![The Big Lebowski (Limited Edition) [Blu-ray Book + Digital Copy]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512F90yEqdL._SL75_.jpg){kind=small}
Wednesday
Feb252009
links for 2009-02-25
Young Urban Professional- "Searches for terms related to the economic struggles rose dramatically during 2008, according to the comScore report."
- An occupational hazard indeed!
Tuesday
Feb242009
Will the Economy Put the Kibosh on Generous Knowledge Sharing?
PSFK notes that the web has historically rewarded individuals and companies that share their knowledge regularly and liberally...
Skimming through Forbes list of the Top 25 Most Influential Personalities on the Web Today, we were struck by the common thread running through some of the best blogs today. Pundits like Guy Kawasaki, Jeff Jarvis and Steve Rubel have all led the pack of aspiring bloggers by sharing a similar approach: they share all they know.
From a professional standpoint, sharing your newest Marketing or PR
innovations freely on the web doesn’t make a lot of sense. Any
competitive advantage you may have had is lost to the public once these
ideas live online, right?
From a professional standpoint, sharing your newest Marketing or PR
innovations freely on the web doesn’t make a lot of sense. Any
competitive advantage you may have had is lost to the public once these
ideas live online, right?
Good question. In the past you couldn't argue with this approach. For decades knowledge sharing and thought leadership have been a winning PR strategy. The folks at Hubspot talk about this a lot when they talk about "inbound marketing."
However, as I look over this short list of folks (thanks to PSFK for including me!) I wonder if people who work for larger companies - both those who are well known and others - will be as willing to share knolwedge so readily in a recession.
You can bet that the folks named (myself included) and independent thought leaders like Charlene Li will continue in this tradition. In my case it's part of the culture at Edelman. But what about people who work for companies that sell their IP and whose livelihood depend on it? For example, industry analysts like Jeremiah Owyang who work for Forrester. Will they continue to rely on a strategy that to date has sparkled?
In tighter times my bet is that an iceberg of information that last year was unlocked might now remain more submerged.
I share a ton of content online with you. Much of it has moved to my Friendfeed page. However, these days I am now also producing more stuff for internal use - exclusive content for our staff and clients. This has allowed me to add value everywhere. I am just more strategic about it than I was before. That's what comes with the territory of working for a big global organization. I am lucky that Edelman is incredibly liberal here and they are great to work for. The leave it to me to judge. But what about others who aren't so lucky?
What's your view? Should all information be free? I don't feel that way. To a large degree it's what keeps information workers employed. There will always be limits. They just might be tighter now.
Tuesday
Feb242009
Three Ways the Media is Innovating with New Interfaces
Several months ago I had lunch with a major media company executive who told me that, in the future, content will not be subsidized by banner ads splashed liberally on news pages. This is something that the current economic situation is hopefully accelerating as display ad quality plummets to new lows. I remain convinced that the media must innovate their way out of this situation from both editorial and sales, but no one seems to be really doing so on the advertising side.
If you want a glimpse of what's next for media then you need to really look to the editorial side of the house. As we've seen, that's where all the innovation is happening these days - and its changing how we engage with content. Here a look are three promising approaches and their potential implications.
Throwback Interfaces
Most news web sites all pretty much have the same look and feel - the same one they have utilized since 1994. The interface in some ways closely resembles a traditional newspaper. Usually, the most important story is at the top and it carries the largest headline. Other, less important stories, follow. However, that's where the similarities to old media ends.
Some media brands, though, are dabbling in new models that are a throwback to print - and with some success too. Take the Sporting News, for example. The venerable sports daily, which to some degree sits in a commodity market, last summer launched Sporting News Today. The free, opt-in service attracted 75,000 subscribers by the time it launched and probably has a significantly higher circulation today.
Sporting News Today delivers to your inbox either via RSS or email a
beautifully designed virtual newspaper - and on weekends too. The
content is fully searchable and it is supported by full-page ads
similar to what you would see in the print publication. You can also
bookmark and share individual pages. The reading experience is terrific.
Watch for more magazines to try a similar approach and to port this to sophisticated mobile devices like the iPhone or Amazon Kindle.
Hyper-Vertical Navigation
In the old days newspapers and magazines were limited by space in the number of sections they could legitimately offer - e.g. news, sports, business, entertainment, etc. However, that's not true anymore as the Long Tail and infinite space of web allows millions of niches to bloom.
Media companies are recognizing that some readers/viewers want to drill down deep into very specific areas of interest. They are slowly adding topical navigation features or creating APIs that allow independent developers to do so.
The New York Times is among the more notable innovators here. Times Topics classifies and categorizes every single article (even older ones) into thousands of topical pages. Some of these get very specific. For example, you can track a single company- like PepsiCo or GE, two of our clients.Every page has an RSS feed too. Here's the feed for the PepsiCo page.
In addition, through their developer network, the Times offers a rich library of APIs that are spawning all kinds of new creations. The latest is the NYT Explorer (above). This tool not only makes it easy to search the Times archives but then to do so by drilling down further using the same topical taxonomy.
Mobile Apps
Finally, while the web browser remains our primary entryway to digital content, some power users are particularly attracted to applications. This is particularly true among smart phone users. Many media companies are filling the void with own smart phone applications. Variety, for example, just launched an iPhone app powered by Newsgator (below). People magazine will roll out one powered by ScrollMotion later this spring.
As a next step I would expect media holding companies to roll up several of their premiere brands into a single app so that you can say get content from Entertainment Weekly and People via one interface. In addition, I bet they will let you subscribe to RSS feeds as well.
These are some of the editorial and user interface innovations that are on my radar. What's on yours? What have you seen that's novel when it comes to news delivery? So far it seems like the editorial side is way ahead of anything on the advertising front these days. At some point they may catch up. However, if they don't it could spell trouble for ad-supported content.
Monday
Feb232009
links for 2009-02-23
- The stimulus bill requires that government agencies use feeds to report on the stimulus money they disperse.
- Of the 282.7 million European users ages 15+ who went online in December 2008, 211 million visited a social networking site, representing a penetration of 74.6%.