Wade Coleman's Blog

Kindle: Awesome, but no newspaper savior

I finally took the plunge and bought an Amazon Kindle last month. The verdict: extremely cool with a few minor annoyances. With a $360 price tag and certain limitations, it’s an early adopter gadget. Even so, I think it’s a transformative device. As the prices fall, I have no doubt now that e-readers will become ubiquitous in the next few years.

My favorite feature is not even on the Kindle, it's the the free companion reader app for the iPhone. If I’m stuck at the dentist, I can pull up a book that’s on the Kindle from my phone, sync to the furthest location I've read in the book, and get in a few pages. This aspect really reduces the time it takes for me to finish a book, since I always have my phone on me. The readability and interface are excellent on the iPhone.

For the Kindle itself, here’s my summary of the good and bad:

Good

• Text is easy on the eyes and navigation back and forth between pages is fast and easy.
• Most books are $9.99, even the new ones, and the selection of new titles is very good. Books with expired copyright, like Dickens, are dirt-cheap.
• You can take notes and highlight passages, which are saved in text files. This is great for people like me who read fast but forget important details. You can scan your notes on books for a quick refresher, which is especially useful for business books.
• With the built-in wireless, you can buy books anywhere and have them in a few seconds. If you’ve got patience, you can even browse some basic websites like Wikipedia. The network, from Sprint, seems pretty reliable.

Bad

• The interface for highlighting passages and finding definitions sucks. The little stick is hard to direct, it’s slow and it takes a while to get to the right place.
• While the selection of new books is good, the coverage of older books is not great. I wanted to get some Flannery O’Connor last night but no dice. If you’re going to cater a device to heavy readers, you need to cover these bases. How can you respect a library with Steve Harvey but no Graham Greene?
• Images with any amount of detail are hard to see. I was reading Team of Rivals, which has a lot of Civil War maps, and they were unintelligible. The zoom feature doesn’t really help.

Will the new Kindle save newspapers? Not so much.

The new, larger model designed for better reading of newspapers and textbooks may help with the image-viewing problem. The larger screen comes with a hefty price - $489. That’s more than an impulse buyer like me can justify.

I did try the trial subscription for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. This is interesting… basically $5.99 a month and you get the latest edition of the paper on your device every morning. But unless you’re a heavy traveler, or just like wasting money, then it's not such great a deal. Why pay for a subscription when you can log on the web and get it free?

Until they figure out that dilemma, subscriptions from e-readers will do nothing for newspaper profitability. Longer term, in a future with better, cheaper devices and more firewalls around online content, this will be a viable distribution model.

For Amazon though, the Kindle is brilliant. They’ve basically taken the iTunes model and applied it to books. If I’m any measure – I’ve bought more than I can possibly read in the next 6 months already – then this is going to make them a lot of money.

News links for the week of April 13, 2009

Here's a collection of the pr and media industry articles I found interesting over the past week.

Twitter continues to be a news phenomenon. Greg Galant has an interesting op-ed in PR Week, "How Twitter saved public relations from PR." It closes with a great line: "As everyone in a company starts doing public relations, it will be up to PR people to lead or become irrelevant."

Also of interest is "Why Social Media Sucks" by Josh Bernoff, about that imperfect name for all the new social technologies and applications. I hate the term social media, but my beef is really more with the "social" rather than the "media." It seems like every crackpot with an internet connection is now a social media expert and that hurts the credibility of the term.   

• Twitter gets you fired in 140 characters or less - Technotica- msnbc.com

• ‘Hyperlocal’ Web Sites Deliver News Without Newspapers - NYTimes.com

• Why PR Is the Prescription - BusinessWeek

• How Twitter saved public relations from PR - PRWeek US

• Bernanke's PR Push Rewrites Fed Script - WSJ.com

• Twitter Spreads Scoops — and Falsehoods - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

• One Paper’s Online-Only Move Had Little Effect on Web Traffic, Study Says - Digits - WSJ

• Content Bridges: Journalism Online: Part of the Web $2.0 Goldrush

• Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps to Success

• Twitter and news media: A long-term relationship or just a fling? | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

• 10 Twitter tips from early federal adopters - Network World

• The reasons for exclusive news offerings. - By Brian Palmer - Slate Magazine

• Hey, journalists! Stop getting all huffy about the Huffington Post's "lifting" of stories. - By Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine

• Domino's: How One YouTube Video Can Ruin a Brand - ReadWriteWeb

• Viral Video: Branding Nightmare or Opportunity? - BusinessWeek

• Why Social Media Sucks

• Optimizing PR strategy in the age of consumer control - PRWeek US

• The Quicksand of Social Media Buzzwords | Altitude Branding | Brand Elevation through Social Media

• FT.com / Companies / Media - Newsweek to turn new page with relaunch

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Wade's PR Industry News group favorite links are here.

Hope springs eternal...

Interesting article from Forbes: as the media swoons, journalism schools are booming. It names several programs seeing double digit gains in admissions. Most journalism students aren't in it to make big piles of money in the first place but you would think the current job crisis would damper enthusiasm for one of the hardest hit industries.

According to Forbes and statistics, finding a job may not be a problem:

What are all these people going to do for a living? Some may actually get jobs in journalism. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2016 the number of positions for entry-level reporters and news anchors will increase 2%, while those for experienced writers and editors will grow 10%. Expect trade publications, freelance work and digital media to supply the bulk of the jobs.

I have a feeling that those numbers may be understated... it may not be a job at a daily newspaper but there will be plenty of opportunity at the next generation of outlets.

Of course, all written communications will be limited to 140 characters or less by then as Twitter will have completed its quest for world domination. </sarcasm>

Brave new world: media and PR must accept new realities

I think some people reading my blog might think that I take a macabre delight in watching the downward death spiral of newspapers. I certainly don’t – it sucks when anyone loses their job. I understand the feelings of anxiety about the changes that are happening to the media industry in general.

I don’t want this to overshadow that I have a tremendous optimism about the future of media in general. What we are seeing now is a fundamental restructuring on an industry – a painful, noisy process made even noisier the very by nature of the industry itself, an active chronicler of its own transformation. (It sucks for the factory line workers over at GM too, they just don’t write as many editorials.)

Storytelling will never go out of style though. Focused online media outlets will continue to develop and mature, adding some of the same people who get laid off today. More entrepreneurial journalists will become part of the creative destruction and start their own ventures. David Meerman Scott has an open letter to those journalists bold enough to go work for the man. (Tip: It’s not selling out if you change the system from within.)

Although print media as we know it is changing, it is being replaced with something stronger, more vibrant and ultimately more sustainable. I’m not too worried about the business model – the audience is already there, in larger numbers than ever before. Eventually they’ll figure out a way to monetize it. Smarter business people than me will work that out. There are a lot of great ideas out there, one or two of which will actually work.

The most exciting aspect to me as a PR professional is that I have more opportunity than ever before to reach people in creative and compelling ways. My universe and responsibilities have expanded. The tools are more interactive, they’re more transparent and you can’t be as lazy about how you use them.  It’s not about mass emailing pr pitches anymore.

Quite frankly, people got wise to the media/pr relationship; they could tell that it too often led to stale, formulaic and inauthentic stories. Like the media, the pr profession has to change as well. It needs to embrace social media, not for the sake of the technology, but for its ability to connect with people and have real influence. People respond accordingly when you don’t talk to them like they’re idiots or robots.

PR people need to get comfortable with the fact that we aren’t just in a monologue with the public, using traditional media outlets as an intermediary. Certainly media relations is important, and always will be, but it’s still a tactical tool of influence. The public can talk back now and they have the same tools and credibility. And they expect you to talk back to them. Some of them will rave about you, others will say things you’d rather not hear, and others will just outright lie. That’s the nature of the game today but it’s a reality that you ignore at your peril.

I think we’ll all look back on this period and see it as a transformative time. Certainly there is no shortage of hyperbole about all media dying (it’s not) and hype about social media curing everything (it won’t).  But there’s no doubt that the landscape has altered significantly and we need to rethink many of the rules and assumptions we’ve clung to over the years about media and pr.

Sign of the times

How bad is it for newspapers?

Paper mills are laying off because of lack of demand for newsprint. Apparently it's not an isolated trend... a quick google search found a number of other recent paper producers scaling back as well.

Got this via @themediaisdying, who is chronicling the downward spiral of the media on twitter. He also pens a BusinessWeek article with some advice for the industry.

The irony here, and I'm saying this in true blogger style without any real research to back me up, is that people are consuming more journalism now than ever before. (One might argue about the quality and depth of that journalism, designed to meet the needs of our ever shortening attention spans, but that's another post.)

I know I am reading more than ever and not paying a dime, with the exception of the WSJ. For a lot of sites, I don't even have to visit their webpage or see their ads anymore. They let me have it ad free (and brand free) in my Google newsreader.

The free ride continues.... for now.
 

Site update and new RSS feeds

As you will undoubtedly have noticed, I have refreshed the blog with a new design and name: Unfit for Print. Kinda catchy I think.

The URL for now stays the same but the RSS and email feeds will be shifting over. The most current feeds are on the sidebar. I'll keep the old ones active for a week or so before killing them. Same goes for the email option.

I've also added an RSS feed to my delicious links. I'm bookmarking most of the media and pr industry stories I read so, if you're into that sort of thing, feel free to add that to your reader. I'll try to remember not to bookmark any naughty sites. No promises though.

Thanks to alldaydreamers for the nifty design. By exposing him to my audience of thousands, I fully expect a discount.

Oh, and I may actually start posting more than bi-annually now.

How bums make me think of social media

I went on a kick a couple of years ago, trying to use public transportation to commute to work. It lasted about two months - I tried, it sucked, and I quit.

There's usually at least one homeless person on the train, asking for handouts. One of the things I noticed was that if they walked through the train and couldn't get the first couple of people to give them any money, they were out of luck. No one else did either, throughout the rest of the ride. But if one person reached for their wallet, at least 3 or 4 other people would immediately follow suit. A lot of people are on the brink of giving money, but they need that first person to show them it’s OK.

First thing that this tells me is that people, all of us to some degree, are basically sheep. We're wired to move in the herd, looking to others to determine how we should behave. Psychologists call this social proof and marketers have been using forever to get us to do and buy stuff that we don't want or need. There's a classic book on this by Robert Cialdini.

I think this concept applies in social media too. For example, I look at a lot of blogs of all stripes - news, corporate, individuals - and notice that many of them are relatively comment free. (Back off, I've got a couple). If a few people get involved regularly - influencers - pretty soon there's an active and ongoing conversation.

Usually, the liveliest ones are helped along by the author, who solicits comments and opinion directly or through the writing style. I see a lot more journalists getting used to the concept that the audience can talk back. The smart ones are welcoming it.

Sports reporters, especially, are jumping into the fray and actually replying to readers in the comment sections of their own blogs. I think this is pretty cool. It creates a tangible bond between writer and reader. That’s important as brand loyalty for specific outlets is falling.

Of course, 50 percent of those commenting will be crackpots. That's the nature of the medium though and their presence is probably a sign of a healthy (in numbers, at least) readership.

Goodbye dead tree media

The Tribune Company, publisher of the LA Times and Chicago Tribune, sought bankruptcy protection last week, despite Sam Zell's attempt to right the ship. Mark Gimein writes in Slate that "cutting-and-consolidating, the model that's worked for Zell before, isn't enough to keep media companies afloat." It's a great piece that echoes what I said a few weeks ago about newspapers outsourcing to India. They need to stop rearranging the deck chairs on their Titanic business model and start innovating.

It's a solid piece, but I disagree with one of Gimein's points:

Advertisers are no longer convinced that there is a value in paying a big premium to attach themselves to major media. Trained to think in terms of the number of "eyeballs" that see an ad, they legitimately wonder if there is a difference if that ad runs on Google, on a billboard in a baseball stadium, on a network of low-cost blogs, or on cable television.

For major media, this is a disaster, because ultimately the premise of a Los Angeles Times, or a Vanity Fair, or a Slate is that their audience is engaged with them in a way that makes advertising with them worth more. If advertisers don't buy into that premise, then there is just no way to pay for the cost structures of major media. If all eyeballs are the same, then all the businesses based on a hypothetical special relationship with an audience are kaput.

While the recession's affect on advertising definitely hastened Tribune's decline, the real problem is that newspapers and other old media have a legacy distribution model that was made obsolete by the Internet. (See another nice slate piece which lists out the other professions that suffered the same fate... typesetters, pimps, yellow pages.)

It's true that "generalist" media are taking a hit because of link sites like the Huffington Post and Drudge, which have untethered their most valuable content from their brands. But for the most part, those sites are aggregators that don't add much value. I can read about someone throwing a shoe at George Bush anywhere if I want the basic facts. If I want to find the stories beyond the headlines, such as why throwing a shoe is such an insult anyway, then I look to the places I like and trust (almost always online now). And the types of advertisers that want to reach my demographic are there.

Slate, obviously, is a case in point. I check it out a few times a week. It's funny, informative and usually right. If it had the same dead tree distribution model as the LA Times or Newsweek, it probably wouldn't have much of a future.

Outsourcing the news

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve posted but I’m still here. I don’t really have much of an excuse except that I’ve been busy and I’m lazy…. anyway, this article in USA Today broke me out of my natural state of inertia.

It quotes the AP’s chairman of the board as saying newspapers should explore outsourcing in every aspect of their business – even editorial jobs like copyediting. Reuters started this discussion a while back when they outsourced some basic writing jobs to India, like data-driven earnings roundups.

The article talks about pasadenanow.com, a website that uses overseas contributors to cover city council meetings using webcasts.

“We used to have on-the-ground reporters, but the expense was prohibitive," said James Macpherson, editor and publisher of the site. "Regretfully, we had to lay them all off."

Macpherson said he saw no reason a larger publication couldn't adopt similar techniques to save costs.

"You might miss the nuance of a sneer on a councilman's face but you know how he voted and what he said," he said. "That's factual and can be reported on from anywhere."

Um, yeah… I’m not so sure this is the solution for what ails the newspaper industry. It’s a band-aid on a gaping wound. Clearly, outsourcing has a place but you need someone on the ground who understands the culture or the content is going to suck. I think it is important to see the sneer on the councilman’s face. That kind of drama is about the only interesting thing that happens in a city council meeting. (Fixing the local sewer system is boring… when people start sniping at each other then you get some compelling personality stuff.)

Some media outlets are taking a different approach by going hyperlocal and relying more on user-generated content. Hyperlocals are sites that drill deep into specific communities, more targeted than the metro sections of newspapers. The Washington Post is testing the waters with this for Loudon County, a suburb of D.C., although their site looks a little swanky and relies on the existing newsroom for content and support. The WSJ had an article a while back that said Loudon Extra was largely a flop, although it seems a little early in the game to pass judgement.

I think if hyperlocals can run lean enough then they might eventually become a significant driver of ad revenue. To get lean, some are recruiting citizen journalists who get paid via commission based on the ad revenue they generate. OurTown.com claims that local editors can make up to $40-60K a year covering two zip codes, which is pretty solid compared to a community newspaper reporting gig. There’s an interview over at Online Journalism Review with the chief news officer of OurTown.

Most of the successful blogs out there are using the basic hyperlocal premise but it’s about a community of interest rather than a specific location. At the most fundamental level all media is predicated on building readership around community. The traditional dailies better figure out how to monetize their online communities before it’s too late. Outsourcing won’t solve that problem.

What can be learned from InfoWorld's online transition

I've been pretty tardy on the blogging lately, what with my real job and actually having a social life and all. I've seen a lot of stuff I've wanted to write about in the last two months and I've been tagging the interesting ones in del.cio.us for follow-up. So I'll be cleaning out the closet for a while, starting now.

This article from early May in the NY Times on IDG's transition from a print to web-based model is, I believe, a harbinger of things to come for many others in the publishing industry. IDG took InfoWorld to an all-online model in April 2007 and now the magazine's total ad revenue just eclipsed its revenue from the year prior when it was both print and online. Even more significant, it's profitable now, where before as a print/online hybrid it was operating at a loss.

The article points out that technology publications are ahead of the curve in terms of online migration, but it’s clear that more trade and mainstream publications will follow, especially the ones targeting niche communities.

One of the things from the Times article that captured my attention was Eric Knorr's statement about how they had changed their style to accommodate the web. They weren't just changing their delivery channel; they were changing their style to accommodate the web-only audience.

Yet as a Web-only publication, InfoWorld is very different from the bygone print edition. Gone, Mr. Knorr says, are the long pieces of more than 3,000 words, with anecdotes and narrative, examining how technology had transformed some company or industry. Instead, he said, the key online is packaging information into “digestible chunks,” typically of no more than a page of text or so, sometimes in lists of “10 things to do” to solve some technology problem in companies.

I think there is a corollary here for PR, which is also transitioning to direct communication with customers via the web. Press releases need to be shorter, focused and communicate only one-to-three primary messages at most. There is a time for longer, strategic announcements but overall I think these are over-used and certainly under-read.

I was reading a three page press release from a major software company the other day with a long, gratuitous quote from the CEO, an analyst quote, a customer quote, and four subheaded sections of text describing in detail some different aspect of their strategy. There was a lot of good information in there, at least until the point where I fell asleep. No doubt it made everybody in their pr department feel good, but It would have been much more effective in three separate, focused announcements.

This will appeal not only to the press but also the customers - a much wider audience to whom, whether we choose to recognize it or not, we are now speaking directly.