ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

FT Weekend: One of Financial Times' Business Models

News organizations make profits by creating apps, featuring ads, charging subscription fees and having paywalls. But, Financial Times came up with another business model to generate revenue by splitting off its content to create new products. It recently launched the digital version of FT Weekend and its app, which contains lifestyle-themed stories that are already available on the weekend newspapers (they can also be subscribed separately beginning early this year).

The existing digital subscribers already have access to FT Weekend content, but the news organization will also offer it as a standalone app. The business model is appealing to readers who want to get access to the weekend content only without having to pay the full subscription fee.

FT's business strategy enables the news organization to expand its subscription base by attracting readers who otherwise would not pay for the full digital version and offering them a variety of products and options to choose from.

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

Buzzfeed fired one of its editors for plagiarizing

BuzzFeed may be the website you go to get good laughs and some people probably don't even take it seriously, but the news website recently let go Benny Johnson, the viral politics editor, after several Twitter users reported that some of his works used words and phrases plagiarized word for word from multiple sources.

The news and entertainment website's editor-in-chief Ben Smith said 500 writings done by Johnson were reviewed, and 41 turned out to have "instances of plagiarism", in which words were taken from websites such as The Boston Globe, Yahoo Answers, About.com and Wikipedia.

BuzzFeed was created seven years ago initially as a site for viral content but the media company started embracing traditional journalism practice and standards. Smith apologized to readers saying that "plagiarism is a breach of our fundamental responsibility to be honest with you — in this case, about who wrote the words on our site."

BuzzFeed also added notes to each of Johnson's 41 articles that have plagiarized content on the website.

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

Facebook adds feature to save content on newsfeed

Facebook recently introduced a "Save" feature that allows users to bookmark links, articles, videos, group or event pages so that they can read them later. However, the feature currently doesn't let users to save a friend's status, pictures or photo albums.

With the addition of the new feature, Facebook now feels more like a media and content-sharing platform rather than a social networking site. Facebook may be good for avid news consumers who go to social media to get the latest information on current events and it lets users to select content they want to read on a newsfeed that's already packed with lots of information. However, Facebook has increasingly distanced itself from its original purpose as a social media platform and there are other platforms such as Snapchat, Vine, Path or Instagram that people go to for socializing.

"Save" is perhaps another way for Facebook to analyze its users and study what their online behavior and preferences might be, and then give this information to data companies and marketers so that they can target their ads more efficiently.

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

Communities and tools journalists can use to verify information during breaking news report

News organizations have relied on social media such as Twitter to reach audience at a faster pace, and it has been an instrumental tool during breaking news coverage such as the Malaysia Airlines crash in Ukraine and the  Israel-Palestine conflict. However, the use of Twitter has also sparked some debates that range from journalism ethics to the practice of fact-checking.

Reuters tweeted a photo of the crash site in Ukraine which, if examined closely, shows severed body parts among the remains of a plane. Journalists also posted pictures of children who were killed by Israeli artillery shell or missile. Some Twitter users were upset by the graphic images and thought they were insensitive and tasteless.

Besides the grisly and violent images, hoax pictures and inaccurate information were also circulated on the internet. However, there are several tools and communities that help journalists to verify and fact-check information before they publish the news.

One such community is Storyful's Open Newsroom, run by editors and journalists whose job is to verify information on social media in real time. Mainstream news organizations use the service to stay accurate. Open Newsroom also has a Google+ page where participants can help each other verify information and maintain their credibility. The page has a closed membership and only certain journalists can get access to the page.

Reporters can also use the reverse image lookup tool to see if a picture has been published on the internet before, or whether it's manipulated or edited on Photoshop.

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

A new startup wants to pay consumers for data they release

The way the advertising industry gathers data from consumers prompts some people to think that it's a breach of privacy. But imagine if there's a company that pays internet users for information they're willing to provide to marketers.

CitizenMe is a startup company that soon will be releasing an app that serves as a "one-stop shop" for a user's social media accounts. The app has a technology that can examine the user's personality traits by tracking clicks, likes, posts and other activities. In addition, the tool will tell the user what  data their social media profiles extract from them.

However, CitizenMe app allows consumers to determine how much personal information they want to trade to data brokers. In return, the app users receive payments through PayPal, Bitcoin, or money transfer.

The new app gives people to the ability to have control of what kind of information they're willing to provide to advertisers, and data brokers are not the only ones that get to make money from selling people's information.

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

Traditional ad buying vs Automated ad buying

The Financial Times recently published an article about the digital advertising market's vulnerability to fraud, in which marketers are manipulated into paying lots of money for putting ads on sites that are infested with botnets - computer programs that conduct human-like online activities to create the impression that there is a big user engagement.

But the part that I find interesting is when the author explains how the digital age has transformed the way companies and marketers buy ad slots.

With traditional ads such as TV and radio, advertisers are not vulnerable to cyber attacks, viruses, and malware. Also traditionally, marketers  buy ad slots in-person, over the phone, or through letters and emails. Then, the rates that advertisers pay to the publishers are based on the estimated size of the media company or website's audience.

Automated ad buying, on the other hand, is a new method that is in its early stages but growing. This type of ad buying is processed by computer algorithms and the transaction for ad spots can be done by real-time auctions.There is a part of the system called exchanges where advertisers can connect with thousands of publishers and choose the sites they want to place their ads on.

Another aspect that makes automated ad buying different is advertisers don't pay for the slots where the ads will appear on a site. Instead, they pay for specific audience, where one person values differently from the other. Marketers can target the audience by looking at their browsing history and their location.

While advertising agencies and marketers think that it's an efficient way to optimize their campaign, it raises the question of consumer privacy --users may be uncomfortable with the idea of having a company follow them on the Internet and show their ads on sites that they visit.

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

Digital innovation for journalists

Beacon Reader - a crowdfunding platform for journalists

Beacon Reader offers a service that is similar to Kickstarter, where users can fund a person for a project that he/she is doing. The difference is that Beacon Reader is targeted toward journalists and writers.

People can support a specific writer by giving a financial contribution and then get access to other works that are funded on the site. Beacon Reader also "takes a collective approach", where the money is shared evenly among all writers.

The company is co-founded by Dan Fletcher, who formerly worked as Facebook's managing editor. In addition to supporting writers, subscribers can now provide financial assistance to a specific topic. The site already has the first topic that subscribers can support: climate change. According to Fletcher, there are already 13 writings that discuss the theme and people can sign up and pay 30 dollars to support the project as a group. The subscriber will have access to all 13 works and the money is distributed equally to the authors.

Odyssey.js

Odyssey.js is described as "an open source tool for journalists, designers and developers to create interactive stories with ease and speed of development". This platform makes it easier for journalists with no prior coding experience to built engaging and interactive stories for their readers. Odyssey also integrates the use of texts, images, videos, and maps for journalists' storytelling.

The platform was developed by CartoDB, a data visualization company that specializes in mapping. Media companies use CartoDB's service to build data such as real-time election maps and interactive data maps. Odyssey.js is CartoDB's new project and it enables journalists to utilize interactive maps to enhance their visual storytelling abilities.

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

Challenges in digital marketing and how advertisers can learn from traditional media

Companies spend billions of dollars to reach their target market through digital ads placed on online sites, social media and mobile apps. Even though this type of advertising is popular, The Guardian's Ed Owen wrote that digital marketers can learn from traditional media such as newspapers and TV to gain audience trust.

What makes digital ads work well is that companies and advertisers can measure people's engagement in real time by monitoring site views, numbers of clicks and total time people spend on a site. Digital marketing, however, also has its flaws. 

Some sites manipulate page views and user engagement by having botnets, which are computer zombies programmed to behave like human consumers and do regular online activities such as watching videos, clicking sites, and pausing ads. 

Mobile devices, where people increasingly spend their digital time on, are the platform that advertisers have invested a large amount of money on to grab the attention of their target market. Current technology has made it possible for online marketers to gather users' personal data from the unique mobile device number, their location and sites they view. Publishers and tech companies such as Google and Facebook provide this information to the marketers to help target ads better. 

Newspapers and TV ads, on the other hand, feel less personalized to consumers, which is not necessarily a bad thing since people prefer to keep their preferences private. In addition, analogue ads have long been the acceptable way of targeting consumers and they are considered reliable and accessible without being too personally intrusive. 

"Digital is certainty," Owen wrote. The challenge for advertisers now is to figure out a way to measure consumer engagement without relying on false data and target their audience without entering too much into their personal online space. 

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

Survey finds that journalists publish stories without fact-checking first

One of the advantages of having an online news site is that media outlets can publish and update stories or correct errors at a quicker pace. The downside is that reporters frequently rush to get their stories out in a race to be the first, and sometimes it goes without verifying the facts that they should be reporting.

According to a survey conducted by Dutch firm ING, only 20 percent of journalists say that they fact-check their stories before publishing. The study concludes that journalists tend to publish their stories first, check facts later and correct if necessary.

In addition, the study also found that reporters don't feel as obligated to comply to journalism ethics on social media.

While news websites allow people to stay updated with current issues anywhere at anytime, there would be no point in reading the content if the information is not true and factual.

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

Consumers spend more digital time on mobile devices, a report says

More consumers spend their digital time on mobile apps and devices, according to a WSJ blog post on the new comScore report.  WSJ says that "51% of digital media time was spent on mobile apps, while an amazing 60% of digital time was spent on mobile devices" which went up from 50 percent a year ago.

For publishers and digital companies, it means that they should think of a strategy to generate more revenue from mobile ads, which cost lower than the banner-style ads on the desktop version. 

Even though mobile ads don't give as much benefits as the traditional ads, the amount of digital time users spend on mobile devices and apps has increased. This is a prime opportunity for digital companies to reach audiences on smartphones and tablets and maximize revenue.

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

Aereo faces unfavorable Supreme Court ruling over copyright laws

Aereo, a startup company that allows subscribers to watch TV online, closed its operations recently after a Supreme Court ruling that required the online-streaming service to pay broadcasters for showing their programs on smartphones and tablets.

Currently, cable and satellite companies pay a large amount of fees to broadcast networks and local TV stations to air their content. Broadcasters argued that if services like Aereo were allowed to take TV signals and transfer them to digital devices without paying for the rights, cable networks would do the same and broadcasters could lose billions of dollars in profit.

The news stresses the importance of copyrights laws which protect not only written materials, photographs and art works, but also digital content. Aereo's business concept is new and innovative. Although innovation is highly encouraged in the digital world, it's also important to note that companies shouldn't prosper on business models that rely on copyrighted materials without the proper permissions.

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

This week in digital news:

Some news and content publishers ditch page views for a new metric

Page views are not the only metric adapted by media companies to measure readers' engagement with stories on their sites.

The Financial Times announced that it would sell display ads based on the time people spend perusing the content. Blogging platform Medium started paying writers based on how long audiences read their articles, and Upworthy stopped relying on the page views metric and started focusing on "attention minutes" in February.

While the "time spent" method would work for digital advertisers, who use this measurement to study whether people actually view and engage with the ads, some news publishers aren't fully convinced whether this new metric should replace the prevalent page views system.

Gawker editorial director Joel Johnson prioritizes reader satisfaction more than the time spent, and the news organization has not planned to employ the time metric in the near future.

The new system may not always work because the various types of content being published . There are long-form stories that require audience to spend more time reading, and there are breaking news pieces that may take less than a minute to consume. In addition, people may spend minutes looking at TV or game schedules, and the publishers that host these content are less likely to think that it's something of a significance.

The time spent metric provides news organizations and publishers another possible option to see how engaged audiences are with their content. But there are concerns that need to be addressed: How would the metric affect content quality? What should writers and editors do to make readers stay longer? What sorts of changes would occur in the newsroom?

Audiences say hard news is the most important to them, but reality shows otherwise

The Atlantic published an article on a survey conducted by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, which shows that American readers think that hard news -- ranging from national, local, international, and politics and economy -- is the most important information to them. Meanwhile, entertainment and weird news score low on the chart.

BuzzFeed released a report last year showing 20 most popular stories being read on the sites of its partner network, such as The New York Times, Thought Catalog, and Flavorwire. While only three stories were related to major news events, the rest were not news, but quizzes and lists.

Digital news organizations are able to detect which articles users are reading, which sites they previously visited and what stories they click next. The tool is useful so news publishers can see what stories generate the most traffic and helps them understand their readers in a way that survey results cannot.

The New York Times, The Washington Post and Mozilla collaborate to build better comment platform

The Times and WaPo recently teamed up with the prominent web browser company to create more innovative engagement platforms, but many people were questioning why the project, funded by Knight Foundation, should cost almost $4 million and take up lots of resources.

Why is building an open-source commenting system such a big deal?

Besides a user identity and other customizable features that would be added, the engagement platforms would separate intelligent comments from the bad ones, so it helps reporters identify which ones are worth responding to and having meaningful discussions with. 

While good interaction with audiences can lead to better journalism, the two-year project also presents some technical challenges. Since the commenting system is an open-source system, anyone can submit negative and horrible comments and disrupt good conversations. 

Once the problems are tackled, there is hope that the community engagement software will eventually be available to other news organizations.

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

Will Reddit be a reliable tool for journalists during a breaking news coverage?

Reddit now is not only a place for netizens to share posts, links and have a discussion about any topics, but it also serves as a site for journalists or any interested parties to get verified updates on breaking news stories.

The online forum site features a live news thread where users can share photos, videos, texts and tweets related to an event, such as the Syrian civil war or Ukraine protest subreddits that already exist. The thread is monitored and the volunteer moderators carefully review the content for accuracy and balance before allowing it to be published.

Before this move was implemented, Reddit suffered a blow when its users tried to find the suspect behind the Boston bombing marathon and wrongly identified an innocent college student as the possible perpetrator.

The moderated live news thread was created to avoid that mistake. However, the tool lacks contexts and has no comment feature. It’s just a running compilation of new information that may not appeal to regular users, but editors, producers and reporters may find Reddit helpful for their news coverage.

Reddit’s challenge now is to ensure that these sources of information are verified in a timely manner, but it's a sign that the social networking site has made a change that reflects traditional journalism values.

Source: http://mashable.com/2014/06/13/reddit-news-live-threads/

The role of chat apps in journalism

The digital era has evolved the ways journalists disseminate news and information. Besides websites and mobile apps that have disrupted the news industry, media outlets now began to take advantage of chat apps to reach audience.

BBC News India recently covered the country’s general election through various platforms including WhatsApp. The news organization updated its audience by sending charts showing election results, videos, transcribed statements, and a reporter’s audio analysis via the mobile chat tool.

In China, where censorship laws are enforced, an app called WeChat is a useful resource for independent journalists and bloggers to connect with their followers and send short articles, along with photos and headlines.

These chat apps are not only used by news outlets to share stories but also to get story ideas. CBN, a radio station in Brazil, receives some of its breaking news stories from audience who send photos and videos through WhatsApp. One listener sent a video of a car falling off a bridge, and another sent a photo a fish falling out of a sky, which went viral.

Chat apps allow news outlets to engage with their audience on a personal level, but they’re still experimenting with this new approach. They have to take into account what apps their target audience are more likely to use to determine the best way to connect with them.

Source: http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/06/around-the-world-media-outlets-and-journalists-are-using-chat-apps-to-spread-the-news/?fromfloater

The New York Times’s digital transition

The Times has been ramping up efforts to transform the paper into an “all platforms” news publisher, but the reporters and editors are still hoping to retain its print identity.

While the print edition helps the news organization stay afloat through the advertising and subscription revenues, newspaper circulation have spiraled downward, while digital-only subscriptions continued rising.

Frédéric Filloux of Monday Note suggested that The Times could technically get rid of its print edition, while Steve Outing states that the paper should serve the paper readers with the popular Sunday edition only instead.

However, The Times is strongly tied to its newspaper format. The paper’s executive editor, Dean Baquet, has worked for decades in the newspaper industry, while other reporters, even the ones who ardently support a change within the company, have a great love for traditional journalism.

Even though The Times management and staff realize that digital is the future of the business, the news publisher is still figuring out how to transition into the post-print world.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/public-editor/a-paper-boat-navigating-a-digital-sea.html

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

Time Inc. goes solo, faces digital challenges

Time Inc now operates as an independent and separate entity from its parent company, Time Warner and emerges as the only news publisher that focuses solely on its magazines, with titles such as People, Sports Illustrated, and Time to name a few. Since Time Inc’s limited revenue sources are derived from its advertising and subscription sales, the company will face pressure to step up its digital strategy and strengthen its Internet presence.

The publicly traded company already spent money to add video content and is working to improve its website compatibility with digital devices like smartphones, as Bloomberg reported. Whether this approach would turn out to be a profitable outcome for Time Inc is still yet to be seen, but it could work favorably because advertisers pay higher rates for video ads than for banner ads.

In addition, the number of people who get their news by watching online videos is on the rise. American Journalism Review published a report on a survey conducted by Pew Research Center, which states that 63 percent of American adults watched videos online in 2013, and 36 percent of them watched news videos on the Internet.

The increased appetite for video content provides Time Inc with a good opportunity to reach a wide range of news consumers and grow traffic, but the company still has a lot of catching up to do. While digital advertising revenue grows slowly for the last four years, that market has been largely dominated by a few big companies such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL. The remaining 50 percent is shared among thousands of news organizations and other publishers.

Time Inc's challenges have become more urgent, especially since the company's advertising revenue fell six percent in 2013 compared to the last two years, while newsstand and subscription sales saw an 11 percent decline. The publisher is also $1.4 billion in debt.

Incorporating news video to Time Inc’s digital content seems like a strategic and plausible plan in today’s media landscape, but there are other aspects that the company must think about in order to compete with other digital news sites, such as BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, and CNN.com.

To quote Outsell Inc media analyst Ken Doctor in an interview with Bloomberg, “It’s smartphone ready, but it’s kind of traditional -- what does it really do differently?”

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

See all of the functionality of this amazing home unit here.

(Developed by MIT Media Lab)

[ribkagemilangsari-blog-blog]

Pay-per-click: new business model in digital media

As journalism becomes increasingly digital, many media outlets begin to adapt a new business model where web analytics and pay-per-click concept play an integral role in the way that revenues are generated.

Nieman Journalism Lab publishes a summary of a study conducted by researchers at the University of Glasgow about the digital transition experienced by the Financial Times and the Telegraph. The Financial Times has evenly split its focus between the print edition and its web version, but as digital subscriptions increase, optimizing the publication’s web usage and digital content naturally becomes more important in order to maintain its customer base. The problem compels the editors to use their best judgments between choosing the stories that matter and deciding what “added value” they can offer to the readers so they will stay engaged. The Telegraph also faces the same situation.

Some news organizations could not survive the highly competitive digital news industry. CEO and founder of Minyanville, Todd Harrison, recently announced the shutdown of the online financial news provider which occurred because “the digital media model is broken”. Harrison argued that the state of the current news industry, where “most of the players chasing clicks and treading water” and “the volume of noise is rising with less being said”, is inconsistent with the company’s vision.

The emergence of digital media also puts pressure on journalists to write and publish stories that will attract readers to click and read more, especially since many media companies enforce a new algorithm where profits made by writers are determined by the number of clicks their articles get. Erin Biba, a science journalist featured on JimRomenesko.com, said the new media industry renders sharp reporters and highly-researched and fact-checked articles of little value because those won't get many clicks. Biba added that the Internet and the click-driven model steer journalism to a different, if not, terrible direction.

For media startups, the pay-per-click method works to make profits but it creates what Harrison calls “a fear-mongering, can-you-top-that headline chase”. However, there will always be people who rely on traditional news organizations as their accurate and informative source of information. The question now is whether those media outlets can strike a balance between publishing stories that will sell in order to compete and doing so in a way that doesn’t degrade true journalistic values.