Archive for May, 2007
UK news commands a global audience
May 31st, 2007
According to the latest comScore traffic figures, out today, many of the UK’s news outlets enjoy a higher web readership outside of the UK.
It is not surprising to see the world renowned sites, such as the BBC (61% international readership) , and FT (85% international readership) draw a large international following, but the Daily Mail?
According to comScore’s findings, 69% of its web users are outside of the UK, a factor linked to the ex-Pat community.
Furthermore, 73% of the Independent’s web audience is international.
In contrast Five.TV, ITV, BSkyB, and Channel 4 were the only sites with larger U.K. web audiences.
These figures are especially interesting for the online marketing community, evidencing that international readership outweighs local audiences on most of our major news brands.
The survey is also another reminder of the importance of maintaining a robust web offering, a fact that won’t have been lost on three of the sites that spent at least some of the last week or so out of action, including The Independent, which was down today, the Mirror which was down yesterday, and the Telegraph, which was down briefly in mid May.
May 30th, 2007
US media giant CBS Corporation has continued its spate of social media acquisitions today with the purchasing of music community Last.fm for $280m (£140m). This makes it the largest-ever acquisition of a UK online community.
Over the past few days, CBS has also announced deals with Wallstrip, WordPress, Ning and Voxant.
Industry commentators have reacted positively towards CBS’ social media strategy. Jeff Jarvis on Buzz Machine refers to its “notion of the audience as the network”, reflecting CBS’s willingness to learn more about the behaviour of its social media networks.
In this online publishing sector, this should be an interesting Web 2.0 case study to follow…
Newspapers have taken readers for granted
May 25th, 2007
That was one of the quotes from The Daily Telegraph’s editor, Will Lewis, according to Matt Well’s Media Guardian coverage of Lewis’ keynote at last night’s ‘change and renewal in the press’ debate.
The full quote is included below, but in essence Will Lewis is continuing his public and honest appraisal of the newspaper industry’s approach to the digital age.
It’s refreshing to hear such a candid opinion, considering it would have been practically unheard of for an editor to be that outspoken about the industry just a year ago.
Lewis is also confident that the future holds better things for the newspaper industry if it evolves, and he is certainly walking the walk as it were. I hear the multimedia newsroom at the Telegraph, which initially caused so much upheaval, is superb.
On top of that, the Telegraph is genuinely trying to push forward, its blogs have certainly stepped up a gear and even when things go wrong, as in the case of this week’s denial of service attack, it is still pushing forward.
Of course you could say The Telegraph has no choice but to develop if it wants to survive, and it still has some catching up to do, which I wouldn’t argue with. You could also argue that Will Lewis is PR savvy and his statements reflect well on his own paper, but the fact that the Telegraph has pulled its head out of the sand and is pushing ahead deserves a bit of recognition.
Here’s Lewis’ quote from Media Guardian:
“Having fought and won its battle with the print industry in the mid-80s, the industry became once again bloated, lazy and arrogant. Fleet Street continued to operate on the same assumptions about its readers, just as those readers began changing their reading and consumption patterns, and in many cases walking away from the newspapers they once held dear,”
“And what was the response of the industry? Not much, it would seem, except to take heart that we were all in the same, sinking boat.”
“If the newspaper industry took a beating, it deserved one. It took readers for granted and continued to make assumptions about them that no longer held true.”
Is social media threatening tabloid photojournalism?
May 24th, 2007
The BBC’s ‘A Tabloid is Born’ focused last night on Alfred Harmsworth’s Daily Mail.
The word “tabloid” was invented by Harmsworth, the trademark name of a pill, to describe something highly condensed and easily swallowed. A description that many would still argue is still applicable to the tabloids we know today - but is it?
A chunk of the programme focused on the importance of photojournalism in tabloid history. The example was cited of the Mirror publishing a photograph of King Edward VII on his deathbed, which sold two million copies of the paper that day. No complaint came from the Palace because Queen Alexandra consented to the picture being published on the basis that the Daily Mirror was her favourite paper. The example highlighted the level of impact a still photo can have on a nation, and consequently newspaper readership.
Within the programme Piers Morgan also referenced the photographs of Princess Diana’s death which he was offered at 5am on the morning of her death, but declined. He claims he advised the paparazzi responsible to withdraw the photos and leave the country, which he reportedly did.
This got me thinking - would either of these incidents have happened today in the world of social media?
Arguably the photo of Kind Edward VII would have circulated on the Internet before any newspaper could get hold of it, and without doubt the video of Princess Diana’s death would have leaked onto YouTube within minutes. The recent Virginia Tech shootings were a prime example of how quickly high-impact photographic footage can spread through social media networks.
It seems a shame to me that we may be losing our nation’s photojournalism roots. A three minute video on YouTube is undeniably a great source of news information, but equally I wouldn’t want to say goodbye to those great front page photo exclusives.
Google searches for your genetic blueprint
May 23rd, 2007
Have you heard of 23andMe?
You probably hadn’t before today, so to bring you up to speed, according to the website it’s: ‘a privately held company developing new ways to help you make sense of your own genetic information’ and it’s just scored a $3.9 million investment from none other than Google.
Hang on what exactly do they do? Back to the website: ‘Our goal is to connect you to the 23 paired volumes of your own genetic blueprint (plus your mitochondrial DNA), bringing you personal insight into ancestry, genealogy, and inherited traits.’ Got it?
So what has that go to do with Google? Well after a bit of reading on the subject, there seems to be two theories.
1. Is Google trying to catalogue human genome(s) and make it searchable? That’s surely the final frontier in data…impressive! And apparently not the first time.
Bobbie Johnson’s post on Guardian Unlimited’s technology blog has more.
2. 23andMe was established by Anne Wojcicki, who married Sergey Brin, Google co-founder in the Bahamas earlier this month.
So, is it a case of ingenious data acquisition or a very nice wedding present?
Google said the transaction had been scrutinised and approved by its independent audit committee.
I’ll let you decide.