Gordon's Republic

Battle of Big Thinking

2009-11-20T16:36:00Z

Great line-up for next week's fourth APG Battle of Big Thinking with more than 20 of the biggest thinkers the business.

One of the nice things about it is that it has a speedy format that progresses through out the day: three speakers per round, each given 15 minutes, with the audience voting at the end of each round. The winner of each round goes into an eliminator to find the supreme champion at the end of the day.

There are still a few tickets left (celia.miranda@haymarket.com). We'll be tweeting details of the conference throughout the day and you can follow the event via the hashtag #BoBT.

I'd also recommend following some of these people (if you're not already) who are all speaking at the event.

First up is Matt Willifer @matt93 who is chairman of the Account Planning Group and head of planning at M&C Saatchi.

In the Big Global Thinking session is former BBH staffer Guy Murphy @guymurphy who for these last two years has been worldwide planning director at JWT.

For Big Thinking and Innovation John Willshire @willsh from PHD will take to the stage who is head of innovation and will be looking at "the creation and cultivation of ideas through the study of social, cultural and technological trends".

In what is likely to be one of the hottest sessions of the day head of strategy and innovation at VCCP Amelia Torode @Amelia_Torode will share what she has learnt from campaigns including comparethemarket/meerkat.com, in Big Thinking in Social Media.

Also in this slot is We Are Social's Sandrine Plasseraud @MeToo will take to the stage. She is a former Renault marketer who was responsible who helped kicked start the firm's social media strategy.

Kicking off Big Mobile Thinking will be Scott Seaborn @ScottSeaborn –head of mobile at Ogilvy Group UK and the co-chairman of the UK Mobile Marketing Association.

Joining Scott will be Todd Tran @toddtran managing director of WPP mobile marketing agency for Joule. In another life he was a strategy management consultant with Bain & Company.

Personally I’m looking forward to hearing Patrick O'Luanaigh @patrickol in Big Thinking in Free Spaces. The former Unilever marketer who worked with BBH on the much talked about repositioning of Lynx. He now leads Plum Baby, the private equity backed premium organic baby-food brand.

It's near the end of the day, but Big Thinking in Marketing will be another goodie with Justin Basini @justinbasini the former vice-president for marketing at Capital One and Deutsche Bank who is now working on a new venture, which will be launching in 2010.

Other include some of the industry's up and coming talent who will take to microphone in the Open Mic Session. Speakers here include Katy Lindemann @katylindemann a senior strategist Naked Communications.

One of these speakers is going to win the day.

Follow me on Twitter

Murdoch: online news to be smaller and less important

2009-11-20T10:52:00Z

In case you were in some doubt regarding the future for online news James Murdoch is telling it straight. He says that online news will in the future have a smaller audience, be less important (than broadcast) and come with a premium price tag.

James Murdoch, who is chief executive of News Corporation Europe, gives the impression that online and printed news is going to be sidelined almost by a future which the company -- he is set to lead -- is ushering in. And that is the wider reality: news outlets are being sidelined and shuttered as there is no longer any revenue to support them -- the world it seems is shrinking. We saw that this week with the closure of Media Week.

According to James Murdoch there is a role for online and print journalism, but it is not as big as that of entertainment: "In the business of ideas, which is the business that we are in, we do think journalism plays a role, and we do think there are business models there that will make a lot of sense, albeit perhaps not at the scale of some of our broadcasting businesses and other entertainment businesses.

"Is it going to be as big a role? No," he said. "Structurally, television is vastly more profitable and a big opportunity,"

Murdoch, who was speaking who was speaking at the Morgan Stanley annual Technology, Media and Telecoms Conference in Barcelona, also spoke about developing what he called a wholesale market for its digital news, which is part of its plans to erect a pay wall around its content with The Times and The Sunday Times in the UK being the first to implement this. Earlier this week Times editor James Harding said that his paper would launch a subscription service for online access early next year.

"Our digital activities -- we are going to push them harder but we are actually going to be charging a premium price for them. We will have a smaller audience than giving it away for free, but I think it is the crucial step in starting to develop a wholesale market for digital journalism," James Murdoch said.

Murdoch told Reuters that his top priorities were building on News Corp's positions in pay TV in Europe and India (where it has Star TV) as well as "rebuilding the profitability of newspapers".

"We invest quite a lot in our journalism, we're very proud of it, we think it has great quality and great value, and we think that we should be charging a fair price for it, both to customers but also to other firms who might want to take it to customers in whatever way.

"We think that there's a very exciting market place, potentially a wholesale market place for digital journalism that we'll be developing," he added.

Follow me on Twitter

IPC Media to restructure and cut jobs

2009-11-19T14:07:00Z

NME, Loaded, Nuts to Ideal Home and Marie Claire publisher IPC Media has said this afternoon that it plans to restructure and cut jobs.

Evelyn Webster, CEO of IPC Media said the Time Warner-owned firm would reorganise around three audience groups of men, mass-market women and up-market women as of January 4.

As a result of this new structure, there will be a reduction in a number of roles and IPC said it will begin a period of consultation with staff from November 20. It follows cuts elsewhere in the Time Warner-owned UK publisher with more jobs lost at AOL.

One of the first casualties is IPC Ignite MD Eric Fuller who will leave IPC at the end of December. The divisional names IPC TX and IPC Ignite will disappear altogether.

The three new divisions are

IPC Inspire will be the men’s division, comprising leisure pursuits, men’s lifestyle and music brands, headed by managing director Paul Williams.
IPC Connect will be the mass-market women’s division, comprising women’s weeklies, the goodtoknow network and the TV entertainment brands, headed by managing director Fiona Dent.
IPC Southbank, the up-market women’s division, will continue to comprise the fashion, beauty and home interest brands, headed by managing director Jackie Newcombe.

CEO Evelyn Webster, said: “While our current structure has served us well over many years, it now no longer fully reflects our clients’ business needs. Reach, as well as the delivery of tightly targeted audiences, has never been more important. By organising IPC by consumer audience, rather than by magazine frequency or subject area, we will create a more market-facing structure, which will also bring greater coherence to our operations.”

As well as the changes to the publishing divisions, Charlie Meredith, previously MD of IPC TX, has been appointed to a newly created board role of MD, Central Operations, responsible for the majority of central operations including IPC Direct, the direct marketing division; IPC Plus, the syndication and licensing division; Production; and Property/Facilities. Charlie will also be responsible for ensuring that IPC meets its environmental obligations.

The cuts at IPC follow a restructure announced earlier this week by Brand Republic publisher Haymarket, which has resulted in the closure of Media Week and Revolution magazines.

Rival B2B publisher Centaur Media reported a 28% slide in revenues. Mike Lally, the Centaur group finance director, told MediaGuardian that Haymarket's decision to close Media Week and reduce Revolution to a quarterly insert would benefit its own titles such as New Media Age and Marketing Week.

"We are already market leaders against a number of Haymarket titles but there may be a marginal benefit to us [in Haymarket's restructure] of titles such as Revolution," he said.

Follow me on Twitter

Newsweek scores sexist own goal with Sarah Palin cover

2009-11-19T09:40:00Z

Newsweek clearly wanted to make Sarah Palin look at bit of an idiot with its cover that some are calling sexist, but it looks to have had the reverse affect and is whipping up support for the Republican from Alaska who shoots stuff and is looking to run for president in 2012.

Newsweek apparently wants to get this unelectable photogenic woman elected and, oh yeah, help promote her new book 'Going Rogue' along the way. The book was the reason for the cover in the first place, which Newsweek is covering in the shape of two essays including one by Christopher Hitchens (who has already warned the liberal left that it might not be "entirely wise to patronize her"). The book is certainly going to be a best seller as Palin "sets the record straight".

The funny thing it is a legitimate cover shot…just it was part of a photo shoot that Palin did for Runners World (yes this woman loves to run). Newsweek used it without that magazine's permission (naughty). But the funniest thing is listening to the paper thin explanation by Newsweek editor Jon Meacham. This is genius. I want to meet the man who talks like this. He should do stand-up.

"We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do. We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard."

Did he say that with a straight face? Awesome. I mean come on. The most interesting image available? The Theme? Was the theme show some leg and show the most inappropriate image available to demonstrate that this woman can't possible be fit for office? You've got them rolling in the aisles Jon.

There are plenty of people arguing that the shot is not sexist including Tina Brown and others who point out that we have previously seen Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama looking toned and shirtless. But to argue this is the same is churlish. Showing powerful men looking athletic is one thing. Yes they have sex appeal, but it does not detract from their ability to run the country. Quite the opposite. The Palin cover shoot is another matter entirely and is part of a long tradition of demeaning women by using revealing shots to undermine them.

Palin might not be fit for office, but she has a lot of support and it is growing with this latest publicity blitz and her appearance on Oprah. On Facebook she has a million plus fans where she writes: "The Runner's World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness - a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, gender, or colour of skin."

There is the question why she was doing revealing shots like this in the first place (even for Runners World), but this question has fallen by the wayside as the blowback from this story does her more good than the harm than the "liberal" media mag intended.

Interestingly, I think there are certain parallels with Gordon Brown in the UK last week. Where the rightwing douche bags at the Sun bullied and belittled Brown. Only to have it blowback in their faces.

Newsweek is engaged in similar tactics, but as Taylor Marsh writes on the Huffington Post the difference is that Palin's people don’t care.

"Oh, and by the way, for all you fact checking fanatics, the people behind Sarah don't care, aren't listening, don't trust the criticism. Norah O'Donnell was in Michigan, another battleground state on Sarah Palin's Going Rogue tour, to see first hand the evidence. Here's a very rough transcript of part of what she said today on MSNBC: 'This is a line that stretches all the way back... another 1,000 people to see Sarah... It's 9:00 o'clock in the morning and she's not here until 6:00 pm tonight.... [...] You know what it is? It's a connection. ... Palin says she's treated unfairly, treated unfairly by the media, by Newsweek magazine ...and the people in middle America feel treated.. unfairly'."

Taylor adds that this is dangerous stuff. People will get outraged and almost inevitably that outrage will go somewhere.

Follow me on Twitter

Times editor (UK) gives details on paid content plans

2009-11-17T12:36:00Z

James Harding, the editor of The Times, has revealed a few details about the paper's plan to charge for content as part of Rupert Murdoch's pay wall ambitions.

According to MediaGuardian and Press Gazette, Harding told the Society of Editors conference in Stanstead, Essex, that the paper would launch a subscription service for online access early next year. The announcement follows news earlier this month that News Corp would not hit its target to launch a pay wall by the end of this year.

He said that The Times and The Sunday Times were likely to lead Murdoch's paid content initiative and be the first to charge for digital content in Murdoch's News Corporation media empire.

Harding said less frequent visitors to Times.co.uk would be able to purchase 24 hours access, which would likely cost the same as buying a print edition of the Times. The paper is currently 90p, but £1 seems like a nice round figure to me.

What we know for sure is that it won't be micropayments. Harding dismissed the idea of micro-payments for individual articles, which is being looked at by some other news organisations.

He likened the free access model to "window shopping down Oxford Street", but said these people were not coming into "our shops".

"From spring of next year we will start charging for the digital edition of the Times. We're working on the exact pricing model, but we'd charge for a day's paper, for a 24-hour sign-up to the Times. We'll also establish a subscription price as well," Harding said.

Follow me on Twitter

Hard to figure out hyperlocal business model says New York Times

2009-11-17T10:07:00Z

The New York Times has given an update on its hyperlocal experiment and says that while the content is flowing it has "been harder to figure out the business model".

In one of its regular Talk to The Times slots Jim Schachter, editor for digital initiatives, spoke about hyperlocals and the New NY Times pilot, called The Local, in response to a question from Lynn Smith, a former Los Angeles Times journalist.

Schachter said that The Local (the NY Times has two: one in Brooklyn's Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, the other in the New Jersey towns of South Orange, Maplewood and Millburn) had been what a pilot is supposed to be: "a learning experience for us on every front".

Each of the NY Times hyperlocal projects is led by a full-time Metro reporter who has a dual role of covering stories and finding ways to help those communities to cover themselves.

On that front Schachter that both Locals had been a successes with local contributors coming forward and producing more than half of the posts on each site. This has turned out to be the easy bit.

He said citizen journalists were doing things as varied as covering meetings, analysing data, creating Google maps, making videos and writing a variety of columns and blogs.

"People in the news business talk all the time about “increasing reader engagement” as a key to our future success. I can’t think of any better measure of engagement than the frequency with which readers actually undertake to report the news and create high-quality content to share with one another," Schachter said.

But on the other front, of turning these pilots into viable businesses, the NY Times is having less success.

"Not surprisingly, it has been harder to figure out the business model for all of this. An explosion of interest among local merchants in advertising on hyperlocal sites has been just around the corner for a number of years now."

But despite that Schachter said that the hyperlocal advertising market is a hard one for an "established organisation like The Times to enter; for now, the potential revenues don’t match up very well with the cost of acquiring customers, even using a low-cost system like self-service advertising".

He said the Times was looking at other ideas for generating revenue streams from its hyperlocal efforts and that it has the support of the New York Times Company to explore this further.

The lack of revenues is not stopping more and more players entering the market. With expansion in places like Seattle where Fisher Communications has launched 44 hyperlocal sites in the Seattle area and 38 in Oregon making it the largest in the US.

Hyperlocal website WikiCity was recently snapped up by Nebraskan newspaper group The Omaha World-Herald.

MSNBC has Everyblock.com which sits alongside other established players big and small such as Patch.com and Baristanet.

In the coming months more and more players will enter this market in the US not to mention the UK where the interest (from the likes of Guardian News & Media, Associated Newspapers and Trinity Mirror) and challenges in making hyperlocal work are similar.

Follow me on Twitter

Brands need to be more human on Twitter

2009-11-16T13:47:00Z

InSites Consulting has released some of the results of its Ultimate Twitter Study which has the typical Twitter user as a male in his late twenties/early thirties, who is quite tech savvy and active in IT, media/advertising or the consulting business.

It says these Twitter users address questions to brands, hoping they are listening and will answer with Google, Apple and Amazon coming out as the most discussed brands on Twitter, according to the InSites Consulting study**.

Twitter user is a professional male
The research says that the profile of the typical male Twitter talked about above is strikingly comparable to that of early internet users. It says that people on Twitter seem to be quite influential in the offline world in one way or another and often tend to be industry experts, journalists, bloggers etcetera.

It also asked those using it how they would describe it. The user definition came back as this: they defined Twitter as a social network of friends and/or business contacts enabling them to share and discover interesting, exciting, inspiring or funny news or hyperlinks in a very fast way.

Being human on Twitter
As for brands it points out what to many is increasingly obvious: brands on Twitter need to observe tweets very carefully and engage in a conversation with brand followers in a very personal way instead of merely spamming them with ads or abuse (aka not doing a Barry Judge - Best Buy' chief marketing officer). Brands need to remember that if they are on Twitter then users will address questions to them and expect to be listened to and answered.

InSites says Google, Apple and Amazon are the most discussed brands on Twitter, according to its research followed by a mix of tech companies and other strong global brands like Starbucks, Disney and HP.

Tom De Ruyck, senior research consultant at InSites Consulting describes Twitter as a "conversation hive" (I like: the densely packed idea and works pretty well) offering brands the opportunity to tap into it and learn from what consumers are saying about them.

He also makes a good point about how negative tweets (often sent in the heat of the moment) shouldn't be retreated like a threat, but rather an opportunity for client services teams to take immediate action and make customers happy again. That really is one of the key points to remember: how a negative engagement can be turned around by being open, honest and responsive.

Why do people use Twitter?
Insite says most people start using Twitter out of curiosity and the urge to stay connected with people and trends within their industry. As for the people they follow it says it is those who are able to make them curious, smile or wonder. It is also, of course, a great way to share and it says 20% of tweets contain a link to a blog, website or movie.

Twitter is also Insite says replacing a lot of blogs. We've all seen it. Those personal diary type blogs that defined the early blogosphere are fast disappearing (like the recently self outted Belle du Jour) as people tweet instead. I'm guessing that two or three years ago *** My Dad Says would have been a blog and not a Twitter feed.

"A couple of years ago everyone suddenly had a blog to share their personal thoughts with friends, family and the rest of the world," says De Ruyck, "Today we see that these kinds of blogs are disappearing one by one. It takes several hours a day to update them for only a handful of readers. The big blogs with thousands of readers will continue to exist and are updated by a professional team of online journalists. Twitter is a new phenomenon: sharing highly personal thoughts in 140 characters from anywhere you want and without too much effort. In other words, micro-blogging is the new, more efficient version of the amateur blog."

Follow me on Twitter

**In May 2009 InSites Consulting launched the Ultimate Twitter Study. Members of the online TalkToChange research community, who use Twitter, were invited to take part in this Twitter study and promote it to their followers and friends. In total 620 ‘real’ (=average of 17 tweets/day for 14 months) tweeters from all over the world took part in the study. Over 50.000 tweets were analyzed in qualitative, quantitative and observational research methods.

Labour Party to use 'Against the Odds' film in election fight

2009-11-16T11:26:00Z

The New Statesman reports that the Labour Party is to use the short 'Against the odds' film as part of its effort to fight the next election after a campaign by bloggers.

It's a short history of the Labour movement and is stirring stuff. It begins with the words: "It's the fighters and believers who change our world" with nods to party hero's like Nye Bevan; a mention of Cable Street and the fight against fascism; the formation of the NHS; the fight against Apartheid; and the creation of the minimum wage. All those moments are in there right up to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

The film goes onto say that "this history of Britain is the story of fighting for the right thing against the odds".

The campaign to get the film adopted was pushed by bloggers including Ellie Gellard on her The Stilettoed Socialist site ("Squashing Tory Trolls").

Nice work, take a look.

Follow me on Twitter

Agencies not using social media well

2009-11-16T10:19:00Z

The ad agency world is not shining when it comes to using social media to market itself, according to new research, but is pretty good at setting things up blogs and Twitter accounts and then infrequently updating them.

Overall, the **research from search consultants RSW/US found that very few agencies are using social media for new business prospecting.

The implications for that seem blindingly obvious: if you're pushing social media at your clients, but are not actively using it yourself (or just as bad using it well) then what kind of message does that send out?

Of social media used, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are those that agencies are most often using. LinkedIn seems to be getting the most activity (56% use it most often), which the report says makes sense as it is a good resource for new business people looking to track down prospects.

However, while there are many signed up to LinkedIn there are far fewer (the report suggests) using it to share ideas or active participate in a community or LinkedIn group.

Overall 57% of agencies surveyed have a Twitter account; 74% LinkedIn; 56% a blog and 67% a Facebook page.

Those figures strike me as low. Why every agency doesn't have a blog is beyond me. It's cheap it is easy and in this business there is a great deal to blog about and to highlight to clients and new business prospects alike.

Even the 56% with a blog are pretty poor at updating: 45% never blog and 21% blog once a month or less. Once a month???

With Twitter the figures are worse. Of those on Twitter 74% tweet once a week or less indicating that agencies are taking a very passive approach to social media when the whole point about being social is being active and engaged.

To be fair Facebook fares better than Twitter and blogs, but I wonder if the social network is as useful here as Twitter or a blog.

Having a page on Facebook is not bad thing, but it doesn't strike me as useful as a regularly updated agency blog.

That said if you are not actually updating your agency blog or tweeting you have to wonder what activity is taking place on the Facebook page.

This is a US report, but my guess is the situation in the UK is even worse. On that note, there is a story on Ad Age today that asks the question: Are UK Shops Losing Their Touch in the Digital World?

While Daniel Bonner, European chief creative officer at AKQA and Adam Kean, joint executive creative director of Publicis, London, put in a good defence, former Saatchi & Saatchi creative director Dave Droga (now Droga 5 in NYC) argues that TV, press and outdoor are the primary focus of UK agencies; that there is less integration; and a tendency to default play it safe. Pretty damning stuff.

Former TBWA creative director and Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury founder Steve Henry, who of course has a blog on this site damns UK agencies further by saying that creativity is at an all time low. Ouch.

"The new interactive model requires a new mindset and a new skill set. Not everyone is able or willing to make the transition.

"Agencies have not risen to the challenge or brought in new skill sets, and their clients are looking elsewhere," he said.

Follow me on Twitter

**The samples came from databases of 6,000 marketing service companies that range in size from under $5M in capitalized billings to over $50M.
212 agencies responded to the survey.

Bebo to be slashed as part of AOL cuts

2009-11-13T09:43:00Z

AOL-owned social networking site Bebo is to suffer as its parents cuts jobs and most strikingly it is freezes production of its groundbreaking web TV drama's, which were once going to be the future.

MediaGuardian reports that the social networking site will cut the team behind 'KateModern' and 'Sofia's Diary' and the 20 strong Bebo team in the UK will be cut right back.

The news follows the announcement earlier this week of 100 more job cuts at AOL as CEO Tim Armstrong seeks to turn the business around by slashing staff in an effort to reduce costs and turn AOL into a content driven digital business.

'Kate Modern', which ended last year, helped drive the early popularity of Bebo and spawned a number of imitators (including the BBC). While another of its web dramas 'Sofia's Diary' was sold to UK broadcaster Five marking the first time an online series made the transition to a major UK broadcaster.

The blow for Bebo follows reports at the start of this year that AOL was planning to sell Bebo, less than a year after it was acquired for $850m (£417m).

The rumours were rubbished at the time, but Bebo has fallen from prominence since AOL bought it and its valuation is thought to have plummeted. Some suggested it was worth as little as $200m (£140m).

With Armstrong's focus on turning AOL into a content driven company the question becomes is there a place for Bebo in the new Armstrong regime?

There remains a possibility that Armstrong could off load Bebo ahead of AOL's spin-off from parent Time Warner.

If an announcement is about to made it could come as AOL prepares for another round of job cuts, which could see as many as another 1,000 lose their jobs.

Follow me on Twitter

Jeremy Clarkson a possible top earner as people vote for micropayments over subs (Emap?)

2009-11-12T10:33:00Z

People have said they would be willing to pay small amounts for online content (we're talking 2p to 20p), which is very encouraging. And good news for Rupert Murdoch as Jeremy Clarkson tops the list of online columnists.

Having read this research Murdoch is no doubt on the blower to Google's Eric Schimdt (now that he has had his chat with Gordon Brown) spreading the word that people would be willing to pay for his top columnist Jeremy Clarkson.

Interestingly, while other research has suggested subscriptions are the favoured option Continental Research found that micropayments came out on top (although clearly 500 polled is not a massive sample) with 21% saying they would pay this kind of charge as opposed to only 5% saying they would be prepared to pay a monthly or yearly subscription. This could possibly be bad news for Emap with its £150 subscription charge, but i have a feeling that the difference here is that between the B2B market and the consumer. B2B is a traditional subs market with people used to paying that way (not to say that it wouldn't benefit with different payment options).

The good news doesn’t stop with Clarkson for Murdoch. Other News Corporation columnists feature heavily in the top ten, according to Continental: Giles Coren, gossip writer Gordon Smart (pay for gossip – that's a stretch) and Jane Moore also feature. I see a stack of coins behind up at Murdoch towers.

One point though: you have to ask where Continental found these people, I mean seriously this is a bag of mostly right wingers with a few honourable exceptions.

1. Jeremy Clarkson
2. Charlie Brooker*
3. Richard Littlejohn
4. Giles Coren*
5. Simon Heffer
6. Gordon Smart
7. Lorraine Kelly
8. Peter Hitchins
9. Jane Moore
10. Melanie Phillips.

What the list does help articulate though is an idea of what some form of paid content might look like. The pulling power of these big hitters could be the driving force behind a paid content package….if the amount was small enough.

Of the above I could imagine paying for only of the above, but I could easily imagine paying small sums for similar types of content in a iTunes kind of way. That kind of "content shopping" can be quite addictive (certainly in terms of music and video) and would I'm sure work for words as well.

What Continental found (and clearly this is not a surprise) is that if you raise the entry barrier higher than 2p the numbers swiftly fell away. While 35% said they definitely or probably pay 2p per article that dropped to 22% who were prepared to pay 5p; 13% and 7% prepared at 10p and 20p.

Clearly, 2p is too little (plus think of all the small plastic bank bags you would need for that stuff), but 20p is far more attractive and not unreasonable. At that point you still have 7% willing to pay and you do not need large numbers to pay to make paid content work.

What is encouraging here is that the figures chime with the research done by the blog paidContent:UK back in September. It found that 5% of people who read a news site at least once a month would pay.

Putting top columnists and other pieces of content behind a pay wall makes some sense. While Continental's research is about micropayments (possibly complex to implement) the model of restricting access to certain articles would work as easily for either a club or some other subscription package.

Follow me on Twitter

There is a god: Sun screws up in tawdry Brown affair (plus iPod moment)

2009-11-11T12:47:00Z

See just when you thought there wasn't a god The Sun comes out and makes a howler managing to spell the name of the mother Jacqui Janes wrong on its website as it uses her and her fallen Jamie son in a tawdry effort to attack Gordon Brown for political gain.

It is hard to say if this is a new low for the Sun - or just another in its "continuing voyages" after all this is the paper that set the bench mark on low with its coverage of the Hillsborough stadium disaster.

The paper has racked up than 130 comments under its story covering the letter sent by the prime minister to Jacqui Janes with the majority backing Brown. I'm not going to go into that, besides Roy Greenslade has a good post over at the Guardian.

As you can see from the image the Sun referred to Jacqui Janes as "Jacqui Jones". Glass houses and all that. And I think you have to be thankful for what you get. So I am pinging my digital stone back (yes, that was the sound of a stretched metaphor you heard snapping).

Co-incidentally after I'd been reading about this yesterday as the Sun (and others) relentlessly milked it (as you do in the run up to Remembrance Day; classy) I was listening to my iPod on the way home and it did what it hasn't done for a long time. As I hit shuffle from somewhere it dug up a Billy Bragg song that had snuck into some Apple "Genius" created playlist. I would never knowingly listen to Billy Bragg although I used to quite like the odd tune back in the day (and who doesn't have a soft spot for "its wrong to wish on space hardware...okay just me).

I digress, anyway, it served up a song called 'It says here', which is a really old song about trade unions and The Sun newspaper and such. I Googled the lyrics this morning and as I read them over I was struck by how little (in some respects) things have changed. In the case of The Sun it is still the place "where politics mix with bingo and *** in a strictly money and numbers game". And yes there are two sides to every story.

It says here

It says here that the Unions will never learn
It says here that the economy is on the upturn
And it says here we should be proud
That we are free
And our free press reflects our democracy

Those braying voices on the right of the House
Are echoed down the Street of Shame
Where politics mix with bingo and ***
In a strictly money and numbers game

Where they offer you a feature
On stockings and suspenders
Next to a call for stiffer penalties for sex offenders

It says here that this year's prince is born
It says here do you ever wish
That you were better informed
And it says here that we can only stop the rot
With a large dose of Law and Order
And a touch of the short sharp shock

If this does not reflect your view you should understand
That those who own the papers also own this land
And they'd rather you believe
In Coronation Street capers
In the war of circulation, it sells newspapers
Could it be an infringement
Of the freedom of the press
To print pictures of women in states of undress

When you wake up to the fact
That your paper is Tory
Just remember, there are two sides to every story

Follow me on Twitter

Sad day for The Observer, but it is spared closure

2009-11-11T08:53:00Z

When the fate of some newspapers is to disappear for good Guardian News & Media's decision to pare down The Observer to four sections rather than close it outright was clearly a tough one in this climate, but it makes a lot of sense and it should be congratulated.

As reported last night The Observer will shrink from seven to four sections having been under threat of closure since August. Its sport, music and Woman monthly magazines will close and there will be some redundancies.

Guardian News & Media said it will fold the business and personal finance sections into the main paper, and the travel section into the Observer Magazine. Only Observer Food Monthly will survive the magazine cull.

Hopefully the resulting newspaper will be smaller, but perfectly formed. Besides, I'd rather have a paper like the Observer on Sunday or frankly The Guardian that doesn't suffer from over publishing that to my mind afflicts some Sunday newspapers where I am left asking "what is the point of this section – could you remind me (other than to recycle".

Paring The Observer down to the bare essentials described above still makes it a better paper than the Independent on Sunday (it is still publishing, right?) and The Sunday Times, which is a paper that can be best described as: "used to be pretty good".

The best Sunday paper is still the Guardian on Saturday as like a trip to Parisa it’s a two day affair.

It is a shame about the magazines as the Observer team did a great job producing them, but again there was always the nagging question in my mind as to whether that was what it should have been spending its money on. Yes they were good, but I was never sure whether they belonged in a Sunday newspaper (that could just be me, it is not unknown). The food mag is awesome though and I'm glad to see that continue.

I could say more, but really I'm glad to see the paper continue.

Follow me on Twitter

LinkedIn and Twitter partner up

2009-11-10T09:11:00Z

On its blog today LinkedIn has announced a partnership with Twitter. Much needed I'd say and particularly for LinkedIn, which I think desperately needed a real-time web shot in the arm.

As Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder says in this little video with Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn (they describe the partnership like peanut butter and chocolate, which errrm maybe sounds nice to some - but to me sounds absolutely disgusting and wrong) below the business use case for Twitter has turned out to be much bigger than anyone imagined.

Twitter has proved to be a key plank in every social media strategy being looked at by most brands. Stone is absolutely right when he says this applies equally on the personal level in business and that Twitter has essentially become part of our resume (CV to you mate).

That's why hooking up with LinkedIn makes so much sense. Stone says: "The general idea of putting a little twitter in everything is being able to inject into LinkedIn a little bit more of this fresh here's what's going on with these other things, but with a little bit of a curated sense in terms of your professional life."

When you set your status on LinkedIn (do people do that? I need to use it more) you can now tweet it as well. This could make people more inclined to visit LinkedIn. At the moment it is not a daily visit for many people that I speak to like Twitter or Facebook. Although I'm not a heavy LinkedIn user and I know there are no doubt many more who turn to it on a more regular basis.

LinkedIn says its rolling out features over the next few days and here's what you will get:

1. On LinkedIn

First you join your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts to allow you to share articles you’re reading and letting people view your Twitter account name on your LinkedIn profile. To do that all do is check the Twitter box under your Network Updates box on the homepage and follow a few simple steps.

2. On Twitter

As part of the setup process, you can choose to either send all your tweets or select tweets from Twitter back to LinkedIn as a status update. So that means you might see an article you want to share on LinkedIn, but many not every single tweet.

More on the LinkedIn blog

Follow me on Twitter

Is Murdoch really plannng a Google free future?

2009-11-09T12:40:00Z

Rupert Murdoch has taken time out to tell Sky News Australia why he might ban his content from Google and why he'd rather have fewer visitors coming to his (paid for) websites (not to mention a quick bash at the thieving BBC).

In an interview with Sky News Australia News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch has been explaining why (but not how) people will be paying to read The Times and his other newspapers in the future.

He also said that News Corp might remove its content from Google searches. The implications of that are quite serious and far reaching and I really can't see it happening. Even for paid content isn't Google a marketing opportunity that showcases content?

Anyway, Murdoch raised an interesting point about the role of Google and other aggregators. Asked if it wasn't a two way street when Google sends traffic to a News Corp websites Murdoch disagreed arguing that the value of someone coming from Google was not the same as a loyal reader.

"No[ it's not a two way street with Google sending traffic] What's the point of someone coming occasionally who likes a headline they see on Google? Sure we go out and say we have so many millions of visitors. The fact is that there is not enough advertising in the world to go around to make all the websites profitable. We'd rather have fewer people coming to our websites but paying. They don't suddenly become loyal readers of our websites."

Two things: loyal readers might come via Google on occasion and secondly how do you become a loyal reader in the digital age?

Murdoch earlier in the interview said that it was difficult to get people under 30 to buy newspapers. If that's true and these readers surf pages on Google instead of thumb pages then how do you win them over and make them pay? Where do you get these loyal readers from? And as I said earlier doesn't search have a role to pay in that process?

I think it does. Granted many people clicking on a news headline might only be after that single story and that alone, but others might be after more. Or more of the same.

He went on in the interview to raise, but not answer one of the biggest hurdles that News Corp and others face in the introduction of paid content. If you can't get people under 30 to read newspapers (although clearly that is not entirely true) then how do you get them to pay online and become loyal readers?

He also again failed to mention any specific system of paid content that News Corp was looking at although he did dismiss the freemium model and said that like the Wall Street Journal (although do you think he'll get some to finally fix that WSJ.com glitch where you put a headline in quotes into Google and get to read the story for free?) everything was likely to go behind a pay wall.

He also took time to accuse the BBC and its Australian counter part ABC (which described Murdoch's paid content plan as the "classic play of an empire in decline) of stealing his content.

"We're better and any rate if you look at their stuff (the BBC and the ABC) most of their stuff is stolen from the newspapers now and we'll be suing them for copyright and they'll have to spend a lot more money on reporters covering the world."

As if The Times or the Sun never picked up on a BBC story.

Follow me on Twitter