Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Blogging SIIA-IIS: Some important notes from Ken Doctor's keynote

Here at Day 2 of the SIIA's Information Industry Summit: there's lots of talk about the Apple Tablet, and what it's going to shake up. There's a video on YouTube about it.

Ken Doctor just made a very interesting comment about news: 40% less newsprint, 20% less staff--he doesn't think the downsizing is a good thing. Thinks that what "we don't know what we don't know" and that local/region reporting suffering.

Sobering stats from Doctor: 57% go to the Internet for immediate news--25% use broadcast sites daily. And only 10% of people surveyed "say they'd consider paying for news" and 50% scan Google for headlines without going to news sites ("Google is a central utility in our lives."

Self-marketing is big--advertising taking a downturn (but, as was indicated yesterday, creative is still important.)

What by 2015? 3D TV? Doctor's book "Newsonomics" coming out next week. Some things from the book: The "Digital Dozen" will dominate (ABC< AP< BBC< Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, NBC, NYTimes, NewsCorp, NPR, Thomson Reuters, WashPo.)

The New Local (as Doctor calls it) will be "Free for all"

Global opportunities for the Digital Dozen since there are 900 Mil people speak English. Has scale, but cost structure is too high.

A new farm system: CBS is using Global Post, Reuters is using Politico...

"In the Age of Darwinian Content: We're own on and each other's editors."

Average Internet user spends 5 hours, 32 mins on social media!

Bit.ly makes 2 Billion referrals per month! whether they are articles/news or personal, there are some different stats from Rutgers on this.

Next step is Social Optimization.

Brands "advertis" on Social media with lots of coupons and offers.

The new Trfecta: Social, Mobile, Video (but I'm still not sure on video--soc. and mobile yes.)

Google now aggregating Tweets--real-time search is here...(Technology Review had something on this at the beginning of January.)

Analytics-Driven Content is roaring forward: AOL is creating content "on the fly" by looking at search (aggregation) Doctor mentions Demand Media: "increasingly, data is driving editorial content."

New models of journalism are focusing on advertising more than on quality of journalism: much is very low paid. Doctor elucidates the Examiner model (yes, I've heard of the Examiner, but don't read it...)

The Apple Table incorporates 4 of the Newsonomics laws:

Law 1: make it social
Law 2: approach the digital dozen
Law 5: gather other people's content
law 9: drive the business with data.

Some comments from me: Re Examiner and sites like that: they may have search, but do they have the brand?? IMO, I don't think so. I've seen Examiner--but if I want that kind of content, I'll go to a site like TMZ. So, what publications will Examiner hurt? Will their model be sustainable over time? And what about local coverage? Could they hurt local--where things are really hurting now....

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