mydigimedia by Amy L. Webb

What the heck is Google up to now?

Google has added a SearchWiki feature for registered users. It's a way of customizing your search, keeping notes on what you find and re-tooling the results to save you time the next time you're looking for something. Think of it as a social search tool, except that - so far - other users can't see your comments or preferences. (Which means that you can feel free to search under "George Michael" and note how amazing he is. What, you didn't do that first, too?)

Watch the Google video on how the search wiki works:

Now, the obvious question: How might this impact journalism?

I don't know that the average user is going to immediately start re-ranking her results and keeping notes. But the possibility certainly exists for many of our SEO practices to be thrown straight out the window. How much time and energy has your copy desk devoted to crafting catchy headlines that are most likely to be listed first by Google? Maybe you've been sneaking in extra meta tags to get your story about a local politician positioned near the recent presidential candidates. And what might this mean for the folks who, at one point, catapulted whitehouse.org above the real White House website?

Search has become complicated because of so much new information readily available. We're also running out of address space...but that's a whole separate story saved for a morning when I've had more coffee first. (To get a primer, see info on IPv6.) Is Google's SearchWiki one way of adding a human layer to search, to help refine results? Is the next phase real personalization? Is this a signal that at some point relatively soon, search focus on the content I want, regardless of source?

I'm starting to think that can't be a good thing for our beleaguered newspapers.

What to do? Every journalist should sign on, play with search wiki and start to understand how and why it works. Don't do it once. Engage with it throughout the day. And start to think about how this might impact your reporting, your publishing and the community around you...

Posted by AmyWebb at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As we're already seeing, people will interact with the cloud using a plethora of devices: PCs, mobile phones and PDAs, and games. But we'll also see a rush of new devices customized to particular applications, and more environmental sensors and actuators, all sending and receiving data via the cloud. The increasing number and diversity of interactions will not only direct more information to the cloud, they will also provide valuable information on how people and systems think and react...

Posted by AmyWebb at 06:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was just trying to locate our wedding photographer and typed in her company's name to Google. Here's what I got as the first result (I've blurred out the image):

Yowza! Maybe Google's algorithms aren't that bullet-proof after all...

If you want to see it clearly, go to Google and type in Lovelife Images. Hoping it'll be gone soon...

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And now for something (not so) completely different: a Yahoo! Google advertising partnership. Yahoo! will offer Google ads on part of its site to raise cash and to, it hopes, fend off a hostile takeover by Microsoft.

Read more from Yahoo! Analysis from Silicon Valley Insider.

Scary stuff, folks.

Posted by AmyWebb at 08:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's been a week of big announcements in online advertising - and not because some new company has launched a thrilling geotargeted ad-serving widget.

Yahoo! has just announced details on an enhanced behavioral ad platform called AMP. Essentially, it's going to make it easier for Yahoo newspaper consortium sites to buy and sell targeted ads. So that means that if you're most newspaper sites in the U.S., Yahoo! will be watching what you click on and how you search. Eventually, you'll get delivered ads that, at least in theory, should grab your interest. Do you read stories about the Cubs, shop at browse on Bluefly and check out foodie blogs? Chances are good you'll start to see ads that are sports-related, offer discounts at online clothing retailers and redirect you to culinary sites.

Click here to watch a video of how AMP will work. Here for more background.

Meantime, Fox Interactive Media is in the process of rolling out a new ad platform itself. The "HyperTargeting" system promises to use demographic information that users enter in MySpace and other sites to display targeted ads.

And of course, Google's moving full-speed ahead on behavioral ads and buying/selling ads for print.

Why does all this matter? Because we still rely on advertising to sustain journalism. And many publishers continue to cite the Internet and new digi players (Google, Yahoo) as threats to traditional news.

I agree that news organizations need to be in the business of producing great content and innovating new models for storytelling. But news is also a business, no? Where's the R&D earmarked for developing new ad platforms of our own? Different business models? Alternative revenue streams?

Fifty years ago, newspapers were shackled to big department stores - and we all watched what happened when those companies either went out of business, got bought or just cut back on print advertising. From my perspective, news orgs are just hitching their carts to a different horse now rather than planning for future growth and sustainability.

Look at what's happening to Microsoft. This Yahoo! hostile takeover thingy has to do with staying relevant and strong against Google after operating system disappointments and the failure to innovate modern web apps. But do you think Google will be around forever?

The business side of journalism must learn to adapt. End of story.

Posted by AmyWebb at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While you're sitting at your desk, trying to out-think Google by inserting tags and keywords into your news story, a handful of smart companies are reorganizing the web as we know it. They're working on something called the semantic web - and it'll forever change how we publish journalism online.

While the semantic web isn't an entirely new concept, it is finally starting to materialize. Last August, I posted a short entry about semantic web developments and a video with a pretty good explanation of just what the thing is.

Since then, there have been some significant developments. For one, Radar Networks has recently launched Twine (currently in private beta only). Speaking of radar, just slightly under it is Yahoo, which is expected to quietly launch a semantic search beta in a matter of weeks.

What is it?
What we have right now are some darn good algorithms that search and rank information based on a number of things - how many times we search on a specific term and select a webpage based on its description, relevance of content within a site, etc. But as the web grows, and as we continue to add content, it's becoming more difficult to seek and actually find what we're looking for.

More importantly, search technology is developing into a more sophisticated form of what we know now. The semantic web searches and learns information as we use it. It processes the intended meaning of our words and phrases and pieces different strings together.

To wit: let's say that I was headed to Sweden (I am, for a presentation this June) and wanted to learn both information about the region and simultaneously coordinate with other folks who are going to be there. Via the semantic web, I could search through maps, restaurant reviews, museums - your standard stuff. Using Radar Network's Twine, all of this information would be automatically tagged and indexed for that trip. Then, it might also look through my contacts' stored information - calendars, for example - and connect me with people who will be in or near the region at the same time as I've designated on my own stored calendar At the end, I'll have created a pretty thorough dossier with everything I'll need - even dinner companions - for my trip.

In a sense, having access to the semantic web is like have access to a hyper-organized, blazing fast secretary who also happens to be the best research librarian on the planet.

How does the semantic web impact journalism?
One thing online publishers have wrestled with for years is how to get content seen. That's only getting more difficult, as more people add content via blogs, personal sites, etc. And since wire copy is also being indexed separately from traditional newspapers or magazines, it's not always easy to get people from a search engine to your particular website.

At journalism and other conferences, there always seems to be a panel on metrics. Search Engine Optimization 101. Drive Traffic Using Search.

But pretty soon, we're going to see a paradigm shift. Those great SEO tricks you paid to learn aren't necessarily going to work. And at some point in the future, Google may not be the big kahuna of search anymore.

I think that people will start to think in specifics but aggregate by topic area. They'll want some assistance as they search the web, and they'll learn to love being fed suggested content based on what they preference. This means that news publishers ought to start thinking more about their core competencies...local news, sports, regional politics...and devote resources to building up their newsrooms again so that they'll be armed with high-quality reporting and contextual information on their sites. Online publishers will have to start thinking about how a story's content relates to other content, to people, to ideas in what will become Web 3.0.

And it'd be a good idea to get someone on your staff soon who understands all this stuff.

More s semantic web resources: Blue Organizer, Freebase, Hakia.

Posted by AmyWebb at 12:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In the wake of all the mergers and acquisitions - an announcement today makes it likely that Microsoft and Yahoo! will strike a deal, while word is spreading that Tribune Co. wants to offload Newsday - one has to keep Google in mind.

Yes, Google just officially completed its $3.1 billion purchase of online ad service DoubleClick. And yes, Google also wants to buy up the so-called "white space spectrum," once the TV airwaves make the switch to digital - the company wants to build a massive Wi-Fi network to make Internet access ubiquitous.

But to me, the most interesting new foray for Google isn't invisible space between television channels or even the rumored Gphone/ Andriod platform. It's Google's Print Ads service.

The service isn't exactly new. Tech folks were talking about Google's move into print back in 2005 and wondering then what it might mean for the already compromised classified ads world. (If you want a PDF of every newspaper participating in Google Print Ads - along with each paper's reported circulation and reach - click here.)

But a full-page announcement in this week's Advertising Age made me take notice again. Look below - and notice that 2D barcode.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I thought print publications might harness 2D barcodes, or QR codes, to complement their online products. In a sense, publishers could hide information in print that would be revealed online, creating a perfect print-digital synergy. I also explained how this technology could be used to sell advertising or for marketing campaigns.

It doesn't surprise me one bit that Google has moved into print and is essentially acting as a broker to hundreds of newspapers. Newspapers are in trouble, and Google has a very powerful network of companies wanting to advertise. Google is leveraging its vast network to "help" the absolutely desperate folks on the print side of media...but Google's aim is still to drive traffic to various websites (advertisers, those offering other Google ads and more).

Of course Google is offering 2D barcodes as a possible solution. To prove its point, the one in the announcement above goes straight to www.google.com/printadvertising.

A central problem in traditional journalism is that very few company execs - if any - are either hiring the right R&D folks or are bringing in outside consultants to identify and adapt emerging technology. Newspapers and magazines shouldn't have to rely on Google to alert them on the next big trend in tech. And they sure as hell shouldn't wait for Google to develop the ideas for how to implement that technology.

National ads are certainly lucrative - but there's something to be said for monetizing your local marketplace and inviting local advertisers to use your network. There is absolutely no reason that newspapers and magazines across the country can't start selling 2D barcodes right away, and upselling those ads with joint offers online. The news sites will get an extra click when users hit the site from their mobile phones, and advertisers will get their ads seen via online and mobile - plus, users will have a reason to then visit many of the advertisers in person (to use electronic coupons, for example).

It's not even just about the money. There are cross-promotions, marketing and even editorial opportunities hidden in 2D codes and SMS. It'd be a damn shame for traditional media to miss the boat again and have to wave at the Google cargo ship charging ahead to sea.

Posted by AmyWebb at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(via Steve Doig)

Posted by AmyWebb at 06:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A few things...

First, Street View, the somewhat controversial service that embeds a recent snapshot within Google Maps, has added a handful of new cities. In Philly, I found my old building and was able to explore the street where I used to go grocery shopping:

And the rush hour traffic my dad typically faces coming home from work in Chicago:

Second, Google Labs is continuing to modify and enhance its search interface. Here are three new tricks to try:

The view:map command will cross-reference your search terms with a Google Map. Try this: Hillary Clinton view:map. You'll wind up with red pegs on a map for Park Ridge, IL (childhood biography), Chappaqua, NY (Hillary's MySpace page), and New York (Wikipedia).

The view:info command will return results for dates, measurements, locations and images. Try this: Hillary Clinton view:info. It'll highlight dates and measurements in the search results. (You'll mainly find ages for measurements, but clearly this would work better for other kinds of searches.)

The view:timeline command will refocus your search returns by date. Try this: Hillary Clinton view:timeline:

If Google doesn't automatically allow you to try these searches, click here and sign in.

Posted by AmyWebb at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You may have used Google's SMS service to retrieve local listings (text: GOOGL). And you might have texted Google to get weather information and a quick forecast.

Yesterday, I was surprised to find that Google texted me an 800 number - apparently part of its local search service (U.S. only). 1-800-GOOG-411. This is actually the second time I've gotten this number texted back to me after submitting an SMS search...the first time was about six months ago, it happened only that one time, and I assumed that it was some kind of prematurely sent beta.

So I called GOOG-411 to search for the phone number to a restaurant. An automated voice answers, prompts me for the city and state, then a nice-sounding man-bot asks me for the name of the location. I told him "Park Shore Grill" and moments later he responded with the address, phone number and then connected me.

Is it surprising that Google launched a voice-based 800 search? Given its recent moves into telephony and existing search technology, I kind of expected it. What really surprised me was how fast, polite and accurate the service is. Much more so than regular old 411.

This brings to mind the semantic web - what's being called the next web iteration. Search is already expanding and transforming, from voice-activated to image-recognition.

There are obvious opportunities for using this service while reporting. What I'm interested to learn is whether or not Google will eventually weave advertising into GOOG-411. We already see it in Google Maps and know its coming in YouTube. Seems like an effective way to monetize content they already have, no?

Posted by AmyWebb at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's 10:37 a.m., and I've been attempting to get through all of my morning reading. Today, I had a small list of various blog entries to visit, and they all happened to be via blogspot accounts. For more than an hour, I've been getting this same error:

Did a server farm somewhere on Google's campus go (gasp!) dark??

Posted by AmyWebb at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Two significant events occurred yesterday that've had me thinking. (Three, actually, if you include the fact that after losing my copy of Getting Things Done four times I finally found it in my office and was able to start reading...)

First - I started testing the Apple's new iLife and iWork '08. As much as Katherine Boehret (via Walter Mossberg) recently gushed platitudes about all the spiffy improvements, there are some very irritating - and potentially dangerous - bugs associated with each program. The new iWeb '08, for example, will overwrite some important files and without strategic fixing, you'll be hard pressed to open projects you'd created in the last version. The graphics and features in iMovie, an easy app to create web-ready video, make things more cumbersome (but yes, the program looks a lot more sleek on your desktop).

In the older (and current) version of iMovie, there's something called the "Ken Burns Effect," which means that you can zoom in or out of pictures as you narrate a voice over. The result is a modern moving picture, reminiscent of the work that characterizes a Burns documentary. I created a super quick example using pics from a recent Cubs game we attended back home in Chicago last month - have a look below.

Second - I spent a few hours watching video from various news outlets online yesterday. For example, at chicagotribune.com, I sat through a video about the trial of mobster Joey Lombardo. (I'd link, but there's no way to share.) A reporter read a script and showed either court sketches or photos of folks mentioned in the story as each was being quoted. The Greensboro News and Record had a video up about a local high school preparing for the fall football season. (Again, no sharing.)

And at the NYTimes.com, I watched video stories about nuns in Hollywood, Brooklyn artist Duke Rily and Karl Rove's resignation. In all cases, the photography used was very, very good (hell, it is the New York Times). The content was solid, too.

But the videos weren't that spectacularly compelling. And there weren't opportunities to embed or share those videos on other sites.

Meantime, someone uploaded a C-Span video to YouTube that had a brief intro voice over (this video is five minutes and it is Karl Rove's resignation speech) before offering straight footage of what happened. While the NYTimes.com video was slick, it missed something that I was promised in the title: Rove's speech. To be fair, the user who uploaded this particular video clip also inserted an unflattering picture of Rove at the end - but the video is what I'm talking about here...

Point is, what is the initial result of the recent video push at newspaper websites? Yes, yes - I know there's an argument to be made for traffic. On the other hand, most newspaper reporters and photogs aren't trained documentarians. Lots of the newspaper-produced video out there looks, well, Ken Burnsified. Like someone locked themselves into a dark room, went on 24-hour Civil War and Jazz bender and emerged as the "multimedia guy" for his newsroom armed with the Ken Burns Effect button.

As much as I disagree with Murdoch - more to the point, as much as I take issue with the disproportionate coverage he's getting compared to Google and Yahoo - his WSJ action plan calls for grand integration. And that's a good thing. TV news video is done best by TV news teams, and that video content doesn't necessarily translate well to the web. Newspapermen and women are used to writing copy for a print product - again, cutting and pasting doesn't resonate online.

Murdoch has talked about integrating systems in a comprehensive way. I think that idea has a lot of merit, and there's no reason other news orgs can't learn a little something from all this.

If a newsroom is going to offer multimedia training - and they all should - why not start out with the fundamentals of what makes for good web content? A journalist already knows what makes a good story. The trick is to train folks on what content from that story is best suited for the web. Don't just arm your reporters with sets of high-def cameras and audio recorders... Learning the technology is a piece of cake. But there's a shift in perception and understanding that needs to precede a big change...

...the Ken Burnsification of news isn't a bad thing, necessarily. After all, the man tells a damn good story. But there's a difference between a trained documentarian and the "Effect" button on iMovie, no?

Posted by AmyWebb at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What Is Web 3.0?

Defined by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the Seoul Digital Forum.

Read what Nova Spivak has to say about Web 3.0 here. Nova is an entrepreneur and the mastermind behind Radar Networks, which is supposed to launch this fall...and I, for one, can't wait to see it!

From the article:

[Web 3.0] is expected to debut in 2007, will be more connected, open, and intelligent, with semantic Web technologies, distributed databases, natural language processing, machine learning, machine reasoning, and autonomous agents.

Posted by AmyWebb at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From cit-j guru and lately my favorite cartoonist Danny at Journalistopia:

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Top news sites for May according to ACNielsen//Netratings, via Jon Dube:

Before reading on, keep in mind that some of these sites double as information portals/ search engines...and that will drive traffic metrics way up. Also note that some of those listed are news organization sites, with multiple newspapers/ broadcast stations feeding into the data. WorldNow is a publishing platform. That said, NYTimes.com, USAToday.com and washingtonpost.com are single news sites and also have the highest print circulation in the country.

Brand or Channel Unique Audience (000) Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)
Overall = Current Events & Global News 94,573 115:53
Yahoo! News 30,451 0:26:28
CNN Digital Network 29,094 0:30:30
MSNBC 28,347 0:25:21
AOL News 17,444 0:42:09
Tribune Newspapers 13,300 0:13:02
NYTimes.com 12,775 0:29:36
Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division 12,645 0:16:03
ABCNEWS Digital Network 10,211 0:08:19
McClatchy Newspaper Network 9,885 0:12:29
USATODAY.com 9,528 0:12:39
Google News 9,359 0:12:15
CBS News Digital Network 8,620 0:08:20
washingtonpost.com 8,613 0:18:43
Hearst Newspapers Digital 8,380 0:18:53
Associated Press 8,191 0:08:23
Fox News Digital Network 7,594 0:40:17
Netscape 6,648 0:17:19
BBC News 6,554 0:08:00
WorldNow 6,232 0:12:36
MediaNews Group Newspapers 6,189 0:09:32

Listen to this article

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Listen to or download the session. Audio is now uploaded.

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Not too long ago, I extolled the virtues of Midomi, the incredibly smart voice-activated search engine:

...by audio, I mean you can literally hum a few bars of a song into it and it'll return likely results.

Why is this important? In another life I was a musician, classically trained in piano. I don't play anymore. I do have a great appreciation for music, but I have a horrible time remembering the names of songs. I used to hear something playing in the background or at a party and then would have to call my sister, a professional opera singer, hum a few bars and then beg for info as she berated me, American Idol-style.

So far, Midomi has found Alcohol (Barenaked Ladies) and Let Go (Frou Frou). I tried singing in some Japanese songs I know well but they didn't pop up.

Then I found a press release in my inbox from Verizon. They've launched V CAST Song ID, which essentially mimics the same kind of search:

With Verizon Wireless' exclusive new V CAST Song ID, you can now hear a song, hold the phone toward the music, watch it capture
a sample of what you're listening to and within seconds V CAST Song ID will identify the music, and allow you to purchase a matching full-track song, Ringtone or Ringback tone -- all right over-the-air from your phone.

Verizon has supposedly indexed 4 million songs and a quick search should produce a display with the name of artist, song title and, because this is a commercial enterprise, a note about how to download the track as an mp3, a ringtone or a ringback tone.

Midomi, and now Verizon...

Our industry should, in the very near future, capitalize on what we do best. We aggregate (reporting). We sort, verify and analyze (writing and editing). And ultimately we make content available to the masses (publishing).

I know that citizen journalism is the latest, hottest trend now, but I wish that we could branch off into the direction of smarter aggregating and publishing. We should be in the business of innovating tools like Midomi.

Listen to this article

Posted by AmyWebb at 08:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday, Google released a street view node to its already-powerful online mapping tool. Essentially, you can now see photos of streets, landmarks, buildings and people who happened to be in the shot when it was taken for any location in the first set of beta cities: Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, New York and San Francisco.

Photos are interactive and 360-degrees, allowing you to virtually roam through your destination. Rumor has it that very soon, there will be a video option with either live shots or feeds from YouTube.

116th & Broadway in NYC. That building on the right is the Columbia J-school. (Dunno the guy in the orange shirt.)

It was Amazon's A9.com search engine (now OpenSearch) that originally tested photo/map mashups within search, and believe it or not that was nearly two years ago. And to be fair, Microsoft's Virtual Earth already has a similar program with street views in more than 50 cities.)

Google partnered with Immersive Media, a Calgary, Canada-based company. Immersive has already collected and mapped close to 40,000 miles of streets in 35 U.S. cities so far and is currently collecting data in Europe, South Africa, Asia and North America. A camera the company calls a "dodecahedron" has "twelve symmetrical pentagonal facets [and] is the most natural geometric division of a sphere for immersive image capture."

What does this mean for journalism? Potentially a lot.

Picture a disaster scene. You're a broadcast reporter for your local television station and because you have to wrangle your photographer, producer and get out to the van with all of the necessary equipment, it takes you about 15 minutes to get to the scene. Once you're there, it will take an additional 3 - 5 minutes to get to your spot, set up, check your hair and teeth and to start rolling. If the story was breaking in any city I've lived in and if I was at my office at the time, I'd need to add on a minimum of 5 - 10 minutes because of traffic. All told, it might take 30 minutes to wrap a live stand-up shot.

But now the video would air with an anchor and there may or may not be time to produce a map to show my location. And because it's TV, your viewer wouldn't be able to click on any links...she'd have to move to her computer to do that, and in all likelihood, the station's site won't have been updated immediately with new research and blogging tools.

Here's why Street View matters to our industry: In that same disaster scene, a citizen journalist might be nearby with a video-enabled phone, a digi-camera or camera phone or possibly even a mini-digital handicam. It would literally take her seconds to snap pics with her phone and email it back to her editor, who could embed a photo-map into a written story with links. If she had a video-enabled phone, she could send that and essentially have an interactive video story, live from the scene, with an instant ability to solicit additional reporting from others in the area. If that hyperlocal citizen network subscribed to a service like TextMarks, an SMS notice could be sent to all mobile phones and everyone in the area could then begin collecting content and sending back to the reporter's home base.

Consider my sister and I as possible examples: I'm a geek, and I'm never without my BlackBerry (camera, web, email), my laptop (I can use my BlackBerry to get online from anywhere - even the remote Jordanian desert), my digital camera, my audio recorder and my Sony Handicam. Although I don't carry it, I also have a nifty tripod that can bend in any direction and attach itself to virtually any surface. So if I was on the scene, I could set up a camera and my phone, get footage and then head to shelter and upload it using my laptop. Assuming I didn't edit anything, I would have broken the story ahead of every conventional news outfit - I guarantee it.

Now I realize that I'm an aberration. But consider my sister, who's an opera singer and rarely carries anything besides her iPod (classical music or Coldplay), a large wallet of makeup and her camera/video enabled mobile phone. She could easily capture digital footage and post it to YouTube, which might then be integrated into a Google Map.

Yes, Google released an API allowing all of us to create maps with photos. But in this case, video changes the picture.

Click below to watch an informative, if not animaesque, demo video.

Listen to this article

Posted by AmyWebb at 07:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've discovered Google Web History, a new tracking service that keeps tabs on every single page of every single site you visit online. It's a sort of reverse stat counter - metrics for yourself.

I visit hundreds of web pages every day - and now I find myself coming back to Web History to see where I've been.

The service raises obvious concerns. It's a bit like engaging a stalker to deliver reports of what he's seen you doing all day long... On the other hand, smart web publishers are keeping tabs on you already.

Google has just enabled you to stalk yourself.

More f rom: Google, Search Engine Watch

Posted by AmyWebb at 06:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Google has just released a super-simple editor that allows anyone to create an interactive map. You can even embed video (using YouTube, of course).

They've literally given step-by-step instructions and now offer a WYSIWYG editor and graphic tools, making it easier to create an interactive map than it is read most printed atlases.

Seed Newsvine

Posted by AmyWebb at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Let's hope not.

Today, Google announced a new (beta) ad format that will allow publishers to hyperlink ads within stories. In essensce, someone might write about the virtues of French Press coffee, and mousing over text that says "French Press coffee yields a bolder, richer flavor than standard automatic drip" would display an ad for Bodum, which produces French Press pots with an "Ads by Google" display.

I think that this poses a serious problem not necessarily for large news sites, such as USAToday.com or CNN.com, which (I hope, I pray) would not engage advertising in this way.

However what of citizen jurnos, producing reported content? There is indeed a fine line between external linking for more context and content and including links to generate ad revenue.

I fear that this might confuse editorial with advertorial content in a way that will make it increasingly difficult for end-users to understand what they're reading.

Michael Arrington posted a very thoughtful criticism on TechCrunch, but so far I see few others debating this issue...I'm hoping that will change, and fast.

Posted by AmyWebb at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Project for Excellence in Journalism released its fourth annual report on the state of the news media on Monday. This is a lengthy, detailed analysis of how our media is evolving - and more importantly, how people are reading/ viewing/ listening/ browsing/ sharing/ collaborating with us in journalism.

From the Digital Journalism chapter:

What are those news sites like that are original on the Internet — sites that were not added on to some legacy TV network or newspaper? Do they have a personality profile? Do they have different emphases and strengths from those connected to another media? Or are they varied among themselves, an emerging platform with no fixed traits yet?

To try to help users sort through all that is available, the Project conduct a close study of 38 different news sites, those from different media sectors, and those that are Web only, including some with a distinct citizen-media-based flavor.

Researchers looked at six criteria, including customization options, multimedia, branding, depth of info, interactivity and business model success.

I'd be interested to learn more about how the 38 sites were selected, since at least two were aggregators rather than providers offering original content.

You can view the report at stateofthemedia.org. Also see:

Digital Journalism: A Topography of News Websites
Newspapers
Online
About the study...

More about the Project for Excellence in Journalism

Seed Newsvine

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AuctionAds just launched and combines two elements now ubiquitous with the Web 2.0 frenzy. First, it's a meta-ad program, meaning that it aggregates content on one site and automatically serves it to another. Second, it solves the "how else might I monetize my content" quandry for which we're all desperately seeking an answer.

Mostly, it's the first player (and still ahead of Yahoo!, no less) to deliver a keyword-based service since Google - and that has some folks out west talking.

AuctionAds works the same basic way as Google's AdSense program. Users register, denote a space on their websites and formats a set of code that generates an ad within a certain set of size and color parameters. Except that all ads are about current eBay auctions.

For those of you who've sold items on eBay, especially the newbies, you've likely been roped in by the for-less-than-a-dollar add ons such as a colorful border or prioritized listing position on the page. I say this because a few years back, I attempted to sell relics from the Republican National Convention I was covering and, thinking the swag would harness untold riches, I enhanced my listing with just about everything available. It wound up costing me $14 to list an item that never sold...but I was caught up in the fantasy of my RNC program going for hundreds of dollars. Would I have purchased an eBay ad to raise the possibilities of a sale? Absolutely.

I think this is a very smart idea, a potentially lucrative one. And I'm wondering what application this might have to journalism.

Might there be a way for newspaper conglomerates, such as Tribune Co., Gannett and McClatchy to perhaps steal this idea? If there was a TribAds service created that would do everything Google does - enable tracking on click throughs, serve ads based on keywords, enable users to set color and size - if if that service was offered only online (users could buy Tribune-offered keywords), and if ads were served to websites across all Tribune online properties, wouldn't that be a potential cash cow?

Think of all the revenue Google is making from AdSense. AuctionAds has figured out a way to use the same basic idea to collect and serve ads. So we have three proven factors: (1) People like and use online keyword-based ad servers; (2) This is a system that absolutely generates big returns; (3) The technology isn't out of reach - someone else is doing it too.

I know...I absolutely know that this is a good idea. And here's something else to think about: At least for right now, the following domains are available...

GannettAds.com
GanAds.com
McClatchyAds.com

TribuneAds.com is registered to a Howard Goldstein of Trading Dynamics. Oddly enough, TribAds.com is sitting on these servers: CHISUN2.TRIBUNE.COM, LATSUN6.TRIBUNE.COM (you see where I'm going with this...) but there's nothing on the site. It's been registered since 1997 and expires this November, but isn't really being used... Knock, knock, Tribune Company. Anyone home?

In all seriousness, if you're interested in talking about how a localized system might work across a corporate network, email me. Give me a call. I know how to make it work, and you can hire me to show you.

Seed Newsvine

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Here's a helpful site for anyone who travels and needs to get online but doesn't have a BlackBerry to hack. Hotspotr, still beta-ish (they said it, not me), is a very clever Google mashup with community input on hotspots around the U.S.

I clicked on Chicago and found 2958 listings. Some are free, some are paid (someday I'll rant about pay-per-use airport hotspots). A few years back, I bought a wireless sniffer to allow me to see wireless networks, their channels and whether they were open or secure to enable me to get online fast when traveling. I really like Hotspotr because other folks vet the information, rate spots, upload addresses and all that data is spit out as an interactive Google map.

If you're a reporter or blogger, I highly recommend that you have a look.

Seed Newsvine

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I've recently been playing mashup with Google Maps, and I still believe very strongly that journalists can use them more effectively as both a reporting tool and as a richly graphic way to display information on newspaper/ magazine websites.

Here are a few ideas after my morning brainstorming session:

Map + Schedule = graphic interface showing travel dates
Applications: sports schedules, personal schedules, political campaigns

Map + Travel information = interactive travel guide
Applications: see NYTimes Travel

Map + Health Desk = maps showing demographic and health information
Applications: obesity charts, spread of disease/ epidemic, hyper-local flu information

Map + Real Estate listings = property value/ taxation survey
Applications: local income:housing cost disparities, neighborhood tax:services disparities

Map + Nightlife Events = ad-driven listings database
Application = monetized nightlife calendar (bonus! add RSS feeds by event category)

For more inspiration, have a look at the unofficial Google Maps Mania site. API detail on how it's done at ProgrammableWeb.com. Craigslist + Google housing price map.

Please note: I'm not commenting here on the integrity of reporting on any of these sites - I just want to show you what's possible.

Seed Newsvine

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A new service launched today that allows bloggers to monetize content easily. But it has broader uses too: businesses can serve ads directly to their consumers in a process that completely sidesteps classifieds, print or digital.

Meet TextMarks, an exceptionally clever app, so smart that newspapers ought to take notice immediately and begin emulating some of its features.

Publishers select a keyword, such as BALTPOL (Baltimore Politics). Then an auto response would be entered: Mayor Sheila Dixon announces she won't run for office in September. Subscribers to that keyword receive an instant SMS to their mobile phones. Users can also text the keyword to 41411 at any time for an update. (And I'm sure you're noticing that 41411 looks very similar to 46645, which prompts Google to return an answer via SMS to directory searches, sports scores, etc.)

Using TextMarks, bloggers can update their sites via text message and they can broadcast information to subscribers.

And, of course, you can monetize your blog using TextMark's SMS alerts. You set a price point at either $4.99 or $9.99 per month, customize the graphics all you want, and offer text updates to your blog's readers.

Now TextMarks is taking a significant portion of the proceeds, but it also takes away the need for a secure shopping cart system. TextMarks deals directly with the wireless carriers, so bloggers never have to worry about billing.

This model, at least in some form, should (and can!) be applied to newspaper and magazine websites asap.

To wit: I'm not a die-hard football fanatic, but I was at my sister's most recent opera recital last month and missing both of the playoff games. I sat in the audience with my Blackberry on silent texting Google every couple of minutes to get game updates. Then I switched over to ESPN.com mobile. Both were free (and I have an unlimited data plan, so usage was free too). But you know what? I just might have paid $1.99 for a one-night subscription to get the scores. Hell, the sale of commercial ringtones topped $2.5 billion in 2004. Billion! You don't think folks might pony up a buck or two for up to date information?

At last year's Online News Association conference, I sat in on a panel of industry big wigs talking about the challenges and pitfalls to harnessing wap for use with newspaper/ media promotion. The Bakersfield Californian was, an entire year ago, starting to use SMS for stories and also for advertising.

Why aren't more newspaper websites taking advantage of SMS - TextMarks should convince publishers that they need to look beyond videos and podcasts already.

Posted by AmyWebb at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been experimenting with SeeqPod, a unique search engine. I'm not exactly sure how the thing is powered or how it works. Also not sure who's running the show or where its funding comes from.

I can tell you this, however. You can use one of SeeqPod's features to search for music in a really cool user interface. Search for songs online, add them to a playlist, save it, email it to friends and even add your own songs. It'll also suggest related videos, ringtones and other music. It's an iTunes/ Pandora/ 80s mix tape mashup. You can't download anything (at least not easily), and SeeqPod offers a lengthy copyright notice on the music search site.

But I also found something else on SeeqPod: SeeqPod Finance, which allows you to search the NYSE and NASDAQ by product rather than by company for related information. This is a very cool application of search technology. I typed in BlackBerry (you should too!) and got Research In Motion's ticker, financials and all of the companies that have a relationship somehow with BlackBerry. Also tried searches for iPod and MacBook Pro, and both worked. I looked up Olympus Digital Voice Recorder WS-320M and Canary Wireless Sniffer but that search didn't work. SeeqPod Finance is still in beta, but once the bugs are fixed, I think this could be a tremendous asset to journalists.

Posted by AmyWebb at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is why the current ballyhoo about media reform doesn't concern me all that much. While traditional journalists and indy media activists are consumed with Clear Channel buying up radio signals or News Corp snagging Newsday or Tribune Company breaking up into little pieces, the smart folks at Yahoo are doing the kind of innovative journalism that's online users have come to expect. Click on the picture below to see how the info graphic works...but you gotta read what's below it first.

Newspaper editors, now hear this! By all means, have the stuffy academic discussion about media consolidation and ownership. But you'd best look over your shoulder to Google and Yahoo, who are in the process of forming partnerships with the companies your reporters are covering for your business and tech sections. You may not understand the significance of Yahoo Pipes or even how the damn thing works. You may not have a clue about how Google uses Ajax to enable users to stick with its suggested sites. That's okay, as long as you know that big things are happening at digital media companies...the kinds of things that might make our current media reform discussion irrelevant in the next few years.

Do me... hell, do yourselves a favor, and type in "Google buys," just like that, into Google. See the company names Applied Semantics, Keyhole, PageRank, dMarc Broadcasting, Measure Map, JotSpot and so many others?

Believe me, YouTube ain't the biggest news story here.

You're about to miss the last train from Clarksville, newspaper editors and publishers. But don't say you never saw it coming.

Posted by AmyWebb at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday, media reform activists gathered at Columbia's J-school to talk about everything from media consolidation to proposed changes to how the FCC doles out licenses.

FCC Commish Michael Copps wants deaggregation and argued that broadcast stations should be required to offer more news and programming in the public interest. That they should be more accountable to taxpayers, since we're footing at least part of the infrastructure bill.

Walter Cronkite talked passionately about the decline of our newspapers. That ownership by just a few isn't serving the needs of many. Without competition within markets - dozens of communities are now one-paper towns - newspapers can't be as accurate in their reporting as they were decades ago.

Cronkite called ours a "soundbite culture," one that has "been a willing accomplice" in the deterioration of politics and society.

Frank Blethen, publisher of the Seattle Times and most outspoken news exec on the topic of independent journalism, warned that any news media owner ought to recognize his or her civic responsibility. That the needs of stakeholders should come before those of the shareholders.

During this afternoon discussion, I was struck by the omission of digital media. Because while big corporate interests were battling over different pieces of the Knight Ridder pie (and soon, the Tribune pie also), nontraditional media companies are dramatically changing the landscape of information. I think that the popularity of alternative news sites reached a certain critical mass both because the masses finally had access to technology and because they found independent voices more interesting.

For example to me, reading the Indianapolis Star or the News Journal in Delaware or even USA Today is sort of like pouring over the same sweater in three different colors at Banana Republic. At Gannett, there's a model that everyone uses for the paper. Five stories on A-1 with a nice, colorful picture. No real muckraking, no hard-core public interest reporting.

But the website Grist is serving up high-quality environmental journalism. Stories are written well and they're diverse, even within this small, independent site. At one point, Copps said that no website can pull together the same kind of in-depth investigative reporting or public interest stories as big newspapers. I ask him to spend some time on the Center for Public Integrity's website, which has won numerous investigative reporting awards.

It's good that we're talking about media reform and trying to find alternatives to consolidated ownership. And I'm really happy that Dean Nicholas Lemann has brought the discussion to Columbia.

But we need to look beyond just newspapers and broadcast stations to companies like Google and Yahoo. Why not monitor what's happening on the digital landscape as well? Why not apply the same standards?

Posted by AmyWebb at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's all about how the media covers (or doesn't) international news. The show airs tonight (Sunday) at 9:30pm EST on Comcast's CN8 channel. From Larry's site:

In a roundtable debate on the subject on CN 8’s VOICE OF REASON, taped for tonight at 9:30 P.M., the verdict was unanimous: Americans are not getting the information they need to make proper judgments.

Chris Harper, former network and news magazine bureau chief in the Middle East blames declining overseas coverage for the fact that most Americans have limited knowledge of the forces in Iraq that are fighting each other. He calls it a real crisis of information. That view is shared by Robert Thompson, professor of pop culture at Syracuse University, who has strong words about the lack of foreign news events that are often overshadowed by fluff and puff on local news.

Bob Zelnick, former ABC correspondent told me that he finds it ironic that most young Americans are getting their news from Comedy Central when they should be reading more. And Michael Days, Editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, was candid enough to admit that readers are not coming to his paper for overseas coverage and that there are plenty of outlets for it.

Perhaps the voice of the future on this show is Amy Webb, editor in chief at Dragonfire, a most unusual and in depth news and information website. Amy thinks that the web with its platform and space will eventually be the premiere news site of the future.

I checked Dragonfire out. If you want depth and a special level of reporting expertise, I highly recommend it.

My view on the overseas coverage debate? If you look had enough you’ll find the information you need, but most Americans don’t have the time. Aside from the cable news networks, the major news organizations of this country are doing little to explain the real nature of our foreign challenges in a time when we need it most — when challenges overseas threaten us at home.

Beyond superficial headline summaries, American newspapers and TV outlets must do more to make things clear.

Amy may be right. In a vacuum of in-depth coverage, the internet may be the place to go for news that counts.

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In June, I embarked upon a Great Experiment: I went on a strict digital diet, spending 30 days without any form of traditional media. I wanted to know which was more important _ the medium (television, newspaper, magazine, radio) or the information itself. I kept a daily journal of my successes, irritations and failures. The story ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Sunday, April 20th.

The Rules:

• No reading magazines, newspapers, etc.
• No listening to the radio or watching television. Listening to a broadcast online is OK, as is downloading previously aired television shows.
• No looking at newspaper stands or boxes.
• Also, no looking at flyers or copies of print stories.
• No books, unless they can be read or listened to online.

My story is featred in this Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer. Below, I've listed some of the tools that I used, websites that I visited and a handful of pictures... NOTE: Please read my disclaimer about my use of Apple products.

The Equipment:

• Fifteen-inch PowerBook G4 (Mac).
• G5 with 20-inch cinema display (Mac).
• BlackBerry 7105t.
• iPod Photo (30 gigabytes of memory).
• Canary Wi-Fi Digital Hotspotter (to find open wireless networks).
• DSL connection at home.
• T-1 connection at the office.

I read most of my news using an RSS aggregator called Bloglines. It delivers headlines and summaries throughout the day from the 27 feeds I subscribe to. I'm also able to access all of my feeds on my BlackBerry, which means that I'm able to stay on top of the news 24 hours a day... or as long as my batteries are powered. Here's what my "digital newspaper" looks like:

Even before the experiment, I typically work on multiple projects at once so I toggle between Bloglines, various websites and Word documents I'm using for work:

Because I was relying primarily on digital sources for information, I was always on the watch for useful sites. Here are some that I continue to use today...

Web 2.0 Search Engines:

Search blogs: http://www.blogdigger.com
Search for specific feeds: http://www.feedster.com
Crawl through discussion forums for information without actually visiting each one: http://www.omgili.com
Search Google and Yahoo at the same time: http://www.gahooyoogle.com

Fantastic News Sites:

BBC
washingtonpost.com

How I Watched TV...

First, a word of caution: There are laws against distributing copyrighted material. I'm not advocating that you start burning copies of your favorite television shows to share them with all of your friends on the Internet.

That said, there are plenty of ways to download or stream broadcast content -- some legal, some questionable.

Legal TV: I downloaded copies of The Office from the iTunes store.

Questionable TV: YouTube is an easy site to search for video files. Sites offering downloadable torrents are also good resources for video files. I've used BitTorrent as my client.

A note to Mac users: I would suggest downloading a copy of VLC, a cross-platform media player that will allow you to view files intended for PC-only applications.

 

 

 

Posted by AmyWebb at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)