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BNO’s Plan To Monetize As An Aggregator

Scott Adcox — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:01:06 +0000

This may ruffle just a few feathers *cough* AP *cough*. Breaking News Online is releasing an iPhone app ($1.99) and plans to charge a $.99 per month subscription fee to use it.

The company is going to monetize its research flow, editorial judgment, distribution channels…and links to other peoples’ content. If BNO is successful, there is a real risk of original content publishers objecting to the fact that someone else has found a way to make money off of (links sending traffic to) their content.

You got that? They aren’t chasing down and checking facts. They aren’t writing any stories. They aren’t selling to advertisers. They are monetizing the editorial judgment and distribution.

How can they do that? I think this may be the answer…

“Unlike their mainstream counterparts the service does a great job of only reporting news worthy of the ‘breaking’ label. I can attest to this as well as their ability to deliver breaking news before anyone else. I have found them to consistently report news 10-15 minutes before it hits mainstream websites or blogs and well before it is ever reported on TV.”

I applaud them for thinking outside the box. But this is probably going to make some people mad.Similar Posts:

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Looking For New Opportunities

Trace Sharp — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:51:08 +0000

In a story at the Huffington Post, Jennifer West talks about losing her job as an editor and a new journey she is taking. West’s story is similar to other journalists who have become unemployed. Although she has opted to go back to school, she says she’s out of the news business for good and will look at obtaining her degree is special education.

What about freelancing?

I refuse to work in journalism ever again. It’s turned its back on me.

But I called you.

But you’re not going to hire me.

That’s true.

I’m 41. Trying to get back into journalism — I was booted out and I’m looking in and I’m seeing 26-year-olds and 25-year-olds interviewing for the jobs I want. They ask everywhere for one to three years experience. What happened to 20? Nobody wants that.

There is a lot of truth in her words. Believe me.Similar Posts:

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Wearing The Inner Fedora And Getting The Scoop

Trace Sharp — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:06:25 +0000

The world of news is continually changing. A testament would be to the social media networks covering the death of Michael Jackson. The thing to remember though is that even with the instant nature of breaking news (which is still being touted 16 hours later on CNN as I type this) that we have forgotten some important things.

And Joe Larkins reminds us of one scrappy reporter that held the news reins earlier this week regarding the unusual disappearance of an American governor.

If there is ever a reason that newspapers should NOT go away, think Gina Smith. Smith is the reporter who broke the story about the Governor of South Carolina who was not hiking the Appalachian trail but was instead strolling through the old Grand Tetons while down in Argentina. Actually what I find amazing is that any news organization would be interested in spending the manpower on staking out TWO locations (the airport in Atlanta and in Columbia) to meet the governor. I think it is safe to say that Gina Smith will have several job offers here very soon if she is not fielding them already. She has what is missing in so many newsrooms these days…imagination, instincts and the support of managers who actually care about real news instead of what passes for news anymore.

Smith had the support of managers that allowed her to track a story and apparently gave her the breathing room to do it correctly. This is the difference between investigating the news and just reporting news, such as the case of the mass celebrity deaths this week. Of course people are oddly intrigued with the death of famous folks, but the reality is that there is actually more news going on than the death of the smiling angel, the laugh of the good-hearted second banana and the King of Pop.

I can only hope that managers in news organization remember the story of Gina Smith, who was allowed to go with her instincts and not halted with excuses of budget cuts or lack of administrative interest.

Don’t get me wrong, the way the Jackson story broke yesterday was mesmerizing as Twitter and Facebook sputtered a bit to keep up with the volume of interest from concerned fans. I was glued as well, comparing Twitter’s coverage with the cautious apprehension of CNN, which I write about here.

However, with the news cycle being about as long as a Twizzler these days, there are more stories out there on the horizon that will need investigating. As Christian Grantham calls it, we need the Smiths of the world wearing their inner fedoras because the Michael Jackson news cycle will end as well.

They always do.Similar Posts:

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Evolving Because We Don’t Have A Choice

Trace Sharp — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:49:54 +0000

The news continues to be bad for many journalists so I keep trying to find the good ones. As a person that is still on the cusp of whether or not she will have a job by the end of the year, it’s disheartening to always see bad news.

I had trouble finding any good news, quite frankly, about the print news industry. I guess the “bleed it leads” standard will always apply even when we are talking about the unknown future of print journalism.

Despite it all, I found a couple of things:

From the Weatherford Democrat:

The images will live forever.

The heartbreaking moment caught in time when firefighter Chris Fields carried the body of baby Baylee Almon from the rubble of the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995.

The fiery Twin Towers just seconds after two airplanes crashed into them and minutes before the buildings collapsed into an enormous cloud of dust on Sept. 11, 2001.

The smiling face of then President-elect Barack Obama holding hands with wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha as thousands cheered on election night 2008.

These three historic photographs, displayed on front pages everywhere, exemplify the staying power of newspapers.

It’s true. Look at sales of historic days of papers. I even have a copy of Dewey beats Truman somewhere.

And there is a different way to look at things. The industry is no different than other industries right now.

Newspapers will begin to heal when the nation’s economy rises from its knees and people spend money again. Business conditions are bleak now, but eventually Americans will buy more cars, houses, vacation packages and restaurant meals.

It is disheartening to read all the bad news. It’s frightening waiting for the other shoe to drop.

We can’t count ourselves out yet though. If we do that, then we have already lost the battle. It’s just a matter of evolving.

As is life, we are just going to have to adjust in the same way that autoworkers or business owners are.

We don’t have a choice.

Image credit

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Google News Timeline – Visual News Rerpresentation

Scott Adcox — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:59:22 +0000

Want to see a cool blend of news and technology? Check out the Google News Timeline, which was demo’d at Googlelabs Press Event today.

Very cool visual representation of news over time. Here comes the future. I can’t wait to play with this.

TechCrunch has moreSimilar Posts:

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Finding The Business Model For Online News

Trace Sharp — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:49:11 +0000

By Trace Sharp

The biggest news of the week probably is the online conversation that news outlets are contemplating charging for their online content. This is not a new concept and has been discussed repeatedly for years, but the issue is finding a business model that works.

The industry has to contemplate selling their product. Or maybe just part of their product. Take into account ESPN’s online presence. Yes, it gives it’s breaking news product away, but they also have a subscription section called the Insider where readers can find more in-depth reporting, rumors and sports analysis. Although it’s not perfect, it’s working.

It goes without saying that the news industry will need to rebuild and find the balance between what their customers want for free and what they are willing to pay for. This is the dilemma because it daunting to consider the evolution of an industry. And the other thing to consider is in the beginning, many business models will fail. New advertising campaigns specifically designed for the web must be concentrated and not based on the print industry’s preconception on ad sales. Print ads are a completely different beast than online sales.

It’s not the same thing.

One of the biggest obstacles is that the administrators must realize that people will pay for what they want. But, if they can get it for free, it’s a no-brainer. They aren’t going to pay.

By focusing on what our readers want is key. And believing that is worthy of selling is even more important.

And it’s a reality.

From the Daily Beast:

Charging for online content may not be enough to save the newspaper industry, and it almost certainly won’t be enough to save every newspaper now in danger. But the time to reconsider newspapers’ online business model is long overdue. As that reconsideration gathers momentum, it’s critical that decisions be made on the basis of facts. In this dark economic moment, the truth is hard enough.

It’s not a popular notion to set up subscription based sites, however, it’s going to have to happen. The model of ESPN and other news entities that balance some free content while combining it with paid subscriptions to features might be the way to go about it.Similar Posts:

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Journalism Is Not Dead

Trace Sharp — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:22:29 +0000

I was watching an online conversation on Twitter yesterday about the NFL players whose boat capsized and the rescue attempt to find them.

XarkGirl made the comment that she had told her coworkers in the newsroom that she saw the story break on Twitter (which is were I saw it as well) and their response was quite typical. Not surprising but typical.

She wrote:

So i’m brgging in newsroom that twtr had NFL boat stry hour ago. Dude sez: some people work & don’t have time to Twittr. God in heaven.

Her tweet got me to thinking about how many times I’ve heard this comment as well. She went on to write that the person who said this was waiting for updates by watching the television in the newsroom.

Here is lies the problem as I see it. If journalists don’t even attempt to learn new technology, then where will they be in five years? One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen in newsrooms and hearing from other journalists is the lack of commitment from coworkers and management to embrace new technology. The other downside is, and I’ve gone through this personally, when we do become technology evangelists, we basically are chastised for our eagerness.

This isn’t uncommon unfortunately.

Another journalist/editor from Jackson put a question up on his Facebook account yesterday asking if he should tell a teenage friend the realities of the journalism business. He wrote that his school-aged buddy was smitten with print journalism.

He wrote and I’ll paraphrase: Should I try to rescue her from this impulse?

He was serious.

All of us who responded said he should tell her the truth. One person responded that many new journalists find a 35mm camera romantic and nostalgic and those things needed to be taken into account which I thought was interesting, and very accurate.

I started out with a 35mm and we didn’t move to color until the mid-nineties. In less than 15 years, technology changed.

I see both of these online dilemmas from two dedicated journalists connected.

As things change, we have a choice. We learn and evolve with changing technology and online tools, or we don’t. I’m going with door number one.

And one last note in my observations this morning, journalism is not dead. The current business model for the industry is what is ailing like a fish out of water but journalism remains viable.

It’s important to remember the difference.Similar Posts:

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Where Do You Get Your News?

Trace Sharp — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:07:18 +0000

Klaus Holzapfel gives a comprehensive list about communication vs. journalism. This is a list of all lists.

Blogs and micro-blogs have greatly enhanced my communication: I can reach out, I can share, comment, learn etc.

Here is what they can’t do:

They will not replace papers and magazines as my #1 resource of information.

NewsTechZilla has asked it before and we will ask it again which is the same question Klaus asks.

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First Impressions From The ONA Forum

Trace Sharp — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:53:42 +0000

The Online News Association’s conference on Friday at the Freedom Forum in Nashville was not only a wonderful resource regarding the future of where journalism is headed, but in many ways it was a blogger meetup.

Remember those words.

I can recall going to other journalism conferences where online endeavors were only discussed with a bit of disdain. There is nothing like seeing publishers and owners throw up a little bit in their mouths while discussing where their businesses are heading. It’s also disconcerting to see them talking about how the Internet is a trend and not thinking about that the industry has faced challenges before and survived them.

I’m going to write a few posts on the things that struck me, but the main thing that was so invigorating about the conference was seeing leaders in online journalism say the things that I’ve been thinking for a long time.

One item I will mention in this editorial, for lack of a better word, is that something that Patrick Beeson and Katie Allison Granju said in a track called “The Evolving Newsroom” brought up. I’m inclined to agree with their line of thinking regarding something Beeson said regarding protecting the “legacy” of the print product. He basically was saying that, I think, that we as an industry are so busy justifying the print product that we are not focusing on the future of news delivery.

We did on Friday which was like drinking cold water in the desert after a long, desperate journey. It was refreshing for folks like myself who are unheard evangelists in my little neck of the woods.

I live in a college town. I keep track of the people in my community on Facebook and MySpace that are affiliated with the college. The numbers are vastly larger that the subscriptions to the local papers. I would say, unscientifically of course, that the majority of subscribers to our local paper are about one/third of our newspaper subscriptions. The majority, and this is just off the top of my head. of our deadwood subscribers are older or elderly.

Our audience will eventually die out, I’m afraid. People don’t want to say it, but they will in hushed tones when they think no one is listening. However, those 13,000 users of MySpace and Facebook also want news. They are just finding it in different places that their grandparents did.

And that’s our challenge. That, my friends, is what this conference was about on many levels.

The challenges of remaining relevant and being leaders in our industry where an invisible tsunami is happening. We just need to clean up the debris and rebuild. It really is as simple as that.

The conference was a good one on a personal level because I’ve often thought about how we can protect the legacy of our product while embracing new formats of news delivery. It can be done.

The newspaper I work at was started in 1884. I do believe that smaller papers are going to weather the recent storm much better than larger affiliates.

Why?

Because we are the only game in town when it comes to local news and that’s our edge. We’ve survived wars, depressions, recessions and much more. The legacy has remained. The obstacle those people who disdain online news creates is not allowing the evolution of the news industry to take an organic route of revision.

The one thing that certain journalists are doing right now is realizing that they must brand themselves, which I will write about later, and embrace new tools available to them.

And also remember I mentioned blogger meet-up. I met people on Friday that I’ve “known” for years. I just physically met them the first time on Friday, including Ken Marrero, Michael Silence, Jack Lail and Granju. We already knew each other though through that crazy medium that many in the journalism world don’t want to talk about.

And that was our blogs.Similar Posts:

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A 1981 Primitive Internet Report On KRON

Trace Sharp — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:14:22 +0000

This is hysterical. Doesn’t matter if you are in news or not.

H/T Mark Van Patten at The Newspaper Business Blog

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