Category Archives: journalism

by eubie

Two tools I used — Vox and Bloglines headed for the dead pool

bloglines logoBloglines announced today that they are closing Oct. 1. I’ve used them since 2004, and while it’s trailed Google Reader for several years, it’s remained my favorite. Also I still have some marked items since 2004, I haven’t gotten around to reading.

So I’ll switch to Google Reader, but even that’s a twindling market.

From paidcontent.org:

But people no longer seem to be abandoning certain readers for others—or for other ways to access those same feeds. Instead, they appear to be abandoning RSS readers as a way to read the news altogether. Hitwise, for instance, tells us that visits to Google Reader are down 27 percent year-over-year, while visits to Bloglines are down 71 percent year-over-year. comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) figures show that traffic to Bloglines has largely stagnated:

TechCrunch summarized Bloglines’ demise this way:

Bought by IAC’s Ask.com in February 2005 for around $10 million, the site has been in jeopardy ever since the launch of Google Reader long ago, compounded by the shift from RSS  to realtime news streams. Over the past few years, the site hasn’t launched any new or innovative features to boost usage. While we’ve heard in the past that IAC was considering shutting down the site, the company held off on killing the site permanently and was looking for ways to refurbish Bloglines.

vox logoLast week, the blogging service Vox, owned by Six Apart announced it was closing Sept. 30. I’m still preparing for that close. Vox launched at a time when blogging was hot, but people were concerned about privacy. It’s strength was a family-friendly blogging system where posts could be shared either to anyone on the web, to family, or to friends. That concerned seems to have passed, or it’s such a small group that it cannot be success as a business.

Both products launched with lots of promise, but being mildly successful compared with wildly successful means eventually they ended up in the dead pool.

by eubie

Talking Biz News reports business journalist salary study

Talking Biz News: SABEW releases salary study results

The median salary for a business reporter was between $60,000 and $65,000, while the median salary for a business section editor was between $75,000 to $80,000. An editor of a business print publication makes a median salary between $95,000 and $100,000.

Salaries are about 75 percent of the actual cost to the employer. Benefit costs and employer taxes add to salary expense.

by eubie

Journalism startup specializing in aggregation funded

BringMeTheNews screenshot

BringMeTheNews screenshot

BusinessJournalism: Business-media company, PR firm invest $1 million in Minn. news aggregator.

The aggregation site is BringMeTheNews, founded by Rick Kupchella, former anchor and investigative reporter in Minneapolis. He was profiled by Poynter in December 2009, only 12 weeks after the business had launched. At that time, the site employed 5 full-time and 4 part-time workers. The About Us page at BringMeTheNews showed four people, and I did not see a breakdown of news, technical and other groups among the employees.

Kupchella’s founder in the business was Don Smithmier of GoKartLabs.com). New investors are Dolan Media and Padilla Speer Beardsley.

Aggregation is a touchy subject with journalists. It can generate traffic and good story choice and story package can bring real value to readers, which means the come back to the site and become an appealing audience for advertisers. But some view it as assembly-line work. Some of that is snobbery.

An old newspaper equivalent is the rewrite desk. They would take various wire stories, notes from stringers or assorted other sources and craft a story quickly and typically without bylines. Working the rewrite desk was a respected and necessary job.

Compete says BringMeTheNews had 7,890 visitors in July.

Other stories on BringMeTheNews:

Related: How big would the newsroom be if starting fresh and Journalism startups: it’s a business, not a job

by eubie

WSJ: the value of reader’s clicks

The Wall Street Journal began a multi-part series today on the value and use of the data collected from reader’s search and web clicks. Cookies and other data-tracking methods have been around for years, but the article notes that much more data is being collected and cross-referenced now.

In an ad-driven world, it’s important that advertisers reach the most effective audience they can, which means getting ad message in front of consumers at critical times. Showing me Barbie ads, even the new video Barbie, is not going to get me to buy it.

The package’s timing is comes days after Senate committee hearings on privacy, whick were viewed either as a joke by some, see ars technia Congress ponders privacy of your underwear, immortal soul or a serious development in the industry, see Politico.com Senate eyes online privacy rules.

Privacy is a flash subject, where readers get very upset when the alerted to the data collected, but time after time, they are willing to give away sensitive information for trinkets.

Other pieces of Saturday’s WSJ package:

by eubie

Favorite journalism blogs 2005-2009

OJR

First Draft by Tim Porter

Holovaty.com

Joho the Blog

Susan Mernit’s Blog

The Pomo Blog

BusinessJournalism.org

MediaShift

by eubie

Suggestions to newspapers to improve their websites four years ago

Almost four years ago, Bivings Group listed 9 Ways for Newspapers to Improve Their Websites

  1. Use taxonomy tags to cut across traditional newspaper “section” names
  2. Use full-text RSS feeds (like blogs do)
  3. Work with “Social” websites
  4. Link stories to relevant blog entries (“who’s blogging about this?” links)
  5. Eliminate registration
  6. Partner with bloggers for local news coverage
  7. Offer readers alternative organizational schemes (most read, most blogged, etc.)
  8. Modernize the visual design of news sites
  9. Learn from Craigslist’s simplicity and efficiency
  10. Make sites work on PDAs and phones

It’s a good checklist to see how many have adopted the principles.

by eubie

E-media tidbits — favorites from the past

Rob Curley Enters Stage Left at WPNI

Now, Rob is headed to Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (WPNI) on Oct. 2 as vice president of product development. I couldn’t be more pleased to have Mr. Curley in the neighborhood.

Documentary Shines Light on Citizen Journalism

Chat with “Long Tail” Author Chris Anderson

What Digg Can Do for Your Web Traffic

Jay Rosen on “The People Formerly Known as the Audience”

On June 27, NYU professor Jay Rosen published a bluntly worded clarion call to mainstream media organizations: The People Formerly Known as the Audience

Excerpt: “We feel there is nothing wrong with old style, one-way, top-down media consumption. Big Media pleasures will not be denied us. You provide them, we’ll consume them and you can have yourselves a nice little business.”

A Print Reporter Does Multimedia

Training Citizen Journalists: News Industry’s Responsibility?

Innovative Blog Design

A Grand Citizen-Journalism Experiment in Bluffton

The Scary Fragility of Digital Archives

If you’re old enough to remember using WordStar, the most prominent word-processing program (long before Microsoft Word) in the early days of computers, you can understand this conundrum: Digital archives are much more fragile than good old paper archives.

Preparing for Future by Clinging to the Past

In case you haven’t seen it yet, the February/March issue of American Journalism Review has an important article about the Washington Post‘s print circulation slide and efforts to stem it (by senior writer Rachel Smolkin), “Reversing the Slide.” If you care about the future of news, read this.

OJR: Online Journalism Falling Short of Its Promise

Today, Online Journalism Review published an excellent analysis by Nora Paul, director of UMN’s Institute for New Media Studies. In ‘New News’ retrospective: Is online news reaching its potential?, Paul revisits perspectives offered a decade ago at Poynter’s first New News Seminar about where online journalism might be heading, vs. where we’re at today.

She focuses on the outcome to date of these early prognostications: the limitless newshole (the opportunity to present all information gathered), additional depth and context, hyperlinking from and between news stories, and increased reader-reporter interaction. Paul notes that for the most part, news organizations (…)

An Eyetracking Blog

Greg Edwards of Eyetools (the company that did the heavy lifting on Poynter’s Eyetrack III study last year) has started a blog about eyetracking and Web design. (Eyetracking is simply tracking the path of the human eye as it reads or views something and analyzing the resulting data.) If you care about online design, you’ll want to add this one to your bookmarks (or add the blog’s RSS feed).

An Indicator of RSS Use by Newspapers

by eubie

Increasing transparency in the bond market

Micheal Lewis "The Big Short"One interesting conclusion in reading Micheal Lewis’ “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” is that bonds markets should be more transparent so that both buyers and sellers can have better ideas on what bond prices are.

Knowledge of prices is a key tenant in pure capitalism, and one supplier like to avoid. Have an object become a commodity moves into a low-margin business, because a competitor’s product can easily be substituted.  Buyers are big winners in transparent markets.

The equity markets has become more transparent and open in recent decades as discount brokers grew. Present a choice, buyer happily dropped the “research” and personalized advice that full-service brokers offered. Maybe it was the difference in commissions, and the ease that technologies, such as telephone trading and later internet trading.

Lewis maintained in his book that one reason Wall Street firms moved to quickly in the sub-prime and CDO market was the commissions on selling these products was so much higher than the ever-shrinking commissions in the equity markets.

A public market similar to the stock market is growing in more areas of the bond market, especially in the public sector, but it’s still a long way from being as accessible as equity markets.

Related:

by eubie

Cory Bergman on journalism startups and Newsosaur comments

Writing in Lost Remote, Cory Bergman expands on the idea from Newsosaur that journalism startups need to focus on business.

As a journalist entrepreneur myself, the business challenge is what keeps me awake at night. It’s just as important to know how to help your local advertisers succeed as it is to know what news to cover. As Mutter suggests, a business plan is critical. So is finding people who have a nose for business and understand what it takes to make a startup succeed. This is the big problem to solve, and it won’t be easy.

In the Newsosaur post, the comments give additional insight from other journalism entrepreneurs.

Chris Seper on key moments in launching his startup:

a couple of business mentors who reminded me – constantly – that to build a business I would need to spend as much time selling as I would producing content.

From Rose Roll, director of membership and market with www.baycitizen.org, on why they created a business and tech team instead of relying on just journalists:

There just aren’t enough hours in the day for them to do all the “other” stuff that goes into running a 25-person company: payroll, benefits, government paperwork, income statements, foundation proposals, membership drives, marketing campaigns, meeting with major donors, tweaking the website based on feedback, analyzing online traffic, etc.

Jeff Noedel, editor and publisher, CountyNewsLIVE.com, Hermann, MO:

I agree with the central theme here that a very equal balance between sales and reporting is needed. I’d drop the call for a tech department. I’d propose the third leg of the stool is audience promotions (which helps sell ads and subscriptions).

David Boraks, founder and editor, DavidsonNews.net, Davidson, N.C.

We’ve found that old-fashioned marketing makes the difference: direct mail, sponsorships, presence (and signage) at community events, fliers in kids’ school folders, posters on high-traffic bulletin boards and storefronts, and of course lots of online and offline word of mouth from folks who’ve read your stuff. There’s a lot of legwork involved in this, but it’s absolutely essential. “If you build it they will come” is a fallacy.