- The Three Levels of Uncertainty and the Boston Bombings - (by @baekdal)
Yesterday, we all read about the terrible experience at the Boston Marathon. Two bombs exploded near the finishing line, killing three people so far and injuring 173. For anyone to commit such an act is beyond understanding or comprehension. The Boston Marathon is not a political event, or even an event associated with a certain country. It's an international event where people gather from all over the world to do what they love the most.
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- The Even Scarier Graph for Newspapers (and partly brands) - (by @baekdal)
Recently, The Atlantic posted the article "This Is the Scariest Statistic About the Newspaper Business Today". In it you can find this graph illustrating the decline of print advertising in relation to the increase in online advertising.
Baekdal Plus: Read the rest of this article in Baekdal Plus
- Never Just 'Wrap Up the End!' - (by @baekdal)
Yesterday, one of my friends posted about how she felt after writing for several weeks, and now having to put in that last bit of work to write the ending chapter.
Anyone who has ever been writing more than just an article knows exactly how this feels. While writing is probably one of the most rewarding activities you can do (you are the creator), it's also excruciatingly hard.
But then one her followers, a CEO, wrote this:
Wrap it up and then polish it later. You can spend forever waiting for the perfect ending...
This the typical extrovert business thinking that we see almost everywhere in the business world. Don't fuss about the end, just put something out there. Fail fast and all that nonsense.
You see, the ending is the most important part of all, especially as a writer and as a storyteller.
The 'Beginning' is what sets the mood. That's where you put people into the right frame of mind. The 'Middle' of the story is when you build up tension. This is where things get complicated. Where the perfect world starts to fall apart, and where a crisis emerge and people fight.
And you use the middle to slowly make things even more desperate. It's where you get people to sit on the edge of their chairs almost at that point where they can't take it any longer.
And then... we come to the 'End'. The 'End' is where you release all this tension. With one scene, you remove all the stress, all the anxiety, and all the discomfort. And your show your readers/viewers what truly matters.
The end is the most important part of all. It's what makes people cry. It's the part that burns the story into people's brains, causing them to want even more.
For instance, in the movie 'The Hobbit', after a long and dangerous journey filled with drama and conflicts, the end goes like this:
--
Thorin: "You! What were you doing? You nearly got yourself killed! Did I not say that you would be a burden? That you would not survive in the wild and that you had no place amongst us?"
Thorin advances until he is face to face with Bilbo, who looks worried and frightened.
Thorin: "I've never been so wrong in all my life!"
Thorin grabs Bilbo and embraces him deeply. The other dwarves cheer loudly and slap each other on the back. Gandalf smiles. Bilbo, looking quite surprised, hugs Thorin back.
Thorin: "I am sorry I doubted you."
---
Or what about the ending scene of Batman - The Dark Knight Rises? Batman has just been killed saving the city, and millions of fans don't know what they should do about themselves ... and then comes this:
We see not only the potential for another Batman, but we also see that the original Batman who, after so many struggles, have finally found peace ... true peace.
Oh... and BTW, the last scene where both the butler and Batman look directly at you is an old a proven technique to connect with the audience. It makes you as a viewer feel important. They are not just greeting each other. They are saying thanks to you.
Eric Kandel, the Nobel Prize-winning Neuropsychiatrist, explained this well in this video:
You don't just 'wrap-up' the ending. The ending is what makes the thing worthwhile.
Wait-a-minute, you say. That's for movies and books. We can't do that as a brand. We don't have a story, at least not one that is 'ending'. But you are wrong. Because you do!
Let's say you want to present something at a meeting. You start by setting the mood, then you build up tension by highlighting the challenges, the obstacles, and the dangers ahead ... and then, you end it by illustrating how you intend to solve it.
The 'Start' sets the stage. The 'Middle' makes it impossible. And the 'End' gives people hope. It's what makes them believe.
Same with writing articles. You start by quickly explaining the problem. You dive in deeper to get people to understand the complexity. And you end by showing people that if they just realign their thinking there is a remarkable simple way to solve it.
And every single form of advertising is based the same concept. Start: Here is the situation. Middle: Here is the problem. End: Buy this to solve it.
The 'End' is what makes the sale!
Even with apps we can use the same pattern. The difference with apps is that they are not linear So instead of having one story, you have hundreds of tiny stories happening every day.
Take Instagram, as an example. When you open the app, the other photos set the mood for what this is all about. You then decide to post your own picture, which builds up tension. You are unsure about what your friends are going to think about it. If they are going to like it. If this is really what you wanted to do. But then, as people start to 'hearth' and 'like' it, you reach the end of that photo's story as you see people's reactions.
It's the same thing as in the Hobbit movie. You are thinking: "Maybe I will be a burden? Maybe I have no place on Instagram?"
But when your friends then see your picture, many of them say: "You are so wrong to doubt yourself. We love this photo. Please show us more!"
It's the end, in this case facilitated by the social connection, that makes every single social app work.
Don't skip out on the end. It's the hardest part to make, and you are often worn out from doing all the other things that came before it. But it is also the most important part of all.
It's the end that allows you to have a new beginning...
Head over to G+ to comment and discuss this article.
- It's Not Relevant News - (by @baekdal)
The American Association of Newspapers has released their latest numbers from the media industry. You can read the full results here (interesting read).
The data shows the same old pattern. Print is down. Digital is up and so is circulation revenue. And then we have the increased focus on alternative income streams (ecommerce and events), a great concept but also one that is faced with danger. I wrote more about this in "Someone Has To Pay, Right? The Business Models after Print".
The numbers reveal that while advertising revenue continues to decline-down 6% in 2012-several other categories of newspaper media revenue are now growing. Circulation revenue grew 5% in 2012, while a host of new revenue sources not tied to conventional advertising and that barely existed a few years ago grew by 8%. These new revenue sources, which include such items as digital consulting for local business and e-commerce transactions, now account for close to one-in-ten dollars coming into newspaper media companies.
There is, however, one big problem. We are not actually seeing any changes yet. It's still the same old business, doing the same old thing, for the same old demographics.
We see this when we look at digital only. Yes, digital advertising now accounts for 11% of the total, which is great. But that's not the new market. The new market is the digital natives, and if we only look at them the numbers are terrible.
Only 1% of the revenue comes from mobile, and only 1% of the circulation revenue is digital-only. The rest is either from print or print+digital ... as in the old demographic.
And as I wrote about in "The Shift from Single Consumption to Multi Consumption Behavior", what we are seeing here is the wave of the digital natives.
The newspapers, with only 1% digital-only, are still only relevant to the old people on the wrong side of this wave. And if they don't find a way to fix this, it's game over.
The sad thing about old people is that they die. And if you as a newspaper even in 2013 can only reach 1% of the digital natives, you got a big problem.
It's fantastic that the circulation figures overall are growing, and that print+digital has increased almost five times in size. That's wonderful. But you are still reaching the old demographics.
Digital natives don't consider print to be a viable option. Why subscribe to something that is always a day old, when you can get exactly the same when it happens right at your fingertips? That makes no sense.
So the people who subscribe to print+digital are the old demographics, who do so out of habit.
The problem here is one of relevancy You can't solve this problem by simply creating a digital version of your newspaper (if you could, the digital-only number would not be 1%).
The problem is the product. The news articles themselves. They are simply not relevant for people to pay for.
The older generation haven't realized this yet because they are used to a world with information scarcity. In the old days of scarcity, where the newspapers were the only form of outside information, anything is relevant. For instance, in a food shortage, you are happy to buy any kind of bread. It doesn't matter what it is, any kind of bread is better than no bread.
But in a world of abundance that just not good enough. What the connected world has done is that it has raised the bar for what can be considered relevant news.
To the older generation, any news is relevant. But in the connected world, with thousand of sources, and millions of articles, most news simply isn't news at all. For instance, yesterday in the Chicago Tribune, the top story was that a 14-year-old child was gunned down and killed. That's a sad and terrible thing that should never have happened.
But it's not relevant news. All the people who live in that area already knows about it, and for everyone else this death is just one of the 2,200 kids who are gunned down every year.
As sad and cynical as this might sound, it's not relevant news to read about one child. It's 'just' yet another sad thing among the millions of sad things that happen every year.
What is news is the bigger perspective. For instance, how is this changing over time. What is being done to fix it? Of course, those type of article won't attract as many page views. When you write that a 14-year old kid has been murdered, thousand of people will click on it to see what it is about. Not because it is relevant for them, but because a title like that naturally attract people's attention.
You are not creating relevant news. You are creating entertaining news, and people don't feel the need to pay for that. There are so many other ways to see something of interest in the connected world. And why would anyone pay to read entertaining news that only focuses on what makes you sad?
This is why sites like Buzzfeed is winning, while newspapers are losing. Buzzfeed also doesn't make relevant news, but at least it something you can laugh at.
The bar has been raised. Today, most newspapers are not even reaching the basic level of relevancy. That's the problem that you have to fix!
You are no longer creating relevant news.
Read also: 98% Can't Identify With The Newspaper.
- Facebook Home ... and the Trends of Tomorrow - (by @baekdal)
Yesterday, Facebook launched the new Facebook Home for Android. It's not a Facebook phone per se, but more like a layer that sits in top of the phone. In Android terms, it's a launcher.
Baekdal Plus: Read the rest of this article in Baekdal Plus
- How to Get Baekdal Plus for $1 - (by @baekdal)
Setting the right price is always a challenge.
Everything I do on this site, I do for you. Each Plus report is about 20 pages long. I publish about 35 of them per year. Each one is filled with in-depth and highly valuable insights about the changes and trends of the media industry. Things that make you smarter. Things that help you make better decisions. Things that will help boost your business or your career.
So how much should that cost?
- On Econsultancy, the price is $445 per year
- On GigaOm Pro, it's $299 per year
- On INMA, it's $695 per year
- On eMarketer, the price is so high that you have to make a corporate inquiry.
- On MarketingProfs, it's $295 per year
- And on Baekdal Plus, the price used to be $135 per year.
There is one big problem with all these prices. They are too expensive for individuals or small businesses.
The high prices work just great if you are working for a big or medium sized corporation. But the people who really need this stuff are often the ones who are working for smaller and more nimble companies. The startups and individuals who need that critical insight that can turn them into thought leaders at the office.
So today, I'm announcing that I'm lowering the price of Baekdal Plus to just $9/month or $99 per year.
This way it's much more affordable for individuals to get the insights that you need to help you in your job and your career. At $9/month it's also better for often cash-strapped small businesses that need that extra edge.
But there is more...
Reducing the price also means I have to grow even more. I need 40% more subscribers just to make up the difference. That is a lot of people. And when you have a pay*gate* like mine, the only viable way to grow is via sharing.
So I need your help to grow in order to make this work, and I want to reward you for doing so.
Everything on Baekdal Plus is designed around sharing. As a subscriber, you can freely share any Plus report with anyone. And the people you share it with can read it without having to pay.
When you share an article, a special share bar appears on the page so that everyone you share it with knows that it came from you -- complete with an active Twitter follow button to give you a bit of extra social exposure.
Here is how it looks and works:
All of this is 100% automatic. You don't have to do anything to make this work. All you need to do is to share the article. And you can do this any way you like. You can share via your social channels, via email, via a link on tumblr, on Pinterest ... anywhere.
The way Baekdal Plus works is that the sharing information is part of the URL itself. So no matter how you share it, you still get all the credit.
But, starting today, I'm extending this system so that you also get a $1 reward per month for every new subscriber you bring to this site.
In short, if you share a Plus report and that convinces someone to subscribe to Baekdal Plus, instead of paying $9 per month, your new subscription will be just $8 per month. If you convince more people, it will become even cheaper ... all the way down to $1 per month.
And again, this is 100% automatic. You don't have to create a special URL. You don't have to do anything extra. If you share a Plus report the system knows that it came from you, and it will discount you $1 for every new subscriber that your share creates.
And it's not just direct sharing. This is the connected world, and we all know that when you share an article it takes on a life of its own. People are retweeting, resharing, liking, hearting, thumbing, and blogging it. So if an article is reshared, retweeted and reshared, you will still get the discount.
Let me illustrate how this works. Imagine if you decide to share a Plus report with your Twitter followers. The link is then retweeted and reshared, reshared some more... and some more, until eventually someone decides to subscribe.
At this point, you will get a $1 discount off your monthly subscription... even though the person who subscribed is not following you directly.
This is how social media works and because of that it's also how Baekdal Plus works.
The path to profitability
The reason I'm doing all of this is that I need your help to grow. Baekdal Plus is still running at a loss, and with the new price the path to profitability just became even longer. In fact, I need to double the number of subscribers over the next 8 months, and that's a tall order.
But Baekdal Plus is not about me. It's all about you. The reports are written for you. The analysis is made for you. The insights are designed to help you.
I spent 10 years working as a digital manager and one of the reasons I was so successful in my job, was because I spent a lot of time and energy learning about new things, analysing and identifying trends and patterns, and generally staying one step ahead of everyone else. This allowed me to accomplish things that other people couldn't do.
It's this concept that I'm now trying to give to you. I want to help you become a thought leader. That's what every single Baekdal Plus report is about. To give you insights and analysis that help you see the world in a different way. To see the trends that other people don't even know exist yet. And to become smarter and more successful.
But I can't do any of this without your help. I need your help to share the Plus reports with your followers because that's the only way that I can get enough subscribers to make this work.
Thank you!
- The Culture of Free and The Future of Google - (by @baekdal)
Two weeks ago Google announced that they would be closing down Google Reader, and last week they launched Google Keep. The two products have nothing in common, but the timing was not what you would call perfect.
Baekdal Plus: Read the rest of this article in Baekdal Plus
- Google Glasses and the Technopanic - (by @baekdal)
Want to see what Technofobia looks like? Or what +Jeff Jarvis calls technopanic:
Thirty five arguments against Google Glasses
Here is the list (all crap):
- It could destroy whatever shreds of privacy we have left.
- It will turn the United States into a surveillance state.
- It will hold more people needlessly accountable for easily pardonable activities.
- It is remarkably easy to steal a pair of glasses.
- It gives Google far more personal information than it needs to know.
- It will open new possibilities for online sexual extortion.
- It may increase violence.
- It will discourage personal risk.
- We have no idea what health problems Glass will create.
- It may increase violations of doctor-patient confidentiality and attorney-client privilege.
- It could be hacked.
- It will discourage anonymity.
- It isn't distinct enough from the body.
- It could give the police far more details about you than you can possibly know.
- It will discourage kindness and respect.
- Artists will be held more accountable for material that "offends."
- It may kill off what remains of the moviegoing experience.
- It will create problems with consent.
- Cool places will be outed by boors.
- It will discourage people from paying attention.
- It will turn more strangers into stalkers.
- It will create more cyberbullying and stress.
- It could make you more willing to believe lies.
- It will create more needless distraction.
- It will expand the Streisand effect to an unprecedented level.
- It could prevent people from discovering themselves.
- It will discourage people from seeking unfamiliar viewpoints.
- It could create another place where advertisement takes over our lives.
- It will create needless competition over who has the most worthwhile life experience.
- It will discourage people from striking up conversations with strangers.
- It could discourage companies from hiring people.
- It will create unfair advantages for online retailers.
- It could usher in a new form of vertical integration and that does not compensate talent.
- It will make driving dangerous.
- It could attempt to erase people in need from existence, as well as serious problems that we cannot ignore.
If you were nodding and agreeing with these points, you also suffer from Technopanic. Get help, please!
The problem with crap like this is that it's all made-up-pundit-speculation, which could just as easily be the opposite.
Take item 34, "It will make driving dangerous" ... wouldn't it actually make driving safer because we can keep our eyes on the road? Would it help us navigate and notice other cars because Google glasses could alert us of dangers ahead? Couldn't it be used to help us keep a safe distance to other cars, or detect of a child is about to step out in front of us? Or wouldn't it help us by alerting us if we are driving to fast but haven't noticed it?
Or take item 22, "It will create more cyberbullying and stress." ... but wouldn't it do the exact opposite. I mean, it's pretty hard to get away with bullying if the person you are bullying can record and share it with the school's principal. And wouldn't it help us to alleviate stress, by automatically taking care of things that we otherwise would have to worry about? For instance, you open your refrigerator and say "Glass, buy milk, avocados some salad, and eggs." ...or you show up at a meeting, and you have suddenly forgotten what the client's name is... but then Google glasses shows you her name.
People have a tendency to do pretty nasty things when they can hide behind the covers of anonymity ... just look at the many blog comments. But if we can record when someone is doing something bad, wouldn't that encourage people to think about the consequences of their actions first?
Or take item 23, "It could make you more willing to believe lies." ... but wouldn't Google glasses instead show us a list of author-ranked articles about it, through which you can immediately learn what the true story is? Imagine that you are watching a politician telling a lie, but because you are also following the event as a social stream, you immediately notice people pointing out when something isn't true.
I'm not saying Google Glasses is perfect, but there is an astonishing amount of technopanic in the world today. And just like how the newspapers are filled with negative stories, the real world is actually pretty safe, pretty comfortable and filled with mostly very nice people.
And yes, Google Glasses could be used for bad things, and it probably will. But Google Glasses can also be used for good things. And if you compare the good with the bad, I'm pretty sure that the good elements will far outweigh the bad.
We all have a choice in life. We can decide to be afraid of change and spend all our time trying to come up with excuses for sticking with the status quo. Or we can instead spend our time trying to make the future better than the past.
Yes, that does imply a change ... and we may have to redefine the concept of privacy. But the privacy discussion we have today are mostly the result of looking at the wrong things.
For instance, the new theme is 'Ban Google Glasses Stickers".
Think of this for a moment. What if, in 100 years from now, medical scientists will be able to scan your brain and play back any memory you have, what would we do then?
Would we ban people from entering the same room because our brains will remember what other people were doing? Would we require everyone who is walking around in public to wear a blind fold and noise canceling headphones?
Technology is not what is violating people's privacy. The violation happens when people is sharing what they see. 80 years ago, it was Kodak who was violating people's privacy, Last year it was the smartphone. Tomorrow it's Google Glasses that is to blame... and in 100 years, it's the human brain.
What then? Should we ban people's brains?
We are not focusing on solving the right problem. The problem is the culture of not respecting other people's personal spaces. For instance, when Kate Middleton went on vacation at a private house, a paparazzi photographer decided to use a high-powered zoom lens to snap a picture of her topless.
Should we then ban zoom lenses? No, of course not. Because most people use zoom lenses to take wonderful positive pictures every single day.
What we should act against is, not the tool, but the culture of disrespect. It was the paparazzi who violated Kate's privacy... not the zoom lens.
Solve the real problem! But most of all. Don't become another techopanic pundit.
I'm reminded by the movie Final Cut:
Head over to G+ to comment and discuss this article.
- When a Rogue Advertising Company Causes a Social Backlash - (by @baekdal)
Everyone who has been working with the advertising industry knows that advertising agencies and their employees often submit client work to various portfolio sites to showcase what they can do.
Often, that also includes work that they have done on their own without the client ever being involved. And very often this is something that the clients in question frown upon because they want to be in control of what is being shared about them and where.
Yesterday we saw a bad example of that, in the most damaging way possible.
One or more employees from JWT India, the advertising company used by Ford in India, created the following mock-up ads without Ford's knowledge or approval, and submitted it to the advertising showcase site AdsOfTheWorld.com.
The first one showcases former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in a car that has three curvaceous women tied up and gagged in the trunk.
Another ad, perhaps slightly less damaging showcases Paris Hilton tying up the Kardashians.
"The ads were created by JWT India, which is owned by WPP. Employees at the firm posted the mockups to the website Ads of the World to "show off their creative chops," reported Business Insider. The ads were not commissioned by Ford, nor were they approved by the company. The ads were removed from the site, but not before Business Insider spotted them and shared the images late Friday. "
The problem, of course, is that it depicts celebrity women being bound and gagged and thrown in the back of a Ford with the caption "Leave your worries behind with Ford Figo's extra-large boot.".
Remember, Ford had nothing to do with this, but their advertising company submitted the campaign to showcase their work.
Not surprisingly, this outrageous ad depicting women as someone that men can do whatever they want with, caused an instant social backlash ... and Ford has been in damage mode since Saturday.
And this kind of thing, where a graphic designer or art director uploads made-up campaigns to showcase what they can do, happens every day. You only have to go to sites like Behance or Ads of the World to see them.
Often, it's perfectly harmless and the mockups are actually quite good. But it doesn't change the fact that it's done without the brands' knowledge or approval. The last you could do is to very clearly label the ad as "Not made by Ford. Just a mock-up'.
That's not the only problem. The other problem is the irresponsibility of the media. Business insider posted the obvious link-bait title: "Silvio Berlusconi With A Trunk Full Of Tied-Up Women: Worst Ford Ad Ever?"
Again, remember. Ford didn't know about the ads... so it's not a Ford ad.
And PR Daily posted the article with the headline: "Ford 'deeply regrets' ads showing gagged women in trunk." Indicating that Ford was responsible for the ads... which they were not.
Both cases are obviously done for the purpose of link-baiting, as one commenter wrote: 'Of course, no one would click on the article if it said, "JWT India regrets print ad mock-up"... Cheap journalistic trick.'
And Buzzfeed wrote: "Amazingly, These Sleazy Ford Ads Are Real" ... eventhough the article then states that Ford had never approved them ... causing one commenter to write: "Great job misleading readers, Buzzfeed."
This is what happens when the media turns into a page view whore.
Head over to G+ to comment and discuss this article.
- Content Marketing Versus Sales - (by @baekdal)
For the past 10 years, content marketing has been a key element of any brand's digital strategy, and one might think that after so long, we would know what works and what doesn't.
Baekdal Plus: Read the rest of this article in Baekdal Plus
- Goodbye RSS, Please Come Back - (by @baekdal)
Late last night, Google announced something that many have feared for a while. They are shutting down Google Reader and permanently closing it by July 1, 2013.
We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.
None of this really comes as a surprise as there have been many signs telling us that Google was moving away from RSS. Just as a simple example, look at the Google Reader's twitter profile. It completely stopped posting messages on November 5, 2011.
Another example is Feedburner. During Google's last 'spring cleaning', In late-September, 2012 they announced that they were shutting down Adsense For Feeds:
AdSense for Feeds was designed to help publishers earn revenue from their content by placing ads on their RSS feeds. Starting October 2, we'll begin to retire this feature-and on December 3 we'll close it. Publishers can continue to use FeedBurner URLs powered by Google, so they won't need to redirect subscribers to different URLs.
Most people never realized the significance of this. Adsense for Feeds is the same as Feedburner. It's not a feature of Feedburner. It is actually the internal name for the entire Feedburner product line.
Another way you can see this is that the Feedburner blog, where Google announced all the new features in Feedburner, is actually called "Adsense for Feeds". And this blog was shut down in July last year after having been quiet since 2010, meaning that there is no longer any way for Google to announce new updates to Feedburner.
In other words, Feedburner too is already dead. Google just hasn't switched off all the lights yet.
So, it's painfully obvious what is going to happen next. Google Reader will go away, followed by the remaining elements of Feedburner ... and with that, Google will have move completely away from the world of RSS.
And with this, I'm saddened to write, we are also looking at the end of RSS. If we look at the trend curves, RSS is in decline and there is nothing indicating that it will somehow have a triumphant return to it's former days of glory ... partly because it was never there to begin with. And with Google Reader and Feedburner closing, This is likely to be the death blow to RSS that it cannot recover from.
The problem here is that there are no true alternatives to RSS. RSS served a purpose unlike any other channel. It provided people with highly focused categorized view of selected sources, outperforming any other channel by a mile in terms of value.
Sure, you can follow the same blogs on Twitter and Facebook, but it will be filled with noise, and you can't do proper search within your sources. Here for instance are the feeds I subscribe to:
Notice how the sidebar lists all the new articles that I haven't seen yet, neatly categorized into groups just the way I want them.
And when I click on any of these groups, I get this wonderful experience of highly focused content, just the way I want it.
And yes, you can still do this. The screenshots above is from my favorite tool (after Flipboard), which is Feedly ... who last night announced that they will be ready to take over from Google Reader.
Another thing that most people don't realize is that RSS is the only protocol to support subscription based content, and as such could be the best tool for newspapers to embrace.
On this site, for instance, I offer a special personalized feed to all my Plus subscribers. Allowing you to read the full Plus articles in whatever newsreader you prefer (including Flipboard). I can't do that with any of the social channels, and this can only be done with RSS.
RSS also allows password protected content (like content behind a paywall), although most news readers never implemented it (including Google Reader).
Lack of support from the publishers also meant that RSS never become as useful as it should have been. Instead, the big publishers opted to 'partner with select channels' which is both costly and extremely limiting. For instance, the New York Times has partnered with Flipboard to allow people to read subscription based content.
But if both Flipboard and the New York Times had implemented RSS correctly, the New York Times could have done this without having to partner with anyone ... and if other news readers had implemented RSS correctly too you would have been able to use those channels as well, instead of being limited to only one app.
Think about how much money that would have saved the New York Times, and how much more flexible that would have been.
I'm not saying that RSS is perfect. It drastically lacks any form of two-way communication. It doesn't allow integration with payment systems, and it completely lacks the necessary flexibility in terms of embedded and interactive content.
Not to mention that the RSS protocol hasn't been updated since 2002, 11 years ago. Sure we also have ATOM, but that isn't much better.
So, RSS is dead. It's terrible to see it go because the concept could have made everything so much better. But I don't see how it can recover from the closure of Google Reader and Feedburner. The remaining RSS players and the lack of interest in the market are all pointing to its eventual demise.
What about the future?
Back in August I wrote "What Comes After Facebook? The Future of Social Media", in which I highlight the inherent problems with the closed ecosystems of social media, and why that is likely to change. If you haven't read it, I highly suggest that you do, because this has a lot to do with the concept of RSS as well.
And in the long term this is where we are heading. All the trends point in this direction, despite the fact that the social channels are becoming ever more closed and proprietary every day.
But, also in the long term, killing RSS might actually be the best thing that ever happened.
While the concept of RSS is great, it is also clear that it will never be more than what it is today. A rather outdated publishing protocol that is desperately out of tune with the times.
RSS has remained static for 11 years while the rest of the digital world has undergone tremendous changes. But because it was there, nobody has thought about creating its replacement.
Now that RSS is about to die all that might change. This might be triggering point that will get entrepreneurs to think up the future communication protocol. One that, unlike RSS, combines broadcasting content with communication between people ... and the communication of data.
In the short term, the demise of RSS is a disaster. But in the long term it is likely to be the best thing that ever happened. RSS was keeping us back, and it clearly wasn't going anywhere.
With RSS out of the way, we might finally see some real innovation. Innovation that combines all the elements of the new world of media, instead of just being about broadcasting pieces of static content.
And this is exactly the future that I wrote about in "What Comes After Facebook? The Future of Social Media."
Think of it like this. What if print newspapers (which are just as static as RSS) were to completely disappear tomorrow. What would happen?
Well, in the short term, the entire publishing industry would collapse and millions of people would be screaming in anguish (just like the reaction we are seeing to the demise of RSS). But if we no longer had print to worry about, the future of digital publishing would suddenly look much, much better.
And the same is likely to be true for RSS.
Solutions for the short term
The future has yet to come, and the next three years are going be painful if you rely on RSS. For instance, I have about 7.000 RSS subscribers, most of which is likely to use Google Reader in some form or fashion. When Google closes Reader in July, it's unlikely that my RSS readers will find an alternative in time. Some might, but most probably won't.
So what can you do?
There are three short term solutions. Alternative Readers, Social channels, and Newsletters.
Alternative readers
As for alternative readers, you can try to guide people to other RSS readers and that way keep at least some of your RSS subscribers intact.
The best tool out there, by far, is Feedly. It's works across devices (web, desktop, iPhone/iPad, Android apps), and it looks about a million times better than Google Reader ... and I highly recommend it.
Other tools are Flipboard, but without Google Reader their RSS support is terrible. We will have to see if this changes over the next couple of months.
And if you are technically inclined, we have NewsBlur. It's a very cool and fully featured RSS reader. But it doesn't have the nice magazine type feel of Feedly. If you are a techy, you will love it. If not, well...
There are also a ton of other RSS readers, but what you want is something that works across devices and in the cloud, which limits your options dramatically.
Social channels
Another option, which you should definitely do, is to create social accounts specifically for your site. This is something I have been doing for a long time.
For instance, on Google+ you can:
- Follow me via +Thomas Baekdal and get everything
- Follow +Baekdal and get only the updates for the articles I write.
On Twitter you can:
On Facebook, you can:
And if you are a publisher or a brand with a blog, you should definitely do this. Just keep in mind that your article feeds are likely to have far fewer followers. For instance, baekdalarticles has less than 1/10th the followers than baekdal.
Also, on Twitter and Facebook you are limited to having your content show up next to all other content, instead of being categorized as with RSS. So your posts are less likely to be seen.
Google+ is slightly different because of how Google has implemented 'Circles'. This effectively means that people could categorize the sites they care about just like they categorized RSS feeds in Google Reader.
Focusing on Google+ just became even more exciting (which is probably also one of the reasons why Google is dropping Reader).
Newsletters / Digests
Another solution is to move to emai,l and this has several other benefits as well. You might not want to do real newsletters, but merely do weekly digests.
The advantage is email is that it is a much more personal and upfront solution, which for many mean creating a much more loyal group of readers.
The disadvantage is that, unlike RSS, people are not going to suddenly subscribe to hundreds email digest from every single blog they like. For instance, I subscribe to about 350 RSS feeds, and there is no way I'm going to fill up my inbox with the same amount of email digests.
Email newsletters or digests are incredibly useful and valuable, but it doesn't have the same scale as RSS.
Overall though, the demise of RSS means you now have to work even harder to connect with people. The problem with both the social channels and newsletters is that they require more legwork than the anonymous and passive connection we got with RSS.
With an RSS feed, people could subscribe to it without worrying about what others might think, and without identifying you to the owner of the sites you followed. With social channels and newsletters, you have to identify yourself. Depending on your type of site, that is a limiting factor.
None of this is perfect and I hate to see Google Reader go. But in the long run, the future has just begun.
Head over to G+ to comment and discuss this article.
- Measure Unique Subscribers - (by @baekdal)
Here is a quick tip to my analytics friends, just to put things into perspective.
Most publishers track visitors as unique visitors. The problem is that it if you run a subscription-based site, it tells you nothing about your subscribers. So on my site, I measure unique subscribers.
And here is what I found (see the picture below):
On average, only between 30-40% of my subscribers see an article. And of those, only 60-70% actually read it. Meaning, only 22% read my articles.
That's just scary, but there is nothing really surprising about it. We can't expect all our subscribers to see every single article, nor can we expect that everyone reads everything they see.
(Especially not with Baekdal Plus where the average article is 20-25 pages long).
And then you have to ask, how many subscribers share an article? In my case, that number is about 15%. And then, how many non-subscribers does that attract? Which in my case in my case averages about 2000% (although it varies greatly depending the number of followers for that subscriber. Some only generate 300%, while others generate 100,000%.)
Think about that for a moment. Sharing done by only 15% of the 35% of my subscribers, drives 4x more traffic than the total number of subscribers who saw the article. This is why sharing is vital!
So why is this important you ask? Well, apart from understanding the behavior of your subscribers, this is very often the cause of your churn rate ... i.e. the rate of those who don't renew their subscription.
If only 35% of your subscriber ever see the article, the next time the remaining 65% have to renew their subscription, some might simply decide not to. And that's not good.
Of course, this is per article, so it's bit more complicated than that. You have look at it across articles as well to identify those that you have lost.
The point is that if you only look at unique visitors, you simple don't know what is actually going on. You will never know how important sharing is. And you never be able to identify those who have simply forgotten that you even exists.
Also consider how massively different this is from advertising based analytics. If your site is monetized by advertising, the quantity of traffic is the most important element. Meaning that for advertising-based analytics, the blue bars are more important than the green bars. But for subscription based analytics, the greens bar is what causes the blue bars.
And here is something even more profound to think about: If I could change the 35% (subscribers who see an article) to 50% ... and increase the sharing rate from 15% to 25%, I would double the overall traffic.
Of course, doing that is much easier said than done!
Head over to G+ to comment and discuss this article.
- Facebook is Back, Baby - (by @baekdal)
Last week, Facebook announced the new newsfeed. It's bigger, simpler, and much better. And in this article we are going to explore why that is important.
Baekdal Plus: Read the rest of this article in Baekdal Plus
- 98% Can't Identify With The Newspaper - (by @baekdal)
Amedia, the (second) largest media group in Norway, did a study about relevancy among young people.
What they found was that only 6% agreed that the newspapers were bringing relevant news. And only 2% could identify with the newspapers' image of youth.
Young being people under 40 which is telling in itself. Most other industries define youth as people below 25.
via http://sandkasse.amedia.no/index.php/2013/03/bransjen-ma-vakne/ (in Norwegian)
And this is despite that newspapers in Norway have a much better connection with their readers than most newspapers in other countries. The Norwegian newspaper market is a lot stronger than in the rest of Europe and the US.
So if 98% of your potential customers can't identify with your product, and if 94% don't think it's even relevant, the chances of you being able turn them into subscribers are... zero.
This follows several other studies, like a study from October 2012 that found:
- 80% think journalists are too focused on sensational stories.
- 70% think journalists are focusing too much on the negatives.
- 86% think journalists are misleading them.
The problem here is the editorial focus. The newspapers are simply not making the right kind of news. And as Amedia wrote, "How long are they going stick around if we do not create the content they need?"
That is a very good question, but perhaps one with an obvious answer.
And, this is not just a problem in Norway, it is a problem everywhere. For instance, yesterday morning I went to one of the big national news sites in Denmark, and one of the front page stories was that a train had hit an elephant in India.
Why would I need to know this? There are 250,000 elephants in India, and it's 7,280 KM away on the other side of the planet... This is not news. It's just a way to waste my time.
This would not even be relevant news for most people in India.
Not only that, but when you click on the article, you find that it's just 177 words plus a picture, the classic cheap format written by a news agency.
Why are they posting this? Why would I engage with it? ... and more to the point ... why would I pay for it?
If I were to create a list of the top 5 things newspapers have to solve, it would look like this (in this order):
- Be someone people can trust (instead of turning your readers into link-bait victims).
- Be relevant to the individual (change your editorial focus and drop the concept of random news for random people).
- Connect with people on a personal level (it's what makes people follow you)
- Embrace the connected world (drop the cover+package)
- Be everywhere, anytime (the multi-channel/device strategy)
Trust
Trust is an editorial decision and an editorial focus. You can't solve this with an app. It's about what you write and why you write it. It's about saying no to writing about scandals when they don't help your readers. It's about focusing on stories that has a meaning and not just those that attract attention. And it is about focusing all your articles on the needs of your readers.
In short, trust is what people feel when they know they can count on you to do the right thing, for them.
Relevancy
Relevancy is also an editorial decision, but in a slightly different way. And it is an element that involves the most dramatic change.
Think of it like this. If you were stranded on an island, disconnected from the rest of the world, and you were limited to only one news source per day, which would that then be?
The answer is that if you are limited to only one source, most people would choose to get one newspaper with a bit of everything. This way you would still be kept informed, despite the lack of depth.
However, if you are connected, you wouldn't choose only a single newspaper. Instead, you would choose a mix of the best content from the best sources.
You would get the latest news about cars from a dedicated car site. The best Apple news from an Apple site, the best news about Facebook from a site about Facebook. The best design from a design site. The best news about media trends from a media site, and so forth
The problem newspapers have is that they are the jack of all trades, but master of none.
Why, for instance, would I want to read about a new product from Amazon in my local newspaper? The journalists working there doesn't have the expertise to cover that topic, and as a result they end up just paraphrasing the press release.
And that type of news simple isn't relevant in the connected world. We want to know why something new is important, not just that it is new.
However, newspapers do have their strengths For instance, newspapers have always been good at covering politics. The problem with politics, though, is that while it is important, it's also involves a lot noise and pointless activity (by both the politicians and the media convering them).
Another thing the newspapers are good at is to cover day-to-day events, like traffic accidents or crime. The problem with those articles is that, well, I wouldn't pay for them. In a world of abundance, people like to pay for things that can help them... or for things that are entertaining (which is why we have celebrity tabloids).
People don't like to pay money for articles that make them sad and uncomfortable... like daily articles about people getting assaulted, especially not when the world we live in is an extremely safe place.
For instance, one of the largest newspaper in this country, wrote 3,840 articles about people getting murdered in 2012... or more than 10 per day.
Is that really relevant to people's daily life? Is that why people should buy a subscription?
We have to remember that what people paid for in the past was a 'package of news'... not the articles. But in the connected world, the focus has shifted to the value of the individual articles.
To be relevant, you have to redefine what it means to be a newspaper. You have to shift your focus from creating a random package of random news, to be about the relevancy of the articles themselves.
This is also how social media works. Nobody shares a newspaper. But many share individual articles.
Connect with people
One of the reasons why I like to read AllThingsD is because of Kara Swisher, Peter Kafka, and Liz Gannes. And the reason is that their niche also makes them relevant as journalists for me to follow.
Newspapers have a really hard time doing that because they are so generalized. One of my journalist friends is often tweeting about what she is writing about. One day it's about a car theft, the next day it's about tomatoes, the next day it's about childcare. The next day it's about what some politicians posted on Facebook. The next day it's about airlines, and the next it is about horse meat.
See the problem? She is a great journalist, and she is doing a great job, but why would people follow her when what she writes about is one random thing after another?
And this is the problem with newspapers. Because of the focus on being the 'jack of all trades, master of none', both the newspaper and its journalists are not someone you would follow.
If you want to connect with people and get them to follow and engage with you, a wide and generalized focus is your enemy.
Embracing the connected world
In many ways, the connected world is to print what print was to the stone tablets. It's just how things are done these days because it more flexible, powerful, scalable, extendable and convenient.
Of course, the connected world is about much more than just a change in format. It dramatically changes how we interact with things.
I wrote about several of the problems in 'The Shift from Single Consumption to Multi Consumption Behavior' and 'Rethinking the Perfect Media App'.
Being everywhere, anytime
Finally, as we all know, the future is multi. We can see it in the trends all around us. Everyone has their own phones. Everyone has their own computers. Everyone is moving from one place to another.
Embracing the world of 'multi' is absolutely critical. It won't help you gain your readers trust, and it won't make your articles more relevant. But without it, you won't have a format that is convenient for your readers to engage with.
Being 'multi' is like the power-steering in your car. People can drive without it, but they will hate it every single time they have to make a turn.
See also: The Real Mobile Shift - For Publishers ... where I go into much more detail about what it means to be truly mobile.
The point is that the newspaper industry is in an existential crisis. And this is not something you can solve with an iPad app or by going digital. To succeed you have to redefine the very definition of news.
The ones who are going to be hit the hardest are the local newspapers. Because on one hand, most of the news they bring are unique because it is local. But on the other, most younger people don't really care about local news.
Local news is kind of boring. And while it is interesting, it's not very relevant... and unlike the national newspapers who can focus more on news as a form of entertainment (although they will never admit that), local newspapers can't look elsewhere for entertaining topics to cover.
In a world of abundance, younger people would much rather spend half an hour on one of the many far more exciting sites online, than read about a fire at someone's house, of whom most of them don't know.
So what is the solution?
One thing you could do is, instead of focusing on being the bringer of news, you focus on being the creator of communities. If someone opens a new shop, you take on the role of trying to help them be successful. If the local sports club have a new plan, you use the newspaper to help build up support.
In other words. The role of a local newspaper is not to be the bringer of news, but to be connecter of people and interest. You find things people care about, and then you help them make it better.
- Let's talk about media trends - (by @baekdal)
First, a newspaper in Denmark has decided to fire all their dedicated photographers. Arguably it's only two people, but they do it because their journalists should take their own pictures.
It's part of the trend that the equipment we use has now become a common tool. In the past, the audio equipment for radio could only be used and handled by sound engineers. The TV equipment could only be operated by cameramen, and the photos could only be taken by professional photographers.
Now everyone can do it because the equipment in your pocket can do the same as the fancy cameras the press used 10 years ago. The result being that instead of having dedicated people to do one thing, journalists now have to cover all the roles.
BTW: The same is true for brands. In the past, you had to hire expensive ad agencies if you wanted to record a video of your product launch, now you do it yourself.
We can always debate if that changes the quality of journalism. Initially it will be worse, simply because traditional journalists don't have the right skills. But in the future it makes it better because it forces the journalist to think of the whole story first.
Obviously, this is bad news for press photographers, but there is not much we can do about that. When two different job functions merge into one, you either adapt or you lose. Photographers need to think more like journalists, and journalist need to think more like photographers... and if you do that well, you win.
Secondly, an indy film maker in the UK will release their latest movie on gaming consoles instead of via DVD or Cinemas. Nothing surprising here, because that's what digital natives have done for years (think The Guild as a good example).
And this is part of several trends:
- The trend of multi, in which the traditional step by step distribution no longer works. In the connected world, you want to reach as many as possible, as widely as possible, because that is the only way to create a truly massive viral effect. (...a strategy that is not without its dangers as well). Step-by-step distribution simply destroys the momentum of sharing.
- The trend of on-demand. We decide when and where.
- The trend of abundance. In a crowded global market, you have to stand out, and this is one way to do that.
Thirdly, Youtube is growing, but so is its long tail... meaning that while YouTube makes more money, each individual publisher doesn't.
"The big picture for YouTube looks good. The world's biggest video site keeps getting bigger, generating more video views and more ad dollars. Things are fuzzier for some of YouTube's biggest programming partners. Their views are also increasing. But the ad revenue YouTube generates for their stuff isn't keeping pace."
via AllThingsD
This is part of a larger trend affecting everyone in the publishing industry. The world of advertising-funded content is increasingly favoring the platforms and the brands using them... but the individual publishers are faced with the growing problem of increasing ad inventory and a limited revenue stream.
In other words, the long tail is getting longer while the short head is getting smaller.
The solution to this is something YouTube is already working on: Premium YouTube Channels ... which reminds me of a TED video everyone has been sharing the past couple of days:
Overall, what we are seeing right now is that the shift has happened, and the market is scrambling to redefine itself. Old roles and business models are being replaced, merged or changed into new models.
From a business perspective that can be quite scary, but from a trend perspective it's a fascinating transformation, but also a predictable one. The winners will be those who can endure the shift while redefining themselves into what the future will bring (for instance: On demand, multi-distribution, on every channel, on day one = what film makers must do). The loser will be those who simply wait and react. By the time you see the change, it will simply be too late to do anything about it (think Kodak).
There is, however, another problem here... which I'm writing another article about. In the digital world, you can't scale as an individual. You can only scale as a platform.
- TV Commercials versus Digital Advertising - (by @baekdal)
A couple of days ago, a new study came out looking at what would happen if you started to mix TV only advertising campaigns with digital campaigns. In other words, instead of only doing TV ads, what if you did both TV and digital at the same time?
And what they found was very interesting, but what didn't find is perhaps even more interesting. So here is the story.
The study looked at what would happen if brands shifted parts of their TV only budgets to digital channels, and what they found was that it helped across the board.
Not only did shifting TV ad budget to digital result in increased reach, but that reach was more effective. The combination of digital advertising and television commercials was found to be a particularly potent mix, with duplicated reach shown to be more effective on key brand effect metrics than either platform alone. Research demonstrated that planning and running video ads online prior to TV boosts brand recall for that same ad playing on television by 33 percent. There were similar gains when it came to online display ads, with consumers 25 percent more likely to recall the brand if they had seen the display ad before seeing the ad on TV.
And here is what that looks like in the form of a graph. First we see that the more you move to digital, the more effective a reach you get:
And on top of this you also get a lower CPM costs.
In other words, you reach more people, you reach them more efficiently, and it costs less money.
How cool is that?
The study then goes on to look at brand recall rates for when people see the ad more than once, which is definitely worth a look. But let's leave it at this for a moment and talk about what they didn't find.
Based on the above results, the study points out that you will get a better result with a 15% digital versus 85% TV split. And this was what many media sites reported.
But that's not actually true, is it?
If you look at the patterns of what is going on here, we see that 5% is better than zero, 10% is better than 5%, and 15% is better than 10%. ...so wouldn't 20% be better than 15%? ... what about 25% digital? ... or 50% digital? ... or more?
What they actually found were two things:
- They found that shifting more towards digital channels increases reach and lowers cost. And the more you shift, the better the result.
- They found that exposing people to an ad more than once dramatically increases recall rates.
But they only measured recall rates between TV and digital. What if they had measured the same effect between digital and digital? That is, what if the TV budget was 0%, but people would still be exposed to an ad more than once?
What would happen if they continued to measure the shift? Would that be even better?
Consider this:
Would the overall reach continue to grow? ...or would it at some point start to decline as the TV split gets closer and closer to zero?
The study doesn't tell us, but what we do know is that digital advertising is a much cheaper form of advertising than TV. Meaning it would be extremely beneficial to to shift as much away from TV as we can while still maintaining the same effect.
The study clearly shows that shifting *at least* 15% to digital is better. What we don't know is how much further we could go.
Now ask the same question about print. Would you see the same effect if you shifted parts (or all) of your print budget to digital?
While TV and print are two very different platforms, they are both legacy advertising formats based on a disconnected broadcast model.
Clearly we need to study this further.
In my experience, the right thing to do is to mix your channels. And I don't necessarily mean TV+digital. I mean digital+social+direct+email+window+instore+coffee shop+magazine+billboard+TV+event+sponsorship.
The general rule is that multiple points of exposure is far better than any single channel. The trick is to be at as many places at possible, but make each channel relevant within its own niche.
Head over to G+ to comment and discuss this article.
- Rethinking the Perfect Media App - (by @baekdal)
How do we design the perfect media app? How should it work? What should it do? What must be in it?
Baekdal Plus: Read the rest of this article in Baekdal Plus
- Someone Has To Pay, Right? The Business Models after Print - (by @baekdal)
One of the biggest problems for publishers is the culture of free, and how that completely distorts all forms of common sense. Many people are totally convinced that the true path to success is just to 'find another way to make money'.
Baekdal Plus: Read the rest of this article in Baekdal Plus
- Gawker and The Future Trend of Publishing - (by @baekdal)
Gawker just launched the 'New Gawker' ...starting with Jalopnik. It's a beautiful and simple site (maybe too simple as there are very few cues as how to find more content if you come directly to a single article).
And it is responsive, so it's designed for mobile first.
It's built around social:
"There are a few great new tools, including the ability to "heart" stories and comments, as well as "follow" or "block" anyone in the system, including the Jalopnik staff. We've also added image annotation, which will allow you to comment directly on the photos at the top of a post."
But that's not the big news. The big news is that Gawker will combine publishing with a community blog like feature... very similar to Tumblr.
"Have you always wanted a blog in our network? You can do that, too."
"Want to create a blog about Fox Body Fords? Go nuts. Want to create a site devoted to Starfox Cosplay? You're strange, but go ahead and do a barrel roll!."
"All blogs are created equal. Your blog will look similar to our flagship sites and will have all the same tools, including image annotation. Any user in the Kinja universe can follow you. Tag something "Starfox" and it'll show up on the kinja.com/tag/starfox tag page so other people can find it."
I just created a simple blog to try it out: http://baekdal.kinja.com/ ... and it is really very well made (super simple and yet a very powerful platform).
But it doesn't stop there, because you, as a reader (and blogger), can repost any article from the Gawker Network, and Gawker can in turn repost anything that you blog about.
"If you want, you'll also be able to republish articles from our site (and eventually all Gawker sites) and we'll be able to do the same. If we do republish something you created you'll get the byline, the credit, and it'll be clear where it came from."
That's both good and bad, but this does take Huffington Post's 'free blogger' concept to an entirely new level.
And then, of course, they add a bit of encouragement:
"When we look for the next generation of writers for our site, and other sites, we'll be looking at who does well in Kinja."
Ahh...
What will the next generation journalist be? A person who have spent four years in journalist school? ...or a person who have proven herself through her writing and community building?
That's another interesting trend right there (for better and worse). Anyone can be a journalist, and a journalist can come from anywhere.
More here: http://jalopnik.com/welcome-to-what-s-next-73787938
We can debate Gawker's reasons for doing this (it's obviously to increase page views and exposure). But there are so many trends here:
- We have the trend of mobile first (and not as in mobile for a specific device. No, mobile for multiple devices... as in anytime, anywhere, anyway you want it).
- We have the trend of no packages. The front page is really not that important, everything is designed for the performance of the single page. Also, can you imagine this as a 'monthly issue'?
- We have the trend of sharing and engaging, of which the entire site is build around.
- We have the trend of following. You can follow and/block anyone... which in turn creates personalization.
- We have the trend of community building. It's not just a site that you visit. It's a part of your identity, and your home.
- We have the trend of citizen reporting, which is what Gawker will tap into by reposting posts by their readers. That's a lot of free content right there.
- We have the trend of social aggregation, in that people can share, mashup, mix the content any way they like... and Gawker can do the same.
- We have the trend of being a platform, which the blog part is all about.
...and more.
There are so many really exciting things about this... as I said before, for better and worse.
Some of the problems is that Gawker, like many other platforms, is designed around exploitation... as in getting people to do a whole lot of work for free, which Gawker can then monetize.
We have the problem that it is locking people into a platform that creates a kind of Stockholm syndrome between the blogger and Gawker (similar to what we experience on Facebook).
We have the problem with copyright, in that Gawker's readers can post whatever they want... including content that aren't their own. And Gawker can then republish it, pretending that they didn't know, while getting a ton of traffic.
Those are all big problems.
But no matter how we look at it, the trends are super-exciting. We are starting to see an entirely new form of publishing company. In the past, publishing meant that you were the bringer of news. There is still a lot of that on Gawker, but the trend that we see here is not about being the bringer of news, it's about being the creator versus the connector of news.
Gawker, of course, tries to do all of the above... again, for better and worse.
Head over to G+ to comment and discuss this article.
- Unique Features in iPad Apps is Like The Web in 2004 - (by @baekdal)
Every morning, I start my day catching up on the latest news from the media industry. And every single morning I end up feeling frustrated about the traditional media's attempts to go digital. Most attempts are like watching old people mimicking the web in 2004.
This morning, for instance, I read that a new newspaper app could do this: "The app for iPad and iPhone offers some more unique features. The 'live blog' section for instance has the possibility to receive updates without refreshing the page."
Wow... that's an amazing unique feature that... you know... we have been using on the web since 2004 (and it was invented in 1999).
Not only was this a big thing in 2004 on the web, but we also found that it doesn't really help... and it kind of distracts the reader. So most websites have since dropped that functionality... except for live streaming events (where it is essential).
Here is another example. In the year 2001 (12 years ago), One of the most annoying things websites did was to create animated splash pages. People absolutely hated it. It confused them. It caused people to abandon sites, and was generally considered a bad idea.
Before 2001, most websites had a splash page. After 2001, almost all websites had dropped it in favor of bringing their readers directly into the content.
But if we look at the newspaper iPad apps, what is the hottest trend at the moment? Yep, it's animated covers... like this one from Newsweek, from just last month.
So not only is the next new thing for newspaper apps twelve years out of date, it's also often a case of 'Been there. Done that. Didn't Work'.
This doesn't mean that there aren't interesting elements every now and then, but what I don't understand is this: We have 20 years of experience finding the most efficient, the most engaging, and the most profitable way to publish content digitally on the web. But then when many newspapers have to go digital, they seem to discard all that knowledge, and instead opting to create an iPad app with an animated cover, which reminds you more about the old days of interactive CDs.
Not only that, but the media industry also seem to go through all the same stages that we have already gone through with the web.
The next new thing for newspaper apps, used to be the next new thing for websites ten years ago, including all the fancy features that we played around with on the web in the past.
Back in 2010, I wrote the article 'Print vs iPad vs Web', in which I detailed the problem with apps being far behind the web. Today, three years later, we still haven't moved forward.
...versus...
In the developing world we see this amazing mobile revolution simply because they are skipping the desktop. They are going directly from nothing to mobile, which makes them come out in front.
The newspaper industry needs to do the same. We already know how to publish digitally. We have refined how to do that online for 20 years. You don't have to repeat all those steps. Just jump ahead to 2013 and start from there!
(BTW: I'm exploring this is more detail in my upcoming report about the perfect media app)
Head over to G+ to comment and discuss this article.
- How Visuals Makes A Story Better - (by @baekdal)
We all know RSA Animate Revolution's wonderful videos... and if not, here is the playlist.
I particularly like the one about motivation:
But how well does this thing work? Just imagine how much work and effort that goes into it. Wouldn't it be cheaper just to post the talk directly and then just skip the animation? ...and wouldn't that have the same effect?
The answer is no.
The animated videos have taken the social world by storm, creating a simply unheard of level of engagement for this type of content. The motivation video, for instance, has been viewed almost 10 million times. But not only that. They also found that people learn much better this way as well.
If they just gave people the talk, the learning rate was around 70% (quite high). But the animated version had a learning rate of an astonishing 92%.
Also, the animator found that while he initially just created the artwork in real-time, taking a step back and really exploring the topic before hand makes for a much better product.
It's just a remarkable example of how value creates results, especially in this time of snacking that we see all around us.
See the full 19 min discussion here:
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- Can Brands use Facebook Graph Search For Anything? - (by @baekdal)
I have written about some of the problems with Facebook Graph Search. First, I wrote about the problem of creating relationships between data where there aren't any. Secondly, I wrote about the problem of Facebook only searching within the meta data and not the content, and how people fill their profiles with junk info and thus distorting the result.
But there are also several interesting uses for Graph Search, one of which is how it relates to brands.
Let me give you a simple example: Here I have searched for "Clothing stores in San Francisco, California liked by women from San Francisco, California".
The great thing about this result is that it's very specifically targeted not only to a location, but also to a very specific group of people within that location. And in return you get a wonderfully ranked result of the best shops in that area, based on the women who actually live nearby.
This is just pure data porn!!
And just imagine the many other use cases similar to this. This is a great way for people to figure out where to go to buy something, but also a great way for people in marketing and sale to learn something about their competition.
How do you make sure your brand is listed?
Facebook Graph Search only looks at your page metadata. That is the title of your page, your location, and what category your page is in. So make sure you are not showing up as "corporation", but as a "clothing store".
Apart from that it's all about likes. The more people like you, and the higher an engagement rate you have (edgerank), the higher you will rank.
Facebook does not index any of your posts nor any of your photos. It only looks at the page itself.
There is a catch...
Right now, Facebook Graph Search claims to be a 'natural language search engine'. It's not. Not even close. It is actually an assisted keyword engine. That may sound very technical, but it's an important distinction.
A natural language search engine understands what your question is and finds a result even if it doesn't match the specific words that you use. An assisted keyword engine only looks at the actual words and how they are ordered.
Why is this important you ask? Well, it means that unless you search specifically for categories Facebook has defined, you won't find anything. For instance, if instead of searching for "clothing stores" (a business word that nobody uses) you search for "fashion stores", you won't find anything.
Instead you are being directed over to Bing, who lists a department store museum as the top result.
Note: In comparison, Google's top result is "Best women's clothing stores San Francisco, CA" from Yelp.
You have to limit your search to the specific categories predefined by Facebook.
Another example: If you search for "Tablets my friends like who live in the United Kingdom", you won't find anything either. Instead, Facebook suggests that you find friends of a brand page called Tablet Celulares (whatever that is).
To find something, you have to search for the right category, for instance "electronics pages", which isn't very useful.
Note: Apple isn't listed because they are not doing anything with their Facebook page (zero rank score).
Another issue is that Facebook Graph Search is not searching within the content. It's only looking at the metadata (the graph data as they call it). What that means is that you can't search for, e.g., "Products people like from Nike". Facebook doesn't know what that is.
It suggests that you search for products liked by people who work at Nike (meta data), which is not the same thing. But even if you agree to this, you don't get to see any products. Instead, Facebook will show you the pages that are liked by people who work at Nike, within the page category of "product/service".
Yes, there are several very interesting things about Facebook Graph Search, but it's not a real search engine. It doesn't understand what you are asking (it's not a natural language search engine either like Apple Siri, or Google (voice) Search).
Nor does it look at the content, so it has no idea how things relate to each other. All it does is that it matches predefined fields in their databases, which is extremely limiting.
This also means that we are a very long way from being able to use Facebook Graph Search to learn what people think about a brand. We can search for 'page likes', but not for what people say or do, as we can on Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr or Google+.
You should make sure your page data is up-to-date (title, location, category), and get people to like and engage with it (EdgeRank). This will give you the best chance of showing up. But it's going to take a couple more years before this gets really interesting.
For the media?
What if you are a newspaper. Is there any interesting uses for you? Well, you can always search for "Newspapers liked by people who live in Italy", which will give you a nice list of newspapers ranked by their likes+EdgeRank. This is a quick way to learn about your competition and you should look at the ones at the top to see how they are using Facebook.
You can search for photos taken by people. For instance: "Photos taken at London 2012 - Olympic Park in July 2012", which will show you pictures from the place of the 2012 Olympics.
But the problem is that Facebook Graph Search is not very timely. You can't search for "Photos of Zuccotti Park from September 17, 2011" (date and place of the occupy Wall Street demonstration), because it will instead look at the whole month of September and not just the 17th ...and that specific search result finds no photos.
Facebook also wrote that journalists could search for "books read by journalists" or "books read by managers who work at facebook". But this isn't really that interesting ... and again, it won't find books per see. It finds Facebook Pages within the book category (it's not searching for the content).
The problem is that Facebook Graph Search is too wide, too general, and potentially too misleading to be used by newspapers on a daily basis. There might be a few special use cases, but this is nothing like a search on Twitter or Google+ where we can learn how people react to a live event.
It's likely to change over time (years), so play around with it. But remember to think critically about what you find.
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- ROI For Brands, The No Bullshit Way - (by @baekdal)
As I wrote in "2013: What to Focus On", getting a grasp on ROI, or return on investment, is more important than ever for CMOs.
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- Facebook Graph Search Privacy Woes - (by @baekdal)
Facebook's new search engine 'Graph Search' is heading into a new kind of privacy trouble that we previously haven't seen. The problem is not the data, but the implied relationship within it. A relationship we didn't intend to make when we liked a page.
Let me give you an example: Take a search query like: 'Single men who like leather and George Michael and Elton John'
When you read that search query, what was the first thing that came to mind? Some of you would probably think these men are gay (not that there is anything wrong with that).
And while a few of the people Facebook finds will fit that description, most won't. Most people also like 200 other musicians. And besides liking leather they also like bacon, Ferrari, Coca Cola, Starbucks, mountain biking, photography, Alicia Keys, and Mitt Romney.
So the same person would show up regardless if you search for 'Single men who like leather and George Michael and Elton John' ...or... 'Single men who like Coca Cola and Alicia Keys'.
See the problem here?
Because of the way Facebook Graph Search is designed, we can imply a relationship between data points that simply doesn't exist.
This, of course, is nothing new. We actually have a word for it. It's called 'contextomy' or the fallacy of quoting people out of context. We often hear about this from the news media. A journalist will, in order to get the angle that he wants, quote a person completely out of context. And the person ends up being quoted to say exactly the opposite of what he meant.
And while this practice is generally frowned upon by most respectable media companies, it is standard procedure for some of the more scrupulous tabloids.
With Facebook Graph Search, this is about to become a mainstream problem.
I don't, even for a second, think that Facebook wanted for this to happen, but that's what Graph Search does. Graph Search creates a relationship between data points that has no relationship to begin with. Graph Search is specifically designed to 'quote out of context'.
As an analyst, correlation and causation are the two most important elements that you have to get right. It defines value versus worthless. Right versus wrong. Correct versus incorrect, and misleading versus guiding.
There is no correlation between being a single man and liking George Michael's Facebook page. Those two data points weren't created within the same context.
Or what about:
- Single women who live nearby and are interested in men and like getting drunk
- Priests in my neighborhood who like boys
- People who like focus on the family and Neil Patrick Harris
- Mothers to Catholics from Italy who likes Durex
- Spouses who are married and likes dating sites
(Screenshots via Actual Facebook Graph Searches, a new site all about misleading graph results)
And just look at how this data is presented in the search result page. All the other likes are filtered out, causing people to believe that there is a correlation here. That one thing automatically leads to another.
Or what about this one: "Current employers of people who likes racism" (and just look at that FB result page. If that is not an implied relationship I don't know what is):
Sounds pretty bad, right? But does that mean that Target and McDonalds support racism? No, of course not. There is no correlation, and thus no causation.
McDonalds has 400,000 employees, so whatever you search for you will always be able to find some who have liked a page of questionable nature.
And a like isn't even necessarily an endorsement. For instance, how many people do you think who work at BP also likes Greenpeace, just to stay up-to-date with their activities?
And how many in the fishing industry in Japan do you think likes Sea Shepard's Facebook page?
And how many of your own employees do you think 'like' one of your competitors? If you search for 'Employees working at Apple who likes Android' what do you think you will find?
Again, there is no correlation here and no causation. The relationship between search terms is entirely created by you. One data point does not lead to another. But do you see how dangerous such data is in the hands of people who don't realize this?
As analysts and (partly) journalists, we know the importance of context. And we know how critical it is to validate the relationship between data points. In fact, that is 90% of what we do. We find the true story in the sea of sources.
But I'm worried about Graph Search. This uncritical use of data, in the hands of people (i.e. everyone) who don't normally think in terms of correlation and causation, is problematic.
My guess is that, in 2013, we will see a ton of stories based on Graph Search results, putting people and brands into situations that they never intended to be in, simply because they were 'quoted out of context'.
I'm pretty sure McDonalds doesn't like being in the top three results when people search for "Employers of people who like racism".
So what should McDonalds do? Fire all those employees? Remember, there is no confirmed correlation here. A like is not necessarily the same as an endorsement.
Should Apple fire all employees who like Android? Even though many of them only like the page to stay up-to-date with the movements of a competitor?
Should a brand that makes barbecue grills fire all employees who are vegetarians?
But more to the point, is this really the kind of world that we want to have? A world where people are judged and devalued based on what they like on Facebook? Isn't this just another form of discrimination. We have tried discriminating people based on race, religion, political and cultural views ... all of which are now illegal. But isn't discriminating a person based on a like the same thing?
Racism is defined as views, practices and actions reflecting the belief that humanity is divided into distinct groups and that members of a certain group share certain attributes which make that group as a whole less desirable and inferior.
Should people be afraid of what pages they like in order to fit into society? Should a like not be treated the same as freedom of speech?
Now don't get me wrong. I think Facebook means well, and 99.99% of Graph Search will probably be used for great things. As an analyst, I love the concept of having access to all this data, and by analyzing it critically it has many potential uses.
When people search for "photos taken by people who live in Paris" the result is amazing. Similarly with most other results.
The problem is people who search without critically evaluating the result. One day they will see a result that causes them to draw a connection between two completely separate data points. And that's when the social backlash happens.
Of course, this also opens up an opportunity for the media. If everyone can search for everything, it's up to journalists and analysts to be the 'reality checkers' and to position themselves as analysts of truth.
But in these days of page view whoring will the newspapers focus on the right story? ...or the implied scandal?
How tempting would it be for them to write a story titled: "Massive problem with racism at McDonalds" ... combined with 15 follow-up articles of isolated cases of people being mistreated and McDonalds' management denying the whole thing.
All started because of this:
In the long term your readers will stick with those they can trust. Are you going to be a pundit or an analyst?
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- Be Inspired By Your Past, But Don't Live in It - (by @baekdal)
It seems to me that we see three kinds of behavior in the world of media.
We have the traditionalists, who love print and traditional publishing. And if they could decide, the new world should be banned. They see digital as having a negative impact on their craft. These are the types of people who still buy LPs, and play them on vintage LP players because that makes it more 'authentic'.
Then we have the futuremaniacs, who discard the past at all cost. These people will go out of their way to do the opposite of whatever they define as being the past. If they see an article writen with only text, they will proclaim that articles should all be interactive infographics. Whenever they see a book, they proclaim it should really be a game for the smartphone.
The problem with these two groups is that one never evolves (like the Amish people), and the other never learns.
I believe the best approach is to always be inspired by the past, but we shouldn't live in it.
Note: picture from the BMW 386 Hommage.
The challenge is to figure out which is which. What part of it is inspiration, and what is really a limitation. Take the format of a book. Is that format part of the inspiration of what the book creates? ...or is the act of flipping pages and the book itself a limitation of the past?
I believe that the book itself is a limitation of the past, but that the concept of providing a story by taking away as many visual cues as possible is what makes it alluring.
I love reading a book and being forced to use my brain to imagine what that world looks like. If the book instead showed me a picture, that magic evaporates.
Always remember that. Always ask, "What is a limitation? And what is inspiration?"
I wrote more about this in: RESET: The Future of Books in 2015
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