Robert Niles: April 2010 archive
Student journalists need to learn SEO more than they need AP style
April 21, 2010
Last week, journalists reacting to the Associated Press's announcement that it would replace "Web site" with "website" in the AP Stylebook pushed the phrase "AP Stylebook" onto Twitter's trending topics list. (FWIW, OJR's style for the past several years has been to use "website.")Most journalists approved of the news, though a few skeptics, such as the University of Florida's Mindy McAdams, demurred. Though I disagree with her on this, I loved the snark of her Twitter response: "Everyone but me is cheering AP style change to website. I think it resembles parasite."
I jumped in with this: "If you're publishing online, Google style (i.e. SEO) always trumps AP style."
And... "Really, j-schools need to ditch AP style and start teaching their students SEO instead. More valuable to their careers."
As much as I enjoy provoking folks from time to time, I am serious about this. The newspaper industry developed a common style, maintained by the Associated Press, to meet the communication needs of a print-based industry trying to most effectively communicate with a broad audience.
Today's online publishers, editors and reporters need a new style that most effectively allows their words to reach their intended audiences. Unfortunately for them, the print-inspired AP style is not that. Today's (and tomorrow's) journalists need to learn search engine optimization [SEO] techniques as much as, if not more than their predecessors who worked the print industry needed to learn AP. More...
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What does Apple's new mobile iAd format mean for news publishers?
April 9, 2010
Is Apple's new iAd system a game-changer for the business of mobile application development?With Steve Jobs' announcement at yesterday's press preview of the new iPhone OS 4.0, Apple's now in the ad network business. Like Google before it, Apple is opening the advertising market to a new group that didn't have easy, direct access to it before - in this case, mobile application developers.
Sure, many current apps are ad-supported: Just cruise through the iPhone app store and look at how many apps come in two versions - a paid one and an ad-supported "free" or "lite" version. But by integrating an ad service system with the iPhone's operating system, which will now support multi-tasking, Apple's new iAds have the potential for offering a far superior user experience than current "click-away" ads.
We'll have to see iAds in a live environment before the publishing industry will learn if the iAd's improved functionality leads to better click-through rates among iPhone application users. Thanks to a generation of lousy ads for lousy products, many consumers have been conditioned to hate ads, and either to ignore them or ignore applications or publications that place them too obtrusively within their content.
Functionality is nice. The ability to stay within the application while viewing an expanded ad is helpful both to readers and to publishers. But, ultimately, that functionality doesn't matter to someone who never clicks or selects an ad.
Apple will need to find a way, working with its app developer partners, to improve click-through rates on ad-supported apps, if app publishers are to see any significant increase in revenue from iAds. More...
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Online publishers can't afford to remain politically neutral
April 6, 2010
Once you make the transition from newsroom reporting to website publisher, you've added a long list of responsibilities to your daily work. There's the technology of publishing a website and managing a readership database. There's metrics - tracking who is reading the site, from where and for how long. There's money, both on the expense side and earning income. You might be selling ads, invoicing advertisers, tracking campaigns, or soliciting grants, completing reports and managing a non-profit board.With all of those extra responsibilities, do not forget about one other - one that directly conflicts with what you were taught as a reporter, but is nevertheless a responsibility that's vital if you are to remain in business successfully.
You've got to get active, politically.
Decisions made by elected officials determine what information you can access, as well as who can access your publication, and how. They determine how much you pay in taxes, what infrastructure supports your business, as well as the same for your competition.
That's why the news industry, for generations, has actively lobbied lawmakers to ensure that their decisions either help or at least minimize the harm to its companies.
But as an independent news publisher, you cannot rely on news industry lobbyists and established industry voices to represent your interests. Remember, those newspapers and broadcast and cable stations are your competition now. One characteristic of the environment that they are attempting to have government create (or maintain) is one in which it is difficult, if not impossible, to launch and grow successful competition to their businesses. More...
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What is your strategy for delivering news via Video on Demand?
April 2, 2010
Sure, go ahead and develop apps for Apple' new iPad, if you want. Sure, I earlier warned that the iPad wouldn't save journalism, but application development practice never hurt anyone. And the more experience you can get with developing in HTML 5 (the iPad's substitute for Flash), the better.But if you really want to get ahead of the tech curve in online publishing, here's what you need to be playing with right now:
Video on demand.
Last week, Netflix sent me a disk that allows my family to watch its instant streaming movies and TV shows via our Wii video game console. I'd been watching a few shows online via my MacBook Pro, but watching on the family flat screen provides an infinitely more enjoyable experience. (Netflix also offers streaming via several other devices, including XBox and several brands of Blu-Ray players and HDTVs, not to mention TiVo digital video recorders.)
If I were running a news business producing a substantial amount of video news stories, I'd want to cut a deal with Netflix, or another player in the VOD game, to start streaming my news content via these platforms. More...
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