MediaShifttag:www.pbs.org,2008-06-30:/mediashift//42011-10-03T00:00:27ZYour guide to the digital media revolution, with host Mark Glaser.Movable Type Pro 4.37Daily Must Reads, Feb. 10, 2012tag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101492012-02-10T15:17:35Z2012-02-10T15:23:32ZThe best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung. 1. Rodale, Time and other publishers get hit with privacy lawsuits (Online Media Daily) 2. Penguin cuts ties with e-library distributor OverDrive (paidContent) 3. Nielsen: Number of TV 'cord cutters' increases (Lost Remote) 4. WSJ uses Pinterest, Instagram to cover Fashion Week (Nieman Lab) 5. Can...Lily LeungThe best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung.
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Mediatwits #37: Merger Mania: CIR-Bay Citizen; GigaOm-PaidContent; Twitter Censorshiptag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101482012-02-10T14:00:05Z2012-02-11T02:27:24Z Welcome to the 37th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Jillian York, who is filling in for Rafat Ali. It's been a crazy week in media + tech, with important mergers abounding! First up is the Center for Investigative Reporting announcing that it will try to merge with...Mark Glaserhttp://www.pbs.org/mediashift
Welcome to the 37th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Jillian York, who is filling in for Rafat Ali. It's been a crazy week in media + tech, with important mergers abounding! First up is the Center for Investigative Reporting announcing that it will try to merge with another non-profit, the Bay Citizen, making a powerhouse investigative team to cover local, state and national issues. We get all the key players in that deal as guests on the show: CIR chairman Phil Bronstein, CIR executive director Robert Rosenthal and Bay Citizen interim CEO Brian Kelley.
Next up, there's a merger of key tech sites, both started by Indian-born bloggers who turned them into startup businesses. GigaOm announced it was buying PaidContent from the Guardian for an undisclosed sum. The Guardian will get stock in GigaOm's parent company and get a seat on the board. Special guests OM Malik, founder of GigaOm and Staci Kramer, SVP at ContentNext (and sometimes co-host of Mediatwits), talked about the deal and how the "synergy" in this case didn't mean layoffs. And finally, we discussed the recent move by Twitter to censor some tweets in countries that had more stringent free speech controls. Was Twitter right to implement these rules?
Don't forget to vote in our weekly poll, this time about Twitter censoring tweets:
Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. and Circle him on Google+
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GigaOm + PaidContent = Perfect Sensetag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101472012-02-09T22:10:16Z2012-02-11T02:24:23ZWhen the U.K.-based Guardian Media Group bought PaidContent in 2008, it was portrayed as an attempt to expand into the U.S. market. The Guardian newspaper was a forerunner in its use of the web, and already got a large portion of its traffic from North America. But I had trouble seeing why a general interest news organization, even a forward-looking...Dorian Benkoil
When the U.K.-based Guardian Media Group bought PaidContent in 2008, it was portrayed as an attempt to expand into the U.S. market. The Guardian newspaper was a forerunner in its use of the web, and already got a large portion of its traffic from North America.
But I had trouble seeing why a general interest news organization, even a forward-looking one, would buy what was essentially a network of niche sites geared toward media and technology executives.
Now, a company that's steeped in the businesses of Silicon Valley, GigaOm, has a acquired "the best chronicler of the media industry," founder Om Malik wrote on his blog yesterday. "The ethos of PaidContent and our company are in sync."
The founder of ContentNext Media (PaidContent's parent company), Rafat Ali, who is co-host of this site's Mediatwits podcast, seemed equally pleased.
"Just married the woman of my dreams & the company I founded got the best owner possible. Both after false starts," he tweeted from New Delhi.
When news of the acquisition spread this week, it wasn't a particular surprise to anyone who'd been watching either company over the last several years. It made perfect sense -- more than the Guardian purchase in 2008.
The news signals two things: 1) the formation of a tech media super-group and 2) the shift in strategy the Guardian had mentioned.
The Players
New York-based PaidContent has since its founding in 2002 been one of the leading properties covering the business of media, especially digital. It expanded into coverage of mobile with MocoNews, Indian tech media with ContentSutra, and launched PaidContent:U.K. The sites in January received more than 700,000 unique visitors, according to reports.
The GigaOm network, founded by Malik in 2006, is based in Silicon Valley and covers tech industry verticals such as clean tech, broadband and Apple. It says it receives 4.5 million unique visitors monthly.
Both networks were founded by Indian-born journalists who'd worked in the heady 1990s of New York's Silicon Alley, Ali for Silicon Alley Reporter, Malik for Red Herring and Forbes. Malik moved to Silicon Valley in 2000 to work for Business 2.0.
Ali and Malik are also good friends, and Ali is on GigaOm's board of advisers.
Malik has talked of wanting to try his hand in business after covering it for so long. He worked tirelessly to build his company from a blog covering technology to a network, a research subscription service, and an events company.
Standing with Ali and Malik in the fall of 2007, I heard Ali quietly caution his friend to take care of his health. "Blogging can kill you," I remember him saying. Eerily, a couple months later, Malik suffered a heart attack. He has recovered but is said to be more careful about his work habits today.
Ali, whom I have worked for and with and who is also a friend, has told me of running the business off his laptop both in London and from his apartment in Santa Monica, Calif., where he lived before coming to New York a few years ago.
He, too, worked tirelessly and because of that, PaidContent developed a reputation for never missing a beat. He formed the company almost by accident, having launched it as a way to get a job after Silicon Alley Reporter, and was able to sustain himself with speaking engagements and a few sponsorships.
He hired noted journalist Staci Kramer, who helped him build the site and the staff and became senior vice president at the parent company ContentNext.
"This is a great outcome of an intense process," Kramer wrote me last night in an email. "Guardian News & Media gave us a great vote of confidence with the initial acquisition and again now by making sure we were matched with the right company, then staying as minority shareholders."
GigaOm Gets Quality Staffers
Malik wrote that the "first and perhaps most important reason" for the deal was "people. I have been an admirer of PaidContent's editorial team from the very beginning of its journey. Rafat Ali and Staci Kramer were two of my favorite writers in the early days of professional blogging."
He also cited others on the team, including Ernie Sander (whom I worked with at the AP), who he said would become "executive editor of our sprawling online editorial operations."
Together, Ali, Kramer and others built an event business and launched ContentNext Dex, a financial index of media-related sites and a research arm, neither of which seemed to take hold. Ali told an M.B.A. class of mine he visited last year that ContentNext, which he left in 2010, made a significant share of its revenue from events.
After 2008, New York media types sometimes marveled how Ali & Co., and Mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby, my former boss, both sold just before the "nuclear winter," as a friend from Mediabistro called the subsequent economic collapse.
Mediabistro was paid $23 million by what's now WebMediaBrands, $3 million of that in longer-term "payout" bonuses should the company hit certain performance markers. The Guardian paid 4 million pounds (about $6.3 million at today's exchange rate) for PaidContent in 2008, the Guardian reported yesterday.
The guardian as PaidContent's guardian
It's not surprising that in the recent environment and focused on other areas, the Guardian couldn't quite make its new venture thrive.
One of the smaller of leading U.K. media organizations, and solely owned by a trust to keep it independent, the Guardian Media Group has struggled financially in recent years, reporting a before-tax profit for 2011 of 9 million pounds (about $14.24 million) after losses of 96.7 million and 171 million pounds, respectively, in the previous two years.
It has, meanwhile, pushed to get more of its operations into digital, an area where it could be innovative and expand its footprint to new markets.
It has launched blogs headed by aggressive reporters, had "hack days" that invited developers to figure out new ways to cover and present news, developed multiple feeds that allowed seamless intake and display of news and information, even given rather open access to its wider database via APIs (application programmer interfaces) that let others build applications on its proprietary data.
In the annual report, the company said its re-version-ed iPhone app had 322,000 downloads in less than its first three months. It last month ended a three-month free trial of its iPad app, opting to charge 9.99 pounds (about $16) after a week.
Guardian News & Media, the division that bought ContentNext, announced last November that "following a strategic review" it was looking for a buyer for ContentNext while it turned its U.S. focus to "building the Guardian." Guardian Media Group's 2011 annual report said the company was "looking ahead to further digital launches ... most importantly a major expansion in the U.S. with a new digital-only operation based in New York."
Under terms of the deal, Guardian News & Media gets a minority stake in GigaOm alongside venture investors such as Reed Elsevier, Alloy Ventures and True Ventures. It also gets an observer seat on GigaOm's board, Malik said.
'A Fraction' of the Original Price
Neither Malik, the Guardian nor ContentNext named a price. Ad Age reported it was a "fraction" of the original deal. Guardian representatives pointed me to their statement online.
By taking a seat on GigaOm's board, the Guardian perhaps hopes to learn more about how the digital world works at the cutting edge. In turn, GigaOm gets more knowledge of media and the international sphere.
GigaOm, in acquiring ContentNext, gets a presence in covering the New York-centric media world, a crowded arena in which it has made forays but never solidified its hold.
They will turn the New York offices of ContentNext into GigaOm East, just blocks from where Ali and Malik used to work.
A GigaOm representative told Ad Age the company would keep PaidContent at its current web address and hadn't decided whether to fold it into GigaOm.com.
"By blending [PaidContent's] coverage with ours, we hope to watch this fast-changing industry ever more closely," Malik wrote.
The GigaOm purchase is hardly an "OMG" -- it just makes good sense.
An award-winning former managing editor at ABCNews.com and an MBA (with honors), Dorian Benkoil handles marketing and sales strategies for MediaShift, and is the business columnist for the site. He is SVP at Teeming Media, a strategic media consultancy focused on attracting, engaging, and activating communities through digital media. He tweets at @dbenk and you can Circle him on Google+.
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E-books and Self-Publishing Roundup, Feb. 9, 2012tag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101462012-02-09T18:45:02Z2012-02-09T18:45:53ZThe best stories of the week from across the web on e-books and self-publishing1. 2012 marks the rise of new e-book tools (Forbes) 2. Self-published crime writer is Kindle's most popular author (The Telegraph) 3. Rogue self-publishers adding XXX material to Nook and Kindle online stores (PC Magazine) 4. Would you buy digital books in bundles if it was cheaper?...Lily LeungThe best stories of the week from across the web on e-books and self-publishing
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Daily Must Reads, Feb. 9, 2012tag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101452012-02-09T16:16:46Z2012-02-09T16:19:18ZThe best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung. 1. GigaOM CEO discusses acquisition of PaidContent (Wired) 2. BBC journalists told not to break news stories on Twitter (Guardian) 3. AOL has hired a new chief content officer to give Patch a boost (paidContent) 4. How Don Graham fumbled the Washington Post Co. (Forbes) 5....Lily LeungThe best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung.
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Bay Citizen, Center for Investigative Reporting Plan to Merge. Now What?tag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101442012-02-09T14:00:15Z2012-02-10T17:24:52ZThe Bay Citizen and the Center for Investigative Reporting, two non-profit organizations based in the Bay Area, announced formally Tuesday that they intend to merge. Under terms of the agreement, Berkeley, Calif.-based CIR, which also runs California Watch, would take over management of the Bay Citizen, an online publication with a publishing partnership with The New York Times. Phil Bronstein,...Ashwin Seshagiri
The Bay Citizen and the Center for Investigative Reporting, two non-profit organizations based in the Bay Area, announced formally Tuesday that they intend to merge.
Under terms of the agreement, Berkeley, Calif.-based CIR, which also runs California Watch, would take over management of the Bay Citizen, an online publication with a publishing partnership with The New York Times. Phil Bronstein, a former Hearst executive and chairman of CIR's board of directors, will become the executive chairman of the combined companies, the two organizations said in the announcement. The rest of the leadership and direction of the new non-profit entity will be decided in the next 30 days by a joint committee from the two organizations.
"This creates an opportunity to have a much broader reach and a loyal base," Robert J. Rosenthal, executive director of CIR, said in a telephone interview with MediaShift. "We really want to be at the forefront of taking unique, high-quality information and melding it with evolving technologies."
Rosenthal added that the merger would also be an "opportunity to engage the audience in the Bay Area especially around the idea of accountability, or investigative, stories."
Dubbed BayWatch by reporters at one of the organizations, the merger will bring together two award-winning newsrooms at a time when finding sustainable models of journalism seems as uncertain as ever.
FILLING VOIDS
For CIR, the partnership would fill a void in its coverage of national and international issues, as well as statewide stories with its California Watch brand. While the Bay Citizen brand offers CIR entry into a regional market, Rosenthal said the types of stories that come out of the Bay Area are also "important and relevant to a national and international audience."
Then there's the money. In 2010, the Bay Citizen had more than four times as much revenue as CIR, according to tax filings from both organizations. The Bay Citizen received $11.4 million that year largely from private donations and foundation grants.
For the Bay Citizen, the merger has different implications. It comes at a time of a leadership vacuum for the organization. Its chief executive, editor in chief and managing editor -- the startup's original three employees -- have all left in the past few months. The startup's founder and benefactor, billionaire Warren Hellman, passed away late last year.
Last Friday, early morning visitors who tried to go to the site were greeted instead to the homepage of GoDaddy.com, a popular web hosting service. Redirects like this often happen when a domain name isn't renewed. The site was quickly back up that day, but media watcher Jim Romenesko said it was a sign that the Bay Citizen was in disarray.
Peter Lewis, the Bay Citizen's managing editor, did not reply to an email requesting comment. Aaron Glantz, a Bay Citizen reporter and chairman of the site's Newspaper Guild unit, declined to comment.
One concern that surrounds any merger is the possibility of redundancies. Put simply, will people get fired? CIR's Rosenthal said that while there's certainly a possibility of eliminating positions -- especially those that have been allocated for in the Bay Citizen's budget but have yet to be filled -- he's hopeful that they can create a scenario in which people don't lose their jobs. There are no plans to eliminate the Bay Citizen brand after the merger, Rosenthal added.
DO NOT RESUSCITATE
In many ways, the Bay Citizen defines the prototypical online startup -- start with a bang, raise a lot of money and, at some point, get swooped up by someone more established. Founded in 1977, the Center for Investigative Reporting is the nation's oldest non-profit investigative news organization. CIR's most recent venture, California Watch, is the largest investigative team in the state, according to the company.
But the tumult surrounding the not-so-bootstrapped Bay Citizen is less a sign that we live in a bubbling tech world than of the challenges facing news innovation these days.
The Bay Citizen launched in mid-2010 as the world was ready to sign the do-not-resuscitate order for the San Francisco Chronicle, the area's major daily newspaper. One of its first orders of business was to announce a partnership to fill the pages of the New York Times Bay Area section, a way for the nascent company to extend its brand's exposure.
"Having local news coverage from the Bay Citizen will complement the national and global coverage that has made The Times a popular news provider in the Bay Area," Bill Keller, then-executive editor of The Times, said in a statement at the time. "Based on the quality of the initial news articles from the Bay Citizen's newsroom, I am confident it will serve our Bay Area readers with substantive, informative local journalism."
When it became apparent that the Bay Citizen's role would not be that of the charitable undertaker of the legacy print world, the startup suddenly found itself thrust into the position of the Chronicle's competitor.
The Bay Citizen broke several major stories in the area, ranging from back-room political dealings to public safety threats. Last year, the online publication ran an investigation about the San Francisco's rapid transit system that landed on the Times' most-emailed list that week.
New Direction for Bay Citizen?
The Bay Citizen is often uttered in the same breath as the Texas Tribune, another online news startup that partners with The New York Times. Last year, the Knight Foundation awarded the two organizations a $975,000 grant to offer their shared open-source content management system to other news startups that have struggled to implement low-cost publishing platforms.
At the same time, critics have suggested that the Times' partnerships offer as many drawbacks as they do benefits.
"We have our identity online that's completely different than what we're doing in the Times," Steve Fainaru, former acting editor in chief of the Bay Citizen, said last November in an interview with NetNewsCheck.com, a website focused on digital media. "We want to be more innovative. We want to be experimental. We want to have a different voice than we have in the Times."
This week's announcement could finally give the Bay Citizen the opportunity to do that. The Bay Citizen's contract with The Times is scheduled to renew in October unless terminated by either party with 60 days' notice, according to the news startup. In a presentation to the Bay Citizen's board in late January, Bronstein notably left out discussion of the organization's contract with the Times, Lewis wrote in a blog post on the Bay Citizen's site. Bronstein said the agreement could possibly conflict with partnerships that CIR has with dozens of other print partners, according to Lewis.
Rosenthal said that CIR had been in communication with the Times, but no plans have been made to move one way or the other.
"The Times model is different, but it doesn't mean we can't make it work," Rosenthal said. "We have to be sensitive and considerate to the people we're already working with."
PARTNERSHIPS
Regardless of what role the Times might play in the new company, partnerships remain a vital element to its success -- both in terms of revenue generation as well as exposure. CIR and California Watch have built their models around syndication.
CIR distributes its stories to television, print, radio and online outlets, including NPR News, PBS "Frontline," the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, "60 Minutes" and others.
In 2010, the Bay Citizen initiated collaborations with 27 news sites and blogs that focus on hyperlocal coverage of different neighborhoods, communities and cultural projects, according to the company's most recent annual report. It also launched a collaboration with KGO AM 810, a local news radio station.
Combined, CIR and The Bay Citizen have more than 70 employees.
"The Bay Citizen was started as an experiment in journalism," Susan Hirsch, a founding member of the Bay Citizen's Board of Directors and the philanthropic adviser to the late Warren Hellman, said in the announcement. "From the beginning, The Bay Citizen has been committed to high quality journalism, progressive use of technology, and a strong business model. This potential merger is another step on that path."
Ashwin Seshagiri is freelance reporter and a student at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. His work as appeared in the New York Times, Bloomberg News, the Bold Italic, SF Weekly and other outlets. Previously, he launched social media programs for a Fortune 500 company, helped produce animations for cell phones and sold bad wine to unsuspecting tourists in South America. He can be reached at shwiners@gmail.com.
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Are You Part of the 2% (of People Who Get Campaign News From Twitter)? tag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101432012-02-09T00:00:10Z2012-02-09T17:38:22ZMany of you are, like me, among the proverbial "99%" when it comes to economics and income. But if you regularly learn about the 2012 campaign from those you follow on Twitter, as I do, you're in an elite class of a different sort. A new report out from the The Pew Research Center for The People and The Press...Mark Hannah
Many of you are, like me, among the proverbial "99%" when it comes to economics and income. But if you regularly learn about the 2012 campaign from those you follow on Twitter, as I do, you're in an elite class of a different sort.
A new report out from the The Pew Research Center for The People and The Press contains some interesting findings about the media outlets citizens are using to inform themselves about the presidential campaign.
Here are a few of the more surprising findings.
New Media: Not So Much
According to the study, while this is the first campaign in which the Internet has surpassed local newspapers as a primary source of political news, social-networking sites are largely exempt from this trend.
Very few Americans regularly get campaign news from social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter (6% and 2%, respectively). Even among people who report using these social networks, nearly half (46%) say they "never" learn about the election there. At first, these findings seem to fly in the face of the current craze around word-of-mouth or peer-to-peer campaign tactics. But when you consider the apparent influence of offline social networks (you know, friends and family and other relationships that transcend cyberspace), these types of grassroots approaches are doubtless effective.
Cable rules
The study also shows that for the first time, more Americans regularly get campaign news from cable news outlets like Fox News and MSNBC than from their local television stations. This makes cable news the most popular destination for regular political news. Given the frequency and intensity of these channels' political coverage, this may not be surprising. It may also not be surprising to learn that Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to tune into Fox News and Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to turn to CNN and MSNBC.
What does this all mean for the prospect of continued polarization in this country? What do we get when the increasing influence of cable news channels on the national debate mixes with the increasing partisanship of those channels' audiences -- and when more people are getting campaign news from the Internet (where, presumably, they can pick political news sites that align with their political disposition) than the local paper, magazine or radio station?
Moreover, what does it mean when the audience group that most commonly reported that they "enjoy political news a lot" (people who agree with the Tea Party) are also most likely (at 74%) to report that they see the news media as biased?
I spoke with Carroll Doherty, the associate director of the Pew Research Center for The People and The Press, who observed that Tea Party Republicans who reported seeing bias aren't thinking about Fox News, but about other media channels they're less likely to watch. My psychologist friends might chalk this up to a classic case of actor-observer bias, but no matter.
What? Mitt Romney is a Governor?
If it is the media's job, collectively, to educate voters about the candidates, their policies and issues, they're not doing a very good job of it. The report finds that the "general public's knowledge about some of the fundamentals of the major candidates' resumes, positions and the campaign process is rather limited ... 58% were able to identify Newt Gingrich as the candidate who had been speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Fewer than half (46%) knew that Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, and just 37% could identify Ron Paul as the Republican candidate opposed to U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan."
This begs the question: If the various media aren't effectively educating the voters, perhaps we can find ways of educating ourselves -- and maybe we could start by using Twitter and Facebook?
Mark Hannah is the political contributor for MediaShift. Mark's political career began on the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign, where he worked as a member of the national advance staff. He's more recently done advance work for the Obama-Biden campaign, the Presidential Inaugural Committee and the White House. In the "off-season" (i.e., in between campaigns) he worked in the PR agency world and conducted sensitive public affairs campaigns for well-known multinational corporations, major industry organizations and influential non-profits. He serves on the board of directors of the National Association for Media Literacy Education, is a member of the Public Relations Society of America and was a research fellow at the Society for New Communications Research. He is a graduate of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and received a master's degree from Columbia University. His personal website is www.mark-hannah.com, and he can be reached at markphannah[at]gmail.com. Follow Mark on Twitter: @MarksTerritory
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Daily Must Reads, Feb. 8, 2012tag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101412012-02-08T15:45:57Z2012-02-08T15:53:36ZThe best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung. 1. Amazon and Viacom nearing web-video deal (Reuters) 2. Sky News clamps down on Twitter use (Guardian) 3. Le Huffington Post Québec launches (FishbowlNY) 4. Facebook partners with Bango, looks to mobile payments (The Next Web) 5. LinkedIn is acquiring Rapportive, a startup that focuses on...Lily LeungThe best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung.
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Spoiler Alert! Tech Is Changing the Way We Even Talk About TVtag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101392012-02-08T14:00:19Z2012-02-09T17:38:46Z(Spoiler alert! The following post includes things that happened on "Downton Abbey," "The Sopranos" and "Dallas.") The post to Facebook on a late Monday morning was simple enough. A photo of actor Thomas Howes as his character William from "Downton Abbey," along with the status, "Oh, William. We will miss you." The post was meant to engage, and perhaps commiserate...Joe Pagetta(Spoiler alert! The following post includes things that happened on "Downton Abbey," "The Sopranos" and "Dallas.")
The post to Facebook on a late Monday morning was simple enough. A photo of actor Thomas Howes as his character William from "Downton Abbey," along with the status, "Oh, William. We will miss you."
The post was meant to engage, and perhaps commiserate with, those Nashville Public Television fans that were sad that William had died the night before in episode 4 of season 2 of the series. Many people "liked" it, but many of those who posted in the comments section did not. It started off with "Hush! I haven't watched last night's episode!" from one commenter. Then "spoiler!!!! I'm not there yet! Just finished Season 1!!!" from another. That's eight exclamation points in that one, if you're counting. "Haven't seen it yet either. Grr," wrote one angry fan, and still another accused us of "bad form, really." My favorite was, "Thanks for the spoiler ... Who watches live TV?"
What? Well, in answer to that last question, when it comes to Middle Tennessee and NPT and an episode of "Downton Abbey" on a Sunday night, 50,000 people, apparently. But that's not my point. The whole thing was curious to me. I've always understood the principle of issuing spoiler alerts for films, and respecting different schedules when it comes to movie watching. But television? When did this start?
What? Somebody Shot JR?
I thought about "The Sopranos," the venerable and groundbreaking series that aired on HBO from 2001 to 2007 on Sunday nights. If somebody got whacked on that show, be it pinched in the pine barrens or knocked off in Newark, you knew it on Monday morning. Even if, like me, you didn't watch the show. The morning shows all talked about it. Your friends all talked about it. It was big news. You couldn't escape it. By the time I rented the entire series disc-by-disc via Netflix, I pretty much knew who was going to be whacked, and often in what episode. Can you imagine my walking around the office the Monday after a "Sopranos" Sunday, and telling people, "Ugh! I can't believe you just told me Big Pussy got killed. Spoiler!!! I know it's the second season of the series, but I'm only on disc 3 of Season One!" Is there anyone in the world, "Sopranos" watcher or not, who didn't know that the series ended with Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" and a harsh fade to black?
Of course, regardless of the many people who do still watch shows on broadcast television at the time they air, many people do not. In the age of DVRs and Netflix and series box-sets and online streaming (PBS makes "Downton Abbey" available online the very next day), we are not watching television the same way. That last poster who asked, "Who watches live TV?" was asking a good question. No one doubts that technology has changed the way we watch television. But the comments on Facebook made me wonder if technology was also changing the way we talk about television.
A new Conversation
The days may be over when the entire nation watches scripted television together at the same time, like we all watched the finale of "M*A*S*H" or "Cheers" or even "Seinfeld." Only reality shows or major sporting events get that treatment now -- you can go on Facebook a minute after "American Idol" or "The Bachelorette" ends to know what happened. But we're communicating with each other more than ever, and at the same time, with Facebook and Twitter and other social media tools. Had JR been shot last night on "Dallas," but you could watch it online tomorrow when it's more convenient, would it have been a spoiler to mention it today? How do you tell the world to stop communicating so you can catch up?
Was I wrong to post about William's death on Facebook the day after the episode aired? In the national conversation, when it comes to scripted television, do we all need to be more conscientious of people's viewing habits? Should we start to treat dramatic television the way we do films? I don't know about you, but that doesn't seem like much fun.
A native of Jersey City, New Jersey, Joe Pagetta is currently the director of media relations and online strategies for Nashville Public Television, where he also handles media relations for Nashville Film Festival. A freelance writer, his art reviews, profiles and essays have appeared most recently in ArtNowNashville.com, Nashville Arts Magazine, Chapter16.org, Nashville Scene and PBS Remotely Connected. He studied journalism at New York University, holds a B.A. in English from St. Peter's College, and got his start writing about sports, news and life for his hometown Jersey Journal. [When he's not seeking out film or art, or relating to the media, he dabbles in independent singer-songwriting, rides his bikes, reads or tends to his book collection, and tries to perfect his Italian-American cooking technique. He's most proud of the sandwich named after him at Savarino's Cucina in Nashville.]
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Journalism and Digital Education Roundup, Feb. 7, 2012tag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101382012-02-07T16:45:05Z2012-02-07T16:53:25ZLily LeungThe best stories across the web on journalism and digital education
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Daily Must Reads, Feb. 7, 2012tag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101372012-02-07T16:30:02Z2012-02-07T16:53:13ZThe best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung. 1. AP beats Google for Nevada caucus results (Poynter) 2. Netflix competes with pay cable with its first original series (paidContent) 3. Disney's ABC, Univision in talks to create 24-hour cable-news channel (Wall Street Journal) 4. Publishers are flubbing the iPad, except one (Newsosaur) 5. Facebook...Lily LeungThe best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung.
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How Apps Are Making the 'Third Screen' a Primary Screen for Historical TVtag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101322012-02-07T14:00:57Z2012-02-08T18:17:42ZOn the last day of the History Makers International conference, a three-day event consisting of award presentations, panel discussions, and master classes for producers and broadcasters, a particular tweet caught my eye: "At third screen panel at history conference. I feel like a dinosaur." The faster-than-the-speed-of-light changes in the digital world may be making many people feel like dinosaurs, but...Amanda Lin Costa
On the last day of the History Makers International conference, a three-day event consisting of award presentations, panel discussions, and master classes for producers and broadcasters, a particular tweet caught my eye: "At third screen panel at history conference. I feel like a dinosaur."
The faster-than-the-speed-of-light changes in the digital world may be making many people feel like dinosaurs, but as Chris Pfaff, moderator of The Third Screen panel and vice chairman of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council, rattled off statistics, (including that the app market is now a $17.5 billion industry) it was clear that networks and content producers are in danger of becoming fossils if rolling out a mobile app isn't in their near future.
Talking about apps, Pfaff said, "The age-old question was always, 'But can it make money?' But now the question is, 'How much money can it make?' Before it was, 'Interactive television is right around the corner,' but no one has said that in the last year or two, which means, it is here."
Mobile apps are helping make this interactivity a reality, and audiences are responding by buying devices and downloading in unprecedented numbers. The statistics of this 2011 holiday season were impressive.
According to Flurry, one of the leading mobile analytic companies:
On Christmas day, activations jumped to more than 6.8 million, a 353% increase over the baseline. Compared to Christmas day 2010, the previous single-day record, with 2.8 million device activations, Christmas 2011 grew by more than 140%.
Fiksu, a mobile marketing company, shared these stats:
In December, the (App Store Competitive) Index peaked at 6.04 million downloads per day, beating November's previous all-time high of 5.65 million daily downloads -- a 7 percent increase and the third straight month of increasing app traffic.
Many will argue that apps are the future. Even Wired announced rather controversially last year, "The Web is Dead..." referring in part to the rise of the app.
two-fold value
Mobile apps are proving not only to be profitable but invaluable in building brand loyalty for programming of all kinds.
At its best, historical and non-fictional programming is not only entertaining but educational, helping us learn from both the mistakes and successes of the past and others. Engagement is key in both education and audience building. For networks and content producers, non-fiction and historical programming must be engaging and entertaining in order to be profitable. The apps created around shows become an integral part of enhancing the viewer's experience, or as Pfaff began the Third Screen panel: "Despite the panel's title, mobile devices may actually be the primary screen for many audiences."
The panelists' case studies presented an interesting look into the app market in general as well as provided a look at how award-winning apps are produced. The Civil War Today, the A&E app, was acclaimed not only in the press but also on education blogs and websites. One home schooling blog pointed out, "At $7.99 it's less than the price of a paperback and definitely more interactive and engaging." The Kennedys, an app developed by Mobovivo, also fits neatly into the historical category.
Other case studies at the panel, such as OxygenLive for the Oxygen network or Decoded by Jay-Z created by Fuzz Productions for Random House around a Jay-Z book, may not be strictly categorized as historical or educational, but they're geared toward younger audiences and have implemented interesting strategies that can be applied across the board to more traditional historical or educational apps.
CASE STUDIES:
Evan Silverman, senior vice president of Digital Media at A+E Networks, spoke primarily on A&E's immersive iPad app, The Civil War Today:
With a budget in the low six figures, A&E developed an immersive iPad app called The Civil War Today. An immersive app is self-contained and doesn't need a supplemental screen or additional content to achieve its entertainment and interactivity goals. Silverman emphasized that he didn't want to rehash all the information already existing about the Civil War. He wanted to take advantage of the iPad's unique storytelling capabilities. He felt one of the failings of the magazine industry has been regurgitation of the print magazine onto the iPad without offering a unique and rewarding experience for iPad users. The Civil War Today is an app that runs for four years starting 150 years to the day of the start of the Civil War. Each day, iPad users can read a newspaper in real time to experience what happened on that day during the Civil War.
One of the discussions Silverman and his team had was how to price the app. They decided on $7.99 as a single purchase price, a figure that worked out to less than a penny a day. Silverman confirmed that the app has been profitable, but even more importantly, has served as an important brand enhancement opportunity and helped build a relationship with Apple for the network.
Jennifer Kavanagh, senior vice president of Digital at Oxygen, explained OxygenLive, a second screen app used across the network for all the Oxygen programming:
Kavanagh emphasized in her presentation that second screen experiences need to create an authentic reward for their audiences. Second screen apps are defined as applications that enhance the primary viewing experience, which in most cases is television programming, by creating interactive experiences on devices including smartphones and tablets.
Footage scraped off the cutting-room floor isn't going to keep audiences loyal, Kavanagh stated. OxygenLive is about providing well-edited, exclusive scenes and behind-the-scene interviews. Oxygen integrated into its app Shazam, a popular free app that most younger audiences were already familiar with that allows for audio sampling to cue further interactions.
With OxygenLive, audiences can watch the show live. Kavanagh pointed out that whether you call it co-viewing, transmedia or second screen, the app acts as an "agreement" -- a way for an audience to get close to celebrities in exchange for additional time spent with sponsors' messages. A prime example of this was on premier night of the "Tori & Dean" show, OxygenLive was in bed with Tori and Dean watching the show together live. Live viewing is how a network makes the most money, and OxygenLive helps drives audiences to watch live and not time shift. The app is able to serve the dual purpose of forwarding a business objective while giving the audience a construct where they can benefit and be rewarded, thus creating brand enhancement. OxygenLive is free to download.
Bradley Glenn, mobile producer at Fuzz Productions, shared insights into how to develop successful immersive and second screen apps:
Glenn began his presentation with some specifics about usage, namely this nugget: Smartphone users spend 60 percent of their time with utility apps and 40 percent with entertainment apps. This ratio is reversed on the iPad.
Glenn emphasized that knowing how you want to engage an audience is the priority when developing apps. Content is secondary in many ways, the wireframe being the script. The Decoded by Jay-Z app uses an iTunes tracking feature that goes into a user's iTunes to see if a Jay-Z song decoded in the app is already on the device. If it is, it can import the song from iTunes into the app or make a suggestion to the user to purchase the song.
Fuzz Productions' second screen apps include two that are focused on special live-broadcast television events. One is The Hollywood Reporters' "Race to the Oscars" app and the "NFL Preplay" app. Both are free to download and allow users to interact in real time with other fans with the goal of building community and driving audiences to watch the events when televised rather than in a time-shifted mode. Glenn also demonstrated an immersion app, Pat LaFrieda's Big App for Meat, that promotes NYC area celebrity butcher Pat LaFrieda while educating its audience on the finer points of meat.
Trevor Doerksen, CEO and founder of Mobovivo, discussed The Kennedys app and older programming getting a second life through apps:
(Note: Chris Geddes of Mobovivo was originally scheduled to participate in the panel but was unable to attend. I was able to catch up with Mobovivo's founder via email to share what they were going to present at History Makers International.)
Doerksen compares Mobovivo to Netflix, in that it publishes entertainment apps that allow end users to view film and TV on mobile devices, tablets and television. Mobovivo's apps include secure access to TV and film and allow content viewing when not connected to the Internet. The company's "Previiw" engine feature allows users to share clips of their favorite films and TV shows with their friends legally as a social, community-building feature. The Kennedy's app was green-lit after the mini-series' broadcast window, but Doerksen said Mobovivo often works with filmmakers and producers during the script-writing stages because the iPad has become that important in today's market.
Many movies and TV shows are out in front of this trend, but Doerksen reminded me that many others are taking advantage of the distribution benefits app provide even for brands with older programs. One app Mobovivo created was for Elvira, and Doerksen pointed out that he didn't think there was a film newer than 1970 in the app. He summed it up by saying that even older programming looks good on new devices and that demand will only increase as apps become part of the storytelling process.
The Kennedys app is not technically second screen as its focus is on watching episodes on the second screen device, but if it had been developed before the mini-series aired, then the app wouldn't have included the episodes. After broadcast, the videos would have been made available, adding additional value to the app. Doerksen uses the term "unlimited shelf space" to explain an app's ability to expand and add new content. Doerksen feels that fans of non-fiction and historical programming are excited about knowledge and entertainment, which means they are interested in the interactive features that allow them to look at shooting locations, character profiles, and of course background on a subject matter, family tree, and other interesting facts. Apps let users satisfy their curiosity instantly, he said, because it's not just sports fans who like to look up stats while viewing. He said that educators have told him that they use The Kennedys app in their classrooms.
The Kennedys iPad screen, courtesy of Mobovivo.
A new age of interaction, monetization
Kavanagh, Glenn and moderator Pfaff were able to sit down after the panel to extend the Third Screen panel discussion.
Kavanagh brought up a good point by explaining that while they hope that OxygenLive increases live viewing, they're realistic about the realities of time-shifted viewing. Apps serve other purposes for Oxygen. She explained that the delineation between what is a sales or a marketing initiative and what is purely a digital initiative has completely blurred. Apps allow the audience to deepen their relationship with the show, the brand, and create awareness, all things that are key beats for marketing. But at the same time, Oxygen is able to successfully monetize the apps. They don't charge to download the app but sell sponsorship opportunity to brands around the apps. Oxygen uses a 360-degree approach, encouraging brands to buy online, VOD (video on demand), or explore other sponsorship opportunities, not just sponsor the program, allowing them to successfully recoup the costs of the apps and create as many wins as they can.
The conversation often swung back to interactivity. The example of Lifetime's "Project Runway" Fan Favorite app, where a Twitter hashtag appears next to the designers' names on the television show -- allowing views to vote in real time -- is a form of interactive television. Kavanagh added that any comments on social media platforms made through the OxgenLive app automatically have the show's hashtag added to it. This all adds up to more visibility and awareness of a show or brand. Companies like Mass Relevance are letting networks know exactly when and how fans are interacting with their shows. In the past, any kind of interactive live television event would involve a ton of producers, studio time and a huge price tag.
Glenn stressed that the big thing apps give content producers is an opportunity to make money. "Take a long view of this thing. From 1997 through 2008 you had to put content online for free. There was no way around it; no one would pay for anything, and this was very frustrating for broadcasters and independent producers." (Except for porn and horoscopes, Pfaff reminded the group to a round of laughter.)
"Enter the first Apple Store," Glenn said. "True, most apps are free, but you created a universe where you can pre-pay for specific experiences -- so you are still online, but you are paying to be online."
The New York Times being free and now charging is a major example of the influence apps have had on the digital marketplace.
Another thing everyone agreed on was that everyone wants a piece of television. Kavanagh said, "You can't name a media company right now that isn't in the war room; if they haven't already publicly shared their road map around television, that isn't thinking about the future being rooted in television or whatever television becomes."
Historical and non-fiction programming is going to see a rich future of innovative apps. Apps, unlike almost any other medium used to present content, do not end when created. The app you buy today will change and develop over time, growing more interactive as devices evolve. The social media elements in apps allow students and fans not only to interact with classmates and friends but with people around the world.
There's no limit to the creative storytelling and educational features that fully developed immersion and second screen apps can bring, taking history and learning out of the classroom and into the living room, the airplane, the waiting room, the bathtub -- basically, anywhere we, dinosaurs included, go.
Amanda Lin Costa is a writer and producer in the film and television industry. She writes a series called "Truth in Documentary Filmmaking" and is currently producing the documentary, "The Art of Memories."
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Daily Must Reads, Feb. 6, 2012tag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101362012-02-06T15:23:29Z2012-02-06T15:26:02ZThe best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung. 1. Twitter: In last 3 minutes of Super Bowl, there were 10,000 tweets per second (TechCrunch) 2. First streaming of Super Bowl a success, but left a lot to be desired (TechCrunch) 3. Rupert Murdoch tweets up storm on Euro crisis, Middle East (The Wrap Media)...Lily LeungThe best stories across the web on media and technology, curated by Lily Leung.
Subscribe to our daily Must Reads email newsletter and get the links in your in-box every weekday!
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Epistemic Games Are the Future of Learning, Letting Students Role-Play Professionstag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101342012-02-06T14:00:12Z2012-02-09T00:06:11ZImagine you're a senior manager at a leading videogame company. Your job is to devise the company's competitive strategy in a rapidly growing and dynamic industry. What prices will you set for the consoles? How many games will be available for your platform? This is the premise of Platform Wars, an epistemic game, or management simulator, developed by MIT's Sloan...Aran Levasseur
Imagine you're a senior manager at a leading videogame company. Your job is to devise the company's competitive strategy in a rapidly growing and dynamic industry. What prices will you set for the consoles? How many games will be available for your platform?
This is the premise of Platform Wars, an epistemic game, or management simulator, developed by MIT's Sloan School of Management. The game's learning objectives are to allow students to interactively experience the challenges of strategic competition in complex and dynamic markets.
Epistemic games are computer games that are essentially about learning to think in innovative ways. They're designed to be pedagogical tools for the digital age where the player learns to think like professionals by playing a simulated game of such professions as management, engineering, journalism or urban planning.
As schools aim to prepare students for life outside of school, they need to realize that the world now values knowledge and skills that can be applied in creative ways. Epistemic games fit the learning requirements of today's world because they allow students to role-play professions while learning skills that they apply in the game.
How Computer Games Help Children Learn
One of the nation's leading scholars on epistemic games is David Williamson Shaffer, whose landmark book, "How Computer Games Help Children Learn," demonstrates how particular kinds of video and computer games can cultivate innovative thinking. Shaffer outlines how modern schools developed in a particular time and place to meet the specific economic and social needs of industrialism and now, he contends, education needs to change to fit the needs of our current world. The traditional educational paradigm prepared students for a world of standardization, whereas today's world puts a premium on independent thinking and creativity. As a result of the social and economic sea change, schools need to foster innovative thinking.
Shaffer believes one of the best ways to do this is through what he calls epistemic games: video or computer games that are essentially about learning to think in innovative ways in a post-industrial, global economy and society.
Epistemologies of the Digital Age
Epistemology is the study of knowledge and, according to Shaffer, every age has its own epistemology, i.e., what it means to know something. Computers -- which are increasingly becoming ubiquitous in work and school -- provide the means to think in new ways, which will fundamentally reconfigure our thinking and theories of knowledge. Computers in general, and epistemic games in particular, are structuring new epistemologies for our digital age.
"The epistemology of School," in Shaffer's words, "is the epistemology of the Industrial Revolution -- of creating wealth through mass production of standardized goods. School is a game about thinking like a factory worker. It is a game with an epistemology or right and wrong answers in which Students are supposed to follow instructions, whether they make sense in the moment or not."
While this kind of epistemology may have been appropriate and even innovative for the Industrial Revolution, it is outdated for our informational economy and digital age. Being literate in the digital age uses reading and writing as a foundation to build upon, but they are no longer solely sufficient. Students must learn to produce various kinds of media and learn how to solve problems using simulations.
Epistemic Frames
Epistemic games are organized around epistemic frames. Any profession is structured around a culture that is composed of skills, values, knowledge, identities and an epistemology that anchor how creative professionals operate. Shaffer calls this configuration an epistemic frame: an integral theory of learning that sees how the collection of a profession's knowledge and skills synergistically work together to create a learning community.
Professionals learn to acquire their epistemic frames, i.e., their knowledge and skills, in ways that are very different from traditional classrooms because the creative thinking today's jobs demand require more than knowing a standardized answer. In addition, their thinking, problem solving and communication need to be integrated into the real world of work.
Epistemic Games
One epistemic game Shaffer writes about is SodaConstructor, which uses the epistemic frames of engineering and physics. SodaConstructor lets players construct a virtual creature of their own design and then simulate how that creature would operate once gravity, friction and muscles enter the equation. In order to get their creatures to successfully walk in this virtual world they need to understand a couple fundamental physics and engineering concepts: center of mass and cross bracing. Once key concepts are understood, players then begin to frame their project in a way real engineers creatively think: creating designs, building them, and then testing alternatives as well.
While epistemic games can be fun, their real value lies in allowing individuals to experience worlds they're interested in. "In playing games," according to Shaffer, "[students] are doing explicitly, openly and socially what as adults they will do tacitly, privately and personally. They are running simulations of worlds they want to learn about in order to understand the rules, roles and consequences of those worlds."
Aran Levasseur has an eclectic background that ranges from outdoor education to life coaching, and from habitat restoration to video production. He taught middle school history and science for five years, where he integrated technology into his classes to enhance his teaching and student learning. Aran recently gave a talk at TEDxSFED on videogames and learning. Currently he's the Academic Technology Coordinator at San Francisco University High School. You can follow him @fusionjones on Twitter.
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Poll: What Will Facebook Be Worth in 5 Years?tag:www.pbs.org,2012:/mediashift//4.101352012-02-03T18:56:49Z2012-02-06T18:11:06ZThey say that history repeats itself, but that's so easy to forget. It was only as recently as 2006 that analysts were saying that MySpace was likely worth $15 billion (and I was spoofing that conclusion). And you can go back to older social networks like Friendster or Tribe.net or America Online's chat rooms... you get the point. So now...Mark Glaserhttp://www.pbs.org/mediashift
They say that history repeats itself, but that's so easy to forget. It was only as recently as 2006 that analysts were saying that MySpace was likely worth $15 billion (and I was spoofing that conclusion). And you can go back to older social networks like Friendster or Tribe.net or America Online's chat rooms... you get the point. So now that Facebook has laid out its plans to go public, with a possible valuation of $100 billion, what do you think "The Social Network" will be worth in five years? $400 billion? $0? Something in between or unmentionable? Vote in our poll and have your say in the comments.
The Kennedys iPad screen, courtesy of Mobovivo.
