Looking beyond Twitter

As the legendary New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra was rumoured to have said about a restaurant: “Nobody goes there anymore because it’s too crowded.” The same can be said of Twitter’s entrance into mainstream media.

With Oprah joining the Twitter community, and the ridiculous Ashton Vs CNN race, the end of the buzz is near. The cool geeks that first adopted it are now fed up of the constant stream of news about it. Mainstream media knows about it, and can’t stop yammering on about the dreaded microblogging service. While it’s adorable to see how big celebs like Oprah start stumbling around Twitter in the same way an adult watches a toddlertakes his first steps (“aww, look at Oprah twittering — how cute is that?”), the novelty dies out rather fast.

The entrance of the mainstream celebs into Twitter also changes the dynamic of the social network. Where once the sphere was dominated by eager geeks, now it’s become increasingly crowded by a bunch of marketers, brands, gurus, and celebrities that don’t really give a crap about whether you’re the 100,321st or 100,322nd follower. It’s as if Cheers became the watering hole of a bunch of big-talking “I make bank” douchebags and advertising execs.

So, you wanna charge for content?

Whenever the topic of charging for content crops up, industry folks will invariably cite the WSJ.com as proof that it can work. The key thing is that it’s got to be niche content that people are willing to pay for (e.g. financial news). Or so the myth goes.

I say it’s a myth because there’s a whole lot more to it than just offering valuable print content online. Founding editor of WSJ.com Neil Budde offers some invaluable insights into the extreme value they bundled with the WSJ.com subsription:

All of our work went into creating such a valuable subscription package. We knew, for instance, that we’d need to incorporate more than just the news from the print Wall Street Journal. Yes, as Crovitz and Tofel suggested, that content alone has value and is differentiated. But we knew that it alone would not make a compelling enough product online.

* We fought hard within Dow Jones to include a substantial portion of the real-time Dow Jones News Service, for which stock brokers pay $500/year per terminal.

* We lobbied to include reasonable archival content, for which another Dow Jones business unit might have charged another several hundred dollars a year.

* We maintained a sizable 24×7 newsroom to keep the site updated around the clock and to provide extensive editorially curated links from stories to related content.

* We also licensed and integrated into the product databases of corporate information, advanced stock charting capabilities and other useful and valuable features that added to the convenience of online access.

*We allowed users to customize their pages to show the news they want to follow.

When we launched the product, we charged only $49/year for all of this value and worked like mad to convince people it was worth even that modest subscription price.

We also were in an endless “arms race” to keep adding functionality and improving the product to make it more useful and valuable to subscribers and worth more than free offerings.

Even today, they charge only $100/year for all of the features and functionality and a bundle of information worth close to $1,000/year in other formats.

Social media best practices for newsrooms

Joseph Lasica highlights some innovative use of social media in the newsroom

Dozens of journalists at the Austin American-Statesman are now using Twitter. Internet editor Robert Quigley and Tribune Interactive’s Daniel Honigman talk about how their organizations use Twitter for community outreach in this 9-minute video interview.

Andy Carvin, social media strategist for NPR, talks about how NPR has used social media, such as Ning, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, in its inauguration and hurricane coverage.

In this audio podcast, general assignment reporter James Janega of the Chicago Tribune discusses how Twitter helps him in his daily reporting.

Poynter coverage on social media includes the recent Tidbit, “How to Use Twitter to Break News on Your Site When Staff’s Away.”

A dozen commenters have weighed in with additional examples here: How to use social media in the newsroom.

How online and print treat source materials differently

During the G20 demonstrations, a man named Ian Tomlinson died after being assaulted by the police.

The video of this attack was first published by The Guardian via its website. It was soon picked up by other news media, online and offline.

The interesting (and surprising) thing is that the online guys were more willing to credit The Guardian than the offline guys.

Who says the online tendency is to violate copyright and that the offline one is to respect copyright?

Internet consultant Martin Belam explains the phenomenon.

So the interesting question is why there is such a big difference in the approach taken online and in print. Online the majority of the serious papers were unstinting in linking to and crediting The Guardian, whereas in print there was a much greater reluctance.

Partly it is the nature of the medium. Users on the web are much more promiscuous with their news viewing habits, and know that there are a range of different sites out there. Furthermore, to not link to the original source of a story is considered bad manners on the web, and net-savvy journalists and production staff will tend to link out as a ‘digital native’ instinct.

I also think it is a cultural output of being in a traditional media business. In print, you don’t really want to give your readers any excuse to alter their purchasing choice. Especially not by pointing out that a rival had a massive scoop, even as you are required to follow their setting of the day’s news agenda.

On Williams & Stone

An interesting profile of Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone. (Tks, Jack for the link).

Money graph:

The real Twitter revolution may prove to be much more everyday. When I stop for a latte at Peet’s Coffee on the way to the interview, the manager tells me that he plans to start sending out tweets to let regular customers know when a table is open. He isn’t alone. A Manhattan bakery twitters when warm cookies come out of the oven. “It’s those small stories that really inspire us,” says Mr. Stone. “Those are the things that transform people’s lives.”

User interaction the hot new metric

Typically, a news site’s metrics are unique visitors and page views. Certainly that’s how we do it at The Edge.

BusinessWeek, however, breaks away from tradition and instead focuses on user interaction.

Money graph from BusinessWeek‘s John Byrne:

It’s important because we value, and so measure and gauge, all our interactions with our readers on BusinessWeek.com — including commenting on a story or blog post. The next level is how our writers and editors engage our readers in a conversation, and also welcoming our readers to write longer pieces for us, or to report (at least once a week) a reader-suggested story. We’re also engaging with BW readers on other sites, such our Ning network that served as a forum to generate and debate stimulus spending priorities for the Obama administration, or interactions involving our 50+ staffers on Twitter. If we don’t listen to our readers and interact with them, and then act on the feedback and suggestions they’re giving us, we’re dead in the water. That applies to any media brand today, not just BusinessWeek. We’re just making it more of a priority, including featuring readers on an equal plane with our writers — on our home page, for example, our featured reader is given more prominence than even a Jack & Suzy Welch.

Erik Ulken, former editor for interactive technology at the Los Angeles Times, lists down some useful new metrics:

• Internal metrics: Statistics about engagement that takes place on your site
  • Comments posted: Shows how much users are inclined to react to a topic, or supply insights of their own.
  • Return commenters: In other words, how many people comment multiple times on the same item? This is a measure of conversation around a topic. (Kudos to the Guardian’s Kevin Anderson for this idea.)
  • Times e-mailed: Reveals how often users are sharing this information with friends. This metric probably skews toward neophyte users, as more experienced users are presumably less likely to use an “e-mail this” feature.
  • Average time spent on page: Shows how thoroughly users are consuming the content, perhaps? Lots of asterisks, though, as John points out.
• External metrics: Statistics about how people share and discuss your content elsewhere
  • Tweets/retweets: Measures how “viral” this content is in a social network. There’s also geographic information embedded in these tweets that could tell you where a topic resonates particularly strongly.
  • Diggs: Another measure of the viral nature of a topic. Given Digg’s audience, this metric might favor content that appeals to a techie crowd.
  • Delicious saves: Shows how many users stored this page with an eye toward returning to it. This metric could be particularly useful for ongoing features that you want to build a regular user base for.
  • Inbound links from blogs: Quantifies the discussion taking place in the blogosphere. This could help you identify the blogs that are most attuned to the content you produce — as opposed to just the ones that send you the most visitors (which are not necessarily the most engaged users).

Quality is the biz model for streaming video (Part II)

Earlier, I had said that that quality was the biz model for streaming video. Here’s the latest development on that front.

YouTube is invading Hulu territory.

The main question is whether the professional content that YouTube will be offering will be made available to international audiences. Hulu is only available to US audiences.

I suspect due to licensing restrictions, the professional content on YouTube will be restricted to American audiences in the way that iTunes and even some audio books in Audible are restricted to American consumers.

Social media douchebags

“Don’t call me a social media guru,” said one social media consultant at a small gathering last Monday. If there’s one I hate most over recent times, it’s the term “Social Media guru/expert/enthusiast” on one’s Twitter profile page–it’s an annoying self-styled term that can be summed up in one word: Douchebag.

Let’s take a short history lesson in Internet douchebaggery. The douchebag term in the mid-2000s was “Web 2.0”, and it didn’t help that Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point came up during that time. Soon, you had people all over the web putting 2 and 2 together and calling themselves “Web 2.0 Mavens” .

Smart readers like you realise that “Web 2.0” is a hollow term: it meant many things, and nothing at all. It was a vague rah-rah… marketing catch phrase. A glance at its Wikipedia entry admits as such: “‘Web 2.0’ refers to a perceived second generation of web development and design, that facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web” (emphasis mine)

John C Dvorak sums it up well in his PC Mag column “Web 2.0 Baloney”:

During the late 1990s, the golden ring slipped just past the grip of a lot of wannabes, who are convinced that they can do it right this time around—if only there is another dot-com surge. Web 2.0 is a rallying point. Maybe cheerleading will make it happen! But what they are cheerleading for, a slew of vague and meaningless concepts, shows that they have no clue about what they are doing.

Fast-forward to 2009: “Web 2.0” is confined to the dustbin of overused catchphrases, and now in its place is “Social Media”, which, when you think hard enough, gives us no new insight. Wasn’t the Internet established as a social medium in the first place, where one computer-user would communicate with another? It’s like saying television is a visual media, or radio is a sound-based medium.  (Note: I realise the irony in saying this, given that our blog is about “Social Media” — more on that below)

The point is, there’s nothing new about Social Media, just as there was nothing new about “Web 2.0” compared to “Web 1.0”. It’s all about repackaging  and selling it to consumers who don’t know any better. Now, add “guru” or “enthusiast” to Social Media, and what do you get? That’s right. Nothing more than someone proclaiming that he/she likes to do lots of Twittering and Seesmicking in his/her underwear — though it’s more likely a him — while shouting “Twitter! Blog! Innovate! Engage!” and other cheerleader statements to prospective clients.

However, the irritating thing is that “Social Media”, just like “Web 2.0”, is a concept that sticks. As vague as it is, the phrase makes it easier for a general population to understand the nuances and the nature of Facebook, Twitter, blip.fms and what have yous. As much as one hated the overuse of the term “Web 2.0” and its vapor-like connotations, one can’t deny its effectiveness in pitching to clients who are still rubbing their eyes at the amazement of “the Google” while parsing the interwebs on their IE 6 browser.

In other words, say “microblogging service, data portability, social graph” and they won’t get you. Say “It’s a social media marketing tool,” and they’ll sorta get you.

Having said that, there are those who do do real consultancy work in this nascent field. I feel sorry for them, especially whenever someone else calls them a “social media guru”–I can see them visibly cringe upon hearing that. Brand Dialogue and BL Ochman provide some clues on how to tell the real deal, but they generally say the same thing: cut through the chatter, get to the real proof of concepts, ask for measurable metrics and strategies,  and don’t believe it when they say the strategy costs nothing and results can be shown in a short time.

So the next time you see me calling myself a Social Media Guru/Expert/Enthusiast, just slap me in the face and call me an self-hyping Twitterer.

Q&A on blogging’s decline

Charles Moreira, contributing editor at Mobile World & SURF magazines, asked me a bunch of questions about the decline of blogging. Here are my answers:

1. Before we proceed any further, does the term “blogging” refer to publishing one’s views online (POVO) using weblog tools or does it refer to the act of POVO using whatever technology or tools?

The answer is both and then some. Blogging, when it first emerged in the late 90s in the US, referred to the act of sharing interesting weblinks through a reverse chronological format (meaning latest first). The standard formula used was “Excerpt + Embedded Link(s) + Commentary”.

This, incidentally is still the preferred formula for well established bloggers like Jeff Ooi, Rocky’s Bru and Tony Pua/Ong Kian Ming.

Over the years, the term blogging has evolved to embody a broader set of activities. Taken at its extreme, anything published on the web is considered a blog. That is why you have people referring to RPK’s Malaysia Today as a blog although it has little resemblance to a blog in the original sense of the word. It’s basically a website with a lot of content sourced from all over the place. Similarly, people refer to TV Smith’s website as a blog but again, it has little resemblance to what a blog originally was.

Does it matter? Not really. If someone wants to call the New York Times a blog, they can. It’s a free world, you can call something whatever you want to call it. But it does make the term blog irrelevant. When you say John Doe there has a blog, do you know what it means anymore? For all you know it’s a static website with postings of a few cartoons. But some people out there will call it a blog.

But generally speaking, these days, when someone says blog, they refer to a site which has regularly updated postings, in reverse chronological order. Whether there are links or whether there are excerpts seems to be unimportant. As long as there are postings, the site is usually referred to as a blog.

2. Thus if it be the first meaning, is the use of weblog tools for points of view online in decline and if it is the second meaning, then what are the reasons for it?

Social media has become the main way the young and the hip are interacting online these days. Since they are on Facebook all the time, it makes sense that they post their musings there instead of on a standalone blog.

3. While the act of points of view online remains the same whatever the technologies and tools used, what are the benefits of the different tools and technologies for bloggers and why is the so called “blogging craze” so strongly associated with weblog tools and technologies in the public mind?

A blog allows for lengthier entries than say, a status update on Facebook or Twitter. Also from a legacy standpoint, previously people could not publish very easily on the web. Blogging tools came along and democratized publishing by making it very, very easy. That is why people still associate blogging with blogging tools like Blogger.com and WordPress.

4. If there be this decline in blogging, since when did it begin and could it be due to pressures of time, concerns about income and employmemt security, loss of homes to foreclosures and so on which have led to people blogging less or to less people blogging?

I think it has to do with human nature. Very few people can keep up an activity for long – especially without pay, without much of an audience, without any pressure to do so. When blogging first burst onto the scene, everyone wanted to get on it cos it was the cool thing to do and yes, everyone is a writer. Everyone has got something to say. But how long can you keep it up?

5. When it comes to political blogging, could it be a sense of fultility among bloggers in that while blogging gives people a sense of empowerment to bypass the filters of mainstream media to get their views across, still it has not had all that much influences on the actions of their governments and leaders?

The impact of blogging in Malaysia is in the form of secondary access than primary. What I mean by that is that very few people have direct access to the Internet (certainly less than 50% of the population). But when you have a scandal like the Lingam case which first appeared on YouTube and then was blogged to death by countless bloggers, it trickles down to the kampung folks and aunties and grandpas. They might not have seen the clip, they might not have read the blog commentaries but they would know the phrase “correct, correct, correct”. And this does have an impact on the voting population.

6. Is there an element where blogging is a phase activity which bloggers grow tired of, much like a young person in their teens and twenties may frequent a pub or disco two, three or more times a week but grow tired of it in their middle age, when they are married and have children and their priorities in life change?

It’s not so much a phase as it is human nature (see my answer to Question No. 4). Few people can persist with doing something consistently and regularly for a long period of time without some kind of pay off. And for most bloggers, there is no pay off.

7. What are the trends in the Malaysian blogging scene?

The ones who will remain blogging are the ones who have got something substantial to share. When someone is passionate about something or is on a mission, his/her payoff is just being able to share their joy at whatever activity they are passionate in. So, you will see niche blogs – on politics, on technology, on food, etc… continue to thrive. But not the casual, hopping-onto-the bandwagon types.

8. Any other comments on whether blogging is in decline or not, both on the international and domestic scene?

I still consume blogs, especially on technology stuff which includes mobile, New Media, social media, and stuff like that. There is no decline in those kinds of blogs. In fact, John Lim and I have just launched a blog called FTW Media (http:ftwmedia.wordpress.com). Like I said in my answer to Question 7, niche blogs will continue to thrive. It’s the hangat hangat tahi ayam types that will decline. And if there is a general decline in blogging it’s because most bloggers do belong to that category.

9. If blogging or more specifically POVO be indeed in decline, what is the next hot online activity likely to be which will replace blogging?

The hot, hot, hot scene right now is where social media is at. Facebook and Twitter, in particular.

Everyone works on everything (Part II)

I had earlier written about what I was trying to achieve with TheEdgeMalaysia.com (an NYU course on New Media validates my approach).

And now, I find that Alan Murray, the deputy managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, further validates that approach.

Here’s what he says:

In the digital area, you do want people who can be very fast and are willing to, you know, post multiple times a day and to multitask… They really have to get engaged in finding their audience. You know, my generation, the notion of marketing your own copy, that was like dirty — don’t make me get near that. That’s somebody else’s job. But in fact, now, marketing — we don’t call it that, but that’s a big part of what online journalists do. Figuring out which blogs they need to be in touch with in order to keep their audience together, using Twitter to drive traffic to your stuff, figuring out the right mix.

So all of that, which is part of the job of building a community, building an audience — those are totally new skills. And so when I say entrepreneurial, I’m talking about people who have shown some ability to play that game, which is very foreign to most journalists my age.

You have to play to people’s strengths. What we’ve done is we’ve gone out and tried to figure out who are the people in the newsroom who can really adapt to that new style of posting seven times a day and enjoy it? Because, one thing about the web, and I think you guys know this, is if you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, it’s gonna come through. It’s a much more personal medium. And so if you’re not in there, having a good time, excited about what you’re doing, there’s very little possibility that you’re readers are going to get excited about what you’re doing.

So there’s not much point in taking a reporter and saying you ought to be writing eight times on the web. It just doesn’t get you anywhere. So as a manager, what I’ve tried to do and what we’ve tried to do is find the people who are particularly suited for that and let them be the ones to do that. And they get very excited about it and juiced about it and enjoy doing it. And then try and create jobs for other people to do the type of journalism they do best.