We Media : How audiences are shaping the future of news and information, American Press Institute,
September 2003
(English and Espagnol)
Obligatory long-tail / economics of abundance v scarcity
reminder
Blog Characteristics
Reverse chronological journaling (format)
Regular, date-stamped entries (timeliness)
Links to related news articles, documents, blog entries within
each entry (attribution)
Archived entries (old content accessible)
Links to related blogs (blogrolling)
RSS or XML feed (ease of syndication)
Passion (voice)
Blogs : Part of Web 2.0
Web 2.0 : web technology as a platform - content as data - meta-data (tagging) for
community (flickr, del.icio.us)
"[C]ontent will be more important than its container in this next phase [of the Web]... search, RSS and video-capture software such as TiVo... have begun to unlock content from any vessel we try to put it in."
-Tom Curley, Associated Press CEO, November 2004
"In the era of Internet television, it will be as simple and cost-effective
to create a microchannel as it is to create a Web site." Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove (creator of Dreamweaver and Cold Fusion), October 2005
Most content will be first encountered away from the domain in which it originated: eg,
RSS feeds
(for blogs, online news, other web sites), "TV" on the iPod (one step "beyond" Tivo/Replay)
Blogs v. Mass Media
Mass Media
Capital and labor-intensive
Geographically distinct
Services like AFP, Reuters, AP provide content ... but
it has historically been
packaged in a "local" medium (newspaper, radio, TV)
Blogging (includes video blogs, podcasts)
Not capital-intensive
Influence rests on the Internet distributed network that
removes the geographic barrier (space)
The Internet also removes barrier of time (asynchronous
communication)
What is Journalism?
Journalism is "our day book, our collective diary, which records
our common life. That which goes unrecorded goes
unpreserved ... The creation and preservation of collective
memory..." is the practice of journalism.
- James W. Carey
By this definition, "blogging" is a form of journalism.
Participatory Journalism
Facilitated by social software (eg, blogs, RSS, wikis) and
propogated via social networks
Characterized by expanded two-way communication between
media and readers (shorthand/buzzword : conversation)
With blogging, reader becomes author and author (journalist)
becomes reader, ending the one-to-many model of
communication.
Nov 2005: Technorati was tracking 21.5 million blogs and 1.7 billion links.
Nov 2006: Technorati is tracking 60 million blogs.
Why Use RSS?
(1/2)
AKA "persuasion" step in adoption
For developers: a function of stable specification
For customers: a necessity because prior practice became cumbersome. AND
tools and feeds became easier to find and use:
A necessary condition for adoption (Rogers)
Yahoo! News: "We're trying to make this understandable for
normal people."
Why Rapid Adoption?
Syndication in line with culture
Business model is evolving
How to reverse loss in readers? How to generate online revenue?
Recognition of growth of blogosphere, driving readers
Concern: "pay to read" barriers (Wall Street Journal or NYTimes Select v Christian Science Monitor)
Adoption Hurdles Remain
Incompatible RSS formats > burden on developers
Still fighting about formats (Atom)
Non-integrated software > potential consumers must find
and install new software
IT departments : no software installation
Everyday computer users are uneasy downloading, installing
Subscribing remains a technological hurdle
Accidentally cicking on an XML feed
is disconcerting
Auto-discovery should help, as
will systems (links to readable content)
like About.com's and the BBC
The Big Question: Business Model
Who pays for content? And how?
Newspapers: subscription models have, in the main, been a bust.
use RSS to entice readers to main site, "eyeballs" for advertisers
(this is natural evolution of existing advertising models)
