Noches Barcelona: diciembre 2012

lunes, 24 de diciembre de 2012

Baekdal.com - Baekdal Plus in 2013, Inside Analysis - (by @baekdal)

Baekdal.com
The Magazine about the great experience
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Baekdal Plus in 2013, Inside Analysis - (by @baekdal)
It has now been two years since I created Baekdal Plus, although the site itself is almost nine years old. During this time I have written three books and 83 Plus reports (each between 10-45 pages long), as well as many extra articles.
Starting a premium content service is never easy, and especially not in a world of abundance. That 'small' step of buying a subscription is also the hardest one. The challenges I'm faced with come in three guises.
First, many people still believe that Baekdal Plus is just another blog. It's not. Each report is a strategic analysis within the topic that I'm writing about, but formatted in the shape of content that you can just as easily be read in Flipboard, as in a browser on a tablet.
This has always been a challenge. If I formatted my reports as PDFs, that people had to buy and download (like this example over at eConsultancy), I would probably make much more money.
But we all know how inflexible and backward PDFs really are. They come on a fixed format that limits how it can be used. It's not updatable, it can't include interactive elements (at least not in a meaningful way), and they are totally designed around print (and paging).
So I opted to create a far more flexible format. One where you can read the reports just as easily in your favorite newsreaders as in a browser on your tablet. One that connects you. One that you can share. One that is updatable and can include interactive elements (if needed).
The second challenge is that it's very hard to convey the depth and value of a Plus report to new readers. When you first come to this site, many just think a Plus report is a slightly long article. But they are much more than that. Baekdal Plus is pure analysis, sometimes spanning a very long time. For instance, my report about "Reverse Engineering Facebook EdgeRank" was the result of 2 months of analysis.
The two reports "The Trends vs Paid-for Content" and "The Future of Paywalls" are the result of analysis of the transformation of paywalls over the past three years.
But the challenge is that I haven't found a good way to convey this value to my first time readers. It's not a problem for those who subscribe, the challenge is with that first interaction.
The third challenge is that I need to get better at telling people about the overall publication plan for Baekdal Plus.
(high-res version)
Overall, the focus of Baekdal Plus is to provide you with 'ninja' analysis for seven key areas:
- The new roles of media in the connected world
- The new market
- The new products, and how to think about them.
- The new formats
- How to reach the connected market
- How to sell in a world of abundance
- And, the all-important analytics
Today, I know how each report fits together with the bigger picture, but I need to visualize that for you as well. Keep in mind that it's not one dimensional.
Of course, there is also the overall publication focus. In 2011 Baekdal Plus was all about the shift. I focused on helping you understand how the world was changing. The transformation of the media wasn't just a shift from one format to another, but a shift from disconnected to connected.
A few notable examples are:
And of course my two books:
- The Shift, from print to digital and beyond
- The Future of Social Commerce
As well as a number of reports helping you understand the social world, such as:
- Social is About Creating Value Over Time
- Social vs. Time vs. Buying
These were designed to facilitate change and help to point you in the right direction. Preparing you for the shift that was to come in 2012.
In 2012 I focused on the next step, which was to challenge the misconceptions. This is an essential element when it comes to managing change. First you have to create a need for change, then you have to abolish the old so that you are not dragged down by your past.
A few notable examples:
Along with my RESET series, in which I encouraged you to start afresh in 2015:
All of these are designed to help you think about the right things instead of trying to optimize a part of your business that simply isn't relevant for your future.
What is the next step? What is the plan for 2013?
The answer, of course, is to make it happen. In 2011, we focused on understanding the change itself. In 2012, we focused on getting rid of the things that held us back. Meaning that in 2013 we can focus on moving forward.
I came across this great cartoon from the talented Guillaume Decaux (slightly modified). It pretty much sums up the year of 2012, and the plan for 2013.
It's time to forget the old and all the problems with traditional media. It's time to move into the future. And that's going to be 90% of what Baekdal Plus will be about in 2013.
I'm going to look at how to make mobile work. How to connect with people in a meaningful way. How to create the newspaper of the future. How to pivot your business and refocus your resources on new ventures ... and much, much more.
Due to the challenges the media industry was faced with, 2012 was a bit of struggle. But now that is in the past, and 2013 looks to be extremely exciting.
If you are already a Plus subscriber, make sure you go back and read some of the older reports as well as the new ones. And if you are not a subscriber yet, sign-up for a free trial, and see what it's about. If it's useful to you, for just $14/month, you get access to everything. All the reports of the past, all my books, as well as all the ones yet to come.
And remember, every report is fully sharable, and it's through sharing that you help me grow. So if a report is useful for you, share with friends and colleagues.
Happy New Year (literally).
Head over to G+ to comment and discuss this article.

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miércoles, 19 de diciembre de 2012

Baekdal.com - The Direct Connection of Tomorrow - (by @baekdal)

Baekdal.com
The Magazine about the great experience
http://www.baekdal.com
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The Direct Connection of Tomorrow - (by @baekdal)
In the article "You Have to Be The Creator", I illustrated how the value of one story was gradually removed as it moved through the media industry. The point of the story was to illustrate that if you want to create value in connected world, you have to be the creator. The old business model of newspapers, to be the bringers of news, is rapidly deteriorating.
This is not just true for newspapers or magazines. It's a true aspect of every form of media. The bringers of news are now all the different platforms that we use, whether it is social channels or aggregators. With a business model based on providing access, rather than editing and republishing.
A simple way to illustrate just how massive this shift is, we only have to look at TV. Many TV stations around the world are based on 15% original programming and 85% "bringers of shows", in which they syndicate and rebroadcast shows made by other TV stations.
Here in Denmark, for instance, we have a TV station called TV3. It consists of three channels. TV3, TV3+, and TV3 Plus. And the following illustration shows one entire day of programming based on who 'created' the show originally.
As you can see, TV3 is largely a TV station based on the business model of being the 'bringers of shows'. Similar to how newspapers are based on being the 'bringer of news'. Out of 81 shows, only 4 was original for that day. The rest was either re-runs, or more so, rebroadcasted shows from other TV networks.
This model made perfect sense back in 1995. Back then, people in Denmark would have no way to access, for instance, the American TV station ABC. So just like newspapers needed to bring you stories from around the world, the role of local TV stations was to connect you to shows that you wouldn't otherwise see.
This is what you do if you live in a world where people can't connect to each other. You move content from one place to another.
In 2013, however, everything is different. Now, ABC has their own apps, which can connect and stream directly to your TV. So why would you subscribe to TV3 when you as a viewer can just pick and choose between all the shows on the planet?
Why would ABC base their business model on syndicating their shows to middlemen (like TV3), when they can connect with you directly and keep all the profit for themselves?
In the past, we needed bringers of shows. Now, we just need a platform. That platform can either be a device, or a service like Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, XBOX or Google Play.
Companies like the ABC will do fine. In fact, their future is looking to be even better than today because they can now connect directly with people on a global scale. But we have to ask, what about a company like TV3. What will happen to them?
Well, this will happen:
TV3 will no longer have a business model. They don't even have enough shows to sustain their main channel.
From being one of the most successful TV channels in this country, they will turn into a rather small TV production company. One whose future is questionable at best because without their main channels, they probably can't attract enough viewers to keep them going at the same scale.
Instead they are suddenly faced with a future where they will have to compete with small scale shows like Felicia Day's Geek&Sundry. And since everything that TV3 is doing today is based on reaching a wide range of random people (mass market approach), having to compete with highly specialized niche shows who can produce shows at a tiny fraction of the price, means that the resulting ROI is 'problematic'.
ABC will do fine. Same with Discovery Channel, Disney Channel, most of BBC, and many other TV stations. The ones who are in trouble are the 'bringers of news/shows'. The media companies whose main business it is to bring content from one point to another.
This is true for TV3, but it's exactly the same problem that the newspaper industry is faced with today. The difference is that the concept of a newspaper is a lot more complex than a TV station. There are very few newspapers who only 'create' news. Instead, almost all newspapers mix original reporting with republished copied or paraphrased content.
We all know what will happen in the future. The concept of 'creators' versus 'bringers' is clear to anyone. The problem is just that, today, people can't tell the difference between those who just bring people news and those who create.
With TV stations it's simple. But with news, where every article looks the same, it's not immediately clear what newspaper is better than any other. Just look at the tens of thousands of articles about the shooting in the US that the media has been publishing for the past week.
Ask yourself, among all these articles, how many of those were written by journalists at the scene, doing real journalism (or whatever you call taking pictures of scared kids and asked them questions while they are still in shock), and how many were written by journalists sitting in their office and just reading about it online before paraphrasing it into a new article?
Do you see the problem? People can't tell the difference between the creators and the bringers because it all looks the same. And since many newspapers are scared shitless about the connected world, they are reluctant to pursue their future role of being a creator. True, being a creator might cause you to lose traffic in the short term. It might even cause you to disappear completely unless they can prove that their stories are truly better than all the other stories about exactly the same thing.
No one is claiming that the shift is easy (it's not).
The TV industry has a similar problem. Because of obligations to the business models of their past, and a general fear of the viability of the connected world, big TV stations like ABC doesn't embrace the connected world either.
For instance, when I go to the App store to download their app (which I would love to do), I'm being presented with this:
So even though the world has already changed and the transformation is already happened, they are forcibly keeping TV stations like TV3 in business by creating artificial boundaries.
But it's simply going to be a matter of time before ABC has to catch up. Why would people continue to be limited to a TV station that doesn't give them any choice over when or what they can see, if they can watch whatever they want online?
ABC will have to embrace the global world. It's not a question of if they will do it. It's only question of when. And when that happens, TV stations like TV3 will go down fairly quickly.
It's the same with news. The trend is painfully obvious to anyone. You have to be the creator of news, and you have to position yourself as one.
But right now it isn't immediately clear who will make it and who won't, because of the media's effort to keep the status quo. The mess of everyone doing the same thing is obscuring the trend and preventing it from happening. But it will happen! And when it does, most newspapers will find that they have a lot more in common with TV3 than with ABC.
The question is just if it will happen in 2013, 2015... or 2018? The trend has already shifted. The demand in the market for relevant, unique and created news is already here. In fact, people are screaming for it.
It's like looking at the ebook industry. In 2002 everything was ready for it and the trend was obvious to anyone (except the big publishers). But the mess and general lack of simplicity in the market kept it from happening. Then in 2009, Amazon launched the Kindle and Apple the iPad... and then within just two and a half years, ebooks went from an obscure format to the market leader.
The same will happen to the newspaper industry. What we have today doesn't really work, and people want something better. But the conditions are not exactly right, yet. We are missing an important condition that snaps the new world into action.
Unlike ebooks, in which that condition was a tablet, for newspapers that missing condition is something else. One missing element is a useful form of news aggregation (tied into a useful form of shared payment protocol).
But I think the true tricker is the editorial purpose. The main problem is that all the truly unique original stories, produced by the big newspapers, are all about topics that people can't relate to (and thus never gain any traction), while the stories that people truly care about are all optimized for optimal snacking and page views (and thus not worth anything).
I think the tricker point is when a newspaper finds a way to flip the two.
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domingo, 16 de diciembre de 2012

Baekdal.com - You Have to Be The Creator - (by @baekdal)

Baekdal.com
The Magazine about the great experience
http://www.baekdal.com
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You Have to Be The Creator - (by @baekdal)
Now that more and more newspapers realize that they have to add subscriptions to survive in the digital world, we also see the conflict inherent in the connected world between optimizing for eyeballs and optimizing for value.
Anyone can copy/paste an article, but only a few can create one. If you want to convince people that they should pay for your content, you have to be the creator. But most newspapers are still trying to be reporters, basically parroting what other people are saying.
Let me give you just one simple example, one that I see many times every single day. It illustrates the difference between those who produce unique value, and those who just copy/paste.
On November 16th, Paul Thurrott wrote about how Windows 8 sales were below projections, and provided his analysis of why that was. It's a good article, and it's one that he 'created'.
A few days later, Wired's Alexandra Chang noticed it, thought it needed input from the big hardware players, and decided to do an interview. The result was a new article that starts off with Paul's story but then expands it into the extra information obtained by Wired.
And as you can see in the screenshot below, Wired is careful to not only credit Paul's work, but also to make sure that their readers know what was added by Wired.
Again, this is great journalism, in which they focus on creating and expanding a story. This is what we want. Creators augmenting the story of other creators.
This is the essence of: "Do what you do best, link to the rest" as Jeff Jarvis likes to put it.
But then it takes a turn for the worse.
First we have The Next Web (TNW), who quotes from Wired's article and adds their own short opinion. In theory that's not bad, but it's one of those articles that a journalist can write in 2 minutes. This is similar to what the rest of us would post on G+ just to share something. TNW is just 'reporting'. They are not 'creating'.
And, TNW only links to Wired's article, but not Paul's. Do you see how things are starting to erode?
Of course, TNW has many readers, and one of them is a journalist for the Danish tech site, Version2. He notice it and decided to just copy/pasted the story from TNW by paraphrasing but adding nothing new, while translating it to Danish.
There is value in the translation for the very few who don't understand English, but there is no value in the article itself. It's just a copy of someone else's hard work.
Not only that, but Version2's article is not crediting Wired or Paul Thurrott, they credit TNW. Version 2 even wrote that Toshiba's CEO spoke with TNW .
Toshiba didn't tell TNW anything... They spoke with Wired. Did this journalist even read the original article?
You might think that it stops here, but it doesn't. Now one of biggest newspapers in Denmark crossposts the story by copy/pasting it to their site (while again paraphrasing).
Again, nothing new is added, and again they completely fail to link to the real source. Now the article only links to Version2. It doesn't mention Wired or Paul Thurrott in any way, and while it does mention The Next Web, it doesn't link to them.
It can't get any worse than this. There is no value left, no context, no backstory, no nothing. You have been moved so far away from the original stories (where the real value is) that you have to be seriously committed to even find it.
In the old print world, this is what you call being the 'bringer of news'. You take a story from one place and bring it to another. That's the business model of the print world.
But in the connected world, this is just pageview optimization. The kind of thing that every amateur is doing on millions of sites every day. As I write:
Anyone can copy/paste an article, but only a few can create one.
So let me ask you: In this chain of events, which sources would you pay for?
Would you pay for Paul Thurrott's site? Well, as a niche site it depends on your interests, but he does provide great analysis and insight, and, as far as I know, many people do buy the many offerings from Penton Group (the publishing group that owns Paul's site).
Would you pay for Wired? Well... the article was good, and it's certainly interesting to hear what those executives had to say. But the real value, the analysis, wasn't there. You could use Paul's analysis by comparing it against your own projects. You can't do that with Wired's article. Wired's article was interesting, but less relevant.
Another problem with Wired was that they weren't the ones who created the article. All they did was to call several executives and asked them to answer a few questions. That is good journalistic work, but any journalist could do that. What is it that makes Wired unique?
This is the problem that any journalist is faced with. Because the old world was about being the bringer of news, journalists are taught to be faceless and neutral. This strategy works in a divided market, but in the connected world it makes you blend into the background.
Don't get me wrong, I think Wired did a great job. I just cannot come up with a reason why it's worth paying for. It's too generalized.
What about TNW, Version2, and Berlingske Business? ...the sites that just copy/pasted the story. Would you pay for those?
Nah... why would you do that?
The dilemma, of course, is that sites like TNW, Version2 and Berlingske are also producing good original stories of their own. They are not always copying others. They only do it for a certain percentage of their content to boost their page views.
And it kind of works for The Next Web because, while short, they did add their own voice. It was more like sharing than republishing. TNW tried, in a way, to connect you to the original article.
But for Berlingske, which are planning to introduce a paywall in early 2013, this kind of copy/pasting is the worst thing they could do. They did not add anything to the story. In fact, it was just a copy of a copy. And they didn't even link to where they thought it came from.
They took an article from somewhere else and disconnected it from the source.
If you want to get people to pay for what you make, copied content like this is the last thing you want to associated with your brand.
You have to be unique, and you have to be the creator.
At this point, some might argue that this is just an example of 'freemium'. The newspaper will set up their paywall around the content they produce themselves while posting quick articles like this one for free to attract traffic.
But the point about freemium is that it only works if the free content leads people to pay. It has to be a path to conversion. When people see a free article, they should get so excited about it that they feel the need to buy a subscription to get even more.
Your free content is what represent you. It's the sales person you send out to greet your future audience. If that sales person doesn't provide you with any value, you won't feel compelled to say "this is useful, let me subscribe!"
Creating value is not just something you do behind a paywall. Creating value is something you do everywhere. You create value through your free articles, on Your Facebook page, on Google+, on Twitter or Tumblr. You create value when you are among people at an event, and you create value even when people are not looking.
Anyone can be a the bringer of news, and anyone can create a newspaper. What makes you special is not what you do, but how you do it.
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martes, 4 de diciembre de 2012

Baekdal.com - 86% Think Journalists Are Misleading Them - (by @baekdal)

Baekdal.com
The Magazine about the great experience
http://www.baekdal.com
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86% Think Journalists Are Misleading Them - (by @baekdal)
The top question everyone is asking in the newspaper industry is, "Why won't people pay for news?"
The answer, of course, is simple. You are not making a product worth paying for ...in a world of abundance where everyone is doing the same thing.
After of years 'optimization' the news media have forgotten their readers. When newspapers optimize for page views, atomizes content, take popular clips from YouTube and present it as their own, writing deceptive headline to get one more click, focusing on finding scandals, and always finding the twist that gets more views... what's left is an angry reader.
None of those tactics is in the interest of the reader. Instead, they are all designed to deceive the reader.
Here in Denmark, Epinion, conducted a study looking at who people trust. Not surprisingly doctors, nurses, police and teachers scored the highest. While spin doctors, politicians, and journalists were the least trustworthy groups of all.
More to the point:
- 80% thinks journalists are too focused on sensational stories.
- 70% thinks journalists are focusing too much on the negatives.
- 86% thinks journalists are misleading them.
(Via DR - in Danish)
See the problem here?
Why would anyone pay for this? It's not exactly the kind of product that is worth paying for.
Worse is how most newspapers have reported this story. The journalists looked at this study and wrote articles focusing on how bad the spin doctors and politicians are... trying to divert the problem to somewhere else.
Several journalists even put the blame on the politicians, saying that the reason journalist have a low trust score is because they are writing about the politicians. Others saying that it's because newspaper focus on change... and people don't trust change.
In other words, instead of looking at their own industry, journalists are putting a spin on the story by saying that it's someone else's fault.
When 86% thinks the journalists are misleading them, you don't try to fix this by using the tactics of spin doctors to point fingers at others.
There is no reason why journalists should be dragged down by the politicians and their spin doctors. That makes no sense. It should be exactly the opposite. The worse the politicians get, the better people should see you... because your role is to protect the reader.
You know, the reader? The one who doesn't want to pay for misleading stories, like when you are pointing fingers at others when it's really your own fault?
As the GPS says: "You are heading in the wrong direction. Please turn around."
There is a thing about trust. Trust has to be earned, and you earn it by proving that you can be trusted. It can never be someone else's fault, because you are still the one who has to prove it.
---
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Noches Barcelona

lunes, 24 de diciembre de 2012

Baekdal.com - Baekdal Plus in 2013, Inside Analysis - (by @baekdal)

What is the next step? What is the plan for 2013?

miércoles, 19 de diciembre de 2012

Baekdal.com - The Direct Connection of Tomorrow - (by @baekdal)

domingo, 16 de diciembre de 2012

Baekdal.com - You Have to Be The Creator - (by @baekdal)

martes, 4 de diciembre de 2012

Baekdal.com - 86% Think Journalists Are Misleading Them - (by @baekdal)

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