- TechCrunch: Media Tech And Venture Capital (5 min read)
- Poynter: How Vox Media gets readers to share on Facebook (3 min read)
- INMA: Think all news media companies have the same value proposition? Think again (4 min read)
- The Baffler: Purple Reign – The unmaking of Yahoo (43 min read)
- The Guardian: Guardian appoints Katharine Viner as editor-in-chief (4 min read)
- NPR News: Robot Reporters: Software Turns Raw Data Into Sports, Financial Reports (3 minute listen)
- Digiday: One year in: What The Guardian’s content studio has learned (3 min read)
Category results for "Perspectives"
DCN’s Recommended Reading: Week of March 26, 2015
DCN’s Recommended Reading: Week of March 19, 2015
- Jay Rosen’s Press Think: Full Stack Credibility (7 min read)
- New York Times: Gigaom’s challenges: poor leadership, spending beyond means, inattention to long term problems (7 min Read)
- New York Times: Biggest Advertisers Are Sending Their Dollars to Digital (2 min read)
- Washington Post: Why some are terrified by the idea of a Google truth machine (5 min read)
- Ad Age: New-Media Powers Say They’ll Be Profitable Soon. Don’t Ask About That Facebook Plan (3 min read)
- Reynolds Journalism Institute: In the new news ecosystem, getting paid means: personalizing, bundling, and wholesale-retail pricing (16 min read)
- PBS MediaShift: Journalism and Social Media: It’s a Love-Hate Affair (5 min read)
Between Consumers, Innovators and Open Internet, FCC Chooses All of the Above
Last week, the FCC released the details of its Net Neutrality order. Looking past the sound bites from both sides of this debate, the FCC appears to have a struck a delicate balance that will ensure consumers can continue to enjoy access to the digital content and experiences they love and, at the same time, preserve the ability of current and future content creators to innovate.
The crux of the order is the ban on blocking, throttling or prioritizing content. Rightfully, the FCC is seeking to preserve consumers’ unfettered access to content or experiences on the Internet. Just as importantly, however, the order also protects the ability of content creators to reach their audience without having to seek the blessing of the ISPs.
In the absence of this order, future content creators might have to pay ISPs just to receive fair treatment of their content or, worse, find themselves shut out in favor of content created by affiliates of the ISP. To be clear, large and established corporations would probably do very well in a world where broadband providers served as gatekeepers of the Internet – the small and game-changing innovators, well, not so much. The FCC should be applauded for going to great lengths to ensure that the consumer experience and content creators are protected.
Another key component of the order is the requirement that a broadband provider provide transparency about “the network management practices, performance, and commercial terms of its broadband Internet access services.” This kind of transparency is vital to helping consumers fully understand the internet services they have purchased and whether they are getting full value. This information is also critical to content creators who need to know that new applications, content and services will operate as expected.
The FCC also declined to waive (or “forebear”) the consumer privacy requirements under Title II although they won’t apply them immediately. Instead, the commission intends to hold a workshop to explore how the Title II privacy provisions should be implemented to protect consumer privacy. As the FCC rightly notes, “broadband providers serve as a necessary conduit for information passing between an Internet user and Internet sites or other Internet users, and are in a position to obtain vast amounts of personal and proprietary information about their customers.” As we’ve written about before, and the FCC agrees, consumer trust is critical to harnessing the full potential of broadband internet services.
We argued in our comments to the FCC last summer that the FCC should focus their work on the consumer experience. With this order, the FCC has taken important steps to encourage investment and innovation in content creation for consumers, and ensure that the Internet is an open platform that supports consumer choice and the open exchange of ideas and information.
Building a Business Case for Keeping Comments Sections
There was a time when online comments below stories enhanced and strengthened the stories with added commentary, smart insights and timely corrections from readers. Unfortunately, that only lasted until the first ad hominem attacks came. Then spammers. Then outright harassment.
So publishers are torn between wanting to keep readers engaged (and on the site) or streamlining operations and content so they don’t get pulled down into the swamp of trolls. Lately, publishers such as Re/code, Chicago Sun-Times, Bloomberg and Reuters have eliminated some or all comments. But others, like the New York Times, value reader comments but limit them to certain stories and close them after specified time periods.
The bottom line is that each community is different, with a site like Popular Science wanting to ward off climate-change deniers and a place like Reddit trying to keep things as open as possible. And what fits one business doesn’t fit another. Local news sites typically want more engagement with readers who live in their community, while a wire service like Reuters doesn’t really “live” in any community.
No Comment
There are many reasons to cut comments entirely. A recent study led by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Dominique Brossard found that comments can change readers’ perception of the article. “Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself,” she and her co-author Dietram Scheufele wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed.
Another important reason to kill them is that comments and conversation have moved on to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, where articles are being shared. Thus, publishers begin to question the resources required to moderate comments (The New York Times has 13 moderators) if they don’t pay enough of a dividend.
Dan Colarusso, executive editor for digital at Reuters told me in our recent PBS MediaShift Mediatwits podcast that they hadn’t seen a drop-off in engagement on Reuters after removing comments from news stories. “The normal organic users to our site weren’t engaging,” he said. “It was a fraction of 1% increase in engagement on our site from comments… So we decided to cull them out of there. And our wire service reporters don’t have the time to interact.”
It makes more sense for Reuters.com to keep comments on blog posts and opinion pieces, Colarusso said, because those stories, and their writers, are already associated with providing opinions and personal views. Reuters, as a brand, is not.
Moderate Comments
There are middle grounds, too. The Huffington Post, for example, banned anonymous comments in 2013 and has since instituted a system where readers must log in using their Facebook accounts. Though this has earned mixed reviews from its readers, some of whom don’t like giving personal information to Facebook, it’s proved useful for HuffPost in terms of accountability. “We’ve seen a marked [decrease] in the number of fake accounts in our system. It’s also helped with getting more quality comments and positive conversation as opposed to criticisms or insults,” Huffington Post community director Tim McDonald told Digiday last year.
The Engaging News Project released a study recently that showed that there are ways to increase civility in online comments. If journalists interact with commenters, the tone usually improves. Plus, some publishers such as Gawker do a better job of designing comments to highlight the best ones. And algorithmic systems that automatically flag cursing or spam in comments can help.
In the end, news outlets have to analyze the purpose of their comments to make the business decision that’s right for them. Is the purpose of commenting to encourage a community that fits in with the news organization’s brand? If so, then perhaps keeping a commenting system in-house is a must, so the organization can maintain control of that brand and identity. But if the purpose of comments is to drive engagement back to a news website, then referrals from social media — and therefore, commentary that takes place on social media — might be the best fit.
Or if the point of commenting is to encourage high-level discussions, then perhaps you have to make the process of commenting attractive only to those who really care — like Tablet Magazine’s announcement that it plans to charge would-be commenters.
We’ve seen social media take on so much heat and discussion, but publishers will have to weigh whether they want to improve commenting and discussion on-site or cede another territory to the social giants.
Listen to the whole Mediatwits podcast discussion on online comments here:
DCN’s Recommended Reading: Week of March 12, 2015
- AdAge: Another Round of Web Redesigns Brought to You by ‘Viewability’ (4 min read)
- CJR: Can Tony Haile save journalism by changing the metric? (16 min read)
- WSJ: The Most Powerful Player in Media You’ve Never Heard Of (6 min read)
- AdAge: Former Mediacom CEO Alleges Widespread U.S. Agency ‘Kickbacks’ (3 min read)
- Fusion: How an advertising company put a ‘marijuana cookie’ on your computer to get weed legalized (8 min read)
- LinkedIn: The New New in Digital Advertising (10 min read)
- Digiday: What worries European publishers most (2 min read)
- WSJ: Trying On the Apple Watch: Natural Feel, Fewer Distractions (3 min read)
DCN’s Recommended Reading: Week of March 5, 2015
- Guardian: Nobody cares about their online privacy… until it’s gone (4 min read)
- WSJ: Facebook Policies Taken to Task in Report for Data-Privacy Issues (4 min read)
- Variety: Why the FCC’s Net Neutrality Vote Matters to Hollywood (5 min read)
- LATimes: FCC vote could be game changer for Internet privacy (6 min read)
- Guardian: Financial Times to change way it charges for online content (5 min read)
- ZDNet: ‘Trust is the new currency’: Can the mobile industry win back users with privacy promises? (4 min read)
- WSJ: Is Facebook Friend or Foe for Telecom Operators? (6 min read)
- Re/Code: Comcast-Time Warner Deal Critics Ramp Up Opposition (3 min read)
Why The Future of Data Journalism Is… Less Data
photo credit: r2hox
“Data is the new oil.” That is the modern maxim across a host of industries. From shopping to shipping, businesses are being urged to gain better insight and improve performance by delving into their underlying numbers.
News media are no different. In the last couple of years, journalists have been encouraged to adopt analytics software as part of their daily editorial efforts. Now it is common to find newsroom editors checking their page views, time-spent metrics and social referrals on a minute-by-minute basis.
This kind of data used to be kept under lock and key, used only by website technical administrators and advertising auditors while journalists gave two hoots. Now, with always-on dashboards from tools like ChartBeat, Parse.ly and Outbrain’s own Visual Revenue in the hands of editors, content producers are becoming skilled numerical interpreters. The industry has come a long way. However, it’s time to go to the next level.
Modern journalists are constantly being told which new skills they have to learn—a dizzying array of video production, coding, even drone-flying. Those who also up-skill sufficiently to become their newsroom’s virtual data analyst can manufacture higher user engagement for their employer. After all, when particular stories cause traffic to spike, writing more of the same is a quick win.
But more data doesn’t necessarily produce better journalism. The danger with the growing role of audience numbers in publisher strategy is the risk of over-reliance, creating a belief that every reader data point should be responded to with an editorial outcome: quantity and category of story over quality and ambition.
The Data Endoskeleton
The first wave of newsroom analytics has served its purpose (we now know that stories about kittens and celebrities trend well, for example). What the professionals now need is a support system that does not encourage them to make snap decisions based on reams of numbers, but one which is more in harmony with the craft of editorship, playing a softer and more symbiotic role as editors’ sidekick, not their auditor.
Just think of the way Apple’s Siri hides from users so much of the underlying data that rival services like to bombard them with. When you ask Siri a question, it returns not unlimited options but fewer, more directed opportunities.
In the same way, in the next wave of publishing analytics, software would suggest publication improvements after noting not just the raw, blunt performance of site content but also the priorities and goals of conscious managing staff.
In the future, editors should be able to pre-populate their software with their own, qualified goals and ambitions, helping tailor system recommendations that are in line with publications’ true missions.
By allowing editors to make smarter decisions that are based on their own instincts, not just being a slave to the spreadsheet, the industry can keep readers coming back and rediscover a lost metric: lifetime value.
You can already see the beginnings of this new philosophy being applied. Despite often being accused of publishing low-brow click-fodder, BuzzFeed looks at engagement and virality in a whole new way. Publishing purely to the numbers could have prompted it to publish even more cat slideshows and quizzes. However selective insight led it to also make risky bets, such as its commitment to long-form journalism, which have ended up surprising success stories.
Publishers who are excitedly following the data trail to clear traffic growth should pause to reclaim their own part in the process. In a world becoming familiar with the concept of automated “robo-journalism,” I envision the future of journalism not as this replacement of flesh with circuitry, but as an endoskeleton—a perfect combination of the best qualities of each.
Matt Crenshaw is the Vice President of Product Marketing, Engage at Outbrain. Matt is responsible for setting the product vision and delivering solutions to publishers that build their audience relationships and grow their revenues.
The President’s Proposed Consumer Bill of Rights Moves the Conversation in the Right Direction
Last week, the President publicly unveiled a proposed Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. While the bill language needs some work, the President and his team should be applauded for introducing some good concepts that would improve consumer privacy.
For one, it makes a lot of sense that consumers should understand how their data is collected and used. Reputable companies are transparent with consumers about the ways in which their data may be used and there are multiple ways in which they can (and do) provide consumers with a means to opt-out of various data uses. But there are many companies that aren’t so forthright. Educating consumers is a good first step because the industry won’t fully gain the trust of consumers without first educating them. And without consumer trust, the digital ecosystem can’t flourish.
Another good concept in the Privacy Bill of Rights is the idea of “context,” which again maps back to consumers’ expectations. The bill notes that data collected in one context and then used in another context should be subject to some level of control by the consumer. Depending on the sensitivity of the data and/or its use, this could mean providing the consumer with an opt-out or an opt-in.
By emphasizing the importance of context, the President highlights that fact that every day consumers make conscious and subconscious decisions about whether their favorite websites or digital services provide a sufficient value proposition to continue that relationship. Most consumers are perfectly agreeable to exchanging some of their data for access to free content or to have a more engaging or personalized experience. However the value proposition is eroded when consumers don’t trust that all parties will respect their data–especially if they are not even aware of all the parties that may collect their data. Providing consumers with more controls over unexpected data collection and use would go a long way toward regaining the trust of consumers, which is why we’ve argued for industry to develop a DNT standard.
Finally, the bill notes that de-identified data should be outside the scope of this law. This is an enormously important concept because it allows companies to continue innovating with “big data” sets. By allowing for the use of de-identified data, researchers, scientists and entrepreneurs can better understand how data flows, how it might be used differently and develop new technologies that we cannot even imagine today.
As many have noted–and will no doubt continue to be highly vocal about–the bill has some serious flaws in that some of the definitions are overly broad or seem to contradict the President’s intentions. But there are concepts within the President’s proposal that are well worth discussing. As an industry, we should be taking this proposal very seriously because it’s yet another sign that more work needs to be done to regain the trust of consumers.
Unbridled Tracking and Ad Blocking: Connect the Dots
Last week, I had the pleasure of kicking off the Op/Ed event with a talk called “The Profitable Publisher: Unification & Survival.” As part of my presentation, I shared a couple of charts that caused a bit of a stir among the audience of media execs charged with leading their organizations digital media ad sales businesses. The fact that these particular slides triggered such a reaction struck me as particularly timely because later that day the White House released its proposal for a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, which would require companies to clearly communicate their data practices to consumers and give them more control over what information is collected and how it is used.
The first of these two charts is a Ghostery map illustrating all of the third party connections and cookies that are set with a click on the St. Louis Post Dispatch site. Each of these connection points is a call to another 3rd party server.
here is my WTF @stltoday @Ghostery chart from my remarks this morning that @dherman76 referenced. #oped15 pic.twitter.com/V5wDMjC8YF
— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) February 27, 2015
As you can see in the labels, some of these are for operations of the site (e.g. analytics or serving of a display ad). But you can also see that there are over 100+ additional connections. Not a pretty picture. The issue of the disturbing number of intermediaries tracking consumer behavior has been well documented and, unfortunately, ignored by most.
This problem is only getting worse and the consumer tools that counter it are getting less effective and more and more damaging to those who respect the consumer’s right to understand when and why their activities are being tracked. Transparency and providing the consumer with adequate control over their online privacy are vital—not harmful—to businesses that are built on a solid foundation of trust. However, the fact that there are so many (potentially) bad actors out there, and so much tracking going on for unclear and potentially unwelcome reasons leads me to my second chart: a look at worldwide AdBlocker adoption. worldwide ad blocker adoption (source: @adobe / @Pagefair report).
worldwide ad blocker adoption (source: @adobe / @Pagefair report) #oped15 pic.twitter.com/IjIXOOU7ub
— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) February 27, 2015
See the hockey stick curve? That is the result of consumers who want to avoid seeing any ads at all. It isn’t shocking that there are those who cite the reason “I hate advertising.” But another documented reason is “I want to protect my privacy.” And let’s face it: A lack of trust in online advertising behavior reinforces either perspective.
It is not new to hear that some consumers want to enjoy ad-free content experiences. Some demonstrate that by paying for content without ads. But the use of ad blocking tools creates a slew of issues for content creators that rely on advertising to fund content creation. It also doesn’t effectively address consumers’ underlying concerns.
The Ad Blocking companies (AdBlock Plus being the leader) have what looks to be a pretty subjective criteria for which ads it deems “acceptable” and which are “obtrusive.” But even if working with their criteria would get a certain percentage of ads viewed, that is not a viable solution. The reality is that when one blocking solution is neutralized, another will crop up. Addressing individual blockers is not the answer.
We need to address the root cause of the problem. Online advertising is trusted less than any other form of advertising. When we see examples like the St. Louis Post Dispatch’s approach to online advertising, we shouldn’t be wondering why consumers are flocking to ad blockers in droves. (Why wouldn’t they?) We should be doing what it takes to repair consumer trust in the digital ecosystem.
Connect the dots.
FCC Approves Net Neutrality
The Federal Communications Commission by a 3-2 vote today voted to reclassify broadband internet service as a public utility. This will prohibit Internet service providers from blocking Web traffic or charging websites for priority service.
Jason Kint, DCN CEO, commented:
We appreciate the FCC’s action today because it starts with the premise that the consumer experience should not be compromised. Consumers’ access to great content and experiences on the Internet should be protected. Under these rules, future and current content creators will continue to have the ability to innovate and connect with their consumers.
Related: FCC Close to Revealing New Net Neutrality Regulations
Tweets Can’t be Measured by Clicks Alone
How are we to judge social juggernauts such as Twitter anyway? If we go by Wall Street, the longtime microblogging service is a miserable failure for having “just” 288 million active users at the end of 2014. While most publishers would give their left arm for that kind of massive engagement, Twitter is judged by a different standard: Facebook and its billion-plus user base. Twitter is damned if they do (grow users without revenues) or damned if they don’t (grow revenues without users).
And even when Twitter turns around its business, nearly doubling revenues in its most recent quarter to $479 million — with a profit to boot (if you don’t count one-time stock expenses) — there’s still grousing by some journalists who say Twitter isn’t driving enough referral traffic to their stories.
The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson recently did an in-depth analysis of his engagement on Twitter by looking at the stats surrounding what he thought was an enticing tweet. He found, disappointingly, that only one percent of the people who saw that tweet actually clicked on the link, even though it received more than 1,200 retweets and had upwards of 155,260 impressions. The link, of course, was to Thompson’s story on The Atlantic’s site. As he put it, “So, 99 percent of my labor on Twitter went to Twitter, and 1 percent went to The Atlantic. That’s not a very good deal for our boss!”
Chartbeat CEO Tony Haile tweeted the moral of Thompson’s story: that there is “effectively no correlation between social shares and people actually reading.”
However it’s important to remember that the frustration with Twitter engagement and branding is different for different users. Journalists interact with and use Twitter in one way, brands and publishers another. Building a brand or following, or attracting the influence of “tastemakers” who could help a tweet reach a wider audience, is strategic for both groups. So even if Thompson’s tweet had a poor click-through rate, no one can deny the power of those tweet impressions. He also offered up the kind of tweet that’s useful for people on the go or those who aren’t necessarily interested in reading the whole article (as upsetting as it probably is to most writers, sometimes a headline fills the reader’s need).
Thompson tweeted: “Almost every major patent concept from the 1930s was in chemistry. Today, all software.” And he included a visual to illustrate his point.
Almost every major patent concept from the 1930s was in chemistry. Today, all software. http://t.co/I5TamvQHdQ pic.twitter.com/QHNDFAyNRl
— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) February 9, 2015
Arguably, that is a pretty satisfying tweet all on its own.
But brands are pretty happy getting engagement on Twitter without clickthroughs. Digiday’s John McDermott responded to Thompson’s story by noting that a Simply Measured report found that “engagement with tweets from [top] brands increased by 85 percent in the last three months of 2014.” Plus, out of the Top 100 brands, the volume of tweets increased by 11% and follower counts were up 38% — all likely due to the more prominent engagement buttons on Twitter.
Perhaps anticipating letdown at its poor user growth, Twitter announced a slew of new offerings ahead of its fourth quarter earnings. Users can now take advantage of group messaging, utilize a new in-site video recording service up to 30 seconds (compared with Vine’s six-second loop), observe the tweets they may have missed while they were away, and — for new or potential users — get insight into top tweets on the revamped Twitter homepage.
Twitter also recently announced that Twitter ads would be featured outside of Twitter for the first time, on Flipboard and Yahoo Japan. The new partnership effectively helps Twitter make money off of non-users. Although it’s tough to say now how effective this collaboration might be (don’t forget Twitter will have to split the revenue), it’s positive news on the advertising business front.
Maybe it’s time we just face the facts: Twitter is not another Facebook, nor should it strive to be. It’s a great communication platform for reporters, publishers, brands and anyone who wants to help shape the conversation about what’s happening now (or on TV). Even if USA Today’s “For the Win” blog has dropped the Twitter share button on its stories, that doesn’t mean they won’t be present on Twitter. It just means that the value of a tweet is more than a tally of clickthroughs.
DCN’s Recommended Reading: Week of February 26, 2015
- Gigaom: Entrepreneurs embrace net neutrality plan (except Mark Cuban) (2 min read)
- Digiday: Viewability’s elephant in the room: Will advertisers pay more? (3 min read)
- Entrepreneur: Attention Is the New Currency for Brand Advertising (5 min read)
- Christian Science Monitor: What is intellectual privacy, and how yours is being violated (7 min read)
- BusinessInsider: About.com CEO explains how he plans to make the site 1% better each week (5 min read)
- Re/Code: Digital Content and the Social Flywheel (8 min read)
- Paul Greenburg: Riding Above the Platforms (3 min read)
- Spiegel Online: Jeff Bezos Takes Washington Post into Digital Future (16 min read)