
Giant TV headlines CES 10 January
The Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show – arguably the world’s biggest gadget fest – has just concluded, with Panasonic’s giant 150-inch (3.8 metre) television snatching the headlines.
The company is also playing around with a gadget called the LifeWall, which is intended to turn a wall of your home into a giant interactive computer screen, with face-recognition technology.
Show home page; Panasonic’s presentation
Could violence be good for you?
NY Times via Benton: A paper presented by two researchers over the weekend to the annual
meeting of the American Economic Association challenges the
conventional wisdom, concluding that violent films prevent violent
crime by attracting would-be assailants and keeping them cloistered
in darkened, alcohol-free environs. Instead of fueling up at bars and
then roaming around looking for trouble, potential criminals pass the
prime hours for mayhem eating popcorn and watching celluloid villains
slay in their stead.
More
Internet, impact and inequality
OECD: The Internet, and its most recent expression,
broadband, is now part of everyday life for a
billion people, but billions are still excluded
from this major technological advance. This paper
focuses on how ICTs, the Internet and broadband
diffusion and use among households and
individuals are sources of significant change and
how these technologies have, and will continue to
have, major economic and social impacts.
More
Content creators not necessarily tech geeks
Deloitte: Nearly one-half of US media consumers are frequently creating online content for others to see, according to a soon-to-be released survey commissioned by Deloitte & Touche USA LLP. This marks a 12 point escalation from a prior survey commissioned by Deloitte in the spring of 2007, challenging the conventional assumption that online content creation is limited to a niche group of technology-savvy individuals.
More; Report
Teens leave email for social media -- Pew
Online Publishers Assn (USA): There are two sides to every survey, and the latest one from Pew Internet about teen use of online media is a good example of that duality. The survey found that 64% of teens in the US were creating at least one type of online content, up from 57% in 2004. Plus, 35% of teen girls blog while 20% of boys blog; 63% of all teens have cell phones; and 55% of online teens consider social networking sites to be important for their social life. While only 14% of teens use email daily (preferring communicating via social networks), many still prefer old-fashioned telephone and face-to-face conversations. Of the teens surveyed, 40% talk to friends via landline telephones each day, while 31% see friends in person. So teens might envelop themselves in online media, but they still haven't abandoned traditional communication and human contact.
Pew report; OPA
Australians buy Cambodian paper
The Australian: Two Australian businessmen with media interests in Burma have purchased a controlling interest in Cambodia's Phnom Penh Post. The current proprietor launched the newspaper on a whim in 1992 in a Phnom Penh bar.
More
Sony winning the HD battle?
Sony may be winning the battle over which format wins the format battle for the next generation of high definition media discs. Its Blu-Ray format has won over several major producers in recent months, including Paramount and Warner, and is looking like taking over from HD-DVD. However Microsoft remains a backer of HD-DVD and its continued support may be pivotal.
More at The Australian
Engaging young readers
Media release: Newspaper companies are optimistic about their ability to capture the time and interest of a new generation of readers, no matter what media channel the young prefer, according to a new report from the World Association of Newspapers says.
More
Cross-media measurement for papers
The World Association of Newspapers has launched a new website to support and promote the use of cross-media audience measurements that will allow publishers to provide a more complete picture of their reach than print circulation alone.
More
BBC iPlayer takes off after relaunch
Guardian, UK: The BBC iPlayer on-demand programming service has seen a 14-fold increase in visits following its relaunch and first marketing campaign, according to traffic figures.
The surge in traffic between early December and early January is not a huge surprise. During this period the BBC relaunched the iPlayer to make it Mac-compatible and much more user-friendly by streaming programmes.
"The average visit time for iPlayer is currently just under nine minutes, compared with almost 20 minutes for YouTube," said Robin Goad, director of research at HitWise UK.
More; iPlayer relaunch story; BBC iPlayer
Virgin Radio to produce 3rd party podcasts
Guardian, UK: Virgin Radio is to launch a division dedicated to producing third-party podcasts and audio streams headed by a former executive from Global Radio.
More
HTML can’t replace handshakes
C-Net (USA) via Benton: The primaries in new Hampshire were
decided by traditional, in-person politicking,
not technology. To be sure, online politicking
has been part of the 2008 election. The YouTube
debates proved to be a provocative exercise in
user-generated content, Meetup and MoveOn changed
the way activism works, and e-mail lets campaigns
stay in touch with voters and volunteers. As Paul
devotees know, online fundraising is a powerful
tool. Journalists love these metrics (see above
for the obligatory MySpace statistics) because
they're easy to measure and report. But Tuesday's
results should be a cautionary tale: votes
matter. In-person meetings matter. Handshakes matter. MySpace friends don't.
More
Could an airline be hacked?
USA Today via Benton: The government is enacting rules to stop a new
kind of cyberthreat: a computer attack that could
compromise the safety of the much-anticipated
Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The Dreamliner, scheduled
to go into service by the end of the year, is
built with unprecedented on-board networks and
Internet access that could tempt a hacker to
tamper with the jet, according to the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA). The agency wrote
little-noticed rules last week that require a
design preventing hacker access. Dreamliner will
be pre-wired for passenger Internet connections.
Computers will also control the jet's flight
controls and monitor the aircraft's health,
sending streams of data back to airline ground
stations. Such computerization "may result in
security vulnerabilities from intentional or
unintentional corruption of data and systems
critical to the safety and maintenance of the airplane," the FAA wrote.
More
Broadcast model is failing
Opinion – Technology Review via Benton: Broadcast television networks are built on the
assumption that audience size is what matters
most. Content is secondary; it exists to attract
passive viewers who will sit still for
advertisements. For a while, that assumption
served the industry well. But the TV news
business has been blind to the revolution that
made the viewer blink: the digital organization
of communities that are anything but passive.
Traditional market-driven media always attempt to
treat devices, audiences, and content as bulk
commodities, while users instead view all three
as ways of creating and maintaining smaller-scale
communities. As users acquire the means of
producing and distributing content, the authority
and profit potential of large traditional networks are directly challenged.
More
Online video – where’s it heacding?
A series by Editors Weblog
How much video? Part 1 – The 2007 boom
Video, video, video. In 2007, the ‘V’ word was the new craze for newspapers internationally. And this is bound to continue in 2008. But just how much video should newspapers seek? In Part 1, we take a look at several examples of how newspapers have included video.
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How much video? Part 2: Figaro, from Handycam to in-house studio
As the Figaro readies the launch of its own in-house video studio (still fully under construction when visited), Bertrand Gié, head of new media for the paper, agreed to give us a few words about the role of video within the quality daily.
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How much video? Part 3: Le Nouvel Observateur: TV-like shows, with an edge
For the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, it’s been a year since they have walked the walk by building an in-house studio. Video has simply become essential. “We can’t do without it anymore,” said Malika Elkord, deputy editor of the Nouvel Observateur. Will video ever be dominant in the publication though?
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World divided on media freedom 6 January
BBC: World opinion is divided on the importance of having a free press, according to a poll conducted for the BBC World Service. Of those interviewed, 56% thought that freedom of the press was very important to ensure a free society. But 40% said it was more important to maintain social harmony and peace.
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Mainstream business TV a flop
The Age: Rupert Murdoch's attempt to bring Wall Street to main street on a new US business satellite station is proving a switch-off for viewers. The Fox Business Network is attracting an average of only 6000 daytime viewers, according to figures compiled by Nielsen Media Research and leaked by sources in the media industry.
More; Broadcasting & Cable story
Adult content rules tweaked
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has recently tweaked the rules for ‘adult’ internet and phone content.
More at ACMA
Media rights for human rights groups
NY Times via Benton: A federal judge has ruled that Amnesty
International and other human rights groups can
assert the same privileges that journalists use,
allowing them to better protect anonymous sources.
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Expect a slower net
The Economist, via Benton: The Economist predicts that 2008
will be the year that "we stop taking access to
the Internet for granted." With more and more
Internet users (including Internet-enabled
devices) requiring more and more broadband,
Internet traffic is bound to slow. "While major
Internet service providers like AT&T, Verizon and
Comcast all plan to upgrade their backbones, it
will be a year or two before improvements begin
to show. By then, Internet television will be in
full bloom, spammers will have multiplied
ten-fold, WiFi will be embedded in every moving
object, and users will be screaming for yet more
capacity. In the meantime, accept that surfing
the web is going to be more like travelling the
highways at holiday time. You'll get there,
eventually, but the going won't be great."
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2008: The Year of Newspaper Outsourcing
Poynter (USA): A wave of oursourcing is beginning in the newspaper industry according to a survey of 15 private company executives by Deutsche Bank analyst Paul Ginocchio.
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Don't blame us - it's the readers' fault
Guardian: From missing girls to missing canoeists, it is easy to despair at the agenda of the national papers. But they are merely reflecting the tastes and wishes of their customers.
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Free wireless, take 2
SFGate via Benton: San Francisco's plan to provide citywide wireless Internet access,
which foundered last summer when EarthLink pulled out, is being
revived by a Mountain View (CA) company that wants to turn the city
into a test site for its vision of a low-cost, community-powered
system. For what would be the country's largest so-called mesh
network, a system that uses a constellation of "repeater antennas" to
spread signals, Meraki says it will donate enough equipment and
Internet access to provide free wireless service to all residents.
The network would use as many as 15,000 wireless antennas to relay
signals from home to home in a type of digital daisy-chain. San
Francisco is the only city offered free service from Meraki, which
plans to use the city as a showroom of sorts to sell its products to
other municipalities and communities around the world. Whether the
plan works will be up to residents, who the company hopes will
volunteer to erect thousands of devices on their rooftops, balconies
or in windows. Since the venture will use private property, it does
not require city approval. Instead, Meraki is betting on San
Franciscans' innovative spirit.
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Ombudsman a web necessity?
Editors Weblog: The Web has entirely changed the journalist-reader relationship. Two-way reader interaction is gaining ground through email, comments, SMS, online chats and blog posts, 24/7. This would imply that news outlets increasingly need ombudsmen. Yet there are reportedly fewer than 40 ombudsmen in the US, and few papers are willing to hire one, at a time of general cost-cutting. Maybe they should think about the potential costs of not having an ombudsman, and figure that the readers’ editor is not (only) a guardrail against angry readers. He or she is a bridge into Web 2.0 journalism.
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