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Media trends digest – 2010

UNDERSTANDING THE PARTICIPATORY NEWS CONSUMER Mar 3
[SOURCE: USA - Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, AUTHOR: Kristen Purcell, Lee Rainie, Amy Mitchell, Tom Rosenstiel, Kenny Olmstead]
The overwhelming majority of Americans (92%) use multiple platforms to get their daily news. And the Internet is now the third most-popular news platform. It falls behind local and national television news and ahead of national print newspapers, local print newspapers and radio. Still, the overall reality is that the Internet fits into a broad pattern of news consumption by Americans. Six in ten (59%) get news from a combination of online and offline sources on a typical day.
Just 7% of American adults get their daily news from a single media platform, and those who do typically rely on either the Internet or local television news.
The Internet and mobile technologies are at the center of the story of how people's relationship to news is changing. In today's new multi-platform media environment, people's relationship to news is becoming portable, personalized, and participatory:
Portable: 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.
Personalized: 28% of Internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.
Participatory: 37% of Internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.
The rise of social media like social networking sites and blogs has helped the news become a social experience for consumers; people use their social networks and social networking technology to filter, assess, and react to news. They also use traditional email and other tools to swap stories and comment on them.
benton.org/node/32673

iPAD MAGS ON WAY
NY Times: Condé Nast’s plans for the iPad tablet computer from Apple are getting firmer. Thomas Wallace, editorial director of Condé Nast, said a range of magazines would be tested.
The company already has an iPhone version of GQ.
The first magazines for which it will create iPad versions are Wired (pictured), GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour, the company plans to announce in an internal memorandum on Monday.
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CHEAP E-READERS ON WAY?
Bloomberg: Freescale Semiconductor Inc, whose products power about 90 percent of electronic book readers, said a new chip will help drive down the price of the devices to less than US$150 this year.
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BLOGGERS FAVOURED BY TOURISM OZ
Thumbrella: Tourism Australia has hailed its Visiting Opinion Leaders Program a big success for the youth market as the next wave of influential bloggers begin to land on Aussie soil. 
Launched in April 2009, the program targets digital influencers – bloggers – rather than traditional media…
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MEAA NEWS
Young Journo 2010: Less than a month left to get your entry in for the Walkley Young Australian Journalist of the Year Awards. If you're 26 or under, start thinking about your strongest body of work - it could be your passport to New York or London, and $5000. Keep an eye on this link for more details.
Freelance photographer needed - The ACTU is looking for a photographer to spend a few days photographing workers in their workplace and surrounding grounds. A combination of lifestyle shots with portraits. Flexible working hours needed. Please contact Amanda Nguyen on 03 9664 7326 or email anguyen@actu.asn.au with a show case of your work.
South-East Regional Media Awards: Entries are now open for the 2010 South-East Regional Media Awards. Visit this link for all the entry information.
MEAA

DEEP CUTS FOR BBC
Guardian: The BBC has pledged to cut £100m a year from overhead costs as part of a package of cuts unveiled today by the director general, Mark Thompson, which include proposals to close BBC 6 Music and the Asian Network and halve web output.
The proposals, which will free up £600m a year to be reinvested in high-quality content, also include cutting web budgets by 25% and spending on foreign shows such as Mad Men by 20%, as well as capping investment on sports rights and potentially selling off BBC magazines such as Top Gear.
The proposals, which will be the subject of a 12-week public consultation by the BBC Trust, could affect up to 600 BBC staff and freelancers.
More; BBC strategy review (PDF)

NETWORK NEWS AT A CROSSROADS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter, Bill Carter]
With news available more places than ever, on cable channels and Internet sites, and with revenue challenged by heavy dependence on shrinking advertising dollars, the future for the news divisions at ABC and CBS remains deeply insecure. "Long term, it's going to get harder for these guys to exist as they are currently constructed, with the exception of NBC because it can offload the costs on MSNBC," Michael Nathanson, an industry analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said. The economic problems facing ABC News and CBS News in many ways mirror those faced by newspapers, which have been similarly afflicted by a drop in advertising revenue. The reaction — severe cuts in personnel and other costs — also looks to be the same. But can you shrink your way to prosperity? Andrew Heyward, the former president of CBS News who is now a news media consultant (NBC News is one client), said of the ABC cuts: "The real issue after this is what is going to drive growth? How do you generate more profit? And this doesn't address that." The easy answer would seem to lie in NBC's structure, because in contrast to its competitors, that news organization is flush, making an estimated $400 million in profit a year.
benton.org/node/32690

GUARDIAN iPHONE APP A WINNER
The Guardian: Launched in mid-December and costing £2.39, the Guardian newspaper iPhone app had been downloaded 101,057 times by Sunday, showing that users are willing to pay for online news on mobile devices. "Breaking the 100,000 download barrier in just over two months is an enormous achievement for the Guardian App," said Emily Bell, the director of digital content, Guardian News & Media.
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UNIVERSAL PHONE APPS?
Online Publishers Assn: Apple's App Store dominance is being assaulted. At the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, a group of 24 cell carriers and handset makers announced a new alliance to build an app platform that would unite all the fragmented app stores. Dubbed the Wholesale Application Community (WAC), the alliance includes rivals such as AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, as well as device makers LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. While marketers and publishers would be thrilled to have one simple path to creating apps that run on various services and phones, skeptics weren't so sure. "The initiative is nonetheless doomed from the start," wrote GigaOm's Colin Gibbs. "Carriers have a well-earned reputation for not playing nice with one another, and it will be impossible to herd all those cats." Despite the hurdles, there is an obvious need for such an alliance. "A global app store, whether built and operated by WAC or another coalition, is a better option than the mishmash of competing standards and services that most mobile users face today," wrote PC World's Jeff Bertolucci.

CAN AIRLINES TEACH NEWSPAPERS HOW TO CHARGE?
Forbes magazine: Online newspapers face two seemingly insurmountable challenges: getting customers used to paying for content and getting the industry used to charging for it. But in fact airlines have faced a similar, albeit simpler, situation with respect to baggage.
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LESS PRIVACY ONLINE Feb 28
[SOURCE:  Financial Times, AUTHOR: David Gelles]
While many Internet users are fretting about preserving their online privacy in the age of social networking, a new breed of digital natives is actively stripping away the last vestiges of anonymity. They are broadcasting their thoughts, plans and even their locations and purchases to the web, using new services that post intimate personal information in real time. What began with status updates on Facebook and Twitter has evolved into services such as Blippy, a website which automatically publishes everything a user buys with a credit card to a short, Twitter-like feed for all to see. Launched in December, Blippy has gathered more than 10,000 users who share information on about US$250,000 worth of purchases a day.
benton.org/node/32400

GOOGLE SET TO RESUME TALKS WITH CHINA
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jessica Vascellaro]
Google representatives are scheduled to resume discussions in coming days with Chinese officials about the fate of Google's China business, said people briefed on the matter. The schedule and the status of the talks, which are being picked up after a break for the Chinese New Year holiday, are unclear. Among the range of Google officials handling the talks on the ground is Google policy executive Ross LaJeunesse, said people familiar with the matter. Any resolution to the matter of whether Google will be able to operate an unfiltered search engine in the country is likely to be weeks away, said one of the people.
benton.org/node/32402

CBS: UNLIKELY GUERRILLA ON THE INTERNET
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Martin Peers]
Could CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves be turning into a digital revolutionary? Long an advocate of broadcast television, Moonves would appear to be squarely in the old-media camp. Even so, in recent years he has shown a greater willingness than most of his peers to experiment with digital delivery. CBS has put its programming out on the Web through hundreds of outlets, including Netflix and Web-enabled TV devices. Moonves said last week that CBS is willing to cut the price of shows it sells on Apple's iTunes to 99 cents. Of course, it is easier for CBS to take risks because it doesn't own a big portfolio of cable channels that generate fees from cable and satellite operators. But that is the point. Its lack of big cable channels is arguably now more a strength than a weakness, freeing CBS to try new things. Moreover, because CBS relies for most of its revenue on advertising and sales of its programs to other outlets, it has little choice but to focus on top-rated programming. Other companies, in contrast, generate fee revenue from low-rated channels because they are bundled with bigger ones.
benton.org/node/32396

APPLE BANS RACY CONTENT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jenna Wortham]
Apple has started banning many applications for its iPhone that feature sexually suggestive material, including photos of women in bikinis and lingerie, a move that came as an abrupt surprise to developers who had been profiting from such programs. The company's decision to remove the applications from its App Store over the last few days indicates that it is not interested in giving up its tight control over the software available there, even as competitors like Google take a more hands-off approach. When asked about the change, Apple said it was responding to complaints from App Store users. Among the victims of the purge was a game called SlideHer, a puzzle that challenged users to reassemble a photograph of a scantily clad actress. Another, Sexy Scratch Off, depicted a woman whose dress could be whisked away at the swipe of a finger, revealing her undergarments. Such programs often appeared on the store's list of most-downloaded apps.
benton.org/node/32394

THE STRONGEST OPEN INTERNET PROTECTIONS
[SOURCE: The Huffington Post, AUTHOR: Malkia Cyril]
[Commentary] Full broadband adoption and open Internet protections are both possible -- if, and only if, the Federal Communications Commission defines broadband as a universal service and ensures the strongest possible protections for an open Internet. Communities of color and the poor cannot thrive with less. It's time for our voices to be heard. The truth is, strong open Internet protections encourage investment and deployment, because they prevent ISPs from profiting from artificial scarcity; and nothing about network neutrality will prevent ISPs from charging heavy users more. The only reason additional costs would be dumped on poor and working class consumers is if private companies are given too much rope to hang us with. We can prevent that by ensuring the FCC imposes strong non-discrimination protections in network neutrality rules, thereby limiting corporate control over the Internet. I support -- and I believe Mr. Steele would agree -- stopping corporate bullies, not rewarding them with more control. It's clear that the civil rights mandate is to ensure full broadband access and adoption while defending representation online. Many members of the civil rights community agree that the best way to narrow the digital divide is to define broadband as a universal service, and codify the strongest open Internet rules possible that narrowly define reasonable network management and ensure that every voice and idea has a chance by preventing the blocking or prioritizing of content based on profit. But some in the civil rights community are legitimately concerned that limiting the ability of wealthy corporations to increase their profit through broad and discriminatory management of their networks might have a negative impact on broadband build out and access for communities of color, the poor, and other historically disenfranchised groups. As a result, they are hesitant to support rules that may curtail the flexibility of corporate media giants to block or prioritize content to make money. But the fight for an o pen Internet is a fight for our mothers, our children, and our future. Let's not be confused. The fight for an open Internet is an inter-generational fight that requires all members of the civil rights community -- veterans and leaders of a new generation -- to have the foresight and clarity to respond effectively to a new generation of media problems and opportunities. None of us should be willing to cede representation to get access, or accept any less than the strongest Open Internet protections possible.
benton.org/node/32539

NEWSPAPERS STILL TOP SOURCE OF LOCAL INFO
[SOURCE: Editor&Publisher, AUTHOR: Jennifer Saba]
More people go to newspapers Web sites for complete local information than any other source, according to a new survey from the Newspaper Association of America and comScore. Of the more than 3,000 adults surveyed, 57% chose newspaper Web sites as the top source for local information. However, the survey reveals that the competition is moving in. While 57% of identified newspapers as the top source of local information, 54% cited online portals while 53% went with local TV web sites. The respondents also rely more on portals for local information (31%) followed by local newspaper Web sites (23%)and local TV Web sites (22%). Newspapers have a tiny lead when it comes to being the most trust worthy local source. Thirty-three percent said newspaper sites while 32% said local TV Web sties. The source used most often by respondents by content type? Newspaper Web sites had only 30% of the vote for local news versus 31% for local TV sites. Newspaper Web sites bested other sources for local classifieds: 39% of respondents look to newspapers Web sites for that category -- far and away more than the next source, specialty Web sites at 14%.
benton.org/node/32529

ITALIAN GOOGLE VERDICT
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jacqui Cheng]
An Italian court has convicted three former Google executives of violations of Italy's privacy code early Wednesday morning. The decision comes after months of back and forth on the case, all of which began with a video uploaded by some delinquent teenagers of themselves beating on a classmate with Down Syndrome. Though the judge in the case absolved the executives of defamation charges (and a fourth was found not guilty of all charges), the verdict is shocking and is likely to have serious repercussions for sites that host user-generated content in Italy. The three-minute video was uploaded in 2006 and had a short lifespan on Google Video Italia, as complaints were quickly lodged and it was pulled within hours. That didn't stop an Italian Down Syndrome support group called Vivi Down from arguing that it should never have appeared in the first place. The group filed a complaint that resulted in a two-year investigation, and eventually, Milan public prosecutor Francesco Cajani agreed that the Google execs had violated Italian law by allowing the video to be uploaded. The four executives in question were Google's global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer, senior vice president and chief legal officer David Drummond, former chief financial officer George Reyes, and London-based Google Video exec Arvind Desikan. As Google has pointed out repeatedly, none of these executives had any involvement in the video and only learned about its existence after it had been removed. Nonetheless, Desikan was the only one of the group who was not convicted, while Drummond, Fleischer, and Reyes were all found guilty of privacy violations and received suspended six-month jail sentences.
benton.org/node/32523

FORMULAS AT HEART OF GOOGLE COMPLAINT
[SOURCE:  Financial Times, AUTHOR: Maija Palmer, Chris Nuttall]
Algorithms are the "secret sauce" behind Google's business, much like the recipe for Coca-Cola, and an important background to the antitrust complaints filed against it at the European Commission. They are highly complex mathematical formulae. Google's algorithm draws on 200 factors and is tweaked 400 times a year by an army of engineers, which the company uses to determine how to rank the search results it displays on its Internet search site. Google rankings can be vital to a company's business. About 67 per cent of Internet users go to its search engine to locate information, and most will only click on links on the first page of Google's search results. A low ranking means invisibility. The secretive nature of the algorithm is at the heart of the antitrust complaints the company faces in Brussels. Companies find it hard to understand why their rankings go up and down, and Google stands accused of manipulating the formula to discriminate against competitors.
benton.org/node/32555

IBM SURVEY
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Kim Hart]
IBM surveyed 8000 consumers and 60 telecom company executives to get a sense of Internet-related trends over the next decade, showing that broadband will continue to evolve and expand while traditional communications infrastructure -- those copper lines we've used to make phone calls for decades -- will rapidly disappear. IBM predicts that the use of land lines will decrease by 95 percent in the next five to 10 years. Conversely, usage of mobile and wireless broadband will increase by 98 percent during the same period. The company also found that consumers will demand open platforms, where they can access content on all types of devices. In fact, 70 percent of those surveyed said they want to access content on any device-- a computer, TV, phone or netbook--from any provider. Interestingly, IBM found that 65 percent of consumers expect their telecom provider to maintain their role as simply providing Internet and wireless services. Only one in five consumers expect telecom providers to have a role in the retail and delivery of online content services.
benton.org/node/32648

THE EMPEROR'S CLOTHES
[SOURCE: The Economist, AUTHOR: ]
[Commentary] The obstacles in the way of media moguls are especially big. Advertising is swiftly migrating online, and moving away from media companies as it does so. The Internet retains the power to disintermediate (that is, bypass media firms by bringing products straight to consumers) and de-aggregate (turning albums into tracks and newspapers into articles). Few have worked out a way of making money from putting content online. Nor is it clear that a willingness to spend on media-playing devices is a wholly good sign. Consumers bought lots of iPods in the past few years. But they did not spend much money on music. And there is always the threat that media moguls will go on another buying spree. The industry has a history of splashy mergers and acquisitions, particularly involving technology outfits, which end up destroying value. So let the content cocks crow. But if they start talking about synergies, run for the hills.
benton.org/node/32612

POLITICAL HACKTIVISTS TURN TO WEB ATTACKS
[SOURCE: BBC, AUTHOR: ]
Political activists are increasingly using net attacks as a means of protest, reveals a report. Since late 2009, environmental, political and ideological groups have become significant users of attacks that swamp sites with data. The groups are well resourced and use innovative techniques said Prolexic, a security firm that combats the attacks. Its findings come as cyber-activists block Australian government websites in protest at plans to filter content. Prolexic estimates about a total of nine million computers are used to mount the data flooding attacks.
benton.org/node/32253

THE LOBBYING-MEDIA COMPLEX
[SOURCE: The Nation, AUTHOR: Sebastian Jones]
Since 2007 at least seventy-five registered lobbyists, public relations representatives and corporate officials -- people paid by companies and trade groups to manage their public image and promote their financial and political interests -- have appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, CNBC and Fox Business Network with no disclosure of the corporate interests that had paid them. Many have been regulars on more than one of the cable networks, turning in dozens -- and in some cases hundreds -- of appearances. For lobbyists, PR firms and corporate officials, going on cable television is a chance to promote clients and their interests on the most widely cited source of news in the United States. These appearances also generate good will and access to major players inside the Democratic and Republican parties. For their part, the cable networks, eager to fill time and afraid of upsetting the political elite, have often looked the other way. At times, the networks have even disregarded their own written ethics guidelines. Just about everyone involved is heavily invested in maintaining the current system, with the exception of the viewer. While lobbyists and PR flacks have long tried to spin the press, the launch of Fox News and MSNBC in 1996 and the Clinton impeachment saga that followed helped create the caldron of twenty-four-hour political analysis that so many influence peddlers call home. Since then, guests with serious conflicts of interest have popped up with alarming regularity on every network. Just examine their presence in coverage of the economic crash and the healthcare reform debate, two recent issues that have engendered massive cable coverage.
benton.org/node/32235

PRODUCT PLACEMENT IS YOUR FAULT
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Brian Steinberg]
At the Association of National Advertisers' annual TV & Everything Video Forum, speaker after speaker lined up example after example of shockingly intrusive pacts that placed -- nay, shoved -- commercial messages deep into programming. Taken individually, these moves from commercial break to in-program content seem fun, novel, even entertaining. Placed together in this fashion, however, the parade of in-show appearances by paying advertisers took on the form of something more pernicious.  Never has it been more clear that commercials and content are fast becoming one and the same, wholly indistinguishable from each other. What's going on? 1) Media outlets, roiled by the recession and changes in the TV business, have bent, even broken, many of their own rules. 2) Advertisers have had it with trying to game ad breaks. 3) We have no one to blame but ourselves -- We say we hate ads. We say we love "American Idol," "24" or "The Closer." Yet we ignore the fact that the ads are the main reason we get to watch those shows for a relatively minimal cost.
benton.org/node/32232

IS THERE A MASTER METRIC FOR EVALUATING PUBLIC MEDIA?
[SOURCE: MediaShift, AUTHOR: Jessica Clark, Katie Donnelly]
[Commentary] How are Public Media 2.0 projects measuring their success in informing and engaging publics? We've identified five elements to explore; each of these elements represents a measurable category of activity that helps media projects convene publics around issues:
Reach: How many people encounter the project across various screens and streams: TV, radio, streaming audio, blogs and websites, Twitter, iTunes, mobile applications, and more?
Relevance: Is the media project topical within the larger news cycle? Is it designed to stay relevant over several news cycles? Is it particularly relevant to targeted publics concerned with a specific issue, location, or event?
Inclusion: Does the project address a diverse range of targeted audience, not just in terms of race, but in terms of gender, age, class, geographical location and beliefs? How open is the architecture for participation, collaboration and discussion?
Engagement: Does the project move users to action: to subscribe to a site, contribute material, to write a letter in response, to pass on a link, donate time and money, sign a petition or contact a leader?
Influence: Does the project challenge or put the frame on important issues? Does it target "influentials"?Is it "spreadable" or buzzworthy?
benton.org/node/32365

MEDIA BUSINESS UPDATE Feb 23
Fairfax claims turnaround
SMH: Fairfax Media believes it is through the worst of the global financial crisis, riding resurgent advertising markets to lift underlying earnings by 37 per cent from the depths of market turmoil early last year.
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Comment: Terry McCrann, Herald-Sun; Stephen Bartholomeusz, Business Spectator
Seven tie-up with heavy equipment firm
AFP: Australian media and investment company Seven Network on Monday announced a surprise merger with a heavy equipment firm, saying the unusual match-up was designed to take advantage of the mining boom.
More
Analysis: James Chessell, The Australian
Telstra media head profile
Telstra’s new head of voice, broadband and media has a big task ahead – see this profile.

NET NEUTRALITY: A COMPLEX TOPIC MADE SIMPLE Feb 21
[SOURCE: ComputerWorld, AUTHOR: Matt Hamblen]
What is Network Neutrality'? At its core, the Net neutrality movement in the US refers to efforts to keep the Internet open, accessible and "neutral" to all users, application providers and network carriers. In theory, this means, for example, that one carrier would not be allowed to discriminate against an application written by a third party by requiring its users to rely on the carrier's own proprietary voice applications. A carrier's walled-garden browser, which allows access to only certain Web sites, is also not seen as neutral by many neutrality proponents. The term Net neutrality is clearly politically laden. It isn't used that much by the Federal Communications Commission in its deliberations on the matter. Traditional carriers don't use the term that much either, since they often argue there is nothing wrong with the openness of the Internet, something Google and a variety of public interest groups dispute.
benton.org/node/32336

COPYRIGHT REFORM ACT
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Press release]
Saying that, "We need a bolder vision that starts to break down the barriers to free culture ­ that starts to break the vise grip the few and powerful have on ownership," Public Knowledge President and Co-Founder Gigi B. Sohn announced a new five-part Copyright Reform Act. Sohn said the discussion draft for the model legislation proposes five changes that "are to intended update copyright law for the digital age and in doing so tip the balance back in favor of the constitutional mandate that copyright protection 'promote the progress of science and the useful arts.'"
The general topics for copyright change are to:
1) strengthen fair use, including reforming outrageously high statutory damages, which deter innovation and creativity; 2) reform the DMCA to permit circumvention of digital locks for lawful purposes; 3) update the limitations and exceptions to copyright protection to better conform with how digital technologies work; 4) provide recourse for people and companies who are recklessly accused of copyright infringement and who are recklessly sent improper DMCA take-down notices; and 5) streamline arcane music licensing laws to encourage new and better business models for selling music.
benton.org/node/32302

NEW MEDIA CAN HELP FIGHT REPRESSION
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Chisa Fujioka]
An increase in online journalists and freelancers has made the press more vulnerable to repression, but new media are also helping raise awareness about such attacks, a watchdog group said on Tuesday. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in its annual report, released at a Tokyo news conference, that freelancers and local reporters faced more risk of attack from dictators, repressive governments and militant groups because they did not have media organizations to back them. But blogs, social networking sites and other new forms of media have also helped fight censorship, although there were exceptions such as in China.
benton.org/node/32287

BOOK PUBLISHERS AND KINDLE
[SOURCE:  Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR:]
Since Amazon debuted its first Kindle e-book reader late in 2007, the reaction within the book industry has been a mix of welcome and scorn. Welcome because of the potential to tap an entirely new market -- before a wave of digital piracy similar to the one that decimated the music business. Scorn because of fears that the online retail giant, which already has a commanding share of the market for printed books, might use its leverage to seize control of the new market and push down prices even further. Publishers have been fighting back and seemed to score an important victory recently, with Amazon reportedly agreeing to a model that would let publishers set higher prices for e-books sold for the Kindle. Analysts say a truce is likely but won't do much harm to Amazon even if the company raises the prices of e-books from $9.99, which has helped make the Kindle a major hit. The Seattle company discloses little data about its Kindle business, but it is widely estimated that Amazon loses money on most e-books that it sells for that price. Higher prices would mean a better margin for the business even if the sales volume takes a small hit, experts say. But concerns persist about whether publishers will give any ground on e-book prices. In theory, the companies should still make good profits on e-books at lower prices, because they are saving on printing, binding and distribution, costs that make up an estimated 10% to 12% of a hardcover book's price. Ironically, the company that has thrown the biggest wrench into Amazon's plans is the very company that Amazon was trying to emulate -- Apple.
benton.org/node/32284

E-BOOKS NEED A COMMON LANGUAGE
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Troy Wolverton]
[Commentary] I never need to worry about whether I can read a book. As long as a book's a book, that is — printed on paper, in English. I know I can pick it up and read it no matter how long it sits on my shelf after I bought it. But as we move into the era of e-books, that assumption no longer holds. In certain cases, you can't read the electronic book you buy from one store on a device supported by a competing store. Similarly, you can't read e-books you borrow from your library if you don't have the right kind of device. And there's a chance you won't be able to read the e-books you buy today on the e-book reader you own several years from now. Does anyone in the books business realize how dumb this is? Seems not. Because just when the situation seemed to be getting better, it suddenly got worse.
benton.org/node/32265

FACEBOOK DIRECTS MORE ONLINE USERS THAN GOOGLE
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: Benny Evangelista]
A big part of the Facebook experience is how friends and family share Web links to interesting news stories, photos, videos and Internet sites. This "friend-casting" of information has helped propel Facebook into a major force in directing traffic around the Web. According to Web measurement firm Compete Inc., Facebook has passed search-engine giant Google to become the top source for traffic to major portals like Yahoo and MSN, and is among the leaders for other types of sites. This trend is shifting the way Web site operators approach online marketing, even as Google takes steps to move into the social-media world. Some experts say social media could become the Internet's next search engine.
benton.org/node/32264

NETWORKS CRITICIZED FOR AIRING LUGE VIDEO
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: David Bauder]
NBC and other networks were criticized Saturday for broadcasting the disturbing video of a Georgian luger who died after flying off the track and slamming into a steel beam during an Olympic training run. NBC said callers complained and Twitter was aflame with disgust. Much of the criticism centered on the network showing the footage at the beginning of its coverage of Friday's opening ceremony for the Vancouver Games, even though video of Nodar Kumaritashvili's death aired on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news programs. News organizations frequently weigh the imperative of depicting the reality of the world they cover with concerns about whether images would be too disturbing for the public. In this case, the networks warned viewers and used the video. NBC, in a departure from its usual policy of holding onto video because it is the U.S. Olympics rightsholder, let other networks use it.
benton.org/node/32263

IT STINKS TO BE KING
[SOURCE: MediaBizBlogger, AUTHOR: Tom Cunniff]
[Commentary] Content isn't King. It's common as dirt, and worth about as much. Accountants at News Corporation, The New York Times, Time Warner and CBS have been forced to write down tens of billions of dollars in assets. The costs of producing and distributing content have shrunk to essentially zero. There are no barriers to entry for Web publishers: in half a day you can set up a WordPress blog and start running Google ads. The result? The world is absolutely drowning in content, and the laws of supply and demand are kicking in, hard.
benton.org/node/32183

POLITICIANS, THE PRESS, AND FOREIGN POLICY
[SOURCE: Foreign Policy, AUTHOR: Stephen Walt]
[Commentary] Over the past few years, media critics like Glenn Greenwald, Mark Danner, and Michael Massing have exposed some of the sloppiness, incestuousness, and group-think that routinely afflicts mainstream media coverage of world events, especially in the realm of foreign policy and national security. Even "faux news" outlets like Jon Stewart's Daily Show have contributed to greater awareness of media failings, mostly by pointing out biases and inconsistencies in a ruthlessly funny fashion. Yet no matter how useful such critiques are, they need to be complemented by more systematic scholarly studies of the complex relationship between media coverage, public opinion, and actual foreign policy decisions. On that topic, Matthew Baum and Tim Groeling have recently published an excellent book entitled War Stories: The Causes and Consequences of Public Views on War (Princeton University Press). Drawing on a wide array of empirical evidence (including opinion surveys, media content, and foreign policy decisions), they argue that the interaction between elites, media, and public opinion is a three-way process in which each group's behavior is essentially strategic. Politicians try to use media to advance their aims; the media picks stories in order to maximize audience (or in some cases, to advance an ideological agenda), and therefore tend to favor stories that are novel or surprising (like when a prominent senator criticizes a president from his own party). Similarly, the public does not just consume the news passively; readers and viewers use various cues to gauge the credibility of different sources.
benton.org/node/32179

GOOGLE HEADS TO COURT RE DIGITAL BOOKS Feb 19
Wired magazine (which has recently announced a digital version of its print title) has produced a report on Google’s ongoing legal battle over gaining the rights to digitize books. It says: Google will encounter stiff resistance in a Manhattan federal court Thursday during a marathon hearing that could grant Google the keys to free the written word from a business and intellectual model as old as paper and ink.
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HOW MUCH FOR DIGITAL NEWSPAPERS?
Gawker: There's a heated turf war going on inside the New York Times over the iPad, pitting print die-hards against people focused on the Times' digital future. The outcome will determine pricing for some marquee content on Apple's tablet.
The internal fight might also determine how relevant — and profitable — the USA’s most prominent newspaper can remain in the digital future. Which is probably why there's reportedly so much sniping over who gets to control the iPad edition internally.
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RADIOHEAD JOURNALISM
From Wired: What does an award-winning journalist do when she has a great story, and no one will publish it? If she’s Paige Williams, she sets her work free and crowdsources the fee in an experiment she calls “Radiohead journalism.”
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WILL THEY PAY?
Nielsen audience measurement:
Will consumers pay for online news and entertainment they now get for free?
Nielsen asked more than 27,000 consumers across 52 countries, and the answer is a definite “maybe.” As expected, the vast majority (85%) prefer that free content remain free. Yet there are opportunities to be found in the details. Indeed, when asked to focus on specific types of content, survey participants are more willing to at least consider paying for particular categories, especially if they have done so before.
Online content for which consumers are most likely to pay—or have already paid—are those they normally pay for offline, including theatrical movies, music, games and select videos such as current television shows. These tend to be professionally produced at comparatively high costs.
Consumers are least likely to pay for content that is essentially homegrown online, often by other consumers at fairly low cost. These include social communities, podcasts, consumer-generated videos and blogs.
In between are an array of news formats—newspapers, magazines, Internet-only news sources and radio news and talk shows—created by professionals, relatively expensive to produce and, in the case of newspapers and magazines, commonly sold offline. Yet much of their content has basically become a commodity, readily available elsewhere for free.
Compensation Conditions
Whatever their preferences, consumers worldwide generally agree that online content will have to meet certain criteria before they shell out money to access it:
    * Better than three out of every four survey participants (78%) believe if they already subscribe to a newspaper, magazine, radio or television service they should be able to use its online content for free.
    * At the same time, 71% of global consumers say online content of any kind will have to be considerably better than what is currently free before they will pay for it.
    * Nearly eight out of every ten (79%) would no longer use a web site that charges them, presuming they can find the same information at no cost.
    * As a group, they are ambivalent about whether the quality of online content would suffer if companies could not charge for it—34% think so while 30% do not; and the remaining 36% have no firm opinion.
    * But they are far more united (62%) in their conviction that once they purchase content, it should be theirs to copy or share with whomever they want.
More at Nielsen’s blog

LIBRARIANS & SEARCH GIANTS AGAINST CONROY FILTER
iTech Report: The Australian Library and Information Association alongside the Inspire Foundation, Yahoo! and Google have urged the Australian Government to look for and consider alternatives to filtering the entire web for RC content, saying it will only result in a backwards step for Australia.
Instead the group say, if the Government is so keen to filter out bad content, they should take an approach like those seen in parts of Europe, where the ISPs, police and government authorities work together in partnership to target a clearly defined and narrow band of child sexual abuse material.
“We are concerned that the scope of content to be filtered is too wide,” the statement to the Government reads.
More, also see Electronic Frontiers Australia

ABC PLANNING FOR iPAD
The Age: The ABC is making plans to deliver content via rich apps to Apple iPad and a range of similar slate devices that will be launched this year, Adobe's top designer says.
The first iPads are due to hit the market in March but it was revealed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that several other iPad-like tablets from major PC manufacturers would also hit the market this year, running a range of operating systems including Google's Android and Windows.
More

THE KINDLE FILES
We recently purchased a Kindle 2, the smaller of the two electronic readers produced by Amazon (there's also a bigger Kindle DX) and, over time, will report on how it performs.
We’ll be looking at it from two points of view: 1. As a consumer and reader; 2. As a publisher. Here is a link to the Wikipedia reference on the series.
Some early impressions
We ordered the unit itself (US$259) plus a leather cover (US$35) on the web. The unit arrived in under a week, with a promise the cover will turn up in a further couple of days. The package included the Kindle, a basic instruction book, plus a USB data and charging cable.
Set-up was simplicity itself – just plug in and charge. It immediately downloaded (via Amazon’s wireless service) a welcome letter from the company, which was a nice touch.
So far as I can tell, there is no charge for the wireless service – or at least it’s included in the cost of any purchase.
It's super compact, about the thickness of a slim magazine, a little longer than A5 paper, and very light (under 300gm). I suspect many users would prefer the larger screen model, particularly if they feel a need to use the larger typeface sizes.
The electronic paper screen (mono – no colour) is very crisp. There’s no backlighting and it works in full sunlight. However you need ambient light to read and the company will sell you a little reading lamp to mount on the case. You won't need it so long as you have a reasonable lighting where you're reading.
First impressions are that it’s clearly a book/text reader first, rather than a magazine or graphic-rich environment.
So far we’ve uploaded a PDF from our laptop, plus a trial subscription to Time magazine (text only, apart from the cover) and a book via the online store. All work with varying degrees of success.
The PDF was designed for a computer screen and on the Kindle lost the use of embedded web links and its colour. While the text was crisp, I could not adjust the size for this document, which places some responsibility on the publisher to make the design more Kindle-friendly.
Meanwhile the book (a Sherlock Holmes compilation put together by volunteers and costing just a few dollars) read very well. You can search the text, but cannot skip direct to chapters as the people who assembled it did not make this facility available. You can however annotate and set your own bookmarks.
Time magazine lost its pictures (US customers have greater access to mag images), but did have chapter-skipping available. The user gets the 14-day trial, after which, if they decide not to subscribe, they must opt out of the $3.00 per month ongoing rate. A note here: I had to ensure an up-to-date credit card was registered with Amazon to get both this and the book.
We very briefly put it in the hands of a few different people of varying ages, most of whom expressed interest if not wild enthusiasm. The iPhone generation young woman immediately started prodding the screen and was disappointed to discover it didn’t have a touch-command function.
Navigating around the device takes only a little while to learn and there are some Amazon support resources online. This is the company’s second-generation Kindle, which looks considerably less bulky and more elegant than the first.
My impression so far is it will appeal to people who are dedicated readers who don’t necessarily have a strong enthusiasm for computers. And to others who simply want something smaller and less valuable than a laptop to drag around when they’re travelling. The fact it has a “global” (Amazon’s description) wireless support adds considerably to its usefulness.
We’ll bring you more as we get to know it better. We'll also have a close look at Apple's iPad (which is partially aimed at the Kindle market) when it turns up over the coming year. Amazon, in the meantime, has announced it will be releasing more software (native and third party) for its device -- something which it will need to remain competitive.
Guy Allen

MIXED RESULTS FOR PRINT AUDITS
Decline in the newspaper market overall, but not necessarily magazines, seems to be the message from the most recent ABC audits.
Key observations
Weekly magazines took a substantial hit overall, with the exceptions being New Idea holding steady, Grazia picking up a slight rise and Famous scoring a defiant 15% lift.
Leisure magazines scored very mixed results. Areas such as home care, health and some premium women’s titles (e.g. Harper’s Bazaar) did well, while other sectors such as motoring (with the odd exception, such as Unique Cars) took a fair bit of punishment. Overall, this market appears to have stabilised.
Newspapers and their magazine inserts are generally bleeding audience, with very rare exceptions. The Australian Financial Review takes the dubious honour of recording the biggest loss -  around 10%.
All the numbers

TECHNOLOGY? IT'S ABOUT PEOPLE, TOO
ABC MD Mark Scott, at the Melbourne Press Club, Feb 11:
Recently, someone pointed out to me that a lot of talk about journalism last year concerned itself with the business model supporting it. And a lot of people spoke about the technology, various gadgets, gizmos and innovations that will impact on how we tell stories.  
…there were good reasons to focus on technology over content.  Anyone looking at the music business or the newspaper business over the past decade – both of which now seem to be in the ambulance, if not intensive care – would see that we cannot separate considerations about content from those of technology.
Technology is always determining the fate of content - what we do depends upon how we do it.  And that means eternally adapting both to technological change, and behavioural change.
…Technology changes audience expectations.  And digital television allows us to create a news service for those members of our television audience who want continuous access to news and coverage of breaking news as it happens.  
…I wonder sometimes if the instant metrics generated in the online world are increasing the temptation to be tabloid in choosing news, pictures and headlines – to draw the eyeballs and the click-through – just as a tabloid designs page one to drive response from the newsstand.
There is nothing wrong with tabloids…in great newspaper markets – like New York and London, Melbourne and Sydney – the tabs and the broadsheets have operated side by side, offering different content to different segments of the market.  They expressed themselves differently in many ways.
In the online space, however, that distinction blurs - tabloids and broadsheets tend to behave the same way, as if the online audience’s primary need is to be entertained.  The result is the kind of editorial thinking that means we get far more coverage - as has been noted - of Paris Hilton than Paris, France. More Angelina and Brad than Angola and Chad.
But clearly, even in an era of unprecedented media plenty there will be a prized place for news organisations – The New York Times, The Economist, the BBC for example - who can be trusted and believed. Who think in terms of news values.
…We are embracing social networking and finding it a great way to stay connected with our audiences through the day.  Through Twitter, we are delivering fast breaking news around everything from bushfires and leadership spills to traffic incidents and sports results.
Yet, while we need to be fast and versatile to meet modern audience demands for immediate, cross-platform news, it is imperative we continue to invest significant news resources in serious long-form news and current affairs.  To take investigative journalism into the next decade.
Technologies mostly affect the telling, the way our stories reach people. True, technologies also affect newsgathering…nowadays technology of social media multiplies the ways the people can react, making journalism more 'two-way' – to everyone's benefit.
But in the heart of the gathering - in the thinking through of story ideas, angles, patterns, leads; in the cultivation of sources; the sorting towards an essentially accurate draft of truth - in all that, journalism is people not technology.
Full speech (pdf)

PAY WALL GAMBLE
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger's Hugh Cudlipp lecture, Jan 25
Now, I happen to believe that Rupert Murdoch is a brave, radical proprietor who has been a good owner of the Times and that he has often proved to be right when he has challenged conventional thinking. But many people who similarly admire him have nagging doubts about whether he's right this time. The publisher of the New York Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr, admitted last week that his own pay wall proposals are, to some extent, "a bet". Full marks for honesty. What they're doing is a hunch.
To put it another way, it may be right for the Times of London and New York, but not for everyone. It may be right at some point for everybody in the future, but not yet. There is probably general agreement that we may all want to charge for specialist, highly-targeted, hard-to-replicate content. It's the "universal" bit that is uncertain.
Murdoch, being smart, knows better than most that a printed newspaper – a tightly-edited basket of subjects and articles – becomes a very different thing in digital form. He will know the argument that says that in future you may be able to charge for mobile, but not for desktops. That specialist information may have value, general information little or none. The arguments hardly need rehearsing tonight. We all know the Walmart-Baghdad subsidy theory – that it is retail display advertising that pays for the New York Times Iraq operation, not the readers.
On mobile, we're all at the start of an experiment that is fascinating but unknown. We had no clue what, if anything, to charge for the Guardian's iPhone app when we launched it at the end of 2009. We settled for £2.39 and sold 70,000 in the first month. It's one clue to the future, not an epiphany.
This year will see a fascinating struggle for dominance between the Kindle, the Sony reader, Plastic Logic's Que, the Skiff Reader and LG's 19-inch bendy e-journal. They may all have (if they don't already) significant revenue opportunities. Things are moving so fast that these remarks may be out of date by Wednesday, when Apple is expected to launch something between an iPhone and a Kindle.
(Note: the speech was originally titled Does journalism exist? and ranges much wider than indicated here.)
Full text & video links (See more speeches from significant media players at this link)

OPEN PROJECT SEEKS MULTI-MEDIA REPORTERS
From the ABC’s jobs page:
Do you want to be part of the future of Australian media?
For more than 75 years the ABC has been connecting local communities through regional radio. Now we're embarking on an ambitious initiative to interact with and engage our audience online.
The ABC Open project will offer regional audiences the chance to participate in ways that have never existed before. It will shine a spotlight on regional Australia through text-based stories, blogs, photography, video, and audio published online and on new platforms. 50 digital jobs have been created to help bring those stories and issues to the world.
A nationwide search has begun for the first 30 of the best and brightest multimedia producers to drive the ABC Open Project. We're looking for creative people who can tell stories and who are able to share these skills with their communities. Based in ABC Local Radio offices around the country, these producers will be working at developing new ways of engaging and interacting with audiences in their local areas. They'll be active in their communities and have ideas about how to develop online participation.
If you have skills in finding and telling stories; if you can work with a wide range of people; if you have experience in creating compelling media content; if you're active in social media networks and if you live, or want to live, in regional Australia, then apply to be an ABC Open producer by March 5.
Salary range: $59,784 - $71,368
Contact: Cath Dwyer (02) 8333 2443 or Ann Chesterman (02) 8333 2447

AUSTRALIA'S NON-NEUTRAL INTERNET
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Nate Anderson]
If you want a good look at what a non-neutral Internet looks like, take a gander at Australia where bandwidth caps are common. But Australian Internet service providers take the idea one step further by setting up partnerships with entertainment services and music download companies. Any data usage directed at one of these favored services doesn't count against the monthly bandwidth cap. This is quite clearly non-neutral behavior in any sense of the term. ISPs shape traffic when the quota is reached, meaning that all traffic to non-partner sites is slowed dramatically, while the favored services continue at full speed. This isn't an outright "blocking" of other websites, which can be freely accessed until the cap is reached, but the effect is quite similar. How are high-bandwidth services like video streaming going to compete against those services favored by an ISP? How will new players ever gain market share?
benton.org/node/32104

US NEEDS FASTER INTERNET
[SOURCE: CNN, AUTHOR: John Sutter]
A Q&A with Google Policy Analyst Derek Slater in which he offers insights about increasing today's sluggish Internet speeds and why a unified Web can change peoples' lives. Google long has been an advocate of a single Web, one that's free of government censorship and barriers to information access. That's not the reality in today's world however.  Governments from China to France put various roadblocks in the information superhighway to serve their interests, filter speech or protect copyrights. And high-speed Internet connections haven't reached all corners of the globe -- not even all parts of the United States.
benton.org/node/32100

TWITTER COURT CRACKDOWN
[SOURCE: Baltimore Sun, AUTHOR: Andy Green]
[Commentary] During the November trial of former Mayor Sheila Dixon, journalists and others watching the proceedings sent a constant stream of short updates to Twitter and other social media platforms about every twist and turn of the case. Those updates bounced instantly around the web from one circle of acquaintances to another as ordinary citizens added comments and debated one of the most important events in recent Baltimore civic life. When the jury finally delivered its verdict, the stream of tweets and re-tweets multiplied into the thousands within minutes. Everyone was interested, and everyone had something to say. You might call that civic engagement. But the Baltimore Circuit Court called it unacceptable. The day after Ms. Dixon agreed to a plea that included her resignation from office, Marcella A. Holland, the administrative judge for Baltimore City, issued an order banning "the use of any device to transmit information on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In or any other current or future form of social networking from any of the courthouses within the Circuit Court for Baltimore City." The order is predicated on the assumption that posting to Twitter is effectively the same as having television cameras broadcast court proceedings, which is already banned throughout the state. That analogy is false, and it exposes a misunderstanding of social networking and of the reasons why the courts have been justified in placing limited restrictions on the media in the first place.
benton.org/node/32089

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