OJR: The Online Journalism Review

Pekka Pekkala

Redondo Beach, California

Homepage: http://twitter.com/pekkapekkala

Pekka Pekkala researches sustainable business models at USC Annenberg, is a partner at Fugu Media and a technology columnist. He used to be the head of development at Helsingin Sanomat, the largest Finnish newspaper. Before moving to full-time online journalism in 1997 he worked in radio, including BBC World Service, Estonian Broadcasting Company and freelancing for Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE.

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These articles are the work of their author, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of nor an assignment by OJR.

What if Google categorizes Patch.com as a 'content farm?'

January 23, 2011
Last Friday Google made a major announcement: Focus on improving search results has shifted from "pure webspam" to "content farms." The latter are sites with shallow or low-quality content, websites that try to cheat their way into first page of search results. Google sees these sites as junk.

In theory, this all sounds good. Especially when one of the goals is to affect sites that copy others' content and sites with low levels of original content. None of these "low quality" sites are named, but I can see smoke coming up from Santa Monica: Demand Media is not happy about this. The company is in the middle of the rumored IPO and Google is possibly going to lower the ranking of content farm sites such as eHow.com. I would be angry, especially when most of your anticipated business value relies on writing stories based on popular search queries, i.e. farming content. Timing of the Google announcement is hardly an accident.

As tempting as it is to gloat over Demand Media's misfortune, the Google announcement might have severe consequences to all publishing. The company doesn't identify the sites it considers to be "low quality." One of the things Google will attack are sites and pages with "repeated spammy words—the sort of phrases you tend to see in junky, automated, self-promoting blog comments." More...

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Why the death of syndication is great news for hyperlocal and niche sites

December 14, 2010
Clay Shirky makes a wise prediction for 2011. It is called widespread disruptions for syndication:

Put simply, syndication makes little sense in a world with URLs. When news outlets were segmented by geography, having live human beings sitting around in ten thousand separate markets deciding which stories to pull off the wire was a service. Now it's just a cost.

If you happen to run a hyperlocal or niche publication, this prediction is a good one. Internet is built on the idea of having just one copy of everything, accessible to everyone. If you produce those original pieces of content, no need to worry. If you're in the business of aggregating others content, prepare for a rough ride.

The idea of one copy surfaced last winter along with Jaron Lanier's book You Are Not a Gadget. Internet pioneer Ted Nelson originally coined the term and Lanier summarizes it well:

Instead of copying digital media, we should effectively keep only one copy of each cultural expression.

Internet is the great antidote for the Gutenberg printing press: instead of enabling us to make copies cheaper and faster, it makes the whole idea of copying obsolete. Why copy if you can make a link to the original?

Anyone who has worked in an online newsroom knows the problem of copying. How much time we should spend following the other news outlets, copy their breaking stories with a punchier headline and a quickly written comment? And how much effort should be spent creating original content and our own breaking stories? More...

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The top 10 key lessons for hyperlocal journalism startups from ONA10

November 4, 2010
If you are dreaming about your own news site, you are not alone: hyperlocal sites are popping up everywhere. At ONA10 last week in Washington, D.C., veterans of the hyperlocal scene shared they experiences, both successes and failures. Here's the top 10 of the recurring topics during the three-day conference.

1. Successful doesn't mean beautiful

Take a look at the award-winning WestSeattleBlog.com. The design is pretty much out-of-the-box WordPress. Instead of fancy graphics, WSB has concentrated on more important things: great content and selling ads. As a result, the site is has provided income for Tracy Record and her husband for two years. Sometimes you don't even need a site: DavidsonNews.net, a news site that claims it's close to $100,000 revenue per year, started as an email newsletter.

2. Legal stuff isn't rocket science

If you plan to do proper journalism on your news blog, you probably will piss someone off. Or somebody in your very informal blog network will, and you all get sued. Citizen Media Law Project offers advice how to protect yourself and what to do with nasty comments or copyright infringements, how to create a "Terms and Conditions" policy, and what to do with DMCA (for those not into the jargon yet, that's the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notices.

3. There is no such thing as free content

Running a neighborhood website where ordinary citizens produce content sounds tempting, right? You just gently advise the amateurs and wait for the stories to come in. Wrong. Read J-Lab report New Voices: What Works and learn how much work it requires to keep the contributors active. Less than 1 in 10 of those you train will stick around to be regular contributors.

4. Follow the data More...

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