This is what my notes look like: New Models for Online Journalism edition.
[This is how I develop ideas - piles of vaguely sentence structured notes, that are thrown into a folder, and revisited when time allows. I’m posting this in part to get input from the handful of people who read this, and in part because I’d like to see if anyone can add that extra x factor.]
5 person teams: editor / writer (2), developer, videographer / editor, designer. Publishing on a dual schedule: ongoing socmed updates from dedicated accounts, and weekly complete, collaborative stories.
Each complete story will include text / article, research / background, infographics, interactive elements, and video. All presented as part of the whole, focused on opinion / interpretation as well as vanilla reporting.
Not paginated, organized in an online intuitive manner. Scroll down, expanding images / sections (not pop ups or diff windows). Offered in several formats, including mobile / as part of an app. Yes, will require a custom CMS. Also, offer video / print optimized versions. Not a full experience, but allows printing / podcasting as promo tools.
Redesign and publish a monthly or quarterly print version with DVD extras / video as a prestige option.
Go deep. Analysis of a story, rather than ‘just the facts”. Pure facts are important, but analysis has value. Explanation has value. Presentation has value.
Interest / Audience maintained between releases (stories) by including them in the process. Tweet / tumble updates, new info, schedule, teasers. Don’t let the scoop mentality keep you silent, if value is in the analysis, then breaking it in a tweet is still breaking it.
Scalable: 5 person teams can be added as audience / revenue grows. Stagger releases, or segment by content.
The key is multimedia content as a starting point. Defined by the online medium, rather than letting the content treat the web as a newspaper replacement or a tv replacement.
Massively collaborative: nothing is an addition. Design and video are as key as the written article. Building to the whole. Does this require tandem videojournos, designjournos, devjournos, etc? Probably. Welcome to 2K9, media is inherently multidisciplinary.
Fragmentable, sharable, remixable. Possible to open every segment in a copyable, accessible way (presuming CC licensing) let it act as promotion for saleable elements (mobile app, print collections, expanded behind the scenes access, archive access).
Create extra content, behind the scenes footage, expanded versions, edit history on articles for subscribers. This is the hard part: journos do not like being questioned, but web authority is more like scientific authority. It’s based on being able to withstand scrutiny, not a license to avoid it.
Model could work for hard or soft news. Imagine applied to TMZ ouvre, investigative, driven celeb content with background like recent film gross, media penetration, arrest history, relevance by google searches, etc.
All very raw, but definite value here.
Jason Fried: The next generation bends over
caro:
Mint was a key leader of the next generation of game changers. And now it’s property of Intuit — the poster-child for the last generation. What a loss. Is that the best the next generation can do? Become part of the old generation? How about kicking the shit out of the old guys? What ever happened to that?
As more great new companies are absorbed into big old companies, a whole new generation of change is lost. They can issue press releases saying how excited they are to be able to bring their product to a whole new world of customers, and how their new suitor will bring enormous resources to bear, but we know that’s usually not really what happens. Development slows, products stall, the staff that built the great stuff leaves, and mediocrity creeps in. Not always, but usually.
Yep.
I’m not going to consider a company ‘next generation’ until I see a business plan that doesn’t more or less have ‘get bought out’ as an endgame. If your only goal is to sell it and move on, you don’t have a business plan, let alone a movement.
Five (Other) Ways for Facebook to Monetize.
I’m not convinced advertising or ‘gifts’ is going to do it. Advertising works best as a funding model when the only metrics are vague numbers that don’t directly indicate an action (see: Print, Radio, TV, Outdoor). Online is too measured, and effectiveness (or lack thereof) is too clear. Ambiguity is a friend to media sales. Ambiguity doesn’t fare well online, especially in social networks.
Five (Other) Moneymaking Ideas for Facebook:
- Charging for corporate Fan Pages (Or more complete feature sets for corporate Fan Pages). While free real estate to users (who are the only value of the service) is the only logical path, why not charge Microsoft or Dell to have a presence that comes with access to a potentially massive audience?
- Charge for placement on a targeted recommendation system for Fan Pages or Events. Having a public launch for a product or service? Why not have it pop up to everyone who lives in the right area, and has related interests in their profile. This is similar to ads, but I’d argue it’s different because it’s using one of Facebooks core features - the event planning / invite system.
- Charge for (anonymized) demographic info. Giving market research firms access to information about interests, locations, usage of the service, age, gender, and education is immensely valuable. This doesn’t need to violate user privacy - no names, images, or identifying information needs to be made available, even generalized info would be valuable for planning purposes.
- Straight up Freemium. In the manner of Flickr, charge a yearly fee for ‘Pro’ accounts that offer unlimited hi-res photo storage, unlimited friends, hi-res video, etc. Don’t reduce the current Facebook experience for the free user, just add the goodies that are probably already in the pipeline for those who are willing to pay extra to have 5000+ friends or every photo they have attached to their profile.
- Implement a Word of Mouth / Buzz Marketing system. Identify the super-connected power users, and offer them free things to try. Preview tracks from upcoming albums, teaser trailers for new films, clips from the upcoming episode of a TV show, etc. Let them be shared among the network, as the users want. Don’t curate on behalf of the power users, but charge companies to use your seeding system.
There are obviously flaws with some or all of these ideas (considering I dedicated a paragraph to each, this is to be expected) but I feel like offering alternatives to the ad-funded non-model that has become the internet venture standard biz plan, is constructive even if it’s not perfect.
NYT: Artists Find Backers as Labels Wane
This is why it’s beneficial and wonderful to work in an industry in flux. It comes down to the core offering, the business model, and sticking to what can / should work. It’s hard to remember that not too long ago, the model of the music business was: take a risk on developing a huge pile of artists, the few outliers / successes will subsidize the entire A&R operation.
Rock Band opens track creation/sales to home musicians, indie bands
Pay close attention: this isn’t another way for independent or up-and-coming artists to sell music.
It’s a way to sell an interactive, music-based experience.
If it was just a way to download music through an Xbox, it wouldn’t be nearly as innovative, or nearly as impressive.
Two Reminders.
1) People don’t mind being used, they mind being discarded. (from Chris Matthews’ book Life’s a Campaign)
2) If a business model is based on ad revenue, the product isn’t the content, it’s the people consuming the content.
If a company, or industry is based on advertising, it’s important to remember that you are using the people who consume your content. Don’t let them get to a point where they feel discarded.
