Strange Attractor

Euan Semple at the British Library

Suw and Kevin — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:05:48 +0000

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Last night I went to Euan Semple‘s event to launch his book, Organizations Don’t Tweet, People Do, at the British Library. It was the first time I’ve live-blogged an event in ages, a skill I’m going to have to polish up a bit before Le Web London in June, hence the lag in getting this up on the blog.

The event took for form of a conversation between Richard Sambrook (RS) and Euan (ES), which I have attempted to capture as faithfully as I can, but of course much of this is paraphrasing especially the questions.

RS: Why do people Tweet,

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News start-ups can’t survive on ads alone

Suw and Kevin — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:14:07 +0000

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Reuters Institute fellow Rasmus Kleis Nielsen has a great post on the blogs at Reuters warning European journalism start-ups to avoid surviving on advertising alone. He backs up his warning with some stark examples of start-ups who have failed due to meagre revenue they were able to earn on ads:

Advertising-supported online news production did not work for Netzeitung in Germany (which in 2009 shut down its newsroom after nine years of consecutive losses), did not work for Rue89 in France (impressive and innovative as it was, the site never broke even and was bought by the weekly newsmagazine Le Nouvel Observateur in 2011), and is

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News start-ups can’t survive on ads alone

Kevin Anderson — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:13:18 +0000

Reuters Institute fellow Rasmus Kleis Nielsen has a great post on the blogs at Reuters warning European journalism start-ups to avoid surviving on advertising alone. He backs up his warning with some stark examples of start-ups who have failed due to meagre revenue they were able to earn on ads:

Advertising-supported online news production did not work for Netzeitung in Germany (which in 2009 shut down its newsroom after nine years of consecutive losses), did not work for Rue89 in France (impressive and innovative as it was, the site never broke even and was bought by the weekly newsmagazine Le Nouvel Observateur in 2011), and is not working for Il Post (widely considered one of the most promising startups in Italy, the site generated revenues of just 35,000 euros in its first year of operation, resulting in an operating loss of more than 150,000 euros out of a total budget of little more than 200,000 euros). Why should we expect it to work for other startups when all these widely praised ventures, and many more besides, failed to pull it off?

Ouch. Nielsen makes the broader point that the journalism start-ups are simply mimicking US models, when the US market is massive both in terms of population and ad spend compared to European markets, but he also makes some excellent points about how a glut of digital content has pushed down ad rates and kept them low. Those low rates aren’t just hitting start-ups but even established players.

A lot of journalists are trying their hand at start-ups as they leave or are pushed out of the stable of big media. When I left The Guardian two years ago, Suw and I thought about pursuing a journalism start-up. We decided not to do it for several reasons, with the major one being, our start-up dreams were over-taken by media consultancy work. However, we thought long and hard about the revenue streams that would fund our start-up. We knew that ads alone wouldn’t cut it.

Nielsen suggest that journalism start-ups look to how other non-content start-ups are diversifying their money mix by adding “digital subscriptions, donations, consultancy services, live events, event planning and e-commerce”. Honestly, I think for certain types of content, you could even mix consulting and content, although I know from personal experience that gets sticky. Journalism quickly meets the requirements of client confidentiality.

Regardless, if you’re launching a journalism start-up, make sure your content dreams are leavened with some thoughts of business reality. If you don’t have business planning experience, get some. Freelancers have always had to learn about marketing and the business side of journalism. It might feel a little weird at first. Just remember, you’re not working for the Man. You’re fighting for your own survival.

Thank you! The Oscar speech as I start my new job

Suw and Kevin — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:14:41 +0000

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As I start my new job, I feel a deep sense of gratitude. I owe a lot of people a lot of thanks for their support over the last two years.

As I go back to full-time work, I first want to thank the managing director of Y Ffynhonnell, Suw, for being such a great boss. Seriously, Suw helped me navigate this leap into independence, which was truly terrifying for someone who had always held a full-time job. She has also been really supportive about my new job, although I’m sure she will miss me as a valued employee. She’ll still

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HIRED: Knowledge Bridge and the Media Development Loan Fund

Suw and Kevin — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:04:44 +0000

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After two years of very successful and satisfying professional independence working alongside Suw, I’ve decided to accept an exciting new, full-time position with Media Development Loan Fund.

Who will I be working for?

Who dat, you ask?

The Media Development Loan Fund is a mission-driven investment fund for independent news outlets in countries with a history of media oppression.

Last summer, I was invited to an MDLF board meeting to talk about media developments in the Middle East, based on the work that I had been doing with Al Jazeera. The board was also keen to discuss developments in digital media.

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Queen of the May Kickstater project launched – please help spread the word

Suw and Kevin — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 20:56:40 +0000

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Crossposted from Chocolate and Vodka.

At last, Queen of the May is up on Kickstarter and ready your support! We have 28 days to raise $10,000, and already have $1905 pledged. Even if you choose the lowest support level, which is $3, please do consider taking part as every little helps!

You can also help immensely by telling your friends about it. No matter how focused your own personal network, every mention of the project helps. Here are a few things you can do:

Use your social networks
Send a Tweet, update your Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn statuses, or leave a message

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Social media: One-to-some communication that needs amplifiers

Suw and Kevin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 07:20:01 +0000

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Ethan Zuckerman had a great insight yesterday at the Knight Foundation event looking at the information needs of communities.

@EthanZ Social media is not one-to-many, it’s one-to-some. Messages need amplifiers to reach a larger audience #infoneeds
about 13 hours ago via webReply RetweetFavorite

@andrewhaeg
Andrew Haeg

Ethan pointed to the coverage of Tunisia and how the video of Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation was uploaded to Facebook, one of the few such sites still accessible in Tunisia. Exiled Tunisian Sami ben Garbia covered the early stages of the revolution on her personal blog and also Nawaat.org, but Ethan

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Journalism: It’s about people

Suw and Kevin — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:59:40 +0000

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It’s not often when in the flood of social media about journalism a new theme comes out so clearly, but today, the theme I’m hearing is about people. Steve Yelvington, of Morris Publishing in the US, flagged up this post by his colleague, Derek May, an executive vide president at the group. Like John Paton‘s Journal Register Company, Morris is embracing a digital first strategy, but May quoted Billy Morris at length of the challenge facing his company, well known challenges. Morris said that “digital first” was a good first step, but he announced a new strategy: “Audience First”.

What

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Hacking: Members of the Fourth Estate are not exempt from the law

Suw and Kevin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:32:38 +0000

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After the phone- and email-hacking and the illegal payments to police and other public officials scandal currently engulfing the British press the key question is, What needs to be done to make sure that it doesn’t happen again?

Journalists are obviously resistant to statutory regulation, which they believe will undermine the watchdog role that the press is supposed to play with respect to the government and the police. The belief by journalists is that this isn’t an issue of regulation but rather of enforcing existing laws. In an interview with the Guardian, outgoing Associated Press president and chief executive Tom

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Sky News and Twitter: Do news organisations trust their journalists?

Suw and Kevin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:36:29 +0000

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With all the hullabaloo about Sky News’ new draconian Twitter policy, I am actually more interested in the why rather than the policy as it was reported by The Guardian.

No retweets of rival journalists or “people on Twitter”.

Stick to your own beat.

Don’t tweet about personal or non-professional subjects on their work accounts.

First off, “people on Twitter”? People on Twitter? This reminds me of the old debate we had about quoting bloggers years ago. Yes, a lot of blogs were personal musings, but experts blog about topics including the US Supreme Court, arms control and volcanoes, important

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