Media on Vince Veselosky

A New Mission for Media

Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:00:00 +0000

Facilitate the flow of information to the point of its highest value.

The media industry at large has lost its path. Most media companies are heavily tilted toward media as entertainment, rather than media as information. As a result, they are engaged in a digital race to the bottom, where falling ad CPM drives them to seek higher page view numbers on thinner margins, focusing on quantity rather than quality, on usage rather than utility. This has left a huge, blue ocean of market opportunities in focused information services open to software and technology companies, who are growing at exponential rates while traditional media companies struggle to slow the rate at which their business is shrinking. Media businesses can stop drowning and start growing again if they recognize and adopt the mission statement above, the mission that media organizations have always had.

Journalism is too important to be locked behind a paywall

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 10:00:00 +0000

When I hear newspaper industry veterans talk about getting paid for content, it makes me want to cry. Case in point, this speech from Bill Monroe to the Midwest Newspaper Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, given Feb. 4, 2010.

What’s missing in today’s marketplace is a way to enable newspapers to protect that content and to profit when others reuse it. – Bill Monroe

I’m sorry Mr. Monroe, but I must disagree quite strongly. The reason journalism should be free is that journalism is extremely valuable. Sound counter-intuitive? Not at all.

Content Is Not Your Product: Why Newspapers Fail

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:00:00 +0000

Your newspaper is Seth Godin's Meatball Sundae — full of valuable stuff, but not a product anyone wants to buy.

I hear the same sentiment from executives all over the media industry, and especially from newspapers. “We deserve to get paid for our content.”

Dear Media Executives: You’re doing it wrong!

The reason so many newspapers are sinking, shrinking, or stinking is that they have totally forgotten what the source of value for their business really is. Somehow they got confused by the 20th century mass production model and deluded themselves into thinking of content as a product that they package and sell.

NYT’s Freemium Paywall Plan is (maybe) Good Business

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:00:00 +0000

Last week, the New York Times announced plans to start charging certain readers for access to their web site. Reaction was predictable: Jeff Jarvis complained, TechCrunch ran some numbers, and Mashable used it as an excuse to talk about a rumored but still unannounced Apple product (seriously Mashable? come on).

The first thing to understand about the announced pay model is that it is misnamed. The NYT press release refers to it as a “metered model” and most reporters are using that language. However, this phrase gives entirely the wrong impression. Most people think of “metered” as the power utility model: you pay for it all, and the more you use, the more you pay.

Why News Archived Behind Paywall Fails

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:00:00 +0000

One business model for online news that has been suggested, tried, and failed, is to make the news free for some short time, and then archive it behind a pay-wall. There is more than one reason why this doesn’t work as a business model, but the most obvious one is an old adage that should have been well known in the newspaper industry: yesterday’s news wraps today’s fish.

It should not come as a surprise that it is hard to find people willing to pay good money for yesterday’s news, especially in the age of 24 hour TV news and instant digital dissemination over the Internet. Old news does have value to historians and researchers, but only after it has faded from the collective memory, decades after the fact. In the space between breaking news and historical research, the value of that content becomes nearly impossible to extract.

The Tablet Fallacy (or, Old Media is Screwed)

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:00:00 +0000

"Help me, Obi-wan Tablet. You're my only hope!" says old media. But these are not the droids they are looking for.

There has been so much hand waving in the last month about 2010 being “the year of the tablet”, it boggles the mind. Much of the buzz has centered around the anticipated announcement of a tablet device by Apple, makers of the much-admired iPhone. However, media industry wonks are all abuzz about how the new platform will redefine newspapers, magazines, and other print products.

The Three C's of New Media: Creation, Curation, and Compilation

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:00:00 +0000

Every media business is built around at least one of three key content activities: creation of content, curation of content, and compilation of data into content. Many media businesses, especially the large ones, make all three of these activities core competencies. Which sounds most like your business?

Creation of Content

This is what most people think of when they think about media: writing articles or features, shooting video, recording audio. In the Internet world it also includes blogging, micro-blogging, and podcasting. The creation (and publication) of original content is often a major focus (and a major expense) for media businesses, both traditional and digital, but it’s only one piece of a larger value proposition.

The Real Value of Social Media is its Weakness

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:00:00 +0000

Many still doubt the utility of social media. I myself was among the doubters until I was forced onto Twitter and Facebook to test the social media integration for a web site I was developing. That’s when I discovered that, although Sturgeon’s Law applies to social media as much as anything else, the small percentage of “good stuff” is exceedingly valuable.

Case in point is this article: In a pinch, Twitter found a long shot source | By Daniel Victor. Stuck playing catch up on a story on a Sunday evening, with deadline looming, journalist Daniel Victor turned to Twitter in a last ditch search for sources. Long story short, Twitter came through for him.

How Newspapers Lost the Classifieds Business (and how to get it back)

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:00:00 +0000

Time was, newspapers owned the local classified ads business, and it was their cash cow. Many people bought the paper just for the classifieds, and it was by far the most valuable real estate of the paper. In recent years, free Internet- based alternatives like Craig’s List decimated their business and contributed greatly to the decline of newspapers.

In this November 2009 interview, Craig Donato, CEO of Oodle, an online classifieds startup, explains that “If You’re The Challenger, You Have To Play A Different Game”. He tells Andrew Warner how he was able to build a successful online classifieds business despite free competition, and become the classifieds provider for many local newspapers.