OhMyNews starting to turn profit
November 30, 2004
Participatory journalism pioneer OhMyNews is starting to turn a profit, a sign that the model may have a future.
According to Jean K. Min, director of international development, OhmyNews is generating almost US$500,000 a month in advertising revenue.”We broke even last year and since then kept generating a monthly profit of about $27,000,” he said in an online interview with Asia Times Online.
The site employs 38 full-time reporters and editors and uses 32,000 paid “citizen reporters,” who get between $5 and $20 an article, depending on where an article is played.
Related:
OhMyNews gets the facts right
New form of journalism in S. Korea
Online Newspaper Shakes Up Korean Politics
A local media revolution?
November 29, 2004
A new local news company called Pegasus News is aiming to reinvent local market content and advertising, according to its Website. The company says its beta test will take place in Dallas, Texas in late 2005 and eventually launch in every top-25 U.S. market with a monopoly newspaper. “Within a month of launch, the most broadly interesting and immediate content from that site will be published in a daily tabloid print newspaper,” the site says.
So far the people behind Pegasus News are remaining anonymous, but the publisher says on the site he current runs a division of a major media company and Steve Rubel says he’s spoken with “an inside source” who fits that description.
The site says Pegasus News will “distribute content via a website, e-newsletters, RSS feeds, a daily print edition, SMS messaging and any other medium we can think of.”
The core principles of Pegasus News are:
• Local news and information is aggressively, inherently, totally local.
• Users have so many choices of medium, that we cannot afford not to distribute content through as many media as technologically possible.
• Media is a conversation, not a monologue.
• Engaged consumers are better than paying consumers.
• All products and services are as precise and precisely priced as technology will allow.
The site says its model’s key differentiators are:
• Hyper-local content to the exclusion of all else.
• Rich delivery via as many mediums as possible, with the print edition representing only a small fraction of the content created in a given day.
• Subscription price predicated on level of engagement (higher engagement = lower price).
• Almost exclusively pay-for-performance advertising. Yes, even in print.
This model has tremendous potential, though it’s very ambitious and could easily fail if not done very smartly. So far there are far too few detailst to judge how promising this project really is. Not to mention that it won’t be coming to market for another year and a lot can happen in a year. Nevertheless, it’s worth watching.
CBC.ca wins 2 OJA awards
November 29, 2004
CBC.ca won two Online Journalism Awards at the Online News Association conference — the only organization to receive two awards at the competition. CBC.ca?s online newsroom won in the “specialty journalism” category for Canada Votes, its coverage of the federal election, and in the service journalism category for the Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) Database, a tri-medial project from the CBC News investigative unit. CBC.ca was also a finalist in the online commentary category for Blair Shewchuk?s column “Words: Woes and Wonder,” which lost out to Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times.
The judges said that Canada Votes was “breathtaking in its comprehensiveness, offering a detailed look at the entire country, covering issues, deep election results, analysis and commentary, voter tools and extensive archives. CBC News goes well beyond the election coverage provided by many other news organizations.”
The judges said they found the ADR Database “to be an extremely comprehensive project, giving Canadians, and Americans as well, useful information on dangerous drugs in an easy-to-use database, with accompanying stories and information providing valuable context.” The judges said CBC News “performed an outstanding public service in bringing this information to the public,” and “did significant work in getting the Canadian government to divulge this information and then putting it online.”
Election 2004 video archive
November 26, 2004
This excellent non-partisan public resource includes videos of speeches, debates, commercials, documentaries and other footage related to the 2004 United States Presidential Election. The site welcomes from official candidates and their campaigns, journalists, students, and anyone with video materials related to the election.
Shifting control of online content
November 23, 2004
Wither the home page… as search, RSS and other aggregations increasingly become the way users navigate the Web, the home page will continue to become less important and the story page more important.
“Aggregators are promoting a shift in the control of content,” writes Joshua Porter. “They?re challenging the idea that we as designers control public access to information in our domains, that users must view things in the way we prescribe, and that our hierarchy is best to present our content.”
Magazines hunt for best Web strategies
November 22, 2004
After 10 years of Web publishing, newspapers have figured out some smart strategies on how to balance their print and online versions and put together some excellent — and profitable — sites. Magazine publishers, however, are still struggling with how to handle the Web. Some put all their content up, some none; some have limited original Web content, some none; and some — quite a few, really — still seem to have no clue at all what they’re doing.
Right now, it seems the trend is swinging in favor of charging readers online feeds, according to a recent gathering of magazine publishers. In some cases that may make sense — but only if the magazine has exclusive content that readers can’t find equivelent versions of elsewhere. Consumer Reportrs, which charges for its site and makes plenty doing so, is a great example.
For other approaches on how to not simply imitate your print magazine online, here’s a good look at what some other magazines are doing. The key is to focus on features best suited for the Web — from breaking news to interactive features — and leave the lengthy analyses and essays to the print magazine.
Military.com buys DefenseTech.org
November 22, 2004
Military.com has purchased DefenseTech.org, a blog founded and written by freelance journalist Noah Shachtman.
Shachtman says it’s a lot of work but worth it. “My day job as a freelance writer has been cross-feeding this, too,” he tells MarketWatch. “Blogging has opened up a whole new field of contacts to me, generated a lot of story ideas….
Read more »
Pogue’s Posts
November 18, 2004
New York Times’ columnist David Pogue — who already writes a column for the newspaper, another one for an e-mail newsletter, answers questions on a message board and appears in a weekly online video — launched a Weblog today. “Welcome to the very first Pogue?s Posts, an experiment in daily blogging,” he says in his first post. “I?m the weekly Circuits columnist who reviews all things techie ? computer stuff, personal electronics, cellphones, home theater gear, digital music and video ? and I?ll be here each day with my musings on the state of consumer technology. Sometimes, a weekly print column, a weekly e-mail column and a weekly online video just aren?t enough avenues of expression. (Insert your own wisecrack here.)
“I plan to use this space to answer reader questions, follow up on the other columns, flag emerging tech news issues, point out hilarious or important developments on the Web, share cool tips and write about other topics that don?t justify a longer-form treatment. ”
And yes, there is an RSS feed.
WSJ.com launches ‘Video Center’
November 17, 2004
The Wall Street Journal Online at WSJ.com has launched a free ad-supported Video Center. “Although the Online Journal has been offering video on the site, the new center provides its readers with a central location where they can find and view a selection of video,” the press release says. “The content of the Video Center-which includes a significantly upgraded collection and presentation of video-contains breaking news and information from leading partners such as CNBC, and insightful analysis from Wall Street Journal reporters.”
Bloggers’ track Wash. governor’s race
November 17, 2004
Bloggers have been obsessively tracking the Washington state governor’s race — the closest in the state’s history — posting dozens of updates as absentee votes have been counted over the past few weeks, swinging the lead back and forth between Republican Dino Rossi and Democrat Christine Gregoire.
“My audience, they are political junkies,” said political activist David Goldstein, who writes a left-leaning blog, HorsesAss.org. “They are the type of person who is going to come back to a political Web site throughout the day. They’re kind of like a sports fan.”
Others that have been covering the race closely are Sound Politics and conservative blogger Tim Goddard.
The bloggers called the governor’s election for Rossi last week, even though with tens of thousands of votes still being counted and the lead swinging back and forth, it was impossible to really know who would win. But the bloggers lucked out and turned out to be right, as tonight Rossi was named the apparent winner, by 261-vote lead — out of 2.8 million ballots cast. But the results were so close they triggered an automatic recount… so looks like the bloggers will have plenty more to post about in the weeks to come!