Two critics take newspaper bloggers to task (and why they're wrong ... sorta)

So a joint study by a Ball State/Nevada-Reno group has some depressing news for bloggers ... sorta.

"The results of our study call into question whether newspapers are wasting valuable staff resources," Demo said. "The time it takes a reporter to post a blog entry that attracts 10 or fewer comments could be time better spent in other areas. Newspapers might consider spending staff time monitoring blogs as sources of news rather than trying to re-create the blogosphere on their Web sites."

Now, this is, obviously, an area where I take at least a little issue. Not the least of which: where would you put the stuff you find in the local blogs you're monitoring? How about, oh, I dunno ... a blog?

In point of fact, a whole helluva lot of blogging — and this goes doubly for political blogging — is spent linking to stuff dug up by other blogs.

Newspaper bloggers, to probably put too fine a point on it, don't like doing this.

Hence, they have to work a lot harder to find a conversive audience ... Which is one of the problems the Ball State/Reno folks list as a reason to not blog.

Sorry, just developed a nosebleed.

Anyway, from my perspective, using local bloggers as a research tool almost goes without saying ... but that can be done as part of a blogging routine that really wouldn't take too much more time than just reading said blogs in the first place.

To follow that up, we all have to remember that our readers are really used to being passive because, y'know, we've treated them that way for a few dozen generations. It might take them a while to catch on that they're invited to the party.

It's part of the industry's need for instant ROI — "Well, they haven't taken to it and I've been doing it a couple weeks now ... guess that won't work ..." — that we really need to get over.

The study also sort of suggests that a big problem with developing conversive audiences is, well, lousy blogging.

I can't argue with that, too much.

This, however, leads me somewhat obliquely to another attack, this one from an opposite flank:

Blogging is essentially the Head Start program of digital journalism–a way to ensure that even the most needy and disadvantaged are at least minimally prepared for the greater educational challenges ahead.

... The problem is, they create a lousy user experience–and may do late-adopter journalists more harm than good.

That came from the almost always awesome Web 2.Oh...Really? blog, penned by Craig Stolz, in an entry entitled Why Journalists Should *Not* Become Bloggers.

If I'm reading him right, and let's assume for our purposes that I am, he's making the case that while blogging teaches the essentials of online journalism, too many people are depending upon blogging as the silver bullet of new media. He also seems to indicate that reporters are unlikely to blog effectively in the first place, so it's time to stop forcing blogs down their throats.

I'm unconvinced, though, that blogging can't be effective in a newspaper context. I also really don't see the harm of letting people hash out their new chops in a blog setting causes that much harm. Especially when you consider his alternative offering:

Blogs aren’t even kindergarten in new media.

Get a reporter, an editor, a producer and a developer to sit down together. Have them figure out how to report on some important civic event without writing a story at all.

Welcome to Middle School.

Again, I can't argue with the underlying concept here, but if you can't trust a reporter to figure out a text-based thing like a blog, do you really expect them to be able to come up with something that much more advanced?

I mean, I'd like to improve my basketball game, too, but dropping me on the court for a game of one-on-one against LeBron probably won't help too much.

You really DO need to go to kindergarten (oh, okay, pre-K) for at least a little while before making the jump to 5th grade.

This has gone on long enough, and you should read both of these items, because they're great food for thought if nothing else ...

• New study finds that newspaper blogs fail to increase public dialogue

• Why Journalists Should *Not* Become Bloggers

Interesting point ...

I'm not even sure how I ended up coming across this post by Massachusetts media consultant Paul Gillin, but it set off a small bell for me, although I take a finer point to it than I think he was intending.

His overall point is "Don't Let Tools Distract You," good advice he translates into "don't start a blog for the sake of starting a blog."

People often start by choosing tools and work backwards to solve problems. Maybe management has just issued an order to start blogging, or the tool is seen as a tactic to improve search performance or it just seems like the thing to do.

As it relates to business, he has a point that companies try to shoehorn in "the new hot thing" rather than focus on what tools work best for the job.

Now, that point doesn't mean much in our situation, as I think there isn't a beat in the world that couldn't be better served by the inclusion of a well-executed blog.

But what he says about looking at the needs of your readership and working backwards to MEET those needs relates significantly to our task here. (Remember my Backbone Theory? It's kind of like that.)

• Paul Gillin: Don't Let Tools Distract You
• MySA Bloggers: Backbone Theory

Your blog should be your beat

I hesitate a bit to link to the Journalism Iconoclast for the second time in a couple weeks ... partly cuz I like to mix things up but mainly cuz, at 15-16 years or so my junior, he comes close to "young whippersnapper" territory for me.

That said ...

He makes some points in his latest entry, Blog your beat to connect with your audience, that I find as revolutionary as they are borderline self-evident.

If that seems a little contradictory, I apologize. Specifically:

Most good beat writers at newspapers are experts in a niche. Take a local court reporter for example. A newspaper’s local court reporter might be the only media person in the world with intimate knowledge of how that court system works and of the legal issues surrounding the community. That’s a niche to exploit.

We've been saying that for a long, long time in these parts. Also:

Beat Blogging allows reporters to fill in readers as news is happening, not just after news has marinated for a day. But good Beat Blogging requires more than just a savvy reporter. It requires editors and a newsroom culture that allows it.

There's a fair amount more in there. Indeed, what he says might not be as earth-shattering as the force with which he says it. I can neither confirm, nor deny, whether I agree with all his sentiments.

• Blog your beat to connect with your audience

Fixing the Rock's New Blog

This was sent to me last week and I've just found time to write about it. It's a piece on Poynter.org about how they could go about improving Rocky Mountain News' newly-launched lege blog.

It makes for good reading if you're feeling insecure about your own place in the Blogosphere, but the one part I wanted to emphasize was the third suggestion:

3. Links! Links! Links! I haven't yet seen a hyperlink in any post to this blog. Regardless of the cause of this oversight, it makes it look like the Rocky (or at least these bloggers) either don't understand or don't care about the value of connecting to sources, Rocky stories, other blogs, forums, and other sites. How about at least linking to the bills being discussed, or to the Web sites of the legislators named? Without links, a blog looks naked and dull.

Man, this one is right on target. The fastest way to build your traffic, to plug into your community, is by providing links. And not just links to AP stories, or major news sites, or your own stuff.

Look for bloggers that cover your field. Check out message boards dedicated to these topics. Then link to them and engage these people in conversations.

A blog is not just a place to post stories. It's a place to build a site dedicated to the things you cover and care about.

• The Rocky's New Capitol Blog: 6 Easy Fixes
• How to ... Hot link to something

The Cloud Test

I leave it to the reader to determine how much value there is to it, but I've been playing with TagCrowd.com the last few days.

What is it? It takes a block of text that you copy and paste OR loads a Web page and groups all the most frequently-used words into a tag cloud.

The words used most often are largest. The ones used least are smallest (or not displayed at all).

So what's the point? For our context, it might help you gauge how effectively you're on target. In other words, if I have a blog about manually churning butter, then you'd expect "cream," "milk," and "curd" to be really large, right? If those words turn out to be playing second fiddle to words like "Bigfoot," "Starsky" and "Hutch," maybe I'm doing something wrong.

As an example, I ran Ramiro Burr's Latin Notes Now through the site:



Seems relevant and appropriate.

Likewise, The Dog Blog:



I love how "Dog" just stands right out there.

Put your own blog through the Cloud Test, and see what you think.

It's not a pass/fail situation, of course, just food for thought.

• tagcrowd.com

Happy New Year ...

To start you off right, here's a piece from USA Today predicting what'll happen in Social Media in the coming 12 months or so. Consider this prediction:

The Web may well have put the world at our fingertips, but many of us are feeling as if it's getting a wee bit crowded out there. In 2008, those companies that can help us navigate that sea of information and misinformation will become trusted friends, says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst with Port Washington, N.Y.-based market research giant The NPD Group.

"This new year will be all about simplification," Cohen says. "We'll be looking for help in eliminating clutter in our lives, and that means looking for names and brands that we trust. In a way, it's like going back in time."

And ...

Cohen also suspects that blogging and other amateur online efforts will wane. "The average person may well be shouting 'I want a say,' but that's created an absence of legitimacy on the Web," Cohen says.

What consumers will value most isn't innovation but expertise. "We'll listen to those we deem worth listening to, because we're tired of all the noise out there," he says. "Maybe it'll be Oprah, or maybe it's Consumer Reports, but we're going to stick with those brands that offer reliable information. In that sense, bigger will be better."

Sound like someone you know? It better ...

• Get real: People will want to connect in 2008

Best methods for quoting stuff ...

Now more than ever, it's vital that people understand what words are yours and what words belong to someone else.

It's imperative that we make it really clear who says what, and there are about a dozen ways to do it.

My suggestion? Use blockquote when you quote somebody. Always.

What's blockquote, you ask? Allow me to demonstrate.

This is regular words being used to set up a quote I borrowed from somewhere else:

These are the words that I borrowed from somebody else.

Note that they're indented and clearly set aside from the rest of the text.

My words again. And here I provide a link back to where I found these words.

Some people wrap quotes around passages they're referencing ... that can get clumsy. Some people put 'em in italics. Effective, but sometimes unclear.

With blockquote, you leave no doubts, and that's what we really need to strive for.

Another important rule: When in doubt about attribution, OVER-ATTRIBUTE. It might read clunky, but ... again ... we want to be clear above all else.

How to create a blockquote:

Open your blockquote with this: <blockquote>

Close your blockquote with this: </blockquote>

Hence, in your entry, it'll look like this:

<blockquote>This text will be blockquoted.</blockquote>

This text will not be blockquoted.

Last note, it's almost never appropriate to clip out more than a paragraph or two at any given time. You're not here to reprint stories in their entirety (or even small minority) ... you're here (within this context) to point to interesting stuff and provide some insight when possible.

Yet more on headlines

Steve Yelvington makes an interesting observation about writing headlines for the Web vs. writing headlines for print:

Print is a serendipity medium where puns, clever language and cultural references can work really well. Online is an information-seeker's medium (and that was true long before Google) where a clear and straightforward phrase wins the game.

• More online newspaperism

Must read ...

This is about a Houston sports blogger, but much of what he says can apply to any beat at the paper. (To some degree or another.)

So, why exactly are we doing this again?

This one's primarily for the newspaper side bloggers, but it's probably a question everybody has to ask from time to time.

Why are we blogging?

It's not usually framed in that fashion. More often, it's a reaction instead of a question. It usually comes from someone upset with pageviews, or general public reaction (or lack of it), and said person reacts with the "This isn't worth my time" matra.

Let me be clear on this, as clear as I can be: Even if nobody reads your blog, even if the audience just feels like it's not there and there's no point to this, IT IS WORTH YOUR TIME.

Why? I could go into a long diatribe about "Long Tail" economics and the new media world ... and all that would be valid ... but this post is going to be long enough already.

Instead, I'll push THIS concept: Because we learn by doing.

And, to paraphrase a quote I heard last week, understanding blogging is to understand the direction journalism is going.

Let's break down a list of what people are expecting more and more of as they grow accustomed to getting their news online. All of these are items that a well-executed blog is already providing:

Speed: People aren't waiting until 5 p.m., let alone 6 a.m. anymore to get the details to the stories they care about. Well-executed blogs operate in that fashion, quite often providing information as it's coming in ... providing transparency about where the information is coming from ... and updating as needed.

Choice of Delivery: Mark this down: The ability to choose how news and information is delivered to oneself is going to be a key issue within the next few years ... if not sooner. RSS feeds and other forms of aggregation are only going to become more important as we progress.

Don't understand RSS? Figure it out. Now. I use reader.google.com. I recommend it.

Interaction: The era of "We talk, you listen" is over for journalists. People are going to be more and more inclined to leave their two cents. Respect it or not, reader commentary is only going to grow. (Certainly in some markets faster than others, but best to grow accustomed.)

Specialization: With mass media facing troubling times, people expect to know more about the things they care about. It might not yield massive pageviews, but a narrow focus — in popular parlayance, your niche — is a stronger way to connect with people. In my experience, the people who are blogging about things I never thought anyone would care about tend to get more personal feedback than people who are blogging about more general, popular items.

Thoroughness: Even while people want more specialized content, they want pretty much everything they can find about it. If you don't have it? Link to it. Where it's coming from is of less concern than finding it. If your source is a reliable, updated source for info, they'll revisit you (or subscribe to your feed), even if you're not the one doing all the heavy lifting each time out.

Intimacy: As a collective effect from the other items on this list — and as a definite by-product of the growing strength of social networking sites — people are expecting a more personal, one-to-one experience in media.

This is far from an exhaustive list, but ... again ... if you learn how to blog, and blog effectively, it's going to be easier for you to deal with these various trends, no matter the medium in which you're operating down the line.

Minor Rant: A note on "More"

I can't make you do things or not do them ... you really should defer to your bosses when they tell you to do certain things ... but, when the choice is yours, please ... PLEASE ... avoid the use of the "More" button.

AND, if you HAVE to, make sure you have more than a few paragraphs waiting on the other side.

For the uninitiated, the "More" button appears on a blog entry when you split your entry between the "Entry Body" and "Extended Entry" windows.

Some of our bloggers, and I can think of only one or two, are forced to use it due to technical situations involving other pages (feed issues, etc.), but the "More" button provides little to no value whatsoever, and — particularly if there's only a few sentences or paragraphs waiting on the other side — runs the very real risk of honking readers off, and making us appear to be (please pardon the language) "click whores."

When I first got here, all the blogs used "more" buttons, and I can't think of a single one of those blogs that even LOOKED like a blog to seasoned readers.

Now, they're creeping back in. There's little to almost no benefit to them (I think, over time, they do as much to repress pageview growth as to prop them up), and I also don't buy the "You get more headlines above the scroll" argument, either, since 1.) the headlines are always in the left-rail, above the scroll and 2.) The content should be good enough to draw a reader all the way through, where they'll see the next headline, anyway.

So, to sum up:

1.) Do what your boss tells you, but try not to ever use the "More" button.
2.) If you must, make SURE that what you put behind there is worth the click, because — particularly with our load times — it really will put off some readers if they have to click TWICE to read your five-paragraph entry.

Minor rant over.

Thanks for your indulgence.

The Backbone Theory

I've discussed this with a variety of you out there over time, but I'd never tried to put a name to this concept before. I've decided to call it the "Backbone Theory" ... just cuz.

Basically, it's a method for constructing your blog so that it puts the needs of your readers first and foremost, yet gives you the freedom to improvise as much as you like.

Will it fit all bloggers? No. It's not designed for what I tend to call "online columns," which have their places, too ... but those are more for entertainment and opinion than a good news blog. (Although the BEST blogs cover those areas, too, as we shall see.)

If your thinking of starting a blog, go over this list very carefully. If you already have one, think hard about incorporating the suggested structures into your routine.

It can only help.

The five basic principles:

1.) Identify your audience (The answer "everybody!" isn't gonna cut it anymore)
2.) Figure out what those people need
3.) Tailor the blog to those needs
4.) Establish a routine
5.) Structure your improvisations

Taken one by one:

1.) Identify your audience:

Let's say you want to launch a blog about video games. Big subject. Narrow down who you imagine your reader will be: Casual gamers? Weekend console warriors? Hard-core nutjobs? Developers?

What matters most in this equation? You.

If you don't know a dev-kit from a joystick, don't pretend to appeal to developers. If you're familiar with the industry from a business/technical standpoint, targeting developers might be a good idea.

You have to be honest with yourself, and try to reach people who are like you. Make sense?

In our example, let's say we're setting up a blog to appeal to casual gamers. Does that mean you don't cover anything BUT casual games? Not at all, but you have to keep in mind who you're shooting for. Casual gamers don't need to know heavy-duty technical specs on a new graphics card ... but they do probably want to know how that card might affect their favorite games.

2.) Figure out what those people need:

Are you taking a massive subject that would be served best by a daily digest of news stories from all around the Web?

Do your readers need suggestions for new products, new sites to visit or insights into a specific item from the day's news?

Think long and hard about what will make your blog USEFUL. Think long and hard about how your blog will IMPROVE PEOPLE'S LIVES ... even in a trivial way, if that's what it comes down to.

Charming and funny are nice, too, but that's window-dressing. We have to provide utility first and foremost.

And never be afraid to teach. Newspaper folk, in particular, tend to assume massive amounts of institutional knowledge in their readership, and that may be a much more difficult assumption in the days of multi-tasking and media saturation. Explaining the WHY may be the most valuable utility of all.

3.) Tailor the blog to those needs:

This might seem redundant, but it's more an execution of the mindset from No. 2.

Build a routine that covers the basics of your target group. Is a daily news roundup useful? Is it feasible? Is weekly enough?

Again, be honest with yourself.

Figure out a way to economically (in terms of your time and energy) serve those needs as often as feasible.

4.) Establish a routine:

I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. If you're gonna blog three times a week, make sure you have the new entries up by the same time every one of those days.

If you're gonna blog daily (or more), make sure your CORE PURPOSE, the idea from Nos. 2 and 3, is posted by the same time every day.

In other words, if you're gonna blog Monday, Wednesday and Friday ... make sure you have your stuff up by, say, 9 a.m. each one of those days. Or noon. It doesn't matter when, necessarily, but make that your new deadline and STICK TO IT.

Only going to blog once a week? Make it by noon Monday. Or 9 p.m. Sunday. Again, it only matters that you adhere to a routine, not what that routine is.

This is the Backbone of your blog. The bare minimum. The structure around which everything else will be built.

5.) Structure your improvisations:

Once you've established your routines, it's time to get looser. Best way to do that (and prepare for the irony), is yet more structure.

In my experience, it's been very helpful to organize your approach around "themes" or "categories."

For the sake of an imaginary start-up blog, you could have a daily, 9 a.m. news digest, followed as needed by either "breaking news" sorts of items or — in lieu of those — something from a mental menu of possible topics. I'm just making these up, so they're REALLLLY general, but:

"New on the Web" (providing a new site relevant to folks following your topic)
"Product critique" (pretty much what it sounds like)
"Update" (follow up on a topic introduced in a previous entry)
"Reader comment/reply" (elevate a reader e-mail and/or comment into a full-post status ...)
"Something Completely Off-Topic" (Feel free to be whimsical ... once your blog's purpose is clear and established)

Need a more specific example? Fine.

When I used to blog about video games, my list looked something like this:

> News Items (a headline digest)
> Greatest Games (when stuck, I'd blabber on about a favorite game)
> Off-Topic Musings (self-explanatory ... often "Lost" and such)
> MMORPG (online role-playing lunacy)
> Demo Watch (I'd play a free demo and react to it)

I also evolved developing stories/controversies and long-form games I was playing into their own categories:

> Grand Theft Auto Controversy
> Star Wars: Galaxies
> Ultimate Baseball Online

So, whenever I was stuck, I'd go over that list and nine times out of 10, something would ring a bell.

If the utility is the backbone, this is the meat of your blog, and it's where you can really have more fun, too. Add and subtract categories at your will, too.

It's supposed to be dynamic, and, remember, your blog is more of a long-term project than it is a daily posting.

Living and dying by your pageview total is a bad idea ... a hypothetical

One of the biggest challenges as newsbusiness people (predominantly) is overcoming the "one and done" mindset. When you work in an industry where your product is usually either in the trash or lining hamster cages by the time it's eight hours old, you become accustomed to a very short lifecycle.

Happily, the Internet doesn't function that way.

Good stuff that you write might not net boffo pageviews the day you post it, but good work will often pay off in the long run.

This is relevant because all too often I see people dispirited that they aren't getting huge numbers when that accursed "daily report" gets circulated every day.

But you have to attack it from the mindset that you're creating a collection of things, not publishing individual items. And even those individual items might be more valuable than the daily spreadsheet might indicate.

Let's create an example:

Person A has created a blog called, well, "Blog A." (Sorry, not big on the whole creativity thing today.)

Blog A posts an Item of General Interest, and it gets homepage play, because we're pageview whores, too.

Blog A ends up with 1,000 pageviews for the day. Great, huh? But a big chunk of that is a collection of about a dozen or so readers, arguing endlessly back-and-forth in the comments and refreshing often to see if anyone else says anything bad about them. In the end, about 500 actual PEOPLE read the posting, which is good, but not the slamdunk it originally was thought to be.

Blogger B's blog, "Blog B," is a touch more specific ... even "niche-y," to sort of coin the phrase.

This blogger posts a very specific, but very well-crafted and insightful entry, and that doesn't get big homepage play, because we're very close-minded.

At the end of the day, Blog B's new entry has only 100 pageviews.

Colossal failure compared to Blog A, right?

Not so fast.

Blog B's readership likes the entry so much, they begin e-mailing friends and family who share their Blog B passions. Over the course of the next two weeks, the humble little blog entry averages about 70 views a day. Not enough to chart on our daily reports, mind you, but enough that ... over the course of 14 days, our nicely-written little blog entry brings in 1,100 pageviews, largely from unique readers.

Compared NOW to the flash-in-the-pan (and now quite stale) Blog A's 700 or so unique readers ... let's be generous and throw another 200 or so in there .... Blog B doesn't look like the qualified failure anymore, does it?

And the best case scenario: if Blogger B continues the solid work, those people will become regulars, and begin to have inane comment-battles of their own, driving daily readership up as it goes.

Will that always happen? Is it likely to happen? The incredible competition of the Internet makes it tough ... but a Best Practice is always a Best Practice.

And, to spell it out, the Best Practice is to blog frequently, and blog well. Do things that please you and your peers.

Most importantly, do not get discouraged if your numbers aren't what you think they should be. Because, frankly, they're probably better than you think.

Bloggers: Kings of Ethics

Well, maybe not "kings," per se, but dang if they ain't doing it right.

At least suggests NY blogger (and professor) Jeff Jarvis in his "Buzz Machine" blog in an entry circulated today by one of our OWN bloggers, Bob Richter.

Perhaps I oversimply. Jarvis certainly does insist, though, that in all circumstances, linking back to the source material is key.

What's that mean?

It means whenever you draw any content from any blog or any news source (including wires), link back to where you found it and give clear credit.

The reasons he gives are, by and large, more economics-based than ethically grounded, but there's no reason the two can't go hand-in-hand. Well, maybe one or two ... sometimes ... but I digress.

In demonstrating the standard journalistic practice of the Associated Press' repackaging of unique stories and sending them out to everyone -- including Google, which recently signed a fairly problematic deal with AP to host their content directly instead of linking to source publications -- he makes a great point:

The AP picked up a unique story from the Nashua, NH, Telegraph and that’s what Google displayed — along with other AP clients’ versions — above the original story from the paper.

...

Note that the Nashua editor chuckles because Fark.com picked up the story and linked to the original — we pride ourselves in that in this world — and sent it good traffic. So Fark served journalism better than the wires and Google. That is telling. (emphasis added)

Don't know what Fark is? Go find out.

And realize they're doing a better job of supporting the news business than the Associated Press.

See? Blogs aren't as bad as you think!

By the way, wouldn't it be great if we had one of these about everyone associated with our little Web venture? (Note the "disclosures" section, which particularly impresses me.)

A few, vital notes on linking ...

We all know that linking is an important, even handy, aspect of blogging.

We discussed the mechanics of linking here.

But a refresher might be in order, along with a point or two beyond.

1.) You don't need to reproduce the link in the link.

In other words, you don't have to do it like this: http://mysablogs.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-hot-link-to-something.html

It's unnecessary because it's highly unlikely someone will copy-and-paste the address off the page rather than just click on it. Even if they just want the address, they can "right-click" on it and that'll do the job.

This becomes a problem, sometimes, when you have incredibly long, involved links, and these have a tendency to "blow out" the page, making it impossibly wide for most browsers.

And that will stay with your page until the offending entry drops off the page.

It's better to just link up a few words, a phrase, or a sentence that'll send people to where you want them to go.

2.) Try to throw the "target=_new" thing in there.

There are valid schools of thought that discourage the use of this code, which causes the item to open in a new browser window. I don't discount their views, but ... as for now ... our style is to use "target=_new" (or a variant) when we're sending someone "off-site."

Cleaning up link code is a big part of what slows us down when we're trying to plow through a chunk of blog entries. (Fixing "curly" quotes is probably No. 1, though.)

Help us help you.

Small Dead Animals 1,000; Us 1

Alan D. Mutter, a former newspaper guy and now Silicon Valley CEO type, writes in his blog, "Reflections of a Newsosaur," about an odd phenomenon he experienced over the last couple weeks.

Seems "Reflections" had a few posts that were linked to by various sites ... a number of "traditional" news sites (Business Week, San Francisco Chronicle, etc.), which he deems "Large Ones," and a blog built and maintained by a Canadian schnauzer breeder called "Small Dead Animals."

Traffic surged into the thousands thanks to the Dead Animals blog. From the "Large Ones"? Not so much. He counted one reader showing up via the Business Week link.

He has a theory why:

Small Dead Animals is a creature of the web, by the web and for the web. Unlike the blogs grafted as an afterthought onto the sites of Forbes, Business Week, the WSJ and the rest, Small Dead Animals is a primary destination for readers hooked on what, in this case, is the bracing point of view of Catherine McMillan, an airbrush artist and schnauzer breeder who resides in a small town in Saskatchewan.

Although the Large Ones deserve a C+ for making an effort to add blogs and a few other modern touches to the print content they recycle at their staid and static sites, the banal results please neither their traditional readers nor the connoisseurs of such sites as YouTube, Gawker or the Huffington Post.

He continues ...

Readers of the traditional media have been conditioned over the years not to look to the Large Ones for the quirky news, dorky videos and (knee) jerky opinions that, for the most part, saturate the blogosphere. And Kos-inistas largely view the mainstream media, when they view them at all, as fodder for future potshots.

With the formidable creative talent, market reach, commercial relationships and financial capability they possess, the Large Ones ought to have an enormous edge over Canadian schnauzer breeders in creating editorially compelling and commercially successful online content. But they are failing, because they try to confine their new media ventures to the tightly edited and carefully modulated conventions of their existing brands.

If they want to be serious about the new media businesses, the Large Ones are going to have to establish skunkworks where people who really get the new media are given the resources and support necessary to develop original, independently branded fare. And the Large Ones will have to restrain themselves from over-managing these necessarily alien efforts.

I posted this as food for thought, but it does suggest that, for our purposes, we continue to push the envelope wherever possible. We've a lot of people to convince we're more than just car crash and crime news ... and that we're as plugged into the world at large as much as your garden-variety schnauzer breeder.

Piling on pageviews ...

So what constitutes a "meaningful metric" and what doesn't? In other words, are "pageviews" better than "time spent" or vice versa.

It's starting to look like "time" will win out.

First, there was news that Nielsen was junking pageviews as its main metric in determining the most successful sites.

Nielsen is part of a growing number of institutions realizing that with the advent of new technologies, the pageview's value isn't necessarily as important as it once was.

As the New York Times puts it:

Yahoo and others, however, are increasingly using a software trick called Ajax that allows sites to update data automatically and continually, without users needing to pull up new pages. Page views decline as a result.

And then the reaction began to flow in ... most of it excited at the prospect of being freed from the tryanny of the pageview.

Richard MacManus of Read/Write/Web:

Blogs are a good case where 'time spent' is more meaningful than page views. Especially since the blogosphere is particularly prone to the 'quantity over quality' problem. It's easy to pump out 20+ posts a day - and that tactic garners a lot of page views. But are those blogs actually writing for their readers, or writing to get page views? In other words, check the 'time spent on site' figures for those blogs and I think you'd find it is very low - because users click through, find nothing of value, and quickly leave. Is that good for advertisers on those sites? No it isn't. So in the case of blogs, I'd argue that 'time spent on site' is a better measure than the easily gamed (or at least cynically exploited) page view model.

His point was echoed by Mindy McAdams at Teaching Online Journalism:

Say I go to site “A” and view eight pages, but I never stay on one page longer than 2 seconds (because I don’t see anything that interests me). I go to site “B” and view only two pages, but I spend 8 minutes on each page.

Current page view metrics say that site “A” is better, more trafficked.

I say that’s just stupid, because on site “A,” I consumed no content or advertising.

Other reactions are similar.

While I agree the pageview is a particularly benign creature that is consistently overvalued, I'm not sure if "time spent" is going to work, either. I tend to leave numerous browsers open constantly, so I'm not sure if that's skewing undue "time" for all these various sites. Maybe there's a way to determine this and I'm showing my ignorance, but my larger point is that any metric we work with will have strengths and weaknesses.

And, while the view will, eventually, become obsolete, let's not forget that advertisers love 'em ... so until THEY are convinced, expect to still be taking pageviews way too seriously for a while longer.

Mindy had one other point I'd like to underscore and emphasize:

For me, that’s been the horrible thing about the page view metric — padding the numbers by adding unnecessary and highly annoying extra clicks to Web sites. Newspaper Web sites have been some of the worst offenders in this respect. (Emphasis added.)

Agreed. So let's not do that.

Point/Counterpoint ...

I'm not sure whether to file this as some sort of debate, or just an ultimate slam (or "burn," as we used to call 'em when we'd have insult-offs back when I was a kid) ... but it comes to us via the always fantastic Teaching Online Journalism blog (if you haven't bookmarked it already ... go ahead, I'll wait).

TOJ details a radio exchange between old school journos Pete Hamill and Fred Dicker, recounted at Gangrey.com:

Dicker: “... You can take a look at these newspapers blogs. The bloggers seem to me, Pete, to be basically opinionated stenographers, writing basically for shut-ins. I can’t imagine who would spend their time reading these things except a very rarefied, small group of people.”

Hamill: “I don’t read them, because life is too short. But I advise the young journalist, don’t waste your talent on blogs. Get to a newspaper, no matter how small, where there’s an editor who will look at your copy and say this will be better if you do this. Go somewhere where you learn the craft. Most blogs are therapy. But they’re not journalism. People who write them, except for the professional propaganda blogs, are there for therapy.

At that point, TOJ's Mindy McAdams opens the can of proverbial whoopass:

"Writing for shut-ins"? Wow, where does that come from? So the 80-year-olds reading the printed newspaper -- they are the vibrant lifeblood of society? And all you blog readers out there -- you're a bunch of lumps on a log, do-nothings, hardly worth consideration.

But wait, there's more:

It would be great to have the tutelage of a good editor, no doubt about it. But I have to wonder what your chances are, nowadays, of getting a good editor at a newspaper. Maybe there is a good editor, but will he or she have any time to work with you?

As the kids today say: Oh SNAP! Oh, no she did-n't.

Okay, at this point, I'm embarassing myself.

But the exchange does reflect the fact that for a certain segment of journalists, the Internet is still lacking in value ... still a Wild West for computer nerds and geeks.

Gotta get over that folks. Fast. Like ... yesterday.

Sound the alarms!

Bloggers are under attack! A reporter was chased for blogging from the press box.

From Romenesko:

(Louisville) Courier-Journal sports reporter Brian Bennett had his media pass revoked and was ordered to leave the press box during a college baseball game Sunday because of what the NCAA said was a violation of its policies prohibiting live Internet updates from its championship events. "It's clearly a First Amendment issue," says C-J executive editor Bennie Ivory. "This is part of the evolution of how we present the news to our readers."

This is going to be more of a problem for everybody as the distinction between print and broadcast media becomes more fluid.

Some of the comments on the original Courier-Journal story are pretty interesting:

"The producer of the event owns the intellectual property rights. What the CJ illegally attempted to do was the same as bootlegging CDs and DVDs. It's the same thing as sneaking microphones into a concert and broadcasting it over the airwaves."

An opposing view:

"His blogging is no different than ESPN giving an update on a CBS NCAA tournament game. Does CBS deny ESPN to give coverage of March Madness simply because the game is not over yet? I'm sure ESPN pays for the rights to use video replays and such but a person sitting at a desk has the constitutional RIGHT to discuss the portion of the game that has already occurred."

Lawyers, start your engines ...

UPDATE: This just in from Tacoma, where word is that the NFL is taking steps to limit the amount of NFL player/coach audio and video any site not owned by NFL.com can broadcast, and for how long.

Tacoma News-Tribune blogger (and Seahawks beat writer) Mike Sando takes on this short-sighted policy, and offers an interesting suggestion:

For years the Seahawks have uploaded video from press conferences with coach Mike Holmgren and others. Most of the good questions (and some of the lame ones, of course) were asked by people who covered the team every day. Reporters should be less inclined to ask questions in that setting if the league monopolizes the audio and video. (Emphasis added.)

Oh, yeah, it is so on ...

Ghost of Christmas future ...

A friend of mine who's a computer programming wiz went to a convention a year or so back when they discussed what the future will look like.

The answer: Screens. Screens everywhere, with slots where we can plug personal memory cards (or cubes) in to access our data, which would come with us everywhere, attached to our car keys.

We're not quite there, yet, but we're getting close.

Microsoft is rolling out its new "Surface" deal, which is a fancy way of saying "tabletop computer screen."

What is "Surface"? It's a big-screen keyboardless, mouseless computer that enables select devices to sync up just by laying them on the tabletop. Infinitely cool.

This is an earlier video demonstrating how it works:



Notice the social aspect of this sort of technology. Two or three, or even more people can be involved simultaneously.

It's pricy now ... so they won't be in your living room anytime in the next few months. And, who knows? "Surface" may, indeed, fail for whatever reason.

But if it ain't "Surface," it'll be something just like it. This is what it's going to look like in the very near future.

I bring this up to remind ourselves: This is what we're going to be up against. This sort of integrated media experience is going to make it harder and harder for us to attract and maintain the attention of the consumer.

Are we really doing everything we can, as individuals and as an industry, to prepare for this sort of thing?

Game-changing impact aside, check out the videos, they're pretty cool:

• Microsoft Surface