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Media trends digest – August 2009

August 30

Googe Books adopts EPUB
From Google: Try doing a search for Hamlet on Google Books. Because the book is in the public domain, you can download a copy of in PDF form.
Starting today, you'll be able to download these and over one million public domain books from Google Books in an additional format. We're excited to now offer downloads in EPUB format, a free and open industry standard for electronic books. It's supported by a wide variety of applications, so once you download a book, you'll be able to read it on any device or through any reading application that supports the format. That means that people will be able to access public domain works that we've digitized from libraries around the world in more ways, including some that haven't even been built or imagined yet.
Ed’s note: Sony has also announced it is adopting the EPUB format on its readers.
Meanwhile a group of companies and organizations opposing Google Books has formed, called the Open Book Alliance. One of its more prominent members is Microsoft. Also see this NY Times backgrounder on Google and ebooks.

EU backs Google books
The European Union's Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding has thrown her weight behind Internet search group Google in the row over whether it should be allowed to publish millions of scanned books online. On Thursday she added her voice to the debate welcoming "private-sector initiatives" such as Google's. "Google Books is a commercial project developed by an important player," Commissioner Reding said. "It is good to see that new business models are evolving which could allow bringing more content to an increasing number of consumers." Reding's opinion is significant as the former journalist is optimistic she will keep her position as commissioner in charge of telecoms and media when the European Union's new cabinet of commissioners is chosen later this year.
Reuters via Benton

Web ad game lifts a notch
The ubiquitous Google may have lifted the sophistication of web advertising by a notch or two with the introduction of Gadget ads.
901am reports: Gadget ads can incorporate real-time data feeds, images, video and much more in a single creative unit and can be developed using Flash, HTML or a combination of both. Designed to act more like content than a typical ad, they run on the Google content network, competing alongside text, image and video ads for placement. They support both cost-per-click and cost-per-impression pricing models, and offer a variety of contextual, site, geographic and demographic targeting options to ensure the ads reach relevant users with precision and scale.
More

What parents don’t know
According to a recent Common Sense Media survey, fielded by The Benenson Strategy Group, to examine how social networks are affecting kids and families, parents have a lot to learn when it comes to their children's behaviors online, writes Marketing Charts in summary. 49% of parents say their child was age 13 or older before starting unsupervised surfing, but just 14% of teens say they actually waited this long. The results of the poll illustrate a continuing disconnect between parents and kids when it comes to kids' digital lives. The survey of both teens and parents found that many teens use the Internet as a forum for gossip, sharing and blowing off steam, but others, unbeknownst to their parents, are also engaging in bullying and risqué behavior online.
Media Post via Benton

Facebook knows too much
Privacy advocates have long warned that users of Facebook and other social networks who seek amusement from quizzes like "What Simpsons Character Are You?" might be mortified by the way creators of such applications can access and potentially "scrape" personal information — not just about the quiz-takers, but their friends as well. Now, engaging in some online jujitsu, the ACLU of Northern California is employing a cautionary Facebook quiz of its own to illustrate how quizzes that may seem "perfectly harmless" can release an array of data to the wider world — including users' "religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, photos, events, notes, wall posts, and groups." The app, titled "What Do Facebook Quizzes Know About You?" delivers its answer by opening a window that scrolls biographical data, attributed comments and photos. More than 8,000 participants have taken the ACLU's quiz since it was quietly released a few days ago, the ACLU said Wednesday. The group hopes to prompt Facebook to upgrade its privacy default settings for its users, now numbering more than 250 million.
SiliconValley.com via Benton

Most people don’t understand broadband
Daily has a mother-in-law moment and realizes that, for most people, broadband's just a faster way to get onto the Internet than dialup. And because the public doesn't understand bandwidth and why they'd need/want more, it makes it that much more difficult to spark a nationwide movement demanding networks be built with greater capacity. So a key cornerstone of any effort to change America's broadband future, must be recognizing how much work needs to be done educating the public about broadband and committing ourselves to overcoming these challenges.
App-rising.com via Benton

YouTube to share income
YouTube, the world's most popular video sharing site, said on Tuesday it will start sharing advertising cash with users who upload the most popular clips of everything from skateboarding dogs to dancing babies. The video site, which is owned by Web search giant Google, said it will extend its YouTube partnership program to allow individuals to make money when their videos are deemed eligible based on the number of views and how widely they are shared with other users. YouTube has been criticized by some Google investors, who complain that the site has failed to capitalize financially on its immense popularity.
Reuters visa Benton

August 27

Online equals more opportunities & more stress
Mumbrella on the Future of Journalism conference, Adelaide: Regardless of the impact of online on newspaper economics, the new discipline is offering journalists new opportunities, a debate on the future of the industry was told.  
More
Resources from the MEAA (look for the free PDF report)

Undersea net channel opens
From Crikey’s pipewatch: Over the weekend, Pipe International’s new PPC-1 undersea fibre-optic data link from Guam to Sydney was fired up. As Crikey reported in May, when the cable was landed at Collaroy on Sydney’s northern beaches, PPC-1 will increase Australia’s international data capacity by almost 50 per cent. That’s like adding the third runway at Sydney Airport.

US government & Big Brother
Comment: The Obama administration is considering new rules to make it easier for government Web sites to use "cookies" and other technology to track visitors. There are valid reasons for using such tools, but the government has to build in robust privacy protections. The Office of Management and Budget is developing the new rules. Officials say they recognize that people must be told that their use of Web sites is being tracked — and be given a chance to opt out. More is needed. The government should commit to displaying such notices prominently on all Web pages — and to making it easy for users to choose not to be tracked. It must promise that tracking data will be used only for the purpose it was collected for: if someone orders a pamphlet on living with cancer, it should not end up in a general database. Information should be purged regularly and as quickly as possible. These rules must apply to third parties that operate on government sites. The Obama administration is working to better harness the power of the Internet to deliver government services. That is good. But it needs to be mindful that people should be able to get help and be assured that their privacy is being vigilantly protected.
NY Times via Benton
 
Cut web access to file-sharers -- UK
Repeat offenders who persist in illegally downloading music from file-sharing sites such as Limewire could be blocked from accessing the Web under British government proposals issued on Tuesday. The government said it was publishing new ideas to speed up the process of tackling unlawful peer-to-peer file sharing to prevent damage to the content industries. Proposals include requiring Internet Service Providers to take action against individual repeat infringers, including blocking access to download sites, reducing broadband speeds or by temporarily suspending an individual's Internet account.
Reuters via Benton
 
Should US newspapers try low-profit model?
Comment: With so many journalism luminaries focused this week on new business models at Aspen Institute's FOCAS09 conference, I was a little surprised not to hear more about the potential for the low-profit limited liability corporation, or L3C. The L3C is a hybrid corporation that straddles the line between for-profit and nonprofit enterprise. Vermont last year was the first state to pass a law allowing formation of L3Cs, and Illinois this month became the most recent. Several other states are considering similar legislation, as is Congress. Some have looked to the L3C model as a solution for newspapers because it allows a corporation to take on investors who are willing to accept varying rates of return ­ or possibly none at all. Foundations would be assured that their investment would qualify as a program-related investment ­ a crucial distinction under tax law ­ while socially responsible investors might be willing to settle for, say, a 3 percent return. So where is the grand experiment in L3C newspaper journalism? We're still waiting to find out. One of the big problems is that nobody really wants to go first, says Jay Hamilton, director of the DeWitt Center at Duke University. The concept remains fraught with uncertainties, not the least of which is whether newspapers can return to profitability after the recession.
Nieman Journalism Lab via Benton

Journalism after newspapers
What would happen if a major US city was suddenly without a daily newspaper? It seems increasingly possible these days and so the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism set out to find an answer. They hired business analysts to create economic models for the news organizations that spring up. CUNY Professor Jeff Jarvis says journalism could thrive without a daily newspaper.
NPR via Benton

Kindle gets a daily
Though of little interest so far in Australia, book and newspaper publishers have kept a watching brief on Amazon’s Kindle, the portable wireless-empowered reader. Sony has entered the fray with The Daily Edition, a similar device with a bigger screen and claims of more software flexibility.
Book publishers in particular stand to gain from the success of these devices, removing print from the cost of publishing. And, now, Amazon might be pleased, as a competitor just might generated the interest needed to se the market segment fire.
Both devices still beg the question of why you would have one instead of a more flexible fully-featured laptop.
Here’s a link to the LA Times brief announcement on the Sony device; Plus a PC Mag story.
Both Amazon and Sony are now fighting over who produces the best smaller version.

Oz net holders cash in
Two major Australian internet sales are underway: Seek by Consolidated Media Holdings; And an IPO for the Carsales network. Both sales have raised interest in the future of a common group of players, branches of the former ACP.
News Ltd: Consolidated Media's surprise sale of its $440.8 million stake in Seek sent the market into a flurry of speculation today…
News.com.au
CMH media release
ZDnet: Nine Network owner PBL Media is to retain its 49.3 per cent interest in Carsales.com as the online automotive advertising business prepares to list on the Australian stock exchange.
ZDnet

August 26

London closing
News Corp’s free daily, The London Paper, is to close after failing to stem the flow of red ink. It was the forerunner to titles such as MX in Melbourne – another tabloid give-away – intended to pick up the morning commuter audience and, perhaps more importantly, a younger readership not yet hooked on newspapers.
The case for closing will have been made on its own merits, but does coincide with Murdoch warning that the days of publishers giving away content (particularly on the internet) were numbered.
Local reports say that the likes of MX are safe for the time being.

Future of Journalism online
The MEAA is currently hosting a national round of discussion on the future of journalism, supported by a website featuring articles from The Walkley magazine on the same topic. Worth a look at this link.

Mining the web for feelings
Computers may be good at crunching numbers, but can they crunch feelings? The rise of blogs and social networks has fueled a bull market in personal opinion: reviews, ratings, recommendations and other forms of online expression. For computer scientists, this fast-growing mountain of data is opening a tantalizing window onto the collective consciousness of Internet users. An emerging field known as sentiment analysis is taking shape around one of the computer world's unexplored frontiers: translating the vagaries of human emotion into hard data. This is more than just an interesting programming exercise. For many businesses, online opinion has turned into a kind of virtual currency that can make or break a product in the marketplace.
NY Times via Benton

ACP leaves MPA
Magazine publisher ACP Magazines has split from the rest of the print media industry and left the Magazine Publishers of Australia over its opposition to a proposed new readership survey.
The Australian

Network radio’s fate has lessons for today
(Comment) The digital apocalypse continues to blight the lives of television producers, music-industry executives and newspaper publishers, all of whom are scrambling to figure out how to reconfigure their business models in such a way as to allow them to make an honest buck. They're trying to second-guess the ­future—so why not look back at the past? Today's new-media revolution, after all, is not the first time that technological change has laid waste to the best-laid plans of the old media. The same thing was happening 60 years ago. Everybody in America was talking about TV early in 1949, though comparatively few Americans owned a set of their own. Network radio was still the dominant mass entertainment ­medium. If you wanted to listen to Bing Crosby or "The Quiz Kids," you tuned in to their radio programs. While there were roughly 85 million radios in use throughout America, there were 1.3 million TV sets, 750,000 of which were on the East Coast. Television was still a pricey toy. A console set with a 16-inch picture tube cost $695 in 1949—half the price of a new car. Every TV station in the country was operating in the red, and NBC ran its fledgling TV network at a loss of $13,000 a day, $116,000 in ­today's dollars. But on Jan. 11 of that year, television in America turned a technological corner when eight stations on the East Coast and seven Midwestern stations were linked via the first long-distance coaxial cable. All at once it was possible for a significant slice of the American public to watch network TV programs live.
Wall Street Journal

Slate dumps newspaper round-up
Is no one reading the papers anymore? Slate is retiring "Today's Papers," one of the original aggregators of the Web, 12 years after it started its beloved once-a-day summary of the nation's news pages. In its place comes a new recap of the news, one that acknowledges that the news cycle has, well, sped up quite considerably since "Today's Papers" started in 1997. That is why the "Slatest," the name of the new feature that comes online Monday morning, will collect the world's news three times a day. Jack Shafer, the media columnist for Slate, observed that the news cycle had three distinct parts: an overnight shift led by newspapers, a daytime phase when other news media entities react to the overnight news, and an afternoon phase when "the day's news events break and are digested."
NY Times via Benton

US Milestone: digital tops marketing activity
For the first time, digital media use exceeds that of radio, newspaper, television and other traditional media among small and medium-sized businesses.  BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor study shows 77 per cent of local businesses are doing some form of digital marketing.  At the same time, traditional media usage slips to 69 per cent.
Inside Radio via Benton

Google predictions to boost ads
Google has developed a formula to predict hot online search topics in what promises to be a boon for businesses eager to target ads that accompany Internet search results. Engineers in Google's lab in Israel came up with a forecasting model while studying whether past and current search patterns hold reliable clues to what people will seek online in months to come. More than half of the most popular search queries at Google are predictable as far as a year ahead, with a margin of error of about 12 percent, according to the Israel lab engineers.
Agence France Presse

No more free ride?
As newspapers across the country struggle with declining readership and advertising revenue, News Corp. executives have been meeting in recent weeks with publishers about forming a consortium that would charge for news distributed online and on portable devices -- and potentially stem the rising tide of red ink.
LA Times

Also on PM (ABC)
Fairfax Media says it won't be rushed into charging for online content, even though it reported a $380 million net annual loss. Fairfax remains upbeat about the company's future prospects but media commentators say all newspaper companies will have to start charging for web content, if they're to continue to thrive.
More

And now Google is into phones
Google's pickup of Grand Central, a little Web startup with big ideas for revolutionizing phone use, is starting to look pretty smart two years later. The recently revamped version called Google Voice is beginning to spread to curious consumers in a similar fashion as Gmail's closed beta helped to conquer a sector of the Web-based e-mail sector. As more people get hip to Google Voice's perks of getting free voice mail transcription and e-mail alerts, having one number ring all of your phones and scoring free calls and text messages, some telecoms are quickly working behind the scenes to catch up.
LA Times

Less red ink for US newspapers
Investors can suddenly feel a pulse in newspaper companies. But the prognosis remains troubled. Badly beaten-down newspaper stocks have doubled or tripled in recent weeks after surprisingly upbeat earnings for the quarter ended in June. A bull case has emerged: Newspaper managements have cut costs so heavily that as long as advertising stops declining, fewer publishers will print red ink. Any moderate upturn could produce significant profits. Well, maybe. Certainly, costs have been cut. In the latest quarter, for instance, most of the publicly traded publishers reported expense cuts of about 20%, close to the 20% to 25% revenue drops they also experienced. A major area for expense reduction has been employee compensation, which can account for 50% of total costs, estimates John Morton of Morton Research. Savings from layoffs should continue. But those from pay freezes or even cuts will be tougher to maintain. Then there is another area of big expense reduction: newsprint. Together with ink it can account for 15% of expenses, although significantly less in the most recent quarter.
Wall Street Journal

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