The new BBC site is no longer under wraps and it's highly impressive.
Most notable as a comparison to its old site is the design simplicity. I counted fewer than 20 stories on the splash page (less than a dozen if you count the duplicated files).
The modules are customizable, as is the colour scheme.
I'd love to see the research in behind the redesign, because I think many managers are looking at reducing the complexity of splash pages and permitting users to choose elements. CNN's recent changes went in that direction, although there's a lot of white space and small type that doesn't work as well as my first glance at the Beeb.
It is never easy bringing about meaningful change at the best of times, but what happens when it's actually some of the worst of times?
That's what Erik Sass tries to analyse in a new piece on a U.S. recession's impact on media. (MediaPost provided the story.)
His conclusion: Online media will benefit from a draw-down of advertising from more expensive conventional media, partly for visibility of their return on investment. He paints a particularly challenging picture for newspapers and radio, noting that their online advertising gains won't be enough to offset conventional declines.
Now, I've also seen other analyses that suggest the digital gains will stall as advertisers stick with what's worked in the past. Regardless, complex times ahead in the U.S.
The fifth annual State of the News Media report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism was released this morning. While its examination is of U.S. print, broadcast and online news, there are implications worldwide of its findings.
It's a long read and it's early to divine the conclusions, but the first message you take away is that the crisis in journalism isn't necessarily the loss of audience but the uncoupling of news and advertising as media migrate into a digital model.
The traditional media are actually more dominant in the online space than they have been in so-called legacy media. But advertising isn't following.
The good news: Newsrooms are innovating.
The not-so-good news: The paid search function online isn't a priority for news sites, and that's where the money is.
The digital age isn't necessarily ruining any medium. Newspapers and television are adapting and their content is finding a new audience. No one is suggesting they're unscathed, but they sit atop so much content that it's hard to believe they can't evolve.
Two other media at first blush are more seemingly vulnerable: magazines and radio. Magazines seem far too irregular to sustain digital followings, while radio is facing the rabid file-sharing world and MP3 technology.
But the news from those fronts of late offer some sense of survivalism. Magazines in the U.S. are reporting an 8.1 per cent growth in unique visitors online in 2007 over 2006. That total of about 67.5 million is higher than the 62.8 million UVs enjoyed by newspapers. Magazines reported strong growth in page views and reached nearly 42 per cent of all Web users in the U.S., according to the Nielsen Online survey conducted for the Magazine Publishers of America.
Radio, meanwhile, is undergoing the satellite revolution. But one of its senior executives in the U.S. is predicting a new "killer app" for the medium: song tagging.
Jeff Smulyan, CEO of the Emmis Communications broadcast chain, told a digital radio conference recently that the technology permitting people to identify songs they're hearing for possible future purchase is going to be a big boon to the medium. He predicts that the strength of the FM tuner in iPods will generate momentum for receivers in every cellular phone.
I am a new media manager with old media experience. This is a time of transformation in which innovators will win.
This blog is about changing times in journalism and news organizations. I will use it regularly to link to new research and ideas and I will supplement the blog with resources on other pages on themediamanager.com to spur the dialogue.
It is not a blog for media criticism. We have too many of those and it is fruitless to add one more.
It is also not a blog of trade secrets. We have too few of those and it is fruitless to lose one more.
Anyone looking for competitive information is wasting time. Anyone looking for collaborative information is in the right place.
I will attend to the site regularly and I am hoping that a good network of journalists and non-journalists alike will participate.
Enough preamble. Let the conversation begin.
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