Michael Williams, the Kansas State scholar, provides more empirical evidence supporting the notion of linking out from sites and blogs. While a number of other commentators have taken a largely philosophical, intuitive approach --- that aggregating and linking out is better than making others find the content --- Williams looks at recent research on consumption and identifies the qualities that encourage organizations to link out.
"By helping readers find worthwhile, credible information we support our own position as an important part of their news and opinion consumption habit. The loss of a few page views on a day to day basis will be more than made up for with long term loyalty, frequent visits and longer stays as your readers come back to see what else you have found for them to use as they form their own opinions."
He advocates becoming a resource, not just a source.
Richard Siklos, the editor at large of Fortune Magazine, believes the newspaper will morph into two models in the future: premium products that cater to select groups and cheaply-produced free ones that serve up commodified news. The chairman of Time Inc. is noting no one is immune from the tsunami hitting the media industry. But Ann Moore is suggesting that advertising remains most effective in a print medium, not online, at least for the time being. Canadian conventional television newsrooms got good and bad news today. The federal broadcast regulator turned down for the second time in two years a bid by conventional broadcasters for a 50-cent fee for cable and satellite subscribers. It stood to reason that someone would eventually find a market model to glean user-generated content and convert it into publishable paid material. Along has come Helium, a service that permits its users to review submitted content and select stories that are publishable. Scott Karp is pretty direct in his criticism of newsroom use of Twitter (we hear you). His latest posting to Publishing 2.0 provides excellent advice (we're thinking of it). Among other things: turn off the Twitterfeed of stories, turn on the Tweets of random thoughts and interesting links. David Carr raises an important question: If more people are reading, why should we care if it's on paper? In the digital age the media services of greatest use will be the ones with deep vaults of video. Which is why CNN's new offering of a full wire service ought to be taken seriously by Associated Press. Leave it to a youngish blogger, 21-year-old AJ Vaynerchuck, to outline in pretty clear language eight mistakes bloggers make in using Twitter. |