Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Tag: media

Can hyperlocal media work
One of the hoped for futures of publishing was cheap, hyperlocal websites that report news on individual suburbs or neighbourhoods and get advertising from local businesses.

Last week US TV network NBC abruptly closed down its Everyblock online service, leaving loyal users angry and bemused. Right now it appears though the hyperlocal concept isn’t working.

The failure of Everyblock

Founded five years ago, Everyblock had an interesting model of mashing up local data like Flickr pictures and government information with news so residents and visitors would have an accurate up-to-date picture of what was happening in their neighbourhood.

Everyblock’s failure follows AOL’s struggle to get their hyperlocal play Patch working, although AOL reported in 2012 that Patch’s revenues have doubled.

Whether that doubling is enough to save Patch remains to be seen, it’s quite clear that some question the sustainability of AOL’s growth in revenues and page views.

All of this raises the question of why hyperlocal isn’t working.

A game for amateurs

The main reason is that there’s not enough money it –anybody who is going to run a hyperlocal site is going to be doing it for love or because there’s a dumb corporation burning shareholders’ equity on the venture.

In most communities there simply aren’t enough advertisers interested to pay the bills and you can forget any paywalling.

Most critically for local publishing ventures, the local advertising market has been suffocated by the web. Twenty years ago, the local plumber or cafe would hit most of their market by spending $2,000 on their Yellow Pages listing and probably double that with a weekly ad in the classified section of the local newspaper.

Today, a web site with sufficient SEO smarts to come up on their first page of searches for their suburbs is enough, many can get away with a free Facebook or Google Plus for Business page, despite the dangers of using other people’s services to promote your business.

For the telephone directories this change has been catastrophic while local newspapers only survive thanks to their less than healthy relationship with real estate agents.

Local market failure

The interesting thing with the evolving local media market is just how poorly the web giants have performed.

Two years ago, Google appeared to have the sector sown up with the Google Places service but a combination of poor service, restrictive rules and an obsession with Google Plus have seen the company squander their advantage, leaving their local search service underused and irrelevant.

Similarly, Facebook looked like they could take that market off Google but they too haven’t executed well.

Which leaves local businesses reliant on their own websites and a hodge-potch of services like Yelp!, Tripadvisor and Urbanspoon.

This doesn’t serve the business or the customer well.

Where to for local news?

A bigger question though is where do people go to find local news?

Increasingly it looks like social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are the place as people see what their friends and neighbours post. It’s not great, but it’s better than the local newspapers increasingly stuffed with syndicated content with a few local stories from an overworked part-timer.

It’s not clear that hyperlocal news has failed, but right now it’s not looking good. Perhaps it needs somebody with a truly disruptive model to find what works in our communities.

image courtesy of davidlat on sxc.hu

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February 15, 2013
2013 – the year of the incumbents
Bigger, quicker and more congested are the predictions from consulting firm Deloitte’s 2013 Technology, Media and Telecommunications survey.

In Sydney last Friday, the Australian aspects of the report were discussed by Clare Harding and Stuart Johnston, both partners in Deloitte’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice.

Most of the predictions tie into global trends, with the main exception being the National Broadband network which Stuart sees as addressing some of the bandwidth problems that telecommunication companies are going to struggle with in 2013.

Technology predictions

For the technology industry, Deloitte sees 2013 as being a consolidation of existing trends with the trend away from passwords continuing, crowdfunding growing, conflict over BYOD policies and enterprise social networks finding their niches.

Some technologies are not dead; Deloitte sees the the PC retaining its place in the home and office, with over 80% of internet traffic and 70% of time still being consumed on desktop and laptop computers.

Deloitte also sees gesture based interfaces struggling as users stick with the mouse, keyboard and touchscreen.

Media predictions

Like 3D TV two years ago, the push from vendors is now onto smart TVs and high definition 4K televisions. As with 3DTV, much of the market share of smart and hard definition TVs is going to be because television manufacturers will include these features in base models.

Deloitte’s consultants see 2013 as one where “over the top” services (OTT) like Fetch TV and those provided by incumbents delivered start to get traction on smart TVs with 2% of industry revenues coming from these platforms.

Catch up TV is the main driver of the over the top services with 75% of traffic being around viewers watching previously broadcast content. This will see OTT services firmly become part of the incumbent broadcasters’ suite of services.

The bad news for some incumbents is the increase in ‘cord cutters’ as consumers move from pay-TV services to internet based content.

Smartphone and tablet computer adoption which is expected to treble will be a driver of OTT adoption as viewers move to ‘dual screen’ consumption, the connections required to deliver these services will put further load on already strained telco infrastructure which is going to see prices rise as providers respond to shortages.

Telecommunications predictions

The telecommunications industry is probably seeing the greatest disruption in 2013. With smartphones dominating the market world wide as price points collapse.

One of the big product lines pushed at this year’s CES was the “phablet” – while the Deloitte consultants find it interesting hey don’t seem convinced that the bigger form factors will displace the standard 5″ screen size during 2013.

As a consequence of the smartphone explosion is that apps will become more pervasive and telcos will try and build in their own walled gardens with All You Can App to lock customers onto their services.

With smartphones moving down market, largely because of the cost benefits for manufacturers, Deloitte also predicts many new users won’t access data plans given they’ll use the devices as sophisticated ‘feature phones’.

Data usage will continue to grow, particularly with the adoption of LTE/4G networks, although much of the growth will still be on the older 2 and 3G networks as lower income users choose plans which don’t require high speed data.

The looming data crunch

There is a cost to booming data usage and that’s the looming shortage of bandwidth, Deloitte sees this as getting far worse before it gets better.

With bandwidth becoming crowded, prices are expected to rise. In the United States, the “all you can eat” nature of internet plans is being replaced with “pay as you go” while in Australia data plans are becoming stingier and per unit costs are rising.

The London Olympics were cited as an example of how the shortages are appearing – while the Olympic site itself was fine, outside events like the long distance cycle races strained infrastructure along the route. We can expect this to become common as smartphones push base station capacity.

Where to in 2013

Deloitte’s view of where the telecom, technology and media industries are heading in 2013 is that incumbents will take advantage of their market positions as technology runs ahead of available bandwidth.

In Australia, governments might be disappointed as telcos internationally aren’t interested in bidding huge amounts for bandwidth. As Stuart Johnston says “globally what we’re seeing is that carriers are not as willing to spend. It’s not the cash cow that governments are expecting.”

For government and consumers, we’re going to get squeezed a little bit harder.

While things do look slightly better for telcos, broadcasters and other incumbents there’s always the unexpected which eludes all but the most outrageous pundits, it’s hard to see what the disruptive technologies of 2013 will be but we can be sure they are there.

The main takeaway from the 2013 Deloitte report is that smart TVs, 4K broadcasting, tablet computers and smartphones are going to be the biggest drivers for the technology, media and telecommunications industry for this year. There’s some opportunities for some canny entrepreneurs.

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January 21, 2013
Can media salespeople think digital?
The future of journalism is bleak if sales teams can’t figure out how to sell ads on news sites.

Eighteen months ago News Limited, the Australian print arm of News Corporation, put out the first indications that content was going behind a paywall.

This was always going to be controversial so a softening up process was put in place including the then head of News Digital Media, Richard Freudenstein, speaking at various conferences.

Inviting bloggers to a briefing on News Limited’s online future was another strategy which, predictably, resulted in varying views on the prospects from attendees like Laurel Papworth and Ross Dawson.

Another part of the process was Freudenstein penning the odd article for The Australian describing the rationale behind the paywall.

“And we will have completely solved how to sell advertising across print, tablet and digital.” Freudenstein said at both the end of his Australian article and a later Q&A at the Mumbrella 360 Conference.

Sadly this appears not to have been the case, a year later News was struggling with digital revenues.

This is not just a problem for News Limited or Australian publications, The Economist looked at the struggles of print media in 2012 and cited a graph from Reflections Of A Newsosaur showing how newspapers’ digital revenues have been flat lining for nearly a decade while their print revenues collapse.

One of the reasons for traditional media’s stagnation is their salespeople have been bought up selling newspaper display ads, are locked into antiquated KPI’s and have commission structures that reward print over digital.

This was bought home to me a few weeks after News Limited started its charm offensive at a presentation by Cumberland Press, News Limited’s suburban division, where the salesman told a room of small business owners about the range of print advertising products available in the local newspapers.

Not once was True Local, News Limited’s Google Places competitor, mentioned. When I asked about it, the salesman waved the idea away and said he’d throw in an annual sub if I took out a week’s worth of quarter page display ads in the Manly Daily.

Many of the small business owners in the room thought that was a good deal, which shows its not just newspaper managers who are having a digital steamroller running over their revenues – but that’s a post for another time.

As The Economist and Newsosuar shows, News Limited’s experience in selling digital advertising is the norm and it’s genuinely shocking that newspapers’ digital revenues have flatlined while the revenues of Google and other online advertisers soar.

When News Limited announced its new strategy they also announced a community site to discuss the issues of digital news gathering and online advertising. They called it The Future of Journalism.

Just over a year later The Future of Journalism site looks like this;

That’s a dismal view of the future of journalism but it’s pretty accurate if somebody can’t figure out how to sell ads on news sites and break newspapers out of their online advertising stagnation.

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January 13, 2013
The Lives they Loved – Another future for journalism?
The New York Times’ wrap up of the year’s obituaries may give us an idea of one of the many futures for journalism.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that obituaries are just dry recantations of the lives of dead white men and they often are – particularly when about celebrities or undistinguished politicians and businessmen.

Good obituaries though are masterpieces and those of society’s genuine unsung heroes are moving and educational. A well written obit of an obscure but deserving person is usually a rewarding read.

As part of the their summation of 2012, The New York Times has taken their obituaries one step further by asking readers to submit photos and stories of their loved ones who’ve passed away during the year.

The Lives They Loved is the result, a wonderful collection of touching photographs and stories of parents, partners, children and friends who have passed away in the last year.

User Generated Content – UGC – is one of the foundation stones of new media. The idea is the audience themselves provide the content which frees services like Facebook, YouTube or I Can Haz Cheeseburger from the costs and irritations of actually creating things that people are interested in.

The New York Times project may well show that traditional news channels with their dedicated audiences and relevance to communities may do UGC as well as any hot new Silicon Valley startup.

While User Generated Content isn’t the future of journalism, it almost certainly will be one of the them. Whether it turns out that old media use it better than the newer upstarts remains to be seen.

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January 1, 2013
Pulling up the drawbridge
“Online bloggers and tweters are not subject to the financial incentives which affect the print media.”

While there’s much to disagree with in Lord Justice Leveson’s Australian speeches last week, particularly the bizarre suggestion that bloggers and social media are driving the decline in journalistic standards, he is correct about the economics of online publishing. It’s tough to make a buck on the web.

It’s so tough, many of the new media startups are founded on not paying for the articles they publish. This model has become so entrenched, that some venture capital investors will only invest in media start ups if they don’t have any reporters or editors.

Pure platforms

New media startup Buzzfeed‘s founder, Jonah Peretti, mentioned Silicon Valley’s reluctant to pay writers in a staff email republished by Chris Dixon;

Tech investors prefer pure platform companies because you can just focus on the tech, have the users produce the content for free, and scale the business globally without having to hire many people.

This antithesis to paying creatives and content creators is one of the notable aspects of the current Silicon Valley model, who needs editors and writers when a billion people will post to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram?

Arianna Huffington has been the most successful with this model in the media industry, parlaying a largely unpaid for content business into a fat pay-off. Chris Anderson described this model best in a description of his website Geek Dad’s economics.

Reading the comments

For readers, much of the value in sites like the Huffington Post and Geek Dad lie in the comments stream where readers give their views and experiences and build the communities so many investors and advertisers are looking for.

This is a point made by Rachel Hills when commenting about Australian website Mamamia’s payment policies;

When I visit Mamamia. I don’t go to Mamamia for the articles, which usually don’t tell me anything I haven’t already read somewhere else. I go for the comments.

Rachel concludes with the thought that Mia Freedman’s Mamamia is providing a platform for discussion. This is true, but that’s no different from newspapers, the six o’clock news, current affairs shows or even the weekend’s football match.

Those football players, newsreaders and journalists are all paid for their work, just like Chris Anderson and Mia Freedman were as magazine editors.

The hypocrisy of unpaid content

Which leads us to the core hypocrisy of the unpaid content model; its promoters – people like Mia Freedman, Chris Anderson and Arianna Huffington – have all been well paid in their careers yet now choose to deny the next generation of writers and journalist an income.

A business adviser once remarked to me that the management of a corporation that were locking in their entitlements while cutting middle management were “pulling up the drawbridge”, that line seems apt as older, affluent journalists demand younger ones work as unpaid contributors or interns.

The bleat from online publishers is “we can’t afford to pay contributors”, in most other industries being able to pay your workers is a measure of whether your business is solvent. That many new media outlets can’t may mean that the entire industry is insolvent.

Writers get exposure

Were the local cafe to say it couldn’t afford to pay its waitstaff, but it was giving them valuable work experience they’d be rightly scorned for exploiting workers. There’s little difference with online publishers.

It may well be because there is no shortage of manipulative, attention grabbing garbage designed to provoke reactions and increase pageviews, which is the flaw in the “writers get exposure” excuse used by many of these sites.

As middlemen, publishers have to add value in order to have a role, ‘offering exposure’ to unpaid writers isn’t a reason in itself. This is an industry with shaky foundations and it’s not surprising founders are desperately trying to find greater fools to fund their exits.

Image of Michael Arrington from Kevin Krejci on Flickr.

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December 15, 2012