Sunday Times iPad app

Is an tablet wielding future of news worth hedging your bets on? Well... the Sunday Times released its iPad app today and I'm sure it will be an instant success (as its free to those who have a weekly Times subscription).

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/iPad/?CMP=KNGvccp1-sunday%20times%20iPad%20app

It is perhaps a shame that you now have a second app, with the orginal still able to access The Times news on the move....

News, a business model problem

I've previously mentioned that "We may eventually find that the profitable running of a newspaper was a failed experiment!". The thought being that we may one day look back at the big print media barons and see that, just because they were at the time operating in an imperfect economy (where information was not globally and freely available), that they never had a long term commercially viable product.


Or as Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in a keynote speech to open the annual conference of the American Society of News Editors back in April:

"We have a business model problem; we don't have a news problem" http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20002227-93.html

However only yesterday, research released from online measurement company Hitwise gave a good indication that the paywall finally put up around the Times newspaper website is having a negative affect on its readership (its currently only requiring people to register to see content, charging is expected to happen towards the end of July).

This is hardly a surprise.... if you insist on registering users, you will affected visitor traffic. The question is whether loyal Times readers will pay for the opportunity from next month. Or vote with their virtual feed and migrate to other popular newspaper sites.

Schmidt may have claimed in his speech that newspapers were "fundamental" to democracy, but he also predicted that they would need to come up with new business models based on advertising and subscriptions.

I wonder which business model historians of the future will say was the correct one?

The Times Online annouces its paywall

News International, owner of the The Times and Sunday Times newspapers has announced that its paywall in June, only a few months away.

Following a relaunch of both online properties in May and a period of free usage to registered customers (presumably to build up the potential user base) users will then pay £1 for a single day and £2 for weekly site access . However no further details of other site subscriptions have been main available as-yet (e.g. Quarterly or Yearly).

Further questions are obviously going to be answered as this date draws nearer, such as will the sites continue to support advertising alongside articles or do so in such an overt manner?

The fact remains that there are a number of other alternatives all watching to see: if Mr Murdoch's plan will work, if the same monetisation scheme is applied to other NewsCorp properties and if their own site traffic rises as a consequence.

Here's a link to the article on The Times Online, although please note that from June it will cost you a £1/$2/€1.5 to read it!
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article7076987.ece

We-Think

I've spent the last few weeks slowly reading the book 'We Think' by Charles Leadbeater. I'm also certain that this book is gaining quite a good general readership right now (especially given the un-referenced but obvious similarity in case studies quoted in this article yesterday in the Sunday Times).

The book, based upon the premise that knowedge shared is more powerful (and fun) than knowledge retained, covers such topics as:
mass innovation
distributed ownership
collaboration
wider cultural change from crowdsourcing (democracy, etc.)
...and a whole bunch of other stuff that got my brain thinking
In fact, looking back, I can now see his influence on my Crowdsouring & News posting.

Here's an introduction to the book, done in a most inventive way





Obviously there are situations where mass collaboration does not work or even backfires and Mr Leadbeater is also quite open about these. Consequently I'd recommend this book, if only for the great case studies, and hope I can find more of them copied in other publications soon.

What does Press2.0 really mean?

I've been asked by some readers of this blog to explain a little more why I have called this collection of articles Press2.0 ....

Recently I have tended to focus on the subject of corporate & influencer dialogue and I continue to think that there is a big issue concerning the way companies communicate with their consumers, shareholders, etc. But it is also obvious that there has been a shift in how companies communicate with individuals in recent times. They are engaging in a more collaborative conversation and facilitating 2-way dialogue to create positive influence.

However the media has probably shifted the most...

In the past company communications were usually done via 'The Press', which in general meant the media who would cover this sort of information (evolving through: print, radio, tv, internet news sites, etc.)

I thinkthat the media is now so broad (encompassing social media) that 'The Press' (although originally referring to those that had a printing press for making newspapers) now really means anyone with access to publishing technology... in other words, anyone with connectivity to the Internet.


I'll make my case with the following points:

1. The old journalist model is dying
If you don't believe me, take a look aroud the web.
e.g. Your Report enables the user to become the journalist.
http://www.youreporttv.com/

Bill Thompson at the BBC, put its nicley:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7338238.stm

"They [newspapers] also seem to have realised that anyone who wants to break into professional journalism needs to have some sort of online presence beyond a Facebook profile

Indeed for several years now newspapers and TV now look to bloggers as the source for news stories: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/4696668.stm and there are almost daily articles about how newspapers are dying: http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/30/1828252

According to Bill Keller of The Times:

Newspaper companies are losing advertisers, readers, market value, and, in some
cases, their sense of mission at a pace that would have been barely imaginable
just four years ago.

Perhaps this is not just because the internet is now so many people's primary news source, but that people just don't trust media companies anymore?

2. The power of publishing is no longer in the hands of the few
With free blogging tools and the ability to reach anyone out on the web, you no longer need to own a newspaper or synicated TV programme to reach across the globe and gain an audience.
Perhaps the naming of one of the most popualr blogging tools http://www.wordpress.com/ is the most obvious giveaway....


3. The commodity of the mainstream press is no longer content, its attention for eyeballs.. yours
Your attention is a commodity every major media want, as this brings with it the advertising revenue. Media owners will apparently publish anything they like if they think they can sell potential customer attention as inventory to a product owner.

Blogs and other social media don't necessarily crave that attention or revenue. They are created out of passion and need, or often just as a way of diarising or commenting on what happens...

.... as I have just done