Convergence, New Media - Thursday, June 25, 2009 9:38 - 0 Comments

“Content is King” – Not so Says Dr. Joe Webb

How many times have you heard the phrase “content is king”? Perhaps hundreds or thousands of times in the last 10 to 15 years. This has been uttered all those times as a justification for the dominance of publishers of all types—audio, video, text, and images—in the digital age. If it were true, the content kings would not always be whining about profits, downsizing, or restructuring. They’d be riding a wave of successes that emanate from their kingly dominance.

Read the entire article here

Innovation, Newspaper News - Thursday, June 25, 2009 9:28 - 0 Comments

Game Changer – HP Introduces World’s First Web-connected Home Printer

(from yesterday)

HP today unveiled the world’s first web-connected home printer: The HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web.

HP is bringing the power of the web directly to the printer and combining it with HP’s TouchSmart technology to give people quick, easy, touchscreen access to popular digital content.

Designed for the digital generation and connected households, the HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web features an entirely new web-based printing platform with HP applications (apps). Similar to other Internet-connected devices, these apps, which are viewable on an extra-large, intuitive-to-use TouchSmart panel, allow people to connect instantly with fun, informative and personal content.

View the entire Release Here

Newspaper News - Wednesday, June 3, 2009 23:04 - 1 Comment

Dave Eggers is Enthusiastic About Print

Dave Eggers, philanthropist, teacher-at-large, and author of You Shall Know Our Velocity among other things is pretty confident about the future of print.  So much so that he will return anyone’s email if they have doubts about print media’s viability.  Here is an Excerpt from an email Gawker published:

“As long as newspapers offer less each day- less news, less great writing, less graphic innovation, fewer photos- then they’re giving readers few reasons to pay for the paper itself. With our prototype, we aim to make the physical object so beautiful and luxurious that it will seem a bargain at $1. The web obviously presents all kinds of advantages for breaking news, but the printed newspaper does and will always have a slew of advantages, too. It’s our admittedly unorthodox opinion that the two can coexist, and in fact should coexist. But they need to do different things. To survive, the newspaper, and the physical book, needs to set itself apart from the web. Physical forms of the written word need to offer a clear and different experience. And if they do, we believe, they will survive. Again, this is a time to roar back and assert and celebrate the beauty of the printed page. Give people something to fight for, and they will fight for it. Give something to pay for, and they’ll pay for it.

We’ll keep you posted throughout the summer about our progress with this newspaper prototype, and any other good news we come across.”  Read The Whole Email

Video below, Dave accepting his 2008 TED Prize, author Dave Eggers asks the TED community to personally, creatively engage with local public schools.

Asides - Monday, June 1, 2009 0:27 - 0 Comments

Bing “Decision Engine” Review

Bing.com is a new search engine that advertises itself as a “decision engine” becuase it helps you make decisions I guess.  The site is not up and running yet but they have a video you can watch to see what they’re offering.  I always like to try new offerings which may make my web experience more enjoyable, like Wolfram Alpha’s comparison feature, anyway so I sat through the Bing video.

…they need to redo the video.  Why?  Because right as the following is being said, “…instead of spitting out search results by popularity we break them into logical categories and bring the best match to the top… and show related searches right there in the results page”  The picture below is being shown.

See that?  In the search history.  Colbert Report… what the hell does that have to do with anything? Nothing!  It’s distracting.  The running search example in the video is Home Depot, so colbert?  Take it out!  I’m still looking forward to seeing how Bing will actually work though.  Will it help me realize self actualization? It better because that is how high the bar is set.

UPDATE:

Bing is now up and running.  I did a simple search comparison for “NJ Boater Safety Course”  on Google and Bing and Bing came out on top.  It came back with the most relevant sites.

Google – Results 1 – 10 of about 1,130,000 for nj boater safety course. (0.17 seconds)

Bing – 1-10 of 80,500 results

Advertising - Wednesday, May 27, 2009 2:03 - 1 Comment

Most Redditors Find Newspaper Website Page Jumps Annoying

Dear Washington Post and every other internet newspaper: if you have a long article, PUT IT ON ONE PAGE. My browser isn’t paper, you don’t need to break it up into 6 pages

As the title of above Reddit thread implies many newspaper news sites spread their longer articles over several pages.  It’s my opinion that they do it to drive up pageviews and advertising impressions, but in the process annoy the hell out of the reader.  While the Newspaper Association of America continues to triumphantly announce record pageviews on newspaper sites, the newspapers themselves are going bankrupt.   Hmmm… It’s time for a new strategy fellas.

My suggestion to these newspaper sites is put the articles on ONE page and increase CPM’s by reducing the total number of advertising spots on their webpages.  In other words, don’t have 12 ad spots on every damn page.   Look at Kottke.org he has ONE ad on that site (via The Deck) and it generates something like $80k year!

In the meantime people are developing workarounds for crappy user experiences by:

1. reading the article in print page view which usually puts the article on one continuous scrolling screen.

2. using the Auto Pager firefox plugin which automatically loads the next page at the bottom of the screen to create one continuous scrolling screen.

3. using ARC 90 Labs Readability tool which eliminates all ads from the screen

4. using Ad Block Plus to eliminate ALL on site advertising

5. using this GreaseMonkey Script make a multi column page

The online experience is totally different then the print reading experience.  Newspapers need to get it in their heads that what works in print does not work online.  Print best serves a Geographic Community.  The web best serves Communities of Interest.  If newspapers are selling “brand awareness” type ads, they won’t sell enough to become economically sustainable.  If they sell ads that result in conversions (sales) then they will realize higher CPM’s.  Newspapers however, must dismantle their behemoth catch all news sites and create community of interest news sites to best position such conversion ads.  The advertiser and newspaper will both benefit.  The current online advertising and user experience strategies cannot go on.

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