The Digital Wing

This was my presentations for the ‘Do journos do it better’ session at the Media140 conference in Sydney. It was a fascinating day. Next time around I’d love to see a few of the ‘new media’ evangelists mixed into the same panels as the ‘old media’ protectionists.

Talking to many of the attendees last night it was obvious there are SO many other issues people want to discuss – the paid content debate, the internet filter, the future of mainstream media in a rapidly changing media environment. I hope we can do it again and really set the cat amongst the pigeons! Anyways… my blurb below:

EDIT: Just added the video – sorry it’s ropey as a workmate screen-captured it direct from the live stream:

Media 140 – do journos do it better? from Valerio Veo on Vimeo.

Do journos do it better? “Of course they do – as long as they know the rules before breaking them”

I am the bastard child of Old and New media.

As such I hope to provide some unique insight into this debate as I – like a child of a broken home – care deeply for both my divorced parents, despite their temporary differences.

I’m a child of the 80s who grew up with the daily newspaper, the six o’clock news over tea, The Goodies on the ABC, A Current Affair with Mike Willesee (when it was actually current affairs), movies on VHS and a love of the mixtape.

But ever since my Dad borrowed an early Macintosh for a week in about 1985 and spent the whole time playing Moon Lander – something always fascinated me about technology.

So for those who know me – it’s no surprise that after 5 years in radio and TV news at the ABC & SBS – I launched into new media the first chance I had.

I’m deeply passionate about the opportunities provided by the real time web and the instant impact it’s had on journalism – especially after witnessing so many historic moments this year. (Plane in the Hudson, Iranian uprising, Michael Jackson’s death etc etc).

But after being beaten into shape by so many sub-editors over the years I’m glad my fan-boy tendencies are tempered by a healthy dose of cynicism and just a touch of distrust.

So yes – I reckon journos do it better – but only if they respect the rules of Old Media, before breaking them in an increasingly New Media world – because the role of the journalist is changing … fast.

The new role of the journalist

I’m still surprised me that so many “mainstream media” types scoff at Twitter, dismiss the blogosphere and ridicule Facebook – when in reality, being a one-platform pony is an express ride to oblivion.

Look I know the language sounds ridiculous… Tweeting? The Twitterati? Tweet & Meets? Followers? It sounds like a religious cult.

BUT – it’s no longer enough to present a weekly radio show, write a newspaper column or bash out a single TV news package a day.

You must self-publish. You must go to your audiences instead of expecting them to keep coming to you. Because the media game has changed… permanently.

However – there is a massive upside to this new responsibility – by taking control of your destiny, you can find yourself suddenly at the centre of your own media network.

Take Leo Laporte – a radio jock and TV presenter who freely admits he’s had more programs cancelled on him that hot dinners…

“Leo the tech guy” eventually went out on his own – starting a This Week in Tech podcast – or Twit – which has grown into a network of 16 tech-related podcasts. Last month Leo told the Online News Association conference in San Francisco that Twit is pulling in annual revenue $1.5 million – a number that’s doubling every year.

Old Media – meet your new competitors.

As the audience fragments into a thousand niches – mainstream media will need to fight hard to maintain its place as the dominant voice of credibility. Savvy journalists who are on top of this trend can leapfrog many budding bloggers and establish instant credibility by association – depending on the association…

But the line between old media cred and the new breed of publishers is blurring. The passionate blogger does as much verifying and fact-checking as a good journalist – and is more transparent in the way they go about it. The audience is often the toughest sub-editor out there.

With blogs increasingly curating the best content across the web media organisations need to embrace the real time web.

So forget embargoed content– if you don’t meet the demand for instant gratification – your audience will find someone who does. Your audiences – young and old – expect more from a classy old dame such as yourself.

Follow these new media rules and apply your old media nouse… and you can’t go wrong.

In the meantime this kid from a broken home will continue to split his weekends between his Old Media and New Media parents… until they can get their acts together…

I had a very inspiring chat with an old friend last night on Skype who’s working on an amazing cutting-edge social media marketing project that could really change the way companies/brands/the media interacts with their audiences.

It’s definitely reinvigorated my appreciation of how important this space is and how quickly it’s become an intimate (and huge) part of our day. I guess it’s not that surprising considering that us humans are such social creatures. And we all love a recommendation – which is why Facebook reckons it can take on Google in the lucrative search market.

So what better to underline the point than a dramatic video (complete with Fatboy Slim soundtrack) to smack everyone about the head as to why Social media is the “biggest shift since the industrial revolution”…

Thanks Piero – always an inspiring chat my old friend.

I tweeted this earlier this week but I wanted to stick in here as well…

Just when you think events in your world feel all-encompassing and you’re at the centre of your own little universe – a video like this comes along.

Watch what happens when the Hubble Space telescope is pointed at a totally black part of the universe:

A couple of days ago I outlined five reasons why the paid content model will fail in response to plans by Rupert Murdoch to lead the charge consumers to read their news online.

But that’s not to say people simply won’t pay for any online content – I just think it requires a new type of thinking and a different business model to the one being bandied about by commentators (what Murdoch and other publishers actually plan to roll out remains largely a mystery).

So here’s a few ideas I think newspaper publishers need to keep in mind when they hunker down to thrash out the details of the paid content model.

1. Don’t charge for what’s free somewhere else

   OK - forget charging for breaking news or news headlines. The audience simply won’t value it enough to pay when they can find another site that will give it away for free. Sure micropayments work well for iTunes but you get to keep a song forever. News is a fleeting, constantly evolving commodity that waxes and wanes in value from one day to the next. Concentrate on hitting the right audiences and content that people can’t get somewhere else.

2. Conquer your niche audiences

   Newspaper publishers love to tout the success of the Wall Street Journal and The Economist as examples that the paid content model can work. But these properties serve niche markets (ie people who make money from this information) or serve up unique content to a highly-engaged and cashed-up audience. Then there’s the elephant in the room – the huge number of corporate subscriptions or personal subscriptions that end up on corporate credit cards – these don’t cost the end user a cent. That model cannot be simply applied across the board to all mastheads to a general audience. But there are highly engaged niche audiences who will value content if its relevant to them. In an earlier blog entry I looked at an early proposal for a New York Times subscription model and applied it to a niche – food (no surprise I wrote this shortly after MasterChef finished to record ratings). If you look at Fairfax – an obvious working subscription model could be some kind of ‘foodie’ subscription leveraging all the recipes, restaurant & bar reviews and tied in with the Good Food Guides in Sydney and Melbourne. That model could work across Murdoch and Fairfax  properties by building new brands serving niche audiences – instead of trawling through the huge archives of a raft of newspaper sites to dig up info of your interest. It would work for sport, politics, business & finance (AFR access debarcle notwithstanding) and several lifestyle areas. Publishers need to come up with new content or new ways of packaging up content – not just expect people to suddenly start paying for something they’ve had for free for the past decade.

3. Build loyalty through services as well as content

   The text story is dead … long live the text story! OK I’m being facetious, but no longer can media organisations rest on their laurels of dishing up a 1500-word text story or a nightly news video as the be-all and end-all of their output. It’s time to build your online presence through various platforms, and across all the mediums offered in the online world. The Guardian’s podcast network has built huge and loyal audiences through its webby-award winning podcast network, which remains oddly ad-free, despite being a sleeping revenue giant. Add video to the mix, throw in a few PC or TV widgets, iPhone apps and other use-on-the-go services, and suddenly your content is looking like a valuable – and revenue raising – product. It’s about thinking outside the square and for God’s sake, not thinking of news/content delivery in old media terms. Do that and you’ll be just fine…

4. Let your audience dictate the news

   Personalisation and interaction with your audiences are becoming an essential part of responsible and relevant publishing – and can play a major role in raising your profile and credibility via in this social-media connected world. Tap into that rich vein of conversation and allow your audience to have a hand in what they want to view online. Wrap this personalisation up as part of your services/content strategy – convince the conversation-starters and online influencers (yes, including those pesky bloggers) and it will do the work of an entire marketing department… with credibility to boot. Then charge for it!

5. Turn your reporters into entrepreneurs

   Journalists can no longer exist solely as writers , TV reporters or photographers. The days of the one-trick pony are over… and look over your shoulder there, buddy, every bright young thing under the age of 25 knows it. Journalists need to embrace this new media world as the new playing field and, put simply, do more. You have to be taking photos, writing blogs, working with your online people to build multimedia applications, and unfortunately, at times when you are your busiest. And you shouldn’t be paid extra for it either. On the flipside there are enormous benefits from doing this. You are now your own brand, one that can exist out from under the umbrella of your media organisation. A brand that can grow from organisation to organisation. One that can earn you money via Google Ad sense, get you invites to speak at conferences, make you worth more to your employer. In the US several bloggers are making up to $200,000 in revenue a year. You’re more likely to recoup costs and maybe get some pocket money – but at least you’ll feel it’s worth the effort.
   Your bosses will be happy – they can use this great personal content to help sell their content (if it’s good enough). They can help you raise your profile by exposing you to your readers, your viewers. They may even pay you more or give you a promotion.
   It’s a win win – got onto it. And tell your online editor I said hi….

Of course now that I’ve listed all these ideas I can’t for a moment guarantee it will work. The paid content debate will continue to rage until someone – apparently Rupert Murdoch – throws down the gauntlet and put his money (a lot of money) where his mouth is. It will either be a spectacular financial train-wreck, or it will surprise the hell out of everyone and actually work. Somehow I don’t think there will be a middle ground.
Let the games begin….

Will newspapers survive the paid content experiment?

Let the great paid content experiment begin.

After months of hints, guarded comments and innuendo from publishers around the globe, it was the big kid in the playground, Rupert Murdoch, who has ended the speculation in one foul swoop with plans to charge for all the online content of his newspapers and television news channels.

In a rare move by the savvy media mogul, Mr Murdoch clearly outlined his plans to begin charging for online news following the success of the Wall Street Journal, which keeps much of its content behind a pay-wall, and was acquired by News Corp in 2007. Obviously it’s hoped that dozens of other global publishers will see the move as an open invitation to follow the huge stable of Murdoch mastheads into what they hope is a river of cash (come on in, the water is green!), or at least enough to stave off the wolves at the door.

Here in Australia, Fairfax have opened the door to charge for content via a two-tiered system, claiming “we can’t afford to keep the big newsroom staffs we have”.

Can it work? Sure – it can work – and in my next entry I’ll show you five ways how.

But will it? Here are my five reasons why I think it won’t…

1. News is a commodity

   The reality about many online newsrooms is there is almost no discernible difference between much of the wire-driven copy from one masthead to another – just plug a breaking news story into Google news and click on a few results. Short, text-based breaking news simply doesn’t have enough value to exist behind a paywall, especially as there are competitors in every market who are willing or even keen to give it away for free. Sure newspapers are the repository of some of the world’s best journalists who are able to craft articles or comment pieces of incredible insight and clarity, but in this fast moving world of 24/7 news, are they able to keep up with the demand in time. And what about the rapidly growing notion of news a service instead of a destination? How will you charge to get your news onto the platforms where your audiences are gathering (Facebook, Twitter, mobile phones) when news starts to find them.

2. Net natives don’t have masthead loyalty

   The idea that new media audiences will continue to flock to a masthead simply because it’s an old-guard newspaper or broadcaster is, put simply, delusional. Not only is the credibility of these organisations drying up at a rate of knots, but Net Natives are going to respond to new news organisations that reflect their needs via the thousands of niche sites who represent them. It’s time to respect the audience and deliver news on their terms, not ours.

3. Journalism is not a profit-making exercise

   It’s pretty simple really. Newspapers made their money from classifieds and advertising, not from charging at the news-stand. Unfortunately thanks to the internet that business model is broken. But without the cost of printing and distribution, it’s going to be a tough sell to charge on the basis of the content. Slapping a membership or a micropayment system on an existing infrastructure will result in disaster. It’s time the business model was pushed aside for a whole new type of thinking.

4. Online shouldn’t prop up bloated newsrooms

   As a journalist, this will get me into trouble, but it’s time we all acknowledged the elephant in the room. Newsrooms are cumbersome and over-staffed with journalists filling up dozens of sections that barely get lip-service in a daily newspaper. It’s time to make decisions based on what audiences want, not what advertisers want. Do that and suddenly  a whole crop of new business models and niche markets will unfold before your eyes.

5. Blogs are a credible alternative source of comment

   Another furphy of old-school thinking by old-media journalists – that bloggers simply can’t do the job of trained journalists when it comes to commentary and analysis. The notion of bloggers as over-opinionated, ignorant raving lunatics is as out-dated as the newspaper model itself. Today’s blogs are a collection of professionals or passionate observers whose expertise often circumvents the knowledge of their so called professional peers. To denigrate The Daily Beast, Talking Points Memo, The Huffington Post, Mashable (for all things social media) and individuals like Jeff Jarvis, is akin to ignoring a dozen new competitors opening up within a block of your retail store. And unlike newspapers, they want to give away their product for free.

Don’t get me wrong – despite the gloomy points listed above, I do think the great paid content debate can be resolved by a compromised, workable solution. But it requires far more thought than simply throwing a bunch of content perceived to have value by old newspaper hacks behind a paywall.

What’s needed is a far more considered and somewhat sophisticated approach that treats consumers of new media with a lot more respect than is traditionally given by the old-media guard of newspapers and TV broadcasters.

In the next day or two I’ll give you five ways the paywall can work – but it will require media organisations to tear down the notion of what’s valuable and rebuild it from scratch.

Haven’t had time to post this week what with late nights on Insight and frankly, a couple of well needed lazy days lapping up the incredible sunshine across Sydney.

But I came across the great, simple powerpoint presentation which sums up why everyone is all abuzz about social media. Yeah I agree it sounds a lot like marketing speak – but hopefully this will break it down for all the nay-sayers out there (if there are any left??)

Enjoy… more to come in the next day or two..

Since Rupert Murdoch recently threw his support behind the paid content model a few months back suddenly a few news organisations seem prepared to give the previously failed model another chance.

I came across this interesting article via Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab – which gives a tantalising look at what the big media groups hope could save the staggering newspaper business overseas.

According to the survey allegedly filled out by this tipster – and duly shoveled online in its entirety – The New York Times is floating a couple of classic VIP membership models to access premium content – NYT Silver & NYT Gold. I’ll give you a bullet point sneak-peek – but you can see these models in detail here.

NYT Silver – $50 a year

- Backstory & Firstlook: Video of reporters discussing their stories, while Firstlook promises the chance to read content before it hits the news-stand or even the website

- Timeswire: Just that – a breaking news wire of everything that hits the website as its published – a NY Times ’stream of conciousness’ if you will.

- Timesmachine: Cute title this. The entire NY Times archive available online from front page to back – right back to 1851.

- Goodie bag: Lovingly referred to as ’swag’ in the US – think a free NY Times mug, baseball cap, style guide etc.

- Discounts from the NY Times store

- Crossword puzzle membership & first chance to get tickets to NY Times talks & other events.

NYT Gold – $150 a year

Take all of the goodies from the silver membership plus….

- TimesEvents – exclusive access to NY Times events and access to NY Times leading journalists (think having dinner with a film critic during the Tribeca film festival)

- TimesInsider – A tour of the NY Times including the newsroom.

Times spokeswoman Diane McNulty told Gawker the plans are far from final:

“It’s very early in the process. We are still in the data collection phase.”

Regardless – it’s a fascinating plan – mainly because the key content of the site – the news – appears to remain free to all comers, which would maintain the huge user base and millions of Page Views the site serves up every day.

Will it save the newspaper business? I doubt it.

Sure, these packages would attract a hard-core base of passionate NY Times supporters, but I’d suspect that they still buy the paper at least once or twice a week. Importantly it does nothing to attract the younger demographic of people, cutely coined ‘net natives’ who are developing enormous media consumption habits without ever opening a newspaper.

Are there any Australian newspapers that you’d be so attached to that you’d even want to tour their newsroom or be invited to their events early? I can’t think of any.

Newspaper businesses should be chasing the niche audience segments of their audiences … think a ‘Fairfax Foodie’ membership offering a first look at the Good Food Guide in Sydney/Melbourne and tickets to the awards dinner, a first look at The Sydney Food & Wine Festival and the chance to take part in ‘meet the chef’ sessions. Off the back of the success of Masterchef it’s not too hard to imagine is it?

I appreciate the issues faced by the newspaper business – News Limited CEO John Hartigan made a salient point when he said a few weeks ago that “for every reader we lose from the paper we need to pick up 10 online”. But it seems to me this is a wider issue with the advertising model that should be worked through by the market (do you like the way I fixed that huge issue with a wave of my hand?!).

Seriously though – as digital content inexorably becomes the predominant medium for news & entertainment, we’re likely to see better ad models measured by engagement, not just the numbers of pages served up.

But until then – we’re just as likely to see a few more of these ‘VIP’ news models rolled out – will be fascinating to see if any get a foothold in the market.

What do you think – could any of these models work?

The Matchbox Project

I’m constantly inspired and impressed by the enthusiasm and energy of some of the younger employees in my team – to be honest I find it one of the highlights of my job.

Sonya – a young current affairs producer is also what I call a multimedia artist, who works on a number of little projects on the side, even though she works a full five-day week here at SBS.

My favourite is The Matchbox Project – a simple yet compelling idea that Sonya has been running for a couple of years now.  I think she describes the project best at the beginning of each blog entry:

Each week, a decorated matchbox with a tiny present hidden inside is left by a girl (and sometimes willing friends) somewhere in her travels. It’s a random act of semi-artistic kindness aimed at disrupting someone’s day in a tiny but positive way. That’s if they dare to pick it up…

The project has landed her a slot at the Australian Centre for Photography – as part of a little exhibition entitled Acts of Disobedience. Sonya’s even thrown in a big jar containing another 100 decorated matchboxes for people to leave around the city themselves. The idea is you take a matchbox, hide it and SMS or email back with the location, which is then placed on the project’s interactive map.

You can also follow The Matchbox Project on Twitter to keep up to date with the boxes and where they may end up around the city.

There’s something really endearing about this that I love – a simple random act of kindness that may not even be discovered – and a project that has been faithfully maintained for about two years now. I’m looking forward to taking a couple of matchboxes and dropping them off in my neighbourhood around Balmain/Rozelle on the weekend!

Seems I’m not the only one who likes this. A quick google search uncovered this blog about the project, while that heavy-hitting cultural touchstone website, cool hunting featured the concept in March this year.

So if you’re in Sydney and wandering up Oxford Street in Paddington go check it out – and don’t forget to grab a matchbox on the way through and brighten up someone’s day…

Yesterday at the University of Melbourne’s Future of Journalism conference I used the Guardian’s experiment to use their audience to investigate MPs expenses as an example of crowdsourcing at work.

Thanks to the release of 450,000 pages of receipts in pdf format the overwhelming task of uploding all these documents online was made simple – the whole thing took a week from a software developer, a few days work from others in the department, and a mere 50 pounds to rent temporary servers.

Within the first 80 hours the Guardian audience has investigated 170,000 documents with a staggering participation rate of 56 %. That has slowed but even now 23,000 readers have trawled through 199,000 pages of documents – with the Guardian continually updating the story with new material.

Importantly it’s worth reading this article from the Niemen Journalism Lab on why it worked – as it’s not just a matter of whacking up the documents and letting the audience run riot.

The developer behind the project – Simon Willison – offered four big tips on making it work:

1. Your workers are unpaid, so make it fun.
2. Public attention is fickle, so launch immediately.
3. Speed is mandatory, so use a framework.
4. Participation will come in one big burst, so have servers ready.

He goes into details on all these so make sure you check out the story behind the story – but it’s a stunning example of using simple media technology for citizen journalism and the rich rewards you can reap as a result.

Edit: been wanting to write this for a couple of weeks but its been crazy … so as they say ‘better late than never’!

Last week’s The National Press Club address by News Limited Chairman & CEO John Hartigan a couple of weeks back has set the cat among the pigeons in some pretty high-profile areas of Australia’s media – particularly after he took aim at blogs, labelling them ‘all eyeballs and no insight’.

You can see full text of the speech here, but I’ve taken the liberty of pulling out some of the more contentious quotes that had many bloggers and independent media outlets frothing at the mouth.

On news commentary sites such as The Huffington Post, Newser, The Daily Beast, Crikey and Mumbrella:

Most of the content on these sites is commentary and opinion on media coverage produced by the major outlets.  These sites are covered in links to wire stories or mainstream mastheads. Typically, less than 10% of their content is original reporting.  The sites that produce a high proportion of original content aren’t making a profit. Almost anyone can start one of these sites, with very little capital, no training or qualifications.

On Bloggers:

In return for their free content, we pretty much get what we’ve paid for – something of such limited intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance.

And the punchline on bloggers:

Like Keating’s famous “all tip and no iceberg”, it could be said that the blogosphere is all eyeballs and no insight.

Hartigan also played the company line – throwing his support behind the notion that people will pay for quality content online.

Then just moments after deriding blogs he heaped praise upon News Limited’s own blogging venture The Punch.

The Punch has taken off like a rocket since it was launched in May – our target was to achieve traffic of 80,000 users in the first month. It’s actually achieved almost 200,000.

I know it’s early days. But I think the success of The Punch is because it’s different; it’s surprising, it’s entertaining and it’s relevant.

It’s a pretty big investment in something completely new in Australian journalism.

Unsurprisingly the blogosphere struck back pretty swiftly – Crikey leading the pack by first describing News Limited as the old Soviet Union, then backing it up with an article listing all of the ‘quality journalism’ they’d like to see behind a paywall.

Others like Lavartus Prodeo just sat back and enjoyed the sh*t storm as it unfolded via editorial pieces including this show of support by Mark Day in the News Corp owned The Australian.

While I admit I was a little fired up that News Limited could so obviously ignore the rise of these alternative, independent media outlets – with the benefit of reflection it’s pretty obvious that there is an agenda at work here.

Hartigan made some salient points in his speech – pointing out Australian newspapers continue to do well in the Australian market. But the real clue to the motives behind his attacks was his point on the tiny ad revenues generated in online:

The problem is, an online reader generates about 10% of the revenue we can make from a newspaper reader.

So, for every reader we lose from the paper we need to pick up 10 online.

Bottom line – online needs a better revenue stream as the newspaper business would crumble faster than a Mike Tyson opponent if all the readers abandoned the paper for the PC en masse. And News Corp reckons it has the content to attract the payments.

It’s a critical issue in this whole old media vs new media model and one that hasn’t been worked out yet. If anyone could make paid content work it would be News Corp with its huge resources.

Personally – I don’t think it will fly. It’s obvious we do need a new business model for online as the idea of ad impressions and the tiny revenue they deliver per thousand is hardly big fish.

I wonder whether a kindle-type device could garner monthly subscriptions – combining the best of the web with the best of the paper in a fantastic multimedia experience. But maybe its pie in the sky?

My speech to the Uni of Melbourne’s Future of Journalism conference goes into detail on how I see the role of journalists changing – I think it’s up to the Australian media to embrace this with open arms and start engaging with their audiences instead of just talking at them…