Christian Oliver’s digital thoughts

El Universal in Caracas produced a video with me about their future challenges and how media consumption is changing with the advent of media fragmentation. Here it is.

I have to translate it into english but most will already see the point. It was hard to convey so many details in 3 minutes. The first script I wrote took around 8 minutes, thus we had to chop it a lot.

Tags: El Universal, Fragmentation, Journalism, Media, Newspapers, Newsrooms

I’ve been saying this since 1999. Filtering is the key and the mayor challenge we are facing. With so much information and so much BAD information, the Playlist is the most valuable asset and the best added value. Who can build a “playlist” ideal for me. This playlist should have all kinds of media that I would like and should consume. The key to the playlist is also context because I don’t want the same playlist when I’m in the car than when I’m home nor in the morning on a Monday than in the morning on a Saturday.

Peter Gabriel explains it very well in this video about the site he endorses and invested in called The Filter:

Tags: Media

I was reading a post by Jeff Jarvis and it hit a note on my subconscious. This is a topic I’ve been struggling about for the past year. When I was invited as a judge for the Fundación de Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano on their yearly awards, I realized that some changes need to be made on this kind of awards, including the Pulitzer.

In general, awards should look to reward innovation, journalistic principles and above all quality. They should not limit themselves to rewarding traditions or old ways of doing things.

Awards have to change their structure from media outlet based to content type based. It is obsolete in this era of fragmented media and audiences to continue giving awards to “newspapers”, “television” and “radio”. Some awards like the Pulitzer have already taken this path but I would suggest breaking them down further by type of content, i.e. politics, economics, technology, etc. Even the Pulitzer only takes into account the web and print when giving awards for Breaking News. How about using other communication tools such as SMS, Twitter or even AIM?

Furthermore, we should move away from rewarding individualistic work and motivate team work. They should shift their focus from rewarding single individuals to coordinate efforts of multidisciplinary teams. The Pulitzers make a great job at this but many awards are still not up to par and many still think of them as individual achievements. I would rather see an award given to the newsroom that managed to cover a breaking news event in the most effective way, making the best use of its available media outlets than rewarding the typical photographer who was at the right place at the right time. We have to incentivize going beyond that.

There should still be categories for individual efforts and for individual skills, almost like in the Oscars, say for “Editing”. But there should be awards for innovation. How about an award for “Best use of Social Networks in the creation and dissemination of a journalistic piece”. It would be great to have entities looking at these type of awards and in themselves disseminating best practices in the cutting edge of media.

Maybe fragmentation is the answer to awards as well. It would only make sense that in a fragmented media world, we had fragmented awards. Fragmenting the awards would also open the door for smaller operations to qualify, that way we can start seeing new names other than the usual suspects with enormous budgets. Rewarding excellence in smaller operations can have a bigger impact on the overall quality of journalism as we all want to learn from examples we can achieve.

Tags: Awards, Fragmentation, Journalism, Media, Pulitzer

This is the second day at the Next Newsroom conference. Today we had a non-conference format. Attendees suggested subject matters on the conference’s wiki and those were turned into break-out sessions. I led a session on Productivity Tools for the newsroom of the future. It turned out very well. Then I attended another session about the Business Models that would pay for journalism.

My breakout session was very interesting and makes me think of the possibility of focusing this blog on that subject matter.

Now I’m headed home because I’m feeling terrible with a cold.

Chris O’Brien opening the day

Tags: Conference, Media, Newspapers, Productivity, Tools

I found Steve Outing’s article about his experience of switching to digital only very interesting. I’ve been digital only for more than 11 years now. I tried to go back once but found the paper to be too messy.

[From Life Without the Print Edition]

Tags: Media, Newspapers, Paperless

By Christian Oliver and Eduardo Tessler

Originally Published in the 2007 WAN Innovations in Newspapers Report

1 FOCUS ON LOCAL

Newspapers excel at covering local information. You know your local market. You know its needs. You have the means to assemble and provide practical information that meets the everyday needs of your audience. Even when covering national or international news, try to give it a local angle and involve your community. Even quotes from local people can provided added value and interest. Naplesnews.com is a very successful case of a highly local online publication.

2 STRESS IMMEDIACY

The web is a wonderful tool for providing immediate coverage of breaking news, don’t waste it. Take this so seriously that you don’t become redundant in the next day’s print edition. Make the print edition continue the online coverage, not repeat it. You don’t need to have the entire story at the beginning. Alert the reader to a newsbreak, and be the first to do it. Then flesh out the story as it develops. USAToday and Argentina’s Infobae (www.infobae.com.ar) are good examples for how to update a developing story online. Others such as Asahi Shimbun in Japan take this concept further and extend it to using mobile alerts.

3 SOLICIT AND USE CONTENT GENERATED BY USERS

Citizen journalism is the most important new trend in the media industry. Take advantage of it. Ask users to contribute content for specific stories. This can include personal accounts, still pictures or videos. Use this content to complement the work of your professional journalists. When users participate, their loyalty to your brand increases, and so does your exposure to other users since contributing users heavily promote the stories where they appear. A good example is the Foto-Reporter project of O Estado de S. Paulo in Brazil (www.estadao.com.br/imagens/fotoreporter/index.htm). Other newspapers such as The News Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, go as far as letting users know in advance of select investigative or enterprise reports they are working on and ask for information from readers. CNN and BBC have dedicated sections for citizen journalism, including user provided audio, still pictures, video.

4 ALLOW USER COMMENTS ON STORIES AND FACILITATE USER RANKINGS

There should be an easy-touse comment box at the end of every story where registered users can leave their own tidbit of information, opinions and links to other sites with complementing material .

The best systems for user commenting allow other users to vote on what comments deserve recognition. Automatic filtering for profanity usually works well but there is always a need for some oversight. The audience is usually your best ally. If you allow users to flag inappropriate comments for editorial revision, they will be quickly removed from the system .

Allow registered users to vote on each story to establish its ranking. This not only allows you and other users to see what’s really relevant to the audience but also provides an important record of content preferences by your users. Ideally, the system can keep track of what each user likes or dislikes which in turn would permit further personalization and increase the efficiency of alerts. The news site Newsvine (www.newsvine.com) has had this feature since its inception and it is quickly being adopted by many other sites .

The new USAToday.com uses this feature extensively.

5 EMBRACE RSS

Be realistic, only hardcore users will come to your site many times during the day to see what’s going on. If you want to capture the majority of users, make it easy for them to know when there is something new on the site. The easiest way to do this is by providing multiple RSS feeds. Sell sponsorships for the feeds or include small advertisements in them. Use the feeds to promote your content, not just to distribute it. Smart feeds include teasers on what to find on the website itself, not just the first paragraph of a story. Think of RSS feeds as direct advertisements of your content .

6 FACILITATE BLOGGING OF YOUR CONTENT

There is no better promotional tool than allowing users to make reference to your content in their blogs. Make it easy for them by placing “Blog This” links next to each story and integrating with the top blogging tools in your market. All of the most respected blogging tools have API integration, which would give you more control on what is posted in the user’s blog. This not only increases your audience but also improves your content’s relevance in search engine results .

Next to the “Blog This” button, there should be buttons to allow users to post the story to the top online communities such as Digg.com, Technorati or any other relevant community in the market. All these communities have easy-to-configure interfaces that allow this process to be completely automated .

Washingtonpost.com goes even further by showing links to the blogs which have blogged the story.

7 USE EXISTING WEB SERVICES TO YOUR ADVANTAGE AND EMBRACE OTHER POPULAR SERVICES IN YOUR COMMUNITY

There is no need to reinvent the wheel, particularly when it comes to technologically expensive applications such as videos, maps and voice communications .

Leverage existing services such as Google Maps (for location of real-estate in classifieds, to identify the location of entertainment venues in the city guide and even to pinpoint the location of news events), or YouTube to post your videos, at least until your video audience is large enough to justify setting up your own video system. This saves you money in bandwidth and video technology and also increases the potential of growing your audience .

This combined use of different websites is better known as a “Mashup”. An interesting example combines the crime database of Chicago with Google Maps (www.chicago crime.org/types/) If there is a website which becomes very popular in your community, embrace it, cover it and include links to it. For example, provide a list of recommended YouTube videos since the best ones for your audience are not necessarily the best ones for YouTube’s general audience, particularly if you point out good clips related to the community or the region. If there are services widely adopted, include them in your user registration database .

Sometimes the community grows more than the original news website and the solution is to follow its news habits. Bluffton Today’s website (www.blufftontoday.com), from a small free newspaper in South Carolina, USA, has developed into more of a community than a breaking news site.

8 THREAD THE USER EXPERIENCE FROM ONE CHANNEL TO THE OTHER AND USE A HOMOGENEOUS BRANDING STRATEGY

Ultimately, users will consume your content through all of your channels (print, web, mobile, Podcasts, etc), not just one or the other but all of them.

Assume this when creating content. Each channel has its advantages as a medium. Use them and lead users to experience complementary content in all channels. If every channel only replicates the others, then the user’s time will be wasted. On the other hand, if mobile takes you to the web and the web takes you to print and so on, providing additional and appropriate content in each case, the user experience will be channel agnostic and more valuable .

Canada’s CTVGlobemedia (www.ctvglobe-media.com) publisher of the Globe and Mail, is very good in understanding that the user is one, and the media company can follow him/her wherever he/she goes. Radio to wake up, newspaper at breakfast, cell phone in the street, web in the office, TV at noon, SMS by the afternoon, and more .

Using different brands for the web and the newspaper represents a mono-media strategy.

A truly multimedia strategy requires a single brand. The brand should represent a multiple media experience, and not separate newspaper and online products.

9 COMPLEMENT THE PRINT EDITION

When all the news doesn’t fit in print, use the web to go deeper into the story, to complement the print product and satisfy the information needs of the most interested users. washingtonpost .

com has compiled an extensive list of databases that can be queried by users 24/7 and are continuously updated, something that could have never been accomplished in print .

One of the most complete databases is the one that tracks voting in the US Congress (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/) Magazines are also doing a good job by providing more in-depth information online than in print. Car And Driver (www.caranddriver.com), for example, publishes videos and extensive test drive data from its road tests, and has moved several columns from print to web, where they become part of a dialogue with users.

10 INCREASE THE USE OF PHOTOGRAPHS

Show, don’t just tell .

Photographers usually bring back many more good pictures than can be used in print. Don’t waste them .

Use them on line as a gallery or – even better – as slideshows, which can include audio commentary. Small newspapers like The Roanoke Times, in Virginia (www.roanoke.com) have attracted a following on the web just by presenting wonderful slideshows .

Unless the majority of your audience is on dial-up, develop your site as a richly illustrated media experience. Long gone are the days of a single photograph per story. If you are concerned about loading speeds, use thumbnails that open larger images, preferably AJAX driven to reduce the wait. The new Time magazine website is a good example. Five good photos, changing in a dynamic way, make this site even more attractive than the magazine .

11 CREATE SELECT AUDIO AND VIDEO NET CASTS

Even though Podcasts are in their infancy, it’s time to move forward and secure your beachhead in the audio and video content market. Start by creating summaries of top stories and complementary materials for the most important sections and relevant niches .

You don’t need to go for broadcast quality but the quality of the content should be consistent with your brand. Sell sponsorships from the beginning and consider syndicating some of the programs to local radio or TV stations. But avoid uploading long interviews and endless speeches. For Podcasts in audio or video the key to success is providing what cannot be found elsewhere. So, it is understandable that The National Geographic Podcast is among the top ten downloaded Podcast on the web. Another good example in podcasting comes from Business Week, which creates a weekly Podcast called Behind the Cover Story, a conversation between the editor and the author of the cover story, in which they discuss highlights of the story, and how it was developed .

Newspapers such as the Washington Post have given consumer-grade video cameras to more than 70 reporters who have volunteered to provide footage to accompany certain stories .

Reporters are given basic training in shooting techniques and the staff of washingtonpost.com edits the videos.

12 GIVE BLOGS TO JOURNALISTS

Blogs are an escape valve for journalists to extend their conversation with the audience and publish shorter and more informal content .

This allows the publication to maintain its editorial impartiality and integrity while allowing the audience to know the writers better and interact with them directly. There is no need to reinvent the wheel here, just adopt one of the freeware blogging platforms such as Wordpress and create a custom template that is consistent with your publication’s design style. Visit www.expresso.pt and discover a website where the blogs section has as many visits as the news section.

13 LINK TO EXTERNAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Newspapers no longer exist in an information vacuum, they must acknowledge other publications, particularly online, and point their readers to primary sources, such as reports or speeches being covered. Virtually every story has reference or complementary material online and placing links to these alternative sources of information is a great service for users. Don’t limit these links to official sources, also include links to experts’ blogs and fan sites .

The new USAToday.com takes this to the extreme by publishing links to interesting stories elsewhere on the web, even to competitor’s sites.

14 PERSONALIZE

Personalization is key to success. It’s the best way to improve the user experience, not just by changing the content displayed but also to offer more advanced services such as e-mail or mobile notifications, the ability to save stories for later reading and even printing a list of stories in a “newsletter” format. All aspects of the user relationship should be concentrated in a database of preferences. Use the same system to manage your relationship with customers, including subscriptions and publication of classifieds .

With news sites becoming increasingly large, allowing users to filter content based on their individual preferences becomes critical to success .

The New York Times has a new service in Beta called My Times, which allows for the creation of a personalized homepage. Spain’s El Pais (www.elpais.es) has a more traditional personalization page .

15 ALLOW USERS TO MANAGE THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PUBLISHING COMPANY

The web is an ideal customer support channel, yet many companies fail to use it for facilitating the customer’s interaction with the company. Use a single user registration database which includes not only the user’s web related information but also her print subscription, classifieds publication history and any other business relationship .

Subscription management, classifieds publishing, letters to the editor and complaints are among the features users should be able to manage in their online account.

16 USE TAG CLOUDS

Tag clouds are phenomenal navigation tool for users because they permit an instantaneous evaluation of the content panorama. Tag clouds are lists of keywords reflecting the site’s content or its traffic. These lists are presented on a block of the site and each tag has a font size according to its importance. For content tags, the bigger the font, the more content relating to that tag is available on the site. For traffic tag clouds, larger tags represent content with more traffic .

Tags can be ranked on traffic and quantity .

Using a single tag cloud is not enough; there should be tag clouds for every section of the publication and even for every story .

The use of tags is a MUST in the current web and it will become even more important in what is now being called Web 3.0, or The Semantic Web .

20 Minutos, a Spanish free sheet (www.20minutos.es) uses tags even on its navigation bar, changing them according to the section’s top content .

17 CREATE A “LIGHT” VERSION OF YOUR SITE FOR SLOW CONNECTIONS AND MOBILES

The more digital outlets you can adopt, the better. The most important “light” version is one that will be compatible with as many devices as possible, and with slow Internet connections. It should be the first step in adopting a multiplicity of channels. This “light” edition should have small images (or no images at all) and text based navigation .

The BBC’s mobile (bbc.co.uk/mobile) versions are excellent. The ideal mobile version should take into account the most likely usage scenarios and provide the information that is most useful for those users, and which may not necessarily match that of the main site. For example, on a mobile site, traffic information may be much more relevant than it would be on the main site.

18 INCREASE THE COVERAGE OF CONTENT NICHES RELEVANT TO YOUR COMMUNITY

The web is ideal for covering niche content and advertisers are willing to pay top dollar for a focused audience with high interest levels. Do extensive research on what content niches are attractive to your local audience and extend its coverage on digital outlets. Start with those niches that have the highest advertising potential. Niche content is great for building a user community and increasing participation and loyalty, particularly when given a local twist, such as The Irish Times (www.ireland.com).

19 USE THE WEB AS A CONTENT LABORATORY

Nowadays it’s very cheap to experiment with content on the web and there have been instances of publications that started on the web and generated enough following to justify a print edition, See the web as a content laboratory where innovation is welcome, cheap and fast. Try new sections, columns, subjects. Monitor results and close the ones that fail and continue to nurture and expand those which succeed.

20 DESIGN INTERNAL PAGES AS LANDING PAGES

If you are successful in using RSS, search engines, news aggregators and user blogs to draw traffic, much of it will go straight to internal pages and many users will rarely see the home page. Design internal pages so that they are intuitive and capture those users who “land” in them from somewhere else. The navigation bar should tell you at a glance where you are and there should be enough things to do to entice the user to stay in your site. A good example is La Stampa (www.lastampa.it).

Tags: Articles, INNOVATION, Journalism, Media, Newspapers, Newsrooms, WAN