Marketing guru and all-around deep thinker offers his vision for magazine publishing: the Micro Magazine.
The ideal distribution and monetization method for such a product? Apps of course.
Archive for the ‘Blogroll’ Category
Identity theft pitch of the week
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010This effort to scare me into giving up the goods got caught in the spam filter this week. Except for removal of the phishing link, it’s published here exactly as it appeared:
Hello Visa Card Client ,
Your Bank Card is suspended, becaus we have noted a problem on your Card.
We have determine that someone has maybe using your card without your permission. For your protection, we have suspended your credit card. To exercise this suspention, Click Here follow the procedure, and specify for Update your Credit Card.
Note: If this isn’t complete 15 May 2010, we will be forced to suspend your indfiniment card, because it can be used for fraudulent
Thank you for your cooperation in this folder.
Thank You,
Customer service support.
The new worst line in which to find yourself standing
Friday, April 23rd, 2010Worse than the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the post office or the car rental counter in a tropical location…
…is waiting in line at the Red Box.
Trouble with democracy: It doesn’t pay well
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009If there’s anything I write about or comment on that is sure to draw a hot and negative response, it’s the insistence that journalists start to get in tune with their true market value. It’s not that I don’t see a huge social value to the work they do. I credit journalists with keeping our democracy alive. But they’ve never been paid by democracy; they get paid by a business model.
My point is twofold:
- Journalists have always been part of someone else’s business model. But it’s generally only in times like this, when the business models are under fire, that journalists are compelled to recognize it.
- While traditional media models are under siege, journalists themselves are becoming part of the solution — developing new models and new approaches to paying the true cost for news. (For example, check out Spot.us and MedCityNews.)
Today’s e-mail brought an item from one of my favorite blogs, Seth Godin’s Blog. He usually has something insightful to say about the way the world works. But this is the first time I’ve ever seen his blog address the media world directly.
His message (you should read it yourself; it’s short) is simply this: Journalists can be measured for the interest their stories generate — as evidenced by a Washington Post columnist who was let go because his blog posts didn’t generate enough traffic. In every other industry, people’s performance is measured against specific objectives.
It’s happening now with journalists — bringing them into intimate business contact for whatever business model employs them.
Coming face to face with reality can be a painful experience, but in the working world there is really nothing more important.
Not-for-profit news is no panacea
Monday, September 14th, 2009In the effort to save newspapers, one idea that’s been passed around is that of the newspaper as a not-for-profit institution. The argument is that its role is so central to the public good that it can be protected as a non-taxed, not-for-profit entity.
While the argument may be compelling, I don’t think you can call it mainstream. Well-known newspaper analyst Lauren Rich Fine says for-profit newspapers haven’t done all they can to adapt to new market realities. I agree; Newspapers in the United States have been for-profit ventures for their entire existence, and just because their business model is being challenged today doesn’t mean their industry is obsolete.
But that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with a news organization that does figure out how to succeed as a non-profit.
An increasing number of non-profit news organizations exist, such as MinnPost and the hyperlocal, hypermodest Heights Observer, for which I’m an active volunteer — and which is part of a growing list of other loosely affiliated Observer projects in and around Greater Cleveland. (Not all of them are not-for-profit; they have in common technology platform – Ninth Estate Software — and a singular evangelist, Jim O’Bryan, founder of the for-profit Lakewood Observer).
A not-for-profit trial balloon has been floated (and seems to be losting altitude) for the troubled Boston Globe.
Now, one of the existing not-for-profits is going the other way; Geoff Dougherty, editor of the 4-year-old Chi-Town Daily News (Chicago) writes in his blog that the non-profit experiment is over. He says the online citizen journalism news organization needs $1-2 million a year in donations to fulfill its mission. With grants running out and grant-sources ready to move on to other projects, Dougherty indicates private donations peaked at only $300,000 — and even that amount is doubtful this year.
“We are talking with local nonprofits that have expressed an interest in acquiring the [Chi-Town Daily News] website and neighborhood reporting program,” Dougherty writes.
“Ultimately,” he continued, “we believe we will be able to fulfill the same mission we set out to accomplish with the Daily News, though with a new name, a new company, and a different business structure.”
A new perspective on the media meltdown
Monday, August 24th, 2009I’ve spent a lot of time describing why advertising and traditional media are on a downward curve. To be sure, the curve has been exaggerated this year by the recession. But it was exaggerated by the last recession too and there’s no doubt that traditional sponsor-based media models are like the classic rollercoaster: in between the highs and lows, the ongoing trend is down.
In a recent blog post, marketing guru Seth Godin puts his own take on the trend. The issue in his mind is that there is a sudden attention surplus — too many people spending so much time looking for all kinds of information that marketers don’t know what to do about it. He calls these micromarkets and says the old media models couldn’t serve them; social media marketing does — though he doesn’t use that terminology
Godin and I come at this from different ends of the business, and in the end reach the same conclusions.
I’m coming at it from the perspective of the media business, where decisions are based on the requirements of the paying customer — the advertiser.
I’m not claiming the audience is ignored; I don’t believe that for a second. But the changes that we’re seeing in old-line businesses — magazines rushing to digital-only editions, newspapers trying to figure out how to charge for online content, etc. — are not at all driven by the opinions of audience. They’re driven by the spending desires of advertisers.
Godin’s perspective is consumer based: He’s observing what the audience wants — and notes the challenge for marketers who are on their way toward getting it.
His explanation strikes me as novel, true, and worth sharing: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/08/the-massive-attention-surplus.html.
