If you work in media or publishing, please, please, please, read the 2009 State of the News Media Report. While it does not specifically focus on B2B media, the trends seen in broader news magazines, newspapers and other media are instructive. It begins very soberly:

“Some of the numbers are chilling.”

Full of data, the report looks at the trends that are reshaping media, magazines, news, and many related areas. A few key takeaways:

• Changing Audience Behavior
  “Perhaps least noticed yet most important, the audience migration to the Internet is now accelerating. The number of Americans who regularly go online for news, by one survey, jumped 19% in the last two years; in 2008 alone traffic to the top 50 news sites rose 27%.” [Source]

  “The data also suggest a clear trend in the changing nature of how Americans now learn about the world around them. People are relying more heavily — both during peak moments and in general — on platforms that can deliver news when audiences want it rather than at appointed times, a sign of a growing “on demand” news culture. People increasingly want the news they want when they want it. Much of that traffic, moreover, went to the biggest Internet sites, many of them offering news primarily from wire services or aggregated from legacy media outlets.” [Source]

  “The public retained a deep skepticism about what they see, hear and read in the media. No major news outlet – broadcast or cable, print or online – stood out as particularly credible. There was no indication that Americans altered their fundamental judgment that the news media are politically biased, that stories are often inaccurate and that journalists do not care about the people they report on.” [Source]

  “Journalism, deluded by its profitability and fearful of technology, let others outside the industry steal chance after chance online.” [Source]

  “Power is shifting to the individual journalist and away, by degrees, from journalistic institutions.” [Source]

• Collapse of a Revenue Model
  “Newspaper ad revenues have fallen 23% in the last two years. Some papers are in bankruptcy, and others have lost three-quarters of their value. By our calculations, nearly one out of every five journalists working for newspapers in 2001 is now gone, and 2009 may be the worst year yet.” [Source]

  “It is now all but settled that advertising revenue—the model that financed journalism for the last century—will be inadequate to do so in this one. Growing by a third annually just two years ago, online ad revenue to news websites now appears to be flattening; in newspapers it is declining.” [Source]

  “Even while online ad spending grew about 14% through the first three quarters of the year, most of it benefited Google and other search providers. Revenue from the sale of banners and other display ads that news websites depend on increased just 4%, and estimates are that it declined by the fourth quarter. One reason: the infinitely expanding universe of blogs and websites has forced them to cut their rates to compete for advertisers. The cost to reach 1,000 viewers fell by half in 2008 alone, to an estimated average of 26 cents.” [Source]

  “As a deep recession on top of the loss of print classified revenue to electronic competitors took hold in mid-2008, conventional cost cutting simply was not enough for less profitable papers.” [Source]

Looking to another industry that continues to struggle amid massive changes in audience behavior and revenue models, TechDirt published a couple of articles on the music industry’s struggle to reshape itself. Read here and here. One interesting quote regarding a meeting of music industry insiders:

“Keith Harris, of a think tank called “Music Tank,” set the tone for the entire “debate” by noting that all of the important stakeholders were present — except, of course, the consumers “because they can’t afford to be here.” To that, everyone laughed — but it was quite telling. The industry still doesn’t believe that the actual consumers really should be a part of the conversation. The idea that they would be there for this debate seemed laughable.”

This quote seems to encapsulate the current state of things:

“The problem is that this industry is so focused on how much it’s going to lose, it never looks at the opportunities of how much money there is to be made.”

Discovering Opportunities and Creating New Business Models

Gawker proposes the following: “Do Less with Less.” The premise here is that print media should focus efforts on where they can create high quality products, but perhaps on a smaller scale, and being brutal about deciding what efforts they need to cut.

This reminds me of an article that I can’t seem to find that told the story of a woman who owned a sandwich company that landed a huge deal supplying sandwiches to Starbucks. As you would imagine, revenue jumped considerably, but after a couple years, her business was stretched meeting the demands of Starbucks, and profits were not all that great. She broke off her partnership with Starbucks to become a smaller company, focused on high quality products in a much smaller market. Her business is not just dramatically easier to manage, but more profitable on a smaller revenue amount. Go figure.

This has me thinking about the future. What will your business look like in 5 years? How will you serve customers – will it be the same way you did 5 years ago? Is there a revenue model to support that?

I am always fascinated by companies like Apple that seem to continually be planning for where they will be 5 years down the road. As a user of their products, I see the many changes they make to their products that is pushes them closer to being a media center in my living room. It could be the huge glossy screen on my new iMac or my iPhone’s ability to become a remote control that connects to my stereo, or the continuing way that this hardware and software company controls the world of digital music and movies – something that would have seemed laughable a decade ago.

10 years ago, Apple didn’t just think about how to make computers more cheaply and sell them to more people. They looked critically at the needs and changing behaviors of their audience, and identified ways to take advantage of these opportunities. They were not the first to see the opportunity; in fact, they were late to the game. But they executed on their plans better than anyone else – by a wide margin.

When I link to the articles referenced above, I don’t mean to be negative, or a doom mongerer – I am a glass is half full kind of guy. But I am also mindful of this quote from the movie Batman Begins:

“You always fear what you don’t understand.”

And this is why it is critical to study the ways that audience behavior is changing, and how revenue models are shifting. We live in interesting times, but the upside is that we get to help shape things. We have to move beyond fear, beyond reactionism – to take small, but confident steps into the future.

Likely, publishers and media companies won’t be serving their industries in exact same ways, with the exact same revenue models five years from now. How will they do each? The answer lies in studying customer behavior, and thinking of solutions that focus less on their current capabilities, and more on solving critical needs of those they serve.

B2B niche media does not seem to have experienced the severity of collapse that broader based publications have seen, and this is a good sign. Highly targeted information to business professionals in specific industries is INCREDIBLY valuable, and for a company like the one I work for, this is our bread and butter.

Innovation comes in hard times with few resources. The opportunity is now – to pull your industry together, to support them, to educate them, to solve their problems, to help them innovate, and to make them stronger. This is how a recession becomes an opportunity for growth. And while I would love to see growth this quarter, it is equally as important to plan for growth next year and in five years – to set up your brand to come out of the recession miles ahead of competitors.

I have seen a resurgence in journalists and media folks asking whether news and media should be free or paid. EG: Should the New York Times have a big pay wall in front of it. Traditional media in particular has jumped on this discussion, with the hopes of rebuilding a business model and audience behavior that has eroded or changed dramatically. But I posit:

"Free vs. Paid" is the wrong question.
We should be asking: "Are we serving the most critical needs of our audience?"

Because, in that, business models are made – companies thrive – careers become secure – needs are met – and food is still on the table for all sides of the equation. Unless you are serving a critical need, you are expendable – especially in a recession. Many newspapers are facing this extremely harsh reality, as we are now seeing newspaper closings begin to take shape around the country.

"Audience" does not just mean readers, it means advertisers and business partners as well. For instance, if potential advertisers are reading study after study that people ignore banner ads, then you are obviously not serving their needs if your only offering is banner ads.

First, I want to delve into the debate going on regarding the state of news media, and then dig deeper, exploring the way forward.

The News Has Always Been Free

I have been reading articles that chastise the newspaper industry for choosing to "give it away." They are referring to decisions made a decade or two ago, when newspapers and magazines either didn’t put up a pay wall for their online content, or took theirs down in order to attract a larger audience.

But in my experience, the news itself was always free – seen for free on the covers of newspapers, through word of mouth, radio, television, and now through various new media and mobile technologies. Newspapers were always incredibly cheap – purchased for less than the price of a cup of coffee, and discarded on train seats and park benches and restaurants for the next person to look through in moments of boredom.

By and large, subscriptions were never very expensive either. For magazines today, many subscription rates are almost non-existent. I pay almost nothing to receive Rolling Stone Magazine, and perhaps $30 or $40 a YEAR to receive the New Yorker every week. I think I was paying $20 a year to receive Newsweek. Is that money funding the massive business structure of that magazine? Doubtful.

How many people spend the $4 or $5 for newsstand copies of these magazines? I have no idea, but I would imagine that the number of people purchasing Rolling Stone magazine has less to do with RS "giving it away" on their website, and more to do with the incredible competition they now face in covering the music industry.

The reality that media companies are facing is that the business model for how they package and sell this news in combination with other services has changed. This change did not occur because some publisher forgot to put up a pay wall. There are bigger things going on here than that. The stature and cultural relevance of newspapers is changing as well. That is the result of competing media channels and the constant inflow of new information and new technology that are open to us all.

The Value Proposition of the Newspaper Has Changed

When people compare the state of the newspaper world of 20+ years ago to today, many tend to focus exclusively on the journalism and news coverage. But newspapers were about so much more than journalism. When I was younger, there were many functions to the newspaper:

• Classifieds: There was no eBay, no Craigslist, no Monster.com, no niche forums, no Zillow.com, no AutoTrader and no web. There was a huge value in picking up the newspaper for the classifieds. Perhaps they are not completely gone, but certainly diminished to a huge degree, and that rate is only increasing.
• Sports Scores & Stats: This is critical information for sports fans. Sure, maybe they watched the game or heard the score before they picked up the paper, but for finding a wide range of scores and deeper stats, this was a critical resource. There is now a huge amount of competition for providing even more stats and articles elsewhere – providing more information in a more flexible way than you can on a printed page. In terms of the web, you have to ask whether a general newspaper can compete with ESPN.com or SI.com in terms of development of new online tools that captures the loyalty of sports fans.

  To top it off, people are getting this information up-to-the-minute on mobile devices and becoming part of niche communities for their teams & sports online. The web is filled with thousands of sources for this information, and many ways to interact with it – even creating your own. Again, this hasn’t killed the sports section in the newspaper, but the value is less than it once was.

• Financial Data: I remember my dad staring at page after page of tiny numbers in the newspaper – stock quotes and other data that was mildly scary to me as a child, and only more so now. Again – this information is available much more immediately, comprehensively and flexibly on the web. What’s more, financial service providers now have direct access to people in order to market their data, their reports, etc.

  Forums such as FatWallet.com offer something even more compelling – the ability to chat with others about very specific finance topics and share information. There are also a ton of other interesting services that allow people to track their portfolio, debate topics, or compete with others in the financial version of a fantasy league. Interesting stuff that might not be the bread and butter of a broad-based news organization.

  You can even argue that the financial crisis we are currently in has not done anything to help the credibility of financial commentary in traditional media. Many have lost money in the market, and perhaps they were following advice they read in the Wall Street Journal or Smart Money magazine or on CNBC. It seems that most are now sitting on the sidelines and will be for years to come. This likely doesn’t do anything to help the situation with journalists & newspapers as the competition continues to encroach online.

• Coupons: Am I wrong in saying this? The Sunday paper comes with this huge stack of coupons and flyers that had a huge place in my household as a kid. That right there, is actual dollar value. People are saving money on food they want, or discovering that Best Buy is having a big sale on an item they want. On the flip side – these companies and advertisers are paying for the direct access to this readership. Newspapers still do this, but I just wanted to point out that this is a value of the newspaper model that gets ignored in arguments about the business model for news.
• Comics: When I was a kid, this was like gold. Or candy. Or gold wrapped in candy. I wonder if the percentage of kids (and adults) who not just read, but truly value newspaper comics has decreased in the past 20 years. There are so many other forms of entertainment that are available with just the click of the mouse, or by pulling out your phone. Waiting on a long line with my iPhone is a very different experience than waiting on a long line without it. Again – just another example that the value of the newspaper was more than just news headlines.
• And the list goes on:
  Horoscopes, commentary, lifestyle features, obituaries, local news, restaurant reviews, event calendars, etc. Many of these are now available in compelling forms elsewhere, fragmenting the value of newspapers.

Couple all of this with the fact that most people are overwhelmed with news, other information sources, email, full Tivo’s, etc.

"Price is What You Pay, Value is What You Get."

If a business such as a newspaper is finding their business model evaporating, there is a reason. The reason is value. I saw this quote from Warren Buffet recently, and it is relevant here:

"Price is what you pay, value is what you get."

These industries can’t ignore the underlying reasons as to why the behavior of their readers is changing. It is not because they have become spoiled by receiving "free" news for the past decade. It is because our habits as a culture have changed in a dramatic way, and for good reason.

I can easily search classified ads for my entire county or state (for free) via Craiglist. For real estate listings, I can get more information, more immediately. For news, I have access to niche sites, aggregators, blogs, and news sources from around the world. I realize the argument is that if newspapers went away, so would my options for available news sources – but for the most part, I don’t buy it. I think that simply opens up an opportunity for new businesses to grab that attention. One trend I am seeing is that as journalists leave their roles at more established media, the first thing they are doing is starting blogs where they continue to cover their beat. This is all done without a pay wall, as they try to carve out a segment of the market for themselves, and reach the broadest possible audience.

Newspapers and journalists are having to account of the business value of the news on its own – without being packaged with other services like classifieds. As attention becomes more fragmented, I am hearing people say that we should charge for an article on stem cells – put it behind a pay wall or use micropayments to access it. I don’t see how this serves the goals of journalism, and I don’t think it will support a broader business model on the scale that news organizations are accustomed.

There are many other suggestions being floated: a non-profit model of journalism, a Yahoo answers model where people pay to have articles researched and written – and these are nice conversations over a box of caramels, but not likely to save the industry this year.

And let’s face it, charging for general news content during a recession is probably not a great idea. But providing solutions to critical needs – now that’s a horse of a different color…

The Capabilities of Advertisers are Changing

Advertiser needs have not changed, but their ability to fulfill those needs and reach a broader audience in targeted ways – that has changed. One editor at RBI sent me an interesting example of a small company who is creating webcasts to help their potential customers with specific problems. These were high quality productions, and there were a lot of them – something like 10 per month.

This cuts into a traditional B2B media model in a couple of ways at the very least. This same type of advertiser would have once paid a magazine or media brand for:

• Access to the audience (via newsletter lists, a magazine, websites, events, webcasts, etc.)
• Creation of custom products and campaigns (ads, newsletters, webcasts, sponsored webcasts, videos, custom research, events, etc.)

The counter argument to this is that journalists have built trust with the audience over decades, and provide unbiased information. This is true, and this continues to be a core value for B2B media.

But vendors and advertisers who are reaching out directly to their customers are learning very quickly how to do so in authentic ways. Instead of putting their marketing person on a webcast, they are putting an engineer, or lead designer or other employee who is incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about the topic. As these connections are made, new networks are being established – networks outside of traditional media channels.

The Question We Should Be Asking:
How are We Helping People Solve a Critical Need?

This is the question that journalists should be asking themselves. This is the question that publishers should be asking themselves with regards to their advertisers and business partners.

"Critical needs," this can be many things: a problem that is core to their personal, business or family life. Problems that determine whether their career will be secure, their business growing, the needs of their children met, and smaller needs that simply keep people sane. A general rule could be that critical needs are those that keep people up at night.

We have a wide range of tools at our disposal to understand customers better than we ever could have in the past. We can see actual behavior, and can fine tune products with an incredible degree of nuance. But as the recession continues, people’s needs are becoming more dire. Giving them a good nugget of information is nice. Solving a problem that saves their job – that is worth a lot.

The News Should be Free, but Highly Targeted Solutions Should Be Expensive

This is the beauty of B2B media, and why I find it so much more compelling than consumer media. It is about so much more than just attracting an audience. A B2B publisher often serves dozens of small niches – these are communities filled with people who are passionate about a specific topic or industry. I can’t even describe to you how amazing it is to chat with folks around RBI who serve those industries with expertise and enthusiasm.

So here is the goal:

• Identify CRITICAL NEEDS of those in your industry.
• Find immediate and unique ways to serve those needs.

When talking about a paid model, it can work in a number of ways – paid by the consumer or paid by the sponsor. It can include lead generation, webcasts, events (in-person or online), white papers, custom research, supplements, newsletters, blogs, just to name a few. I am not in sales, so there are others much more qualified to discuss the intricacies of these types of offerings.

A new model for journalism and media will not be determined by a group of people in a room deciding how millions of other people should behave. It will happen because you – perhaps by design, luck or shear whim – try out a small experimental idea. If you find even a small degree of success, the next step is to try to replicate this affect. If you can, then you have something. As it grows, as you take small steps in improving the idea, the idea should spread. It should morph, it should be challenged, and it should be experimented with in other industries and other permutations. Only then will it have legs enough to be viable on a broader scale.

The focus on critical needs is the key. We are talking about saving people’s lives – saving their careers, their business and their industry. In doing so, we are saving families from the stress of not having money to provide for themselves, and the stress that stifles decisions that can lead to positive growth.

Otherwise, you may have a "place" in their lives, but not be an essential resource. As the economy continues to disrupt businesses globally, this is a key difference. Many businesses will not survive. Some industries won’t survive. Many careers will see unwelcome changes and transitions. If you become a beacon of light within your niche – if you can prevent some of these things from happening, even in small ways – suddenly, you have incredible power. And yes, this power can have a dollar sign attached to it – PAID, not free. But anything short of solving these problems in targeted and immediate ways is simply less valuable. Differentiating the two is what will set you apart from your competitors.

Content & News is One Part of the Sales Funnel

As media companies experiment with these new ideas, they can’t lump their audience and their products into one stock category. Segmenting their audience will give them a deeper view of who they are serving and how to meet their varying needs.

Paid vs. free belittles the complexity of who they are serving and how they are serving them. Likely, you don’t have one product offering, but dozens of ways that you segment this. From broad based initiatives meant for branding and to capture attention – to very specific products meant for a small but important subgroup of your customer base.

And this is where publishers have to be clever about the mix of traditional and newer opportunities to offer potential advertisers. While display advertising remains core to many campaigns, advertisers often ask for something deeper – something more targeted, something that serves specific needs of theirs. And this is where custom solutions come in – where lead gen and webcasts and events and research and the like become a core part of your offering.

It’s interesting to watch how the music industry is rethinking its sales funnel. The music itself is what appeals to the widest audience – that is the top of the funnel. The industry is beginning to accept that this is the "free" part, that there is more money to be made deeper in the funnel, once you have engaged a broad audience.

Companies like LiveNation understand what George Lucas proved with Star Wars in the 1970’s: merchandising and events are where the real money is. For the music industry it is clothing, ringtones, concerts, access to exclusive events or live chats, etc.

I am a huge fan of newspapers, traditional media, and journalism. As far as I’m concerned, a paper like the New York Times literally creates the news. They do primary research, and uncover stories that no one else would know about. Likewise, because of their authority, if they write about a topic, it often pushes that topic over the "tipping point," making it okay for hundreds of other news sources to begin covering that specific topic as well.

But what I see often is that even though an authority like the NY Times can set the agenda – it is VERY quickly is copied and expanded upon by other traditional and new media sources. What would the world be like without the New York Times? I hope to never find out.

Yes, there is a disruption going on. While empowering new tools and behaviors are being forged in our culture, familiar business models are being shredded. The thing we have to remember is that: we can’t move backwards, only ahead. And we need to do this quickly. Waiting for new standards to emerge before putting a toe in the water will likely mean that you’ve missed the opportunity. Is this unnerving? Is this annoying? Sure. But so were transitional times in history that we read about in awe. We look at those who navigated the changing times nimbly and we admire their confidence and vision. We are in the midst of those times, and you have the power in choosing a new direction.

As all this all relates to B2B media – to serving niche audiences. The question is:

What are we giving readers, advertisers and business partners that is REMARKABLE – that solves critical needs.

Because we live in remarkable times, which will require remarkable things to happen to solve the problems that ail us.

There are so many publishers and brands with great ideas on how to engage readers on the web and build a viable online business. With new tools at their disposal, there is nothing but opportunity. But with new media and Web 2.0, there is always the risk of:

Pursuing tactics, without an overall strategy.

For instance, getting into Twitter or social networking, or SEO, or videos or podcasting, without taking a step back and understanding how this fits into a larger editorial strategy… and more importantly… into the lives of readers and customers. The big question should always be:

How does this strategy or tactic solve a problem for readers and customers.

Everything a brand does online should have a strategy. Let’s take blogs as an example. There are many differing opinions as to what a blog is, and the value it can bring. I have seen how blogs that are done well, not only bring more people to a website, but result in more INVOLVEMENT with the brand. Blogs and bloggers can quickly become brands in themselves, which can be leveraged in for variety of new product offerings and research opportunities.

I see all too many blogs that are filled with “just good enough” content, and updated so infrequently, that it is difficult to even define them as a blog. In the end, they are left with sparse content areas that are filled with editorial backwash – news and commentary that the brand – and their readers – consider secondary. That is not the purpose of a blog, and will not strengthen anyone’s editorial strategy, business, or the lives of their readers and customers.

Situations like this seem to be the case of pursuing tactics without a strategy.

A common problem people face when launching a blog strategy is finding people to update the blog multiple times a week. Often, they may have to resort to launching a blog that doesn’t focus on the topic most essential to their readers, but instead, on a topic that they could find an author for. This type of situation needs to be reversed.

Once you have a set strategy for a blog, then the tactics give much greater payoff. For example, I have spoken to dozens of bloggers who struggle with keeping their blogs updated.

So let’s just say you have a blog, and you know the topic is important, but the author can’t find the time to update it more than once a week. With an update frequency that low, you will likely miss ALL the benefits that a blog should give you. Here are some tactics to solve this issue:

• Set a goal of updating the blog from once a week, to twice a week.
• Create an update schedule, say Mondays and Wednesdays.
• Each day should have a different type of blog post, one that is easy to create, and one that is a bit harder.
• For the hard one, that should be their main topic of the week. Perhaps it is a tip, or is instructional, or explores an issue that plagues their audience. They can fill this bucket with a monthly brainstorming meeting with an editor… listing out potential topics and subtopics.
• For the shorter blog post, have them describe, link to, and comment on one big news item of the week. Likely, 10 noteworthy things happen each week, they just have to pick one.
• Schedule writing sessions at a time when they are most creative. Perhaps they can write 3 posts at a time on Sunday morning, when there head is clear.

If this helps, then there is another layer of tactics to try out:

• Create a very loose editorial calendar.
  This should outline key topics that keep their industry up at night. This can be as simple as a single list, or as complex as a magazine’s editorial calendar.
• Collect as much research and metrics as possible.
  Every conversation with spur ideas for topics.
• A single staff member should assist as editor for the blog.
  Largely, this person would act more as a sounding-board and motivator than true editor, but it prevents a blogger from feeling lonely and isolated.

• Measure performance.
  Look at the metrics to see what topics and blog entries were most popular. Use this data to create follow up entries, and identify new ideas.

The key point is that these tactics will bring much less success if the overall strategy for the blog is not sound – if the blog was not meeting a critical need with readers and customers. And these tactics should make this whole process more manageable. No blogger should ever have to wake up panicked about what they will be writing about.

And I think our old friend says it best:

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
– Sun Tzu (Chinese General, circa 500 BC)

With publishing in such a time of transition, with resources being pulled in so many directions, brands need to choose very carefully where they put their efforts. 100 tactics that don’t link up to a solid strategy will leave a staff, and their customers, confused. A single strategy with only 10 tactics to implement, may give everyone a solid path to the future.

While the web is quickly changing the landscape for journalists, magazines, and newspapers, it is also a powerful tool to extend event coverage. The web offers incredible opportunities to do the following:

• Extend your coverage
• Further engage your industry
• Maximize your resources

What can coverage look like? Feasibly:

• Multiple articles a day
• Multiple blog entries a day
• Multiple videos a day
• Multiple photos per day
• Coverage that extends beyond your website, onto social networks

Even on weekends. Even for small events. I don’t say this to be clever, I say it because I am watching editors do just this. It’s astounding to see what a single editor can achieve.

So I want to share some ideas. Some of this is remedial, some you are already doing, some may be silly, and likely, you are doing plenty of stuff I didn’t even cover here. The goal here is to spark ideas and start conversations, with the sober reality that your resources are always fewer than you would like:

• STRATERGIZE (yes I know how to spell)
  Don’t plan on just showing up at the event and covering “what happens.” Because the only thing that will happen is a day spent trying to play catch-up and feeling overwhelmed with what you are missing. Understand what the “story” of the event will be, and how it will be shared. What types of news will their be? which sessions are most valuable? What non-news, industry-culture topics are worth covering? Who will be there? what will the photo-ops be? Where will you take a break to work on your content? Exactly what time will updates be loaded to the website?
• ORGANIZE & EXPAND (and not just during meals)
  Feeling overstaffed? I thought not. The fact of the matter is, you have to do more with less. Luckily, there are ways to maximize your resources to provide more coverage, without doubling your staff. But don’t leave anything to chance… you can’t prepare too much. To get fully comprehensive coverage, you need to be in 20 places at the same time. Sort out your roles, especially around taking time to coordinate videos and photos, and taking a break to download and post each. Consider using outside bloggers or leveraging others at the show to become contributors.
• GET THE TECHNOLOGY STRAIGHT (ensure there are enough ’speak and spells’ to go around)
  Weeks before the event, assess how many laptops, cameras and video cameras you need and can gather. Give yourself enough time to work with IT if anything is needed, even small things like extra batteries or cables.

• SET EXPECTATIONS (even if they are low)
  Readers need to prepare for the event… whether they are attending or not. Setting expectations is the difference between huge traffic, and mediocre traffic. Pre-event coverage can be done in a number of ways. You can do articles that preview what to expect, be it official information about the event, or what your team is most looking forward to. You can even dig into the archives to do “best of” coverage from last year’s event, including photo galleries.

• DO THE HARD WORK BEFORE YOU ARRIVE (or, have the intern do the hard work. sorry interns.)

  When you are at the event, you will be crazy busy. Create templates before you arrive, create article types, create landing pages, setup video and photo editing so that it is as easy as possible, set a schedule of when you will take a break to write articles or blogs, download images, edit videos, connect with fellow editors to ensure you aren’t missing anything. No matter what, you will be swamped at the event, but do what you can to maximize the amount of creative space you have while there, and minimize the drudgery. Ideally, you will have someone who serves as technical support and is not at the event – but safely back in the office. They can ensure everything is posted correctly, help with images and videos, and take care of the inevitable technical issues. It happens, be prepared.

• AGGREGATE, EVEN FROM COMPETITORS (i went there)
  Is anyone else covering the event? You can diminish the value of the competition by being the de facto source for ALL coverage. Have an intern aggregate all coverage and include it as a catch all article of the “best of the rest.” Pay particular attention to individual reporters… bloggers or industry members who will be writing about the event on their own sites. If you can link together all the smaller, grass-roots coverage, you will not only be helping them, but serve as a great resource for your readers. As personal web publishing continues to expand, there is always the risk of us being viewed as “the establishment.” Being generous to the upstarts keep us connected at all levels.

• GROW YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE (put that silly MySpace page to work)
  Did you shoot and upload a video to your website? Add it to YouTube too. Be sure to give a descriptive headline, description and tags, and include a link back to your site. Take photos? Add them to Flickr.com and do the same. Did you just post a new article? Create a Twitter and Friendfeed account and share the link. Many of these services also have widgets that you can embed back into your regular articles and blog entries. The more you expand, the larger of any audience you will capture.

• CONSIDER LIVE-BLOGGING BIG SESSIONS (because you need this kind of pressure, right?)
  Technology bloggers do this amazingly well… with minute-to-minute updates, and tons of photos. Click here for an example.

• SPREAD LIKE A WEED (everyone loves weeds)

  How many events do you go to each year? Likely, not all of them, and certainly not the many regional events that your industry may have. Those are opportunities to not only expand your coverage, but empower your readers to become a part of your brand. Start small. Identify a smaller event that would be valuable to a larger audience. Enlist the organizer or attendies to provide coverage, even if it is just sharing notes or a single article. Then expand from there.

• FUNNEL YOUR READERS (mmmm, funnel cake)
  The great thing about leveraging social networks like Flickr or YouTube, is that you can invite readers to share their photos and videos too.
• FOCUS ON THE CULTURE (the odder the better)
  Events are the perfect place to share the passion of your readers and the industry as a whole. Who are the characters, what drives them, what are the inside jokes that will have people emailing around your blog entires and videos?
• FOCUS ON THE ENTIRE CONFERENCE EXPERIENCE (eg: avoid the bathrooms on the 4th floor)
  The conference begins weeks before anyone gets on a plane… help every attendee with this process. Some travel all the time, some very rarely. Take the opportunitiy to help them with the process of attending a conference. Topics like: How to travel in the summer; How to prepare for the event (professionally or personaly); Productivity tips on how to deal with all that email or work when they return; What’s the most efficient way to cover the entire show floor; etc.
• CONNECT IN SURPRISING WAYS (not Batman surprising… Strawberry Shortcake surprising)
  An event is an opportunity to surprise and inspire. If there is a box, think way outside of it. Contests, surprise meetups, treasure hunts… just like a slumber party. But with people you work with. And fewer pillow fights. Challenge them with provocative questions (worst food at the event, best dressed, best session, biggest dissapointment, worst travel story.)
• HAVE FUN (or at least pretend)
  Have fun with coverage… funny photo galleries. Cover the coverage. Behind the scenes stories. Interview folks on the plane. Share photos of food… think of any commonalities that connects attendees.

]]> http://danblank.com/blog/2008/08/06/event-coverage-engaging-readers-stretching-resources/feed/ 0 http://danblank.com/blog/2008/01/22/multimedia-journalism-business-model-not-included/ http://danblank.com/blog/2008/01/22/multimedia-journalism-business-model-not-included/#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:10:57 +0000 Dan Blank http://danblank.com/blog/2008/01/22/multimedia-journalism-business-model-not-included/ As news organizations evolve to focus more on multimedia and leveraging new online tools, there are two lingering questions:

• Will readers be truly engaged?
• Is there a business model to support this?

More and more, we are seeing examples of established media brands reorganizing themselves to leverage new media:

• The Associated Press
  “…The A.P. will change the way it files, edits and distributes stories, opening at least four regional editing hubs as part of a plan it calls AP2.0. It is also expanding its multimedia packages for entertainment, business and sports reports. And the company is moving toward an all-digital platform it calls the “Digital Cooperative.”

• BBC News
  “BBC News has reorganized its news division into a “multimedia newsroom” that combines radio, TV and online.”

While these are positive changes, here are two intersting examples of multimedia failing to engage their intended audience:

• Online Video Ads Must Change
  “A recent survey of people’s attitudes toward online in-stream video advertising suggests that advertisers using this increasingly popular form of Internet marketing are wasting their money. Half of all respondents said they stopped watching online videos once they encountered in-stream advertisements, and nearly one in six said they immediately left the web site, according to results of the survey released Monday by Burst Media, an online advertising network.”

• 6 Reasons I’m Not Hooked on Podcasts
  Jennifer Woodard Maderaz finds the following reasons why Podcasts don’t capture her attention: they are too long, many don’t get to the point quick enough, they are difficult to scan to find good content, some really require video, they take a lot of time to consume, and there isn’t a streamlined way to manage Podcasts across her devices.

It also seems that advertisers have not fully embraced online multimedia. I have been experimenting with quite a few online TV services, and often find the same commercial or sponsorship repeated over and over. I am sure they may call it “100% share of voice,” but to me, it seems as though:

• They are having trouble attracting many advertisers to experiment online.
• Those that do, often repeat the same television-centric commercial, over and over.

As video and podcasts flood the web, exactly who will be paying top dollar in order to build revenue around them? One study indicates that engagement with advertsing is greater on the web than it is in print or on television:

“A cross-media study by Simmons, a unit of Experian Research Services, also found that viewers are 25% more engaged in the content of TV shows that they watch online than on a TV.”

“…TV aside, the study found that people are 18% more engaged in ads online, as opposed to print versions, of magazines–and that they are also 15% more engaged in magazine articles online than in print.”

Media organizatins and journalists are rushing to revamp their skillset to find audiences through whatever media channel they are consuming… but you have to wonder what is getting lost in the flood of articles, blogs, videos and podcasts. Is their enough attention to engage this audience? Can we find ways to monetize this engagement? Where is the value?

• The event: Macworld keynote with Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple.
  Steve’s presentation is known for compelling product announcements, and as one of the best presentations in consumer electronics that you will see all year.

• The websites: Macrumors and Engadget
  Macrumors focus on rumors and news about Apple products. Engadget is one of the biggest blogs out there, covering all consumer electronics.

Here is my breakdown of what each did well as I experienced the keynote speak via text and photo updates every few minutes for an hour and a half:

• Easy to read updates
  Macrumors set their webpage to update automatically. Every minute or two, the page would add a new update on what was happening on stage. Engadget on the other hand required me to refresh the browser page whenever I thought an update might be posted. Sometimes the page wouldn’t come up, due to the massive amount of people trying to load that page the same time I was. Also – I had to then scroll down the page to find where I last left off.

  This is where technology really paid off… setting up a special page that functions the way Macrumors’ site did, made it the de facto page for me to go to for instant updates. Winner: Macrumors.

• Photo updates
  Both sites provided constant photo updates. Macrumors treated photos as a separate stream on the page – with photos on the right, and text on the left. Engadget included photos within their text updates.

  While Engadget’s page is extremely readable after the event, the Macrumors design really worked for me as the event unfolded. It looks to me that they posted far more photos than Engadget. Also, it was easy for me to follow updates, as my eyes knew where to check on the page for updates. Very little scrolling. Winner: Macrumors.

• Reporting starts well before the event
  This event is so big, that both sites had posts and recaps of rumors during the run up to the event. The moment there were photos or any information, each site would post an update to build enthusiasm.

  Also, both created a dedicated page for live updates before the event started. Instructions were included as to whether you needed to update the page, or whether the page would take care of that for you. You knew what page to stalk before anything even started. Winner: draw.

• Sharing the flavor of the event
  Apple has a huge following and culture built around its brand. People are obsessed. Of the two sites, Engadget did a better job of capturing the flavor of the event. Within their reporting, they shared every nuance and detail possible, even before the event started.

  When the audience was let in the room, they reported on what songs were playing, and how the crowd reacted during the presentation.

  With Engadget, I felt more like I was really experiencing the event. Winner: Engadget.

• Providing context within the live reporting
  This one is huge for me, and Engadget was by far the winner here. As their editor Ryan Block reported the news from the stage, he provided little reactions where necessary. To me, these were critical to understanding what the news meant. A few examples:

  When Steve announced the movie studios that Apple has partnered with on movie rentals:

  “We’ve got participation of great studios. Touchstone, MGM, Miramax,… and these six too. Lions Gate, Fox, WB, Walt Disney, Paramount, Universal, Sony…”

  Ryan added three words that made all the difference to me:

  “Everyone! Huge applause”

  Why is this important? Because I had no idea if these 10 studios were considered all of the big studios, or whether this was a letdown. Right away, I knew Apple scored.

  When Steve announced that you can stream photos over the new version of Apple TV:

  “Get photos from your computer… get them also right over the internet from Flickr and .mac.”

  Ryan’s response let me know that Apple was the first to give Flickr support:

  “Flickr support, good gawd yall.”

  Ryan even shared the audience’s mood, with a sort of rating system that bottomed out at “mild applause,” and topped out with “rumbling applause.”
  Overall, this gave a flavor to their reporting, and gave me much deeper insight into the news I was hearing. Winner: Engadget.

Some other notes about this and other live blogging events:

• Macrumors had a sponsor for their coverage, and included a message from them within the live stream a few times. To me, this was completely non-offensive. Good for them.
• The sidebars allow a site to promote related info, which doesn’t just drive page views, but gives a sense of authority on the topics being covered.
• Comments and forums are two ways for the audience to participate on the site itself.
  It would be interesting to get a live stream of reader reactions next to the news announcements.

• Steve’s speech caused so much activity on Twitter, that the system was down for awhile. This is where people were really experiencing the event as a disaggregated community. Amazing.

Overall – both sites had pros and cons, and lessons to be learned for how to live blog an event. While Macrumors, to me, had the most instantaneous reporting, I walked away with a better feeling towards Engadget’s coverage. Their personality and addition of context turned this from straight news reporting, to an experience I shared with them.

“Everyone’s got work to do to put out the “daily miracle,” but in an era when the old industry model is in decline, we can no longer afford to have a workforce where the majority are solely doing the work of “putting out the paper.”

To evolve the newsroom culture in order to meet the changing needs of their business and audience, Steve suggests the following:

• Involve every staff member in innovative projects, with firm timelines.
• Train staff in new media skills.
• Bring in creative outside experts to guide strategy.
• Have a consultant work with each staff member to envision how their job can evolve.
• Every staff member should participate in new media, such as blogs, social networks and microblogging.
• More resources for online efforts.

Howard Owens takes this a step further, and lays out a curriculum of skills that a non-wired journalist should strive to complete:

• Become a blogger.
• Post photos to a sharing site like Flickr.
• Create, edit and post 3 videos to YouTube.
• Spend 2 hours a week on YouTube, watching videos and understanding how the culture of the site works.
• Create a profile on social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace.
• Use social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, Mixx and Digg.
• Start using an RSS reader.
• Text message using a mobile phone.
• Start using Twitter, the microblogging tool.
• Report on your experiences with new media.

Scott Karp offers a phenomenal recap of thoughts from others in the news industry on how journalism and the news media needs to change.

When we talk about changing journalism, there tends to be fear that we will lose its inherent purpose. Many changes in the industry tend to be small steps that are well intentioned, but make no sizeable movement towards ensuring they are meeting the changing needs of their audience or business.

Two recent articles about well-known innovators offer interesting lessons:

• The Story of the Apple iPhone
  “It may appear that the [cell phone] carriers’ nightmares have been realized, that the iPhone has given all the power to consumers, developers, and manufacturers, while turning wireless networks into dumb pipes. But by fostering more innovation, carriers’ networks could get more valuable, not less. Consumers will spend more time on devices, and thus on networks, racking up bigger bills and generating more revenue for everyone.”

• A Profile on Google’s Founders and CEO
  “[Google CEO Eric Schmidt] remembers a day in 2002 when he walked into [Google co-founder Larry Page’s] office and Page started to show off a book scanner he had built. “What are you going to do with that, Larry?” Schmidt recalls asking. “We’re going to scan all the books in the world,” Page replied. Eventually, Google began to do just that.”

Perhaps the biggest example on why innovation is required to save journalism is the Wall Street Journal’s changing hands last year. The family that owned the business did not want to sell, but was given an offer that they – and their shareholders – couldn’t refuse.

Because the family did not ensure the business side was on stable footing… they could not simply protect their journalists by not selling. The business side is essential to the journalism side, and innovation is needed to ensure both have a healthy future.

Reuters is having their reporters experiment with a “mobile journalism toolkit,” which allows reporting in text, audio, video and photos:

• The Mobile Journalism Toolkit contents, which include a Nokia N95 phone, Nokia SU-8W folding keyboard, a small tripod, Sony microphone, and solar charger.
• Background info on the mobile journalism project, and a video on how each piece of the toolkit will be used.
• A bit more on the partnership with Reuters and Nokia:
  “The idea is that using the phone will mean more agility and less use of laptops and expensive camera equipment (and fewer people to enable filming); there is also a back-end system that formats the material to be posted on Reuters’ site.”

• Clyde Bentley gives some of these tools, and others, a mobile reporting field test:
  “I’m still confident that… our computing future is pocket-sized. But journalists will need fast, Hummer-tough units accessible to 50-something eyes and fingers. There is not much of a market for that yet.”

• Mel Taylor shares his perspective on the affects of such a mobile toolkit:
  “Newspaper reporters: getting out from behind their desks and reporting from the field. (where the news is breaking) They are gathering and uploading news (in all forms: text, video, stills, etc.) within a very short turn-around time. Sometimes it’s live. This trend is also an early look at how Newspaper will be able to go after juicy Broadcast and Cable advertising budgets.”

For truly live mobile reporting, Robert Scoble has embraced the idea of streaming live video from his mobile phone via a service called Qik. You can see the videos he has shot here. He comments:

“My world has just changed. Thanks Qik!… The quality isn’t the best, but it’s watchable and that’s all we really need considering that video is coming to you over a cell phone connection.”

Howard Owens feels that mobile reporting should free journalists to spend more time with the people in their beat, as opposed to commuting or in an office. His advice for someone covering a particular town or region:

“The classic image of a MoJo is a reporter sitting in his car, filing a story. Certainly, you must spend time doing that, but the less time you spend actually driving that car, the better. You need to be out and about, on foot, with people. Your job isn’t to find scandal or hard-hitting news. Your job is to unlock the life of your town in a way that print journalism hasn’t done consistently for generations. It’s all about people.”

Howard’s point is a good one. While there is so much focus on the tools of journalism, the real change is how they allow journalists to connect with their sources and help their communities.

“While the best I could do was tell you what it was like to have been there, the TV guy could actually show you. ”

Andy Dickinson predicts that newspaper video will die, if not properly leveraged.

“The winners will be the ones who make it work because they have a strategy that fits their organisation and more importantly, their audience. The increase in organisations who do it badly will result in the print industry continuing to cast video as the problem – a flash, unnecessary diversion from proper journalism – rather than admitting they just can’t do it.”

But many newspapers, large and small, are taking online video seriously. Vivian Schiller, the General Manager of NYTimes.com explains why reporters are embracing video:

“Video is a way to get at angles of the story that you can’t possibly get to in print.”

The Times is not just training their current staff of journalists or hiring new ones, they are partnering with others to create video content. They recently added videos to their site that were produced by an outside company, Beet.tv, and that are “reported by non-professional citizen journalists.”

Media outlets and journalists are still experimenting with how to best produce and leverage online video. Here are a few newspaper profiles to give you a taste:

• Gatehouse Media’s Messenger-Post
  “The Messenger-Post took an entirely different tack. They give their print reporters cheap cameras and had them add video to their stories. The M-P treats video as a complement to the print story. One good example is yesterday’s coverage of an accident at a local ice warehouse. Here’s a better one: a feature on a local sword swallower. You don’t have to watch the video to understand the story, but if you’re interested in the story, watching the video adds more detail. It’s not always done perfectly, but the sword swallower piece is as near a perfect fusion as I’ve seen.”

• The Columbus Dispatch
  “There is no formal training in-house for the staff. Reporters who are interested see [the web producer] and… go over the basics. They shoot a piece, [we producer edits] it and then… go over what they need to do better next time.”

• York News-Times
  “This year alone, we (3 staff) have produced over 450 videos which have received over 120,000 views. Most of the videos are, as you stated, 2-3 minutes long. The numbers differ though when you look at how long it takes us to make the videos. We usually spend 10-15 minutes shooting the video and I usually spend 15-30 minutes editing the video. In breaking news situations, like car accidents, we are generally shooting photos as well. We probably average getting a 2-3 minute report and 100 photos onto our site in less than an hour.”

• Miami Herald
  “We’ve been running classes in-house for both photogs and reporters, taught by the four videographers. Interestingly, the photographers are universally better story tellers.”

Mindy McAdams shares tips on what works and what doesn’t work in online video. Two recent posts from her:

• Study good examples of online video
• Video packages and longer video

In 2007, online video really hit the mainstream, and many have dreams of creating a viral video that will become an overnight sensation on the web. One online marketer, Dan Greenberg, explains how these viral hits are not always what they seem – sometimes they are just clever marketing campaigns from an agency. Here is an outline of strategies he shares:

• Not all viral videos are what they seem
• Content is NOT King
• Core Strategy: Getting onto the “Most Viewed” page
• Title Optimization
• Thumbnail Optimization
• Commenting: Having a conversation with yourself
• Releasing all videos simultaneously
• Strategic Tagging: Leading viewers down the rabbit hole
• Metrics/Tracking: How we measure effectiveness

While journalists should not necessarily follow these tactics, it does illustrate that online success is not just about creating a good story and hoping people find it. Understanding tagging, distribution, titling, and how web services work are essential to finding massive audiences on the web.

At the Seattle Times, Editor-at-Large Mike Fancher explains why the paper can no longer afford to pay for a role like that, and that he will be retiring from this position, but starting a blog:

“I believe the future of journalism hinges on the ability of the press to find the right connection, and it won’t come naturally for many journalists in our nation.”

A free weekly paper, the Chicago Reader, finds itself sacrificing top journalists due to economic realities:

“…four positions were sacrificed Thursday in what Editor Alison True said in a memo to staff could be attributed to “the financial pressures of our industry [that] continue unabated.”

“Lost in the Reader purge were staff writers… identified as having “produced some of our most important and exciting” pieces.”

“But True, in an interview, said that, given a mandate from her bosses in August to cut editorial costs, it became more difficult to afford their long-term investigative work. She indicated she would welcome freelance pieces from any of them.”

But for some writers, they find themselves being courted from traditional print brands, to successful online media outlets:

“ESPN and Yahoo Sports are on a furious hiring binge, offering reporters and columnists more than they ever imagined they could make in journalism. And ESPN, in particular, has gone after the biggest stars at newspapers and magazines, signing them for double and triple what they were earning — $150,000 to $350,000 a year for several writers, and far more for a select handful.”

“Some print publications, notably Sports Illustrated, have selectively tried to keep up with the lucrative ESPN and Yahoo offers, to retain some of their writers or attract new ones. But for the most part, newspapers, though they are being forced to raise some salaries, cannot keep up. Several say they are suffering through the worst talent drain their editors can recall.”

“My counteroffer usually comes down to asking them what kind of cake they want at their goodbye party,” said Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, assistant managing editor for sports at The Washington Post, which has lost three writers to ESPN in the last year and a half. “The numbers they throw around are out of reach.”

The financial aspect of journalism does not speak to all the changes that are occurring. Their are key distinctions in how tools available to journalists are being leveraged:

“…the biggest gap between professional journalists and bloggers hasn’t even begun to start narrowing. It’s this: professional journalists tend to think of their article as the end of a process of reporting, while bloggers tend to think of their entries as the beginning of a process of commenting.”

“Once a journalist’s story has been edited and published, he or she is on to the next thing. By the end of the day, the story is lining a cat’s litter-box somewhere. It’s over, and the journalist is hitting the phones, getting the next scoop. There’s no equity in revisiting old pieces, especially given the “no sooner does the ink dry than it revolts me” syndrome – something coined by Jesse Eisinger, paraphrasing Samuel Beckett.”

“A blog, by contrast, is nothing without reactions – from commenters, from other blogs, even, occasionally, from the mainstream media. Professional journalists simply don’t view their own work in the light of how it’s received by others in the way that bloggers do. They therefore have little interest in using web technology to artificially extend the natural life of any given story.”

And in a shift from the common view of bloggers being irresponsible when compared to traditional journalists, here are two examples of flipping that paradigm:

• “Blogger is journalist of the year.”
  In Germany, a blogger who acts as a watchdog on the reporting ethics of a major media brand has
  been given the journalist of the year honor by a media magazine.

• “When non-technologists write about technology.”
  Marc Andreessen takes The Economist to task for an article they printed that included a ton of factual mistakes, and opinions based on nonsense.

Even government policy is evolving to meet the needs of changing definitions and roles in journalism:

“[The Freedom of Information Act] has always exempted journalists from paying fees to access government records (other citizens and companies are charged for search time and duplication of documents), but the rise of the Internet has made it more difficult for government agencies to decide if someone is a legitimate “journalist” or not.”

“The OPEN Government Act sets up what seems to be quite a reasonable standard for making these decisions: prior publication history. Writers need have no official affiliation; if they have a history of publishing pieces, on the Internet or elsewhere, they should be considered for a fee waiver. Even those without such a publication history may be eligible for a waiver if they offer a compelling explanation of how they will distribute the material in question to a broad audience.”