Curated by Stuart Fogarty stuart@admaticallycom for AFAO'Meara Advertising, Streamabout The Video Agency and Admatic Ireland.
All comments will be posted - promise!
The USA Ferguson riots again highlight the role of Social Media, notably Twitter, in news. The news of the shooting first appeared on Twitter, long before any Media arrived and was well tweeted before any coverage. Equally too, people shared pics and video of armed police, tear gas and so on, assuming the role of traditional TV news. In fact, Social Media activity became the news story in itself. A greater proportion of black people use Twitter than white with some 22% of African Americans on Twitter according to The FT. This shoots to 40% of 18-29 year old African Americans versus 28% of young white people and Jack Dorsey (twitter founder) was a presence at the protests. He in turn used his Social Media to further the stories and the images. Interesting too, that law enforcement were slow to get behind the Twitter stories and to utilise it for themselves. When you don't, you lose control of the story and they did. The use of Social Media in news is now so prevalent that it's hard to see the traditional provision of news crews at scenes with reporters, as adding anything to the story. They even get there late, compared to the immediacy of Social Media. Perhaps we need to re-think that? Perhaps what's needed is an army of Twitterers available to report reliably and immediately for news. Ferguson has shown us that we are moving into a new game.
Interesting piece on The New York Times online. Seemingly, according to BuzzFeed who've sight of internal documents, they've lost 50% of their homepage views - 80 million in two years. Crisis? No....rather than a loss of readers, perhaps what we're seeing is the move away from homepages and possibly, here is a reason why. News is no longer the destination read and what's delivering news readers is referral traffic - from Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Reddit and so on. So people are getting their news when it's sent to them - they're not going looking for it. So when they see something of interest say on Twitter, they click that link and it brings them to the specific page and NOT via the homepage. The readers are only looking at stories that interest them - snacking - rather than the "news in full". So the notional idea that I read a paper online from front to back, might be changing. Homepages are institutional, whereby Social Media reflects the readers interests. So readers are looking to be entertained as we know and so only read the stuff they find interesting. Audience analysis by publishers as to what's being read, might confirm this trend and they may find that their homepage traffic is in demise whereas overall, their numbers are still holding up. Interesting for advertisers too who are paying premiums to be on the homepages.... But perhaps important to publishers too, to drive their stories by links on Social Media, although they do that, but this may need more focus to deliver views. So the Social Media aspect of publishing is becoming more important. They might, for example, keep tweeting the popular stuff. And the headline on the Social Media link to the story, will be key. Perhaps the way we're reading news is changing and perhaps an interest in "general news" is declining as such. It's not a commentary but just an interesting development to note. I don't believe the NY Times have lost readers - they've just lost readers on their homepage landing page. So news needs to adapt to that.
One day too, we'll get the point where we send relevant news to the relevant people rather than to everyone en masse. The Internet is a one-to-one medium, not one-to-many.
My all-time favourite App? Flipboard and it's not an App, it's a thing of beauty, allowing you to merge and mash all your feeds into one "designery" space. This is top end design with relevant content that's really going upwards. They've just announced they've raised 50 million us Dollars in funding, bringing the company valuation to about 800 million usd. Founded only in 2010 by Mike McCue, they have 85 million registered users which surprises me that it's so low.... Almost like a top-end magazine it aggregates news feeds with social media in the way you want it as "flippable" pages. It also allows you consequently, to create your own magazine and over a million have done that including 'RollingStone' and 'National Geographic'. That's a self-publishing dream. But the long term play for Flipboard I think anyway, is deciding on what content to include and by that I mean, getting revenues from publishers who want to be included. If you own the App, you decide on what goes in. With 85 million users it hasn't reached the critical mass of say, Twitter (800 million)....yet. But when it does, it will be a real player that it deserves to be. It wasn't that long ago (a year?) that they had 20 million users. They've also gently started ECommerce with a 'click to buy' button working on a sales margin. That's going to be big. It's the sort of news innovation coupled with top rate design and functionality, that is leading the way (although the current digital issue of 'Wired', is also something to behold). And if you haven't got it, get it now. Flipboard are getting the financial recognition at last.
Facebook has gone through another re-design just as elaborate as the "timeline" changes in 2011. It has overhauled its "news feed" interestingly, with Zuckerberg calling it "a personalised newspaper" not just with text but with imagery. It features blogger images, mobile consistency and multiple feeds. This is a radical departure. The focus on news stories is more visual, images are much larger (taking 50% of the feed) and more centre positioned with an 'Instagram' feel. Of course, the key here is the ability to 'share' news. More feeds, and more control of those feeds gives users more options, which you chose to 'follow'. Could be a news feed from family, from friends, about music and so on. Niche news that you want. Being heavily mobile enabled too, is a good answer to criticisms of Facebook. The continuing journey for Facebook into online news is interesting and another competitor to traditional news orgs. But the fundamental issue around news, the fundamental issue around 'citizen journalism' is trust. You have to trust the source and are these Facebook feeds trustworthy? Not always. News is pure gold as a content commodity. It draws people in and it retains them. The people in Pole position to provide trusted news are newspapers. And they'll get there with a little belief in themselves and with a mindset change that realises, their newspaper futures are online. The biggest asset newspapers have, is not on a printing press, it's their websites. And it'll take time for Press men to get their heads around that, but get that, they will. Do not despair oh ye of little faith.
Huffington Post Live (owned by AOL), a news broadcasting service of online publisher The Huffington Post, went live today. And it did so without fanfare but caused an earthquake amongst broadcasters. That's a video of Arianna Huffington's vision from 2010 which today she achieved. "People want to be part of a story...not just consuming". Promising 12 hours of video a day, 5 days a week initially, it intends to open us news by allowing Social Media comment and webcam interactivity. in other words, getting your views on the news. It's not just a video platform but a platform for engagement. Rather than run pre-roll advertising or indeed banners, it asked founding sponsors to pay between 3-5 million usd for a guaranteed mention once every 2 hours and Cadillac and Verizon took up the offer. It's unlikely too that normal "ad breaks" will apply as they intend to "disrupt" traditional broadcasting models. And who'd doubt them. Using Google hangouts for live chats, the whole sense is very engaging and with 100 professionals on their crew, it's a substantial attempt at online broadcasting. Jonah Peretti, the co-founder of The Huffington Post was quoted as saying:
A couple years ago, we were trying unsuccessfully to sell social advertising to a market that only wanted to buy banners but things have changed dramatically since then. Now many agencies and brands are refusing to buy banners, companies that rely on traditional display units are suffering, and budgets are shifting rapidly to social advertising. One of our board members, who was initially sceptical of our decision to not run banners, recently said that “social advertising will be the biggest media business since cable television.” The feed (streaming) is perfect as is the overall look and feel. Have a look at the future here http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/live
It's a sensational breakthrough for news and publishing, never mind online publishing. You've possibly seen the birth today, of the world's biggest TV station although it's much much more than that. It's the world's biggest Social Media site too. This has the potential to kill off traditional TV broadcasters as the audience migrates online and yet again, big broadcasters show no response. It is social Media Television (Twitter with moving pictures) exactly what a new generation want. Time and time again we see large businesses who had it their own way for so long, ignore the web and just get eaten. What is this going to do to the TV audience? It's going to take their viewers globally, just like a Facebook. Live video on demand. It's here, it's extensive and it's a winner.
News is transforming and video of news is transforming too. Irish publishers already understand the issues and are dealing with it.
But here's a brand new citizen journalism concept called Peepol.tv which is stunning. Stunning. Here's the url they're working with at the moment http://publiclaboratory.com:3019/ and yes, early early stages.
Just awarded funding by the Knight Foundation, who focus on funding media innovation and freedom of expression. Since 2007, they've invested over 100m usd in new technology ideas although largely with a focus on fostering democracy. They believe that open and honest news gathering, is key to creating a better, open society and so they support ideas financially, in that space. And I'm pretty sure, on a non-profit basis.
The Knight Brothers themselves, are former US Newspaper owners, so they understand the role that news plays. Indeed, we've seen the role of social media news recently in nurturing revolution through the Arab Spring, Syria and others.
Felipe Heusser is the driver behind Peepol.tv and he was motivated when student protestors took to the streets of his home, Santiago, Chile, last year. He felt the press covered the darker side and to give his fellow Chileans a more "unfiltered" view, he attached his iphone to a helium balloon and sent it high above the streets, live streaming the events back to a server. (photo thanks to Niemanlab).
Within an hour, it was viewed by 10,000 and then, he saw the mainstream media embedding his content in their own websites. In fact, I saw the footage on Sky News for example. That event inspired his idea to extend it through Peepol.tv and now, he has the funding to start it.
Using mapping too, it allows you to view live streamed citizen journalism of events across the world. And, by embedding Twitter feeds for example, allows others to make comments on what they're seeing. Importantly too, he can encourage more citizens to get to something that's happening and start filming to stream it back.
This changes everything.
They are creating an App that's quick to open and immediately starts streaming the footage back. Which also means, that if the Police take your phone it won't matter, the footage has already been streamed back.
Although not trained journalists as such, this type of video news has massive potential as more and more citizens sign in and start filming. A new TV network based on news gathering. And they'll extend to other events such as Concerts, Sports, Traffic or anything making it real easy for others to watch exactly what's going on - as it happens.
Apart from the high and lofty democratization ideals, utterly important as they absolutely are, it has the potential to be a real game changer.
There are issues - libel potential being only one, copyright being another - but there are also no limitations.
Peepol.tv is possibly the new face of news. Or one new face. They have an idea, they have funding, it works (we know it does because Streamabout is a live streamer too) and we expect to see it within months.
Congratulations to the Knight Brothers too for having the foresight and more importantly, for giving something back in encouraging businesses like this.
