The Question Was Not If NewsTilt Would Fold But When

July 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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Last week the inevitable happened. NewsLabs, the company behind NewsTilt, shut their doors. That’s right, the service which was meant to bring personal branding to journalists worldwide will no longer be a brand themselves.

The companies founder Paul Biggar made tall promises of NewsTilt being “the future of news, and the saviour of journalists everywhere.” But this statement was never going to be an easy one to fulfil. NewsLabs really had no other choice but to close its doors when Biggar, who held the initial vision, left the company a few weeks ago. After a re-assesment of the service, the company decided to cut their losses and run.

While it is a sad day for journalists who had hopes in the start-up, the fact that they folded is not such a big surprise. I predicted that NewsLabs would struggle to make serious money from the service before they even went live. This is what I had to say:

“…I am concerned that NewsTilt may be placing too much reliance on building these personal brands and not enough reliance on building the networks brand. Sure journalist’s can build their credibility but part of gaining that credibility has traditionally been partly due to the masthead they work under. I’m not sure if they will really be able to make enough money from their advertising to keep the service funded and most importantly to pay the journalists for the work they do.”

So while NewsLabs folding is not a big surprise, what is a big shock for me though is that NewsLabs folded less than 3 months after launch. I had expected that they might be able to last at least 6-12 months, but alas their fate was already written before they even got underway.

There is still no detailed account from the founders as to what went wrong, but in simple terms they figured out NewsTilt was never going to make enough money. All of the dreams and promises made simply could not be fulfilled.

As I said in April, the big problem is that NewsTilt was not structured well enough to build itself as a brand. There was no clear cut model for how they would make enough money to fulfil their promises. Added to that, their website was dull and boring, and they did little to really promote their contributors personal brands.

However, what I believe really caused issues for the service is that they were building their ‘new’ journalism model to be nothing more than a mismatched collection of newspaper columns in a digital format. It was not really anything new or exciting.

What journalists had jumped upon initially was the idea that you could be paid money for writing articles which you felt were important. You didn’t need to worry about the technology or the marketing, NewsTilt would handle that. They just offered you as a journalist an outlet for content which you wanted to write about. To me that sounds incredibly similar to a medium which already existed…. it’s called blogging.

NewsTilt was never going to be a solid idea. Sure, the idea of journalists being the brand is a serious one; that may be how news could develop in a social media world. The problem is that you can’t build any new service and expect it to be successful immediately unless it really revolutionises an industry. Success on the web will never be sustainable unless companies are serious about differentiating their products.

To be successful and to change journalism, you must offer something different. NewsTilt held nothing different, they only took the current industry, current ideas, and current technologies and tilted it slightly more in favour of the journalists.

The question in the end was not whether NewsTilt would be successful, but rather when it would shut the doors.

Filed Under: Future, Journalism, Newspapers Tagged With: , , , ,

Re-inventing Journalism: Why Innovation Is The Only Way To Save The Media

June 18, 2010 By 3 Comments
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No matter what your interest is in the media it’s hard to escape talk about the possible demise of the journalism industry. Once powerful newspaper companies are now struggling to stay afloat in a market that has primarily moved online. But with an ever expanding and socially driven marketplace the only way to survive will be to innovate. This innovation must be driven by the mobile space and deliver news content in a way users want to read it. A new journalism model must be interactive, it must be engaging, it must be social, and it must be different.

While most companies have shifted their reporting efforts towards the online market it has not come without significant restructuring and downsizing in an attempt to maximise profits from a dwindling advertising market.1 No matter the size of the company, or the significance of their online presence, they have all been affected. The New York Times, for instance, has shed hundreds of staff since 20082 and also restructured the editing of its news service.3 These company wide cuts are despite The New York Times website receiving around 20 million unique visitors every month4. The website alone simply can’t sustain all the resources which the print edition has built up. Other major companies like The Los Angeles Times have also shed staff with almost half of their once 1200 strong workforce axed in the past 9 years.5 Another casualty is the American television network news giant ABC, which has been planning to cut up to 400 jobs from its 1500 strong staff this year.6

The big problem for news companies is that they are still thinking about how money was made during the golden years of print and broadcast. Advertising has always, for most media companies, funded quality news and investigative journalism. News is expensive but these models of journalism and revenue making cannot be directly shifted to the internet without modifying them. They must be modified to make the most of the technology available. Some websites have tried to create the ideal blend by integrating multimedia and social features but these integrations are often only surface repairs, masking an archaic structure. Adding extra content and features has often been merely an afterthought but not the focus of how the websites were designed. Most of these integrated news websites are still funded by advertising with a few exceptions. The Wall Street Journal, successfully use a subscription-based pay-wall system to fund their efforts, and others like the Australian Broadcasting Corporation are funded entirely by Government; but these are the exceptions. For other sites the ads used are still similar to the past just having taken a new form with a combination of banner, video, pop-up, viral, and text. Often these ads can crowd the layout of a website leaving only a small amount of room for journalistic content. This content is often just a replica of a story already published in another medium or has been used entirely from a newswire service. Such poor designs and approaches to online news development may explain why many news websites are seeing rapid declines in the time users spend on their sites.7

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Show 7 footnotes

  1. Rupert Neate, “Times Newspapers loses £88m as advertising drops,” Telegraph.co.uk, March 23, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/7500527/Times-Newspapers-loses-88m-as-advertising-drops.html. ↩
  2. David Folkenflik, “’New York Times’ To Make Deeper Staff Cuts,” NPR, October 19, 2009, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113942218. ↩
  3. Richard Pérez-peña, “New York Times News Service to Cut Jobs and Relocate,” The New York Times, November 13, 2009, sec. Business / Media & Advertising, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/business/media/13times.html?_r=1. ↩
  4. Zachary Seward, “Top 15 newspaper sites of 2008,” Nieman Journalism Lab, February 19, 2009, http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/02/top-15-newspaper-sites-of-2008/. ↩
  5. John Koblin, “Los Angeles Times Cuts Staff for Third Time This Year; 10 Percent of Newsroom Let Go,” The New York Observer, October 27, 2008, http://www.observer.com/2008/media/l-times-cuts-staff-third-time-year-10-percent-newsroom-let-go. ↩
  6. Brian Stelter and Bill Carter, “ABC News to Cut Hundreds of Staff,” The New York Times, February 24, 2010, sec. Business / Media & Advertising, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/business/media/24abc.html. ↩
  7. Jean Chainon, “US: Time spent on top 30 newspaper sites tends to decrease – Editors Weblog,” EditorsWeblog.org, February 20, 2008, http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2008/02/us_time_spent_on_top_30_newspaper_sites.php. ↩
Filed Under: Future, Journalism, Newspapers, Research, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Steve Jobs Tells D8 We Need Editorial Now More Than Ever

June 3, 2010 By 1 Comment

In the past few months everyone has been talking about the iPad and how it might save the journalism industry. Finally Steve Jobs has commented on the situation at All Things Digital‘s D8 conference held this year at the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

Steve spoke clearly with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg about many topics, questions, controversies that have come up surrounding Apple recently and was incredibly open about all of them. The most interesting thing that he had to say however was that he didn’t want to see editorial die and be taken over by a nation of bloggers. I think Steve made it clear that journalism needs to exist as an iteration of its current form and that the iPad may just be the catalyst for helping news organisations innovate and make money.

Check out Steve’s comments on how the iPad was designed and how it could impact on journalism.

If your interested in some of the other things Steve at had to say at D8 then check out more of the videos below.
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Filed Under: Apple, Future, Journalism, Newspapers, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Is The Future Of Journalism Really In Branding?

April 14, 2010 By 1 Comment

Today I was reading a very interesting article over at TechCrunch on the future of journalism. The article focused on a new journalism platform called NewsTilt which is developed by a new company NewsLabs funded by Y Combinator.

NewsTilt focuses on journalists building their personal brands. Journalists apply to be part of the service and then are selected based on their experience and suitability to create individual brands based on the NewsTilt platform. NewsTilt provides the service, they set up the sites, the handle advertising, and automatically hook the journalists new brand into social media websites. Journalists can then focus on doing what they do best, creating compelling and interesting content.

NewsLabs founder, Paul Biggar, said it like this in the companies press release. ”In the future, news will be all about the journalist and their community,” he said, “The journalist is the brand, and their community tells them directly what to write, and whether they liked it.”

I think there is a lot to be said for what NewsTilt is trying to achieve.

Think of all the media companies you know and ask yourself why you read/view/interact with them. More than likely it is because of a journalist rather then the media company which will keep you coming back. Journalists are in-fact brands. Think of Walt Mossberg, personal technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal and Co-Editor of All Things Digital. Just his personal brand alone brings many people back to the Journal’s website and what he says can impact the entire technology industry.

Building a brand around you as a journalist is very important, especially if you want to survive in an industry that is ever changing. Your brand is like a passport, you take it with you to get you into new places. If ever you decide you don’t like NewsTilt then the company says you are free to take your brand with you.

However I am concerned that NewsTilt may be placing too much reliance on building these personal brands and not enough reliance on building the networks brand. Sure journalist’s can build their credibility but part of gaining that credibility has traditionally been partly due to the masthead they work under. I’m not sure if they will really be able to make enough money from their advertising to keep the service funded and most importantly to pay the journalists for the work they do. It is of course hard to judge this until after I see a site developed on the NewsTilt platform.

That said, I have already submitted my application.

Filed Under: Future, Journalism Tagged With: , , , , ,

Tips For Keeping Newspapers Alive Digitally

March 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

In my efforts to re-invent journalism I have already begun the process of scouring the web and academic resources for articles and journals which might help inform my ideas. While I have already said I don’t like the process of academic research I am already surprised at some of the resources which I have found.

Today I came across an article published in the Winter 2008, Nieman Reports, by Edward Roussel (@edwardroussel) who is the Digital Editor for Telegraph.co.uk.

The article is entitled ‘To Prepare for the Future, Skip the Present’ and it outlines 10 ways in which newspapers can shift their focus to the digital realm. Many of the tips I think are still very relevant, So in the spirit of sharing information I wanted to share his tips with you. I have tried to add my own take on what Roussel meant by each tip, so here we go.

1. Narrow the focus

Media organisations need to focus on providing content which differs from everyone else. They need to be prepared to spend time and money on providing this exclusive/premium content so they can differentiate themselves from the competition.

2. Plug into a network

Papers need to look at the content they provide and decide what they do well in covering and what they don’t. Once they find the key areas which they fail to provide good coverage in they should link across to someone who provides exceptional coverage. Users will love this.

3. Rolling news with views

Focusing on the readers is important to making content work. Look for when your audience is mostly visiting your site and then focus on providing content during those times. Remember that deadlines for papers always suited publishers but in the digital realm it is the readers who define what you do. Ignore 24hr news coverage and leave this to a wire service allowing you to focus on your readers.

4. Engage with your readers

Encourage your readers to interact with you through comments, forums, or social media. This keeps them interested and makes them feel involved in the news gathering process.

5. Bottom up, not top down

Focus on your reporting staff as they are in the best position to engage with your readers. They are most likely to know what readers are interested in and they should be placed in charge of areas of your site, like blogs, which will get readers talking.

6. Embrace Multimedia

Run workshops to teach your staff the importance of using multimedia resources along with their stories. Multimedia can not only enhance a resource but also keep visitors interested in your online presence. You can also use multimedia very effectively to sell the most important stories you cover. Make sure your editors especially know the importance.

7. Nimble, low cost structures

Look at your costs and consider outsourcing parts of the business which you don’t do well to someone who does. Don’t spend time on advertising if you are not good at selling your ads, consider using Google or another ad-network if they can do a better job. However don’t let this shift your focus from your editorial content as this is what you should be doing well.

8. Invest in the web

If you plan to survive digitally you need to make sure that your web infrastructure can handle it. Push serious money into your website so that it can become the backbone of your new digital news organisation. Your website needs to reflect your new digital focus.

9. Shake up leadership

Get rid of key people who cling too tightly to printed newspapers. They will disrupt your ability to move digital and may become a hindrance to your survival. You don’t need them if they won’t innovate.

10. Experiment

To be at the forefront you need to be constantly in development and trying new things. Look for opportunities and don’t be afraid to try them out.

Filed Under: Journalism, Newspapers, Research Tagged With: , , ,