ONA Conference

I'm attending the Online News Association conference today. Below are notes from yesterday, which I will continue filling in today as I attend panels. This isn't exactly bIPlog territory, but I need to put this somewhere. There are a few things here and there that hit the intersection of IP, digital media and digital distribution, privacy and security, but not much.

Note to the conference organizers: concurrant panels are a drag. If information is worth presenting, then don't make us choose. I want to attend two panels this afternoon, occuring at the same time. They are the reason I came here, in terms of the formal content.

Tidbits: Mark Fiore is really cool.

As is Len Apcar who is head of NYTimes Digital, with whom I had a great discussion about blogging. I explained to him that viewers know that blogs are different than regular journalism, that it's about putting out information more informally, but fairly and accurately, and if something is amiss, doing a new entry to correct, but it's not as much about impartiality. The audience wants to see what their reporters with unique perspectives and information that isn't appropriate for regular reporting know about. It doesn't have to be opinion, though we chatted about Dan Gillmor and the differences between his column and blog. He said that he'd shifted a bit since bloggercon, and was considering topic blogs, like one for opera, where they might have someone that is an expert, but that doesn't necessarily work for them, to point people to interesting links, talk about issues in the opera world, were really interested readers might submit additional links and information. But he's still working it out. One thing, he was surprised that I had listened to the bloggercon sessions, that they were webcast (I couldn't attend though I wished I was there...).

Extended notes on the conference, with some links to other blogs (I will continuously update this info over the course of the day):

111403 (Additional notes on Jeff Jarvis' blog here)
Jack Fuller: The Tribune has spent $600 m on chicago trib online. (audience gasping).
-easier to destroy value in this biz than to create it
--values looked like they were being created but they weren't; bubble popped
--in part because of the effortless movement of information
-creates perfect markets, for information, etc.
-bad for making profit
-monster - example of running market in jobs
--takes market for jobs away from traditional venues
-public service journalism
-easy to persuade people that everything should be free
-- may have been our biggest mistake to do this, didn't know they would be
involved in the biggest change since industrial revolution.
-- high quality news reporting is hard to make in a free environment
--audience is shifting from the medium of $$ == paper, to medium where $$-
--eventually everyone will more to a model where there will be paid subscribers
--interactive medium would be discursive, but it would be a medium where people came to find
voice, something that newspapers typically provide.
--real power is about small bit sized pieces of information, and news is not the latest in
a series of wonderfully written pieces, but short immediate punchy zesty info
--humbling to see what people come to on sites compared to what we put on front pages
---people expect different things, violate expectations and you will lose people
--can reach youth with news
---so long as reports are not too demanding, long, Trib is using commuter tabloid like AM NY: redeye
---youth actually want the info, want to be sure difference bet news and entertainment is there, but not info that goes on and on
---reflect their interests
-interactive site "metromix"
--listings, enteretainment site, became very popular
--not part of ChiTrib
--when they looked at focus groups for paying for redeye
---people said, without metromix, but with, they would pay
---interactive creation that came back into print, value creating in paper world
-what's next?
--don't know
--you probably don't either
---lesson: what we need to do is to experiment and assess, mix rip burn, lather rince repeat
---iteration is key to finding the answer
---in paper world, less experimentation, but interactive world
--by recognizing limits of knowledge, experiment way to future
-biggest worry: newspapers as institutions are defensive, perfectionist cultures that don't adapt well
--study: most like military and hospitals
--Q -how do reporters and editors respond to online? are writers asked to write shorter, are editors doing shorter for online
--A -some rewriting done, but long in paper is long online, doesn't lend itself to longform reading
--Q - any training for reporters?
--A -at jschools best

--Q -print equivalent of soundbytes? trend developing, where print websites queue readers to go to website ?
--A -don't disagree, audience is small, but also alsmost costless, but another way to think of this is library like, but not like serendipitous
they want to see the full text of things like presidential

--Q -free? most sites have been free? why is there not significant canibalization,
--A -our research shows there is canibal. but problem is not a reduction in the number of people they read a paper, but the number of times a week that they read it,
but now less than 7 is large portion of audience, and shows up as lower #s, not looking at them as often
diff bet Trib and Sun, if something big happens people read the Trib, but if don't care, read the Sun, easy to read, get through it quickly, don't want deep day to day
just as good and costs less; so for online, less threatening

--Q - weblogs and newspaper reporters? challenges?
--A - issues: if someone who is part of paper and they blog, unedited, there is a quality control problem
without clear ideas of discipline, if chief correspondent goes online savaging one candidate and lyonizing another, there is a problem, others: prominent writer, it's not unlike writing books, its
a complicated negotiation about income for paying someone to write and gain expertise, and then they give it away for free, its a problem
those are the kinds of issues that come up... people who work for the paper in a more continuous way with the audience need to have standards

(my comments: I have to say, I don't think he gets it. Blogs are about trying to find as much truth as possible, to be fair and accurate, to get as close to meaningful information as possible, but they are not impartial, and we, the audience are desperate to know what people think, especially those that have developed expertise in a particular area, with access and time (because it's their job..) to things we don't have time for, to hear their comments and to be able to comment back. We, the audience, understand that blogs are partially journalism, but also opinion, constantly iterated, and the usefulness is in this more temporal aspect. Also, money? Why? Post ads just as the online newspaper does.... I just don't see the problem.)

--Q - satelite and cable news? A - trying to take the enormous news gathering might and distribute it over several outlets

--Q - have you looked at how the audience wants to use online services and is it different from the way you want to use it?
--A - people are subsituting, with multiple means to get information, prolifferating means, with only 24/hr they will lose share to the newcomers
existing media will lose, but less canibalization that they would otherwise

Later 111403:
Panel 1, Engaging readers with interactivity: I think they think interactivity is really what multimedia is, where interactivity to me is a conversation, where information is going two way, not just voting on some poll. Their ideas are good, interesting in a way, but it's not really anything that is part of the conversation with users, nothing that would track the buzz and feed that back along with pointers to what they editors see as important.

My comments on Jeff jarvis' blog: If the wifi hadn't gone down in the middle of this presentation, I would have encouraged your to ask you questions. It was a panel on multimedia stuff with polling. This is not interactivity, at least not the way I do it. The cool graphics were cool,, okay, but if I can't get to meaningful information, then who cares, in fact, those graphics just get in the way. I want to know what people think about information, why it means something to them, why they care. That, together with the framed information from the news outlet, are meaningful to me. I want to see all the contradictions and make up my mind about the information. Then the multimedia graphics are icing. But I need the cake first, otherwise it's frustrating. Like this panel. I was very frustrated with it.

111503
Panel two, Strategies for growing our audience:
First up: Ben Estes, Editor of chicagotribune.com
-shovel ware at 6pm, updates constantly, try to make that explicit
-what is franchise? local news
-interactivity is something they think their readers like, polls
-dayparting, content changes subtly over the course of the day
-see local NBC website as competition
-they have had good audience response, 44% of people go to them for online info in their polls
-a lot of people come in who aren't getting the paper, hot topic at all the Trib websites, because they wonder about canibilizing their subcription biz
Second up: Teresa Hanafin, Editor of Boston.com
-note, she reports to NYTimes digital
-Boston.com has strong rep as breaking news site, started with John Kennedy accident, so gave min by min updates for about a week or so
-3.5 m hits a day M-F
-don't sacrifice common sense and journalistic sensibility when breaking news online
-report of nytimes digital, but working to the time when there may be an integrated news operation
-tell her folks, be good and be cheeky
-don't turn into the onion, but know your limits
-do various features, interactive features, sometimes get pushback on things, some people complain that the MTV awards are beneath the Globe, but that's not true, and of course the Patriots haven't been happy with some stories
-how does your audience know you, and know where the line is, make sure you walk up to it, push it and prod it.
-have to be careful about crossing the line, but people like to be entertained, there is a commonality of experience,
-they call their audience "users" not "readers"
--they want their audience to come to them to be interactive
-to grow audience, recognize and capitalize on the internet, it is far more intimate than paper
--example, found regular users on forums, found two and had them write dueling columns on who better coaches were for sports teams
--who care's what it's called, journalism or something else, it's respecting your audience,
-traffic on weekends drops 2/3
-goal is to hear that globe.com is “my site” from users,

Larry Kramer, CEO of CBS Marketwatch
-reason we are still around is because we have stayed close to core competence: the web
-never took much from CBS, but believed in concept that CBS news meant something
-honored that, but did stuff on the web
-coincidently, CBS had only one guy at the time doing reporting on financial news, when CBS Marketwatch was founded
-realtime matters to the nth degree with financial news
-people were used to realtime coverage
-financial professionals were used to the internet for a long time
-critical decisions:
--commercials on TV, easy to extent out onto TV and Radio
--send content back to CBS that is good quality
--started their own radio network, with 1/2 reports around the country on 270 radio stations, monster stations around country carry them
---part of their branding, but after a year or two, this marketing carried them
--in six years, have built themselves into
-more people get their news from them, 30 million a month, either on their sites, 8-10 million, and the rest of viewers, are from licensed sources like LATimes.com
--on TV everynight, even if just anchor reading news, logo goes on site
--affiliates go to CBS marketwatch to get info, to their fin reporters, also 3 times a day info to spikeTV.
--radio network reaches 15 million a day
-front page can be updated in real time at offices during their day, as time changes, around the globe: NY->SF->Tokyo->Europe
--obscessive about front page
---constantly adjusting stories
--front page gets 4 million hits a day, some come back 20-30 times a days
---people are at work, have 2 seconds to check
---they really try to break stories every time, but they also link to other sources of breaking news
---they've won that war
--they don't have a page two, but rather links everywhere
--users can go to portfolio, or other news

Rob Curley, General Manager, World Online, Lawrence Journal-World:
-going to give an hour and a half presentation in 12 minutes, but okay, because he’s had a 12pack of mountain dew, so he’ll finish, or have an accident
-thankful his publisher doesn’t surf the internet
-small paper, 19k sub
-website: wanted to do stuff they could do online that they would never do in person
-created a separate brand, partly because they wanted to appeal to a different audience that wouldn’t be into the paper
-launched Lawrence
-okay to use swear words as long as they are relevant to the story
-tied everything together, slowly, through the calendar, because they initially started as an entertainment destination
-do lots of fun edgy stuff with music, video,
-have blogs, add about 10 new ones a month, always wonder what new blog is going to get him fired
--college student at Kansas U, video game dude, local chef, KU student who writes about what it's like to be gay in Kansas, going after college students, wanted to make their lives better
--make "get your drink on" - database of good drinking places, and restaurant site, at 6pm not so popular, but at 8pm more, and at miidnight it rocks
-reach kids, and publisher said, I just want to print the website and sell it to kids so he said okay, but when the print guys mocked it up it looked like a wedding tab
--made a print edition for kids, lawrence.com
-columnists are their bloggers
-food blog, in print, they call "eating out"
-put ads on the cable company, because they own it
--showed hilarious ad of a guy screaming for Lawrence.com, it was for MTV, very sexy ad
-another site they wanted to do cool coverage for was sports page
--layer in stats, but since they write them instead of the university, they link to players arrest records when they are in trouble
--after each game they take the key plays and do animated play books in cartoon
--having to wrap it up, he's scrolling fast thourgh boring, boring boring boring,
--but then, when journalists come to town, and don't show respect, becasue of some news event, they mess with the video and make fun of them a bit
-i'm a huge believer that you lead by example, so I led

I've seen rob before, so this was not new. But he's a cool guy. Hilarious fun ideas. You could actually like the news, watching his site. It's edgy, and the audience laughed all the way through, and then clapped the loudest. BTW, the room is totally jammed, and very hot.

And everyone wanted to ask him all the questions...
-13 staff for the online part. core team together since 1998.

Q: how do you pay.
A: we use cash.
-when I got to the Journal, they asked him to break even in year one, and they just made it. Don't use banner ads, because they suck. Text links. Their ad rep is brilliant. 3 core revenue streams. He will tell people that they won't do the ad unless the advertiser does it the ad rep's way.

-really proud of site, LJ world.com, journalism has won awards, but when he talks, people just want to hear about cussing on blogs.

Q: weekend staff?
A: yes
Q: I don't but want to update more on weekends

A: Globe.com: why?

Q: database aspects...
A: try to hire supersmart programers, developed site three months before going live, but with great people, can do good stuff, though they don't pay as well as top ten market newspaper, but they go there because the content is so great, flexible, but 50-60 hours, posse, they're friends
Q: how is data managed?
A: use a lot of public information, entered in all local sports info going back to 1896. We had an intern do that...

Q: for Larry Krammer: how doid they build databases
A; LK: heart of internet information

Q: average age of crew in Kansas, and what are backgrounds
A: I'm oldest, 30-something, staff has journalism degrees, easier to break rules if you know the rules, both programmers have j-degrees

Q: breaking news across various platforms - wireless?
A: LK: breaking news alerts, 600k people signed up for these and in 5 mintues can blast out to them, then a second tier for more customized alerts, and is a popular licensing product -- but this is the most important thing we do for driving traffic, doing some SMS,

Q: Ben, where do you draw the line with polling? Assuming front page of trib.com doesn't say "95%..." (not scientific..)
A: People are accepting that online polling is different, but somewhat worried about

LK: 98% of consumer product research now is done online....

End of panel.

Posted by Mary Hodder at November 15, 2003 06:09 AM