Throughout 2012, all of the major ad networks reported some level of decline

Everyone Takes a Hit

The average fall in median monthly revenue for all major ad networks in 2012 was 13.1%. This includes OpenAds/OpenX, BuySellAds, Chitika, DoubleClick, Infolinks — all the big players. AdSense median monthly revenue fell by an average of 18.6%, a significant degree more. The question is, is AdSense posting sharper declines as a contrast to their higher user numbers, or is it a reflection of something deeper in their business strategy?

AdSense, a Google-owned service, is the world’s most widely used ad publishing network, boasting a whopping 74% of market share. The process by which a site owner makes money off ad revenue is not rocket science — you serve ads on your site, then source the traffic and click-throughs to trigger revenues. But is it really that simple?

Becoming an Expert

Perusing the WebmasterWorld forums showcases business owners with loads to share about AdSense nuances. Netmeg, one such member, eloquently expresses that mastering AdSense, or any ad network, takes a tremendous amount of study time, patience, dedication, and practice:

When I first started, I got really mistargeted ads too, and it took a slap year or more for Google (and me) to start learning what works on my sites. And I had to make some changes in the way I wrote for it. And I paid attention to who was using it and how they were using it. And I developed some strategies to find where else these people hung out and how to maybe bring them to the sites, get them to share it with their friends, etc.

Netmeg’s statement clarifies that ad networks are not plug, play, and cash-in systems. On the contrary, they require the same business prowess that all aspects are running a business demand in order to hit a balance and see profits rise. Netmeg also emphasizes that she’s an AdWords/AdSense advertiser, giving her insight on both sides of the fence.

Industry Challenges

The ad industry as a whole continues to face a myriad of challenges that may be preventing even earnest experts from mastering the system. The overall economic downturn is an obvious culprit, but so are things like ad blockers and an increasingly uninterested and jaded Internet. Users have become more and more savvy to online marketing tactics, and one bad seed that falsely lures them into a spam scam via an ad wreaks havoc for all the good guys.

Furthermore, site owners are constantly playing detective as Google changes search engine algorithms, sending people in a flurry to recover once lucrative SERPs. In January of 2012, Google released an algorithm update that devalued sites with an excessive number of ads located above the fold, which some called the “top-heavy” release. In October, they made restrictions even more poignant, dubbed “top-heavy 2.” The goal: to ensure site users can easily discern between content and ads.

Are Technical Difficulties to Blame?

More than one blogger and site owner have complained of frequent AdSense technical errors in recent months too, causing some to believe the system is simply not functioning properly. Blogger Lisa Irby, owner of 2CreateAWebsite, reported that by the end of January this year, she saw multiple instances of revenues that were simply not captured.

After logging in and expecting to see increased profits thanks to higher traffic across her sites, Irby saw just the opposite. She writes:

After I logged in I was quite surprised to see that even though traffic was way up, my earnings were not.  In fact, my January earnings were on pace to be less than December’s. So I investigated a little more and noticed that impressions for one of my highest traffic units were not being recorded.

She eventually saw things balance out in later reports, but multiple complaints such as these have thrown a wrench in AdSense trust levels for many users.

The Good News

For 24% of survey respondents, AdSense revenues have seen small and even dramatic increases over the last year, so clearly it’s not all bad news. This shows that users mostly hold whitehat SEO practices and quality content creation as the reason for their windfall, and like Netmeg suggests, they have spent the time to master the AdSense platform through educated trial and error experiences.

Others simply believe that the lower revenues are a direct reflection of the cyclical nature of the net as a whole. Google itself reported a drop in traffic and ad serves in 2012, and since most sites see the bulk of their traffic come from the search engine giant, the correlation is obvious.

Is AdSense Accountable?

A bundle of frustrated WebmasterWorld forum users still say the culprit is AdSense, most specifically what they call “irrelevant” interest-based ad placements, that therefore do not directly speak to their demographic and thusly damage their ad profits. That, coupled with Google’s 20% decrease in ad buy expenses, means that ad buys are less lucrative for Google, so there is less money to give back to site owners.

So is it the industry, or is AdSense itself causing double duty impact in the negatives through poor business practices? Or are they simply a victim of being so big they feel economic downturns more poignantly than their competitors?

What have your experiences been with AdSense? Are they losing their edge, or are their challenges simply reflect of the economy at large?

Image by n0nick (Sagie).

The post Why Are AdSense Revenues Declining? appeared first on SixEstate.

Google’s annual developers conference, Google I/O, kicked off with a number of interesting announcements. As numerous users cheered for or railed against the new iteration of Google’s social platform, the details of the 41 changes to Google+ were announced at the conference.

Here is a breakdown of the high points.

Hangouts

Hangouts are arguably the most groundbreaking element of Google+. The built-in videoconference/broadcast functionality is, in my opinion, the platform’s greatest strength. It would seem that Google thinks so as well, they have just broken Hangouts off into its own dedicated smartphone app.

The new app combines text, photos, and live video across Android, iOS, and your laptop/desktop. New features include the following:

• More responsive messaging. Photos, emoji, and real-time activity indicators breathe new life into notifications.
• Conversation history. This allows you to review your prior interactions (you can also turn this feature off).
• Notifications no long replicate across all your devices. Once you see a notification on one device, it is cleared from the others, removing one of G+’s biggest annoyances. You can also set them to snooze so you can get some work done.
• Conversations can go face-to-face. Conversations based on the integrated messaging can easily be launched as full-fledged video Hangouts.
• The app is already ubiquitous. It can be downloaded from Google Play, the App Store, and the Chrome Web Store. It’s also integrated directly into both Gmail and Google+.

Hashtags, Photo Tools, and More

The main Google+ interface has gotten a facelift — and some people dislike it intensely while others love it. Unfortunately for me, I’m in the former group. I think it is too much like Facebook, a platform I dislike intensely.

Lets take look at some of the most visible components of the upgrade:

• New multi-column layout. This is the part that reminds of Facebook’s terminally confusing feed. Thanksfully for those who prefere single-column presentation, it can be toggled off.
• Photos and videos become huge. Google continues its trend of wanting bigger and bigger photos. It might end up being useful, but I see a lot of confusion being generated among the casual users in my stream by it.
• Lots of animations. Seriously, Google, not everything has to move.
• Hashtags. Related hashtags are now automatically displayed in the upper left corner of each post. Can you say, “rabbit hole”?

For the Shutterbugs

Google+ has catered more and more toward photographers with each update, and I am happy to say that includes this one. Here are some new features:

• Auto highlight. This will be amazingly useful to people like me, who snap a number of iterations of each photo. Auto highlight picks out and deemphasizes the duplicate and blurry pics, allowing you to zero in on the best in each series of pictures you take.
• Auto Awesome. You can stitch together shots in a series to make a playful Photobooth-esque picture or even a Vine-like animated gif. Auto Awesome creates a brand new image based on a set of photos selected from your library. If you upload a sequence of photos, it will try to animate them automatically. Another use suggested by Google is, “If you send us a few family portraits, we’ll find everyone’s best smile, and stitch them together into a single shot.” The name is a bit narcissistic but the results do seem pretty impressive.
• Auto backup (instant upload). If you set up the permissions, Google+ will automatically back up your mobile pics as you snap them. Everyone receives unlimited free storage at standard size (2048px), and 15GB of free storage at full size (up from 5GB).
• Auto enhance. A new tool for improving “brightness, contrast, saturation, structure, noise, focus [...] and dozens of other factors” automatically. Look for it in the lightbox next time you upload photos.

All in all, there has been a massive reboot across the Google properties, aimed at making them a more cohesive whole. As a result, the look and feel is now standardized. As things move forward, it will be interesting to see what sort of background changes go along with them, and how those will impact SEO and social signals.

The post Google I/O 41 Announces 41 Changes to Google+ appeared first on SixEstate.

When you reason together with a reader, hoping to win that person to your political side, it’s a lot like explaining why your product is superior, in hopes that a sale will result, or like trying to talk someone into an overnight visit, in hope that, well, you know. Persuasive rhetoric is what it’s all about. The ancient Greeks and Romans knew a thing or two about planting ideas in other people’s heads, and throughout the ages, some principles have remained constant.

In 1998, a very present-adaptable “how-to” piece was published (and can be downloaded.) At the time, the author’s bio read like this:

David Botsford is a freelance writer and therapist. He has written extensively for the Libertarian Alliance on a wide range of subjects including the cinema, education, gun control, and the case against Britain being part of the Europe Union.

It’s called “Thirty Six Pieces of Advice about How to be a Libertarian (and Libertarian Alliance) Writer.” Not 10, not 24, but an entire 36, and well worth the attention of an aspiring persuader. Of course, from any such list, whether prescriptive or proscriptive, we are free to pick and choose. Buried treasure lies within.

Botsford expands wonderfully on all of these suggestions, so please go read him. This is mostly a list, with quotations from him, or comments that might be applicable to newsbloggers and the like. The spelling has been Americanized. Here we go.

1. Read Orwell on the English language.

2. Write what you know about. (He mainly means, don’t write what you don’t know about.)

3. Include “pictures and conversations.” (In 1998, this wasn’t so easy, but now pictures and conversations are everywhere. Can there be too much of a good thing?)

4. Use recognized authorities as far as possible.

5. Link your ideas with the real world. (Botsford goes on to say, and this is something that will never change:)

Many people find questions of abstract philosophy incomprehensible or irrelevant, so cite specific examples in the real world to make your point plausible.

6. If possible, take the discussion away from politics and economics.

Show how people are actually going to be demonstrably better off in every respect — and how they might do things in very different ways — as they gain greater and greater freedom.

7. Read good writers who wear their scholarship lightly. (He cites, among others, Bertrand Russell and P.J. O’Rourke.)

8. Everybody has the right to have their ideas examined one at a time.

Accept that individuals often have a variety of views to put forward, each of which must be accepted or rejected on its merits.

9. As far as possible, discuss subjects that haven’t been covered in detail. Avoid the old chestnuts.

10. Don’t just sloganize — explain in detail.

11. In defense of Mr. Gradgrind. (A Dickens character, explained in detail. The point is:)

Give the reader as many incontrovertible facts as it takes to make your case — and keep any speculations down to the bare minimum. Also, check your facts thoroughly against reputable sources of information. If a reader notices even a trivial factual error in your writing, he or she will naturally doubt the accuracy of everything else in the piece.

12. Read important writers in the original. (This is about the necessity for in-depth research, if the persuasive writer is at all serious about wanting to be believed.)

13. Read and quote from the opposition.

14. Speak softly — but carry a big stick.

Your tone in writing should be moderate. Avoid the gratuitous abuse of people, the use of hysterical language, or over-stating your case; allow the reader to experience anger or enthusiasm because of the facts, analysis and arguments they read, rather than the tone in which it is written.

15. Avoid negatives — state positively. (And stress the benefits!)

16. Never underestimate what freedom and the market can achieve.

17. Don’t assume that the reader necessarily knows much about the subject.

18. Find something to “hang” your argument on, such as a current event, a television program, a politician’s speech, a book, an article or a film… It will make your writing relevant, show that you are keeping track of current developments, and be a useful “frame” for your article. (There has been perhaps a little too much of this, also, since the advent of the Interwebs. It’s the nature of the beast. Keywords are king.)

19. Humor is permitted — but let it come out of the subject rather than forcing it.

20. Read about your subject — preferably the most recent research by the most respected authorities, and those who have actively participated in what they are describing.

21. Avoid false over-generalizations… Give credit where it’s due.

22. Be sympathetic to the aspirations of the common people.

23. Recognize difficulties and problems with libertarianism. (Or your product, or the sleepover idea.)

24. Avoid taking too many examples from the United States. (Or your country of origin. Botsford is talking about libertarian arguments here, but it really does apply across the board. It’s a big world out there, where a lot of stuff happens in all different kinds of fields — stuff worth knowing about.)

25. Don’t automatically repeat widely-held myths.

26. Every article should make one specific point.

27. Avoid comparing your opponents with the German Nazis, except where very strictly relevant. (With apologies to Botsford, he should have saved this one for last, for comedic effect. Because, 15 years later, it is still so true.)

28. Don’t look on all writing as necessarily a “win-lose” situation.

29. Don’t assume that libertarianism is a hated philosophy.

30. Write about people. Make issues into one individual’s story. (Again, this is one of the areas in which online communication shines. Charles Ramsey!)

31. Avoid sectarianism.

32. Write of the relevance to libertarianism of your interests other than politics and economics.

33. Avoid parish-pump politics. Most people are not very interested in hearing the details about disputes between Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden in the 1960s, or between David Kelley and Leonard Peikoff in the 1990s. (Then again, some are fascinated. It all depends.)

34. Challenge generally accepted ideas about what is and is not on the side of “freedom.” (Or your product, or the sleepover idea.)

35. Read Micklethwait on footnotes. (Brian Micklethwait was Botsford’s editor. ‘Nuff said.)

36. Reduce Brian’s workload.

Check your writing thoroughly for misspellings and misprints before you send it in. Use your word processor’s spell-checker, and then check the printed paper for errors, including proper names, which can be checked in reference books… If people spot typos, they often assume that the writing itself is inferior.

So there you have it. Now, get to work.

Image of David Botsford by Brian Micklethwait.

The post The Transferable Skills of a Master appeared first on SixEstate.

SEO is a field that experiences a lot of sudden changes. Despite the fact that they often sport cute animal names like Panda, these search-engine algorithm changes can throw strategies into a tailspin. As we prepare to hit the midpoint of 2013, it behooves us to take a look at the current state of SEO.

Search Engine Journal asks, Why Does SEO Take So Long? This is an especially good starting point as it addresses some of the more common techniques and why the most common quick fixes can land you in Google’s penalty box rather than on page one of the search results.

First Stop: Facebook

With the rise in importance of social signals in online search it should be remiss not to look at how SEO and Facebook intersect. Search Engine Land‘s Jim Yu looks at how to “utilize SEO and social sharing best practices to both optimize your Facebook page and foster engagement.” Short form: SEO for your Facebook page.

As he put it in his guest column:

Optimizing for Facebook Graph Search is not an exact science as the product (and the social graph itself) is continuing to evolve. What is certain, however, is that Facebook has huge amounts of data at its disposal and the platform has some of the strongest social signals on the Web. Businesses can and should take advantage of how Facebook presents structured data by optimizing for Graph Search today.

SEO and Content Marketing

Jonathan Piggins of the The Guardian recently delved into the question of where things stand with content marketing, an approach that seems to be pulling even with — and at times surpassing — traditional SEO. He wrote:

Type ‘small business funding’ into Google and Barclays’ content marketing strategy pays off because the brand ranks highly with an advice page. Likewise, type in ‘diets’ and both Sainsbury’s and Tesco appear high in the rankings, creating opportunities to further sell their products and increase brand loyalty.

These examples, like our own work showcased elsewhere on this website, show the effectiveness of the content marketing approach. Providing useful resources is key to ranking high on today’s Internet. As Piggins points out, this is hardly the death knell for SEO:

These scenarios do not herald the ‘death of SEO’. Far from it. The future lies in collaboration. The relationship between content marketing and SEO only reaches its true potential when it’s designed to be symbiotic. This means that brands need to underpin their content with SEO strategies like strong internal navigation. So the user finds a recipe via search term, then purchases all necessary ingredients and equipment, then participates in a social communities around the recipe. The idea is to use varied skills to build hubs around interdependent content and search terms in order to nurture cross-selling potential.

And there you have it. A nice summation of our own stance. Quality content combined with quality SEO is the winning combination.

The Rise of the Wearable

As one of the people chosen to try out Google Glass this is one category, I am obviously interested in. Brian Proffitt at ReadWrite takes a look at how mobile and the incipient wearable devices change the landscape for optimization. For one thing, the tiny screen size makes it an even more Darwinian battle for notice:

For search-engine optimization (SEO), this is a huge challenge: With contextual search, it’s no longer enough to get your business or product listed on the first Web page of results. On a mobile device, as well as in push situations, SEO is really effective only if you can push your results into the top position, or at least into the first few lines.

Wearable devices like Google Glass and the rumored iWatch could put even more pressure on search results. We don’t yet know what their interfaces will look like, but it seems safe to assume that there may be even less real estate available to display search results.

From the sneak peeks I’ve seen of Google Glass this is most certainly the case. I’ll be able to report back in more detail once I can experiment a bit.

So there you have it, a quick glance at the State of SEO near the mid-point of 2013. I wonder how much the landscape will have changed by the time we look back at the end of the year.

Photo By Sean MacEntee.

The post Mid-Year Review: SEO 2013 appeared first on SixEstate.

For a Social Media Marketing podcast, Michael Stelzner interviewed Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, who reminds us that content marketing has been around for a long time. One of his favorite examples is The Furrow Magazine, published by the John Deere company as a resource and educational tool for farmers.

The company’s product, farm machinery, would do its owner no good if rodents ate all the seeds before they could be planted. Pest control and a thousand other subjects could be addressed in The Furrow for the benefit of agricultural entrepreneurs, helping them succeed, because then, they could afford even more John Deere products.

That kind of content marketing is a win-win proposition — something for everybody. Pulizzi says:

Companies create or curate valuable, compelling or relevant content on a consistent basis to do something, to maintain or change a behavior, and usually that’s to attract or retain a customer.

In content marketing, the job description is to create and curate. And educate. Many companies mistakenly focus their content marketing inwardly. They use blogs to tout the benefits of their products or their methods or their people or their performance. They want their content to attract prospects, friends, clients, investors, the media — yet they fail to produce content that appeals to these groups.

Newsblogging is different. By covering news in the industry, Newsblogs cultivate media contacts, prospects, friends, and investors. They are attached to every breaking story in the news, and build a reputation as a source of information in the field. That audience is kept close so that when the client has a major announcement about new capabilities or new products or new hires, there is an audience to hear it.

With a Newsblog, a real journalist is assigned a real beat and can stretch out. There is space to branch out and say things that won’t fit in a traditional ad. Analogies can be constructed. Mythology and psychology can be consulted. Comparisons can be made. Sometimes you want to engage in persuasive rhetoric that needs more nouns and verbs than the average bumper sticker can accommodate.

Newsblogging definition expands

In a subsequent podcast of Social Media Marketing, Lee Odden added the words “thoughtful” and “meaningful” to the definition of content marketing. The Marketing Blog editor also used the term “guide,” and noted that information should be tailored to the specific needs and goals of a certain audience.

By publishing a Newsblog, and sharing ideas and tidbits of information that are not specifically about you, you gain street cred. It shows that you are aware of what else is going on in the world, and of things that might be helpful or interesting to your present and future customers. It might involve calling attention to an excellent workshop or a book or whatever, produced by your “competition,” and may not result in an immediate ka-ching of your own personal cash register. That kind of altruism inspires trust and confidence.

On the practical side, newsblogging content can be repurposed. A string of blog posts can make a booklet or even a book, with copies printed up for distribution or sale to your customers. Jenny Lawson’s bestselling memoir, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, is mostly a collection of her posts as The Blogess.

Newsblogging involves putting something out there five days a week for months and years. To many writers, the idea of such a commitment is scary. There are methods of record-keeping and organization and “staying out ahead of the project” that can help to curb what might seem like an overwhelming obligation. A certain amount of planning can maximize the number of deadlines met and minimize the stress.

An Expert and a Journalist

The ideal newsblogger must have the training of an expert combined with the curiosity of a journalist. Studies show that groups of experts often make worse predictions than groups that include lay people. It’s because those experts all have an incentive to skew the facts one way or another. An ideal newsblogger is one who is skilled at presenting evidence from a variety of sources, rather than advocating for any particular interpretation.

Some connections cannot be made by a search engine matching up keywords. Sometimes, you feel like a “synthesist,” as John Brunner described in his 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar:

There were people, extremely top people, whom specialists tended to refer to disparagingly as dilettanti but who dignified themselves with the title ‘synthesist,’ and who spent their entire working lives doing nothing but making cross-references from one enclosed corner of research to another.

There was a time when we needed journalists to locate facts and interpret them for us. But today, everyone has access to “the facts” — eyewitness accounts, photos, videos, transcripts, satellite images, scientific research, etc. We don’t need journalists to find the facts. We can find them ourselves. That makes it possible for every organization to have their own news program, and be the creators of the news rather than its victims.

Note: Steve O’Keefe, co-founder of SixEstate, contributed to this article.

Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com.

The post The Unique Charms of Newsblogging appeared first on SixEstate.

Although it’s been almost a year since The Times-Picayune started publishing three times a week, you can still see these signs on people’s front lawns in New Orleans.

The (Some)Times-Picayune of New Orleans and its digital version, NOLA.com, were in the spotlight last week after their publisher NOLA Media Group announced the launch of a new tabloid that will fill the gap on the days the TP doesn’t publish. At the same time, The Advocate, a Baton Rouge daily, has been bought by a New Orleans businessman who apparently plans to grow the paper’s presence in New Orleans.

As Gabmit Weekly‘s Kevin Allman, who’s been covering the TP-related developments in the past year, wrote on Monday, “And the Louisiana Newspaper War of 2013 began in earnest.” Question is, who will benefit? We certainly hope it’s the readers, many of whom still miss getting their beloved paper on their doorsteps every day.

Here’s a short version of what’s happening. On April 30, Jim Amoss, editor and vice president of content at The Times-Picayune, announced the launch of a tabloid called TPStreet. It will start publishing this summer on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, when TP doesn’t publish; will cost 75 cents (same as TP), and won’t be available for home delivery.

The announcement drew a storm of comments, many of them negative, and some of which Amoss had personally responded to. Just to provide a small glimpse of the public reaction, here are three of the many similar comments on NOLA.com [emphasis ours throughout].

A commenter named “lapaul” wrote, addressing Amoss:

We New Orleanians are fed up with the poor decisions your company continues to make, and now you are asking us to sign on to your new plan to add a tabloid newspaper on the days you swore we no longer needed a printed publication. […]

We are smarter than you give us credit for, and we will not be convinced that you are doing what is in the interest of this community. What was in the interest of this community was a daily newspaper which would be supported by a first class associated website. You gave us neither of those things, and now you are backtracking because your original plan to go digital did not work. We are insulted and we are going to support the competition.

Another commenter, “fokrab7,” wrote:

White flag has been raised. The digital experiment has failed. Perhaps if Nola.com had the look and feel of a newspaper (see New York Times and WSJ websites) it would [have] had a fighting chance. A blog with talking reporters does not make a newspaper.

And “Ed Botsko,” who seems to comment often on this thread on NOLA.com, said:

What a terrible marketing plan… TP seems to be willing to narrow their offering and then somehow make sense of charging more for it… The TP used to be a great publication and I hope it roars back, but charging premium prices for lesser product won’t make that happen. Open up the website to everyone and build your advertising to make profit on the paper product. If you can’t do that, then sell the damned thing and let someone who knows how make it work.

While some national publications, when reacting to the news, are staying neutral, merely providing straightforward reporting of the news and refraining from any speculation beyond the “We’ll see,” the local journalistic coverage seems largely dismissive of the NOLA Media Group move yet hopeful of Georges taking over The Advocate and promising to give it a new look by September.

For instance, editor/associate publisher of New Orleans Magazine Errol Laborde, wrote on Monday in his weekly column “The Editor’s Room”:

What Georges was promising was more straightforward: A full-sized daily printed newspaper, just like what most cities in the world still have, despite the digital age. […]

When The Advocate’s new look debuts in September, that will mark 11 months since the Newhouses implemented their thrice-weekly strategy. The end of the noise that Steve Newhouse wished for never came, indeed the scene is about to get louder.

And The Advocate‘s new owner seems very eager to step in and grow the paper beyond the Baton Rouge market. The Advocate business writer Timothy Boone quoted Georges, who bought the paper from the Manship family in Baton Rouge, in his article on May 3 as saying that he plans to “strengthen the New Orleans edition of the newspaper to better meet the demand of the community.”

Boone writes:

‘We have a unique opportunity to grow this newspaper,’ Georges, the chief executive officer of Georges Media Group and publisher of The Advocate, said during a meeting with the newspaper’s employees Wednesday. ‘It just happens that there’s a geography to the south that’s dying for quality journalism seven days a week.‘

While Georges praised The Advocate’s New Orleans edition, which was launched in the fall when The Times-Picayune decided to pare back to a three-day-a-week edition, he said there are ways to improve the publication and increase readership by tailoring the edition to New Orleans readers.

According to Boone, the New Orleans area comprises roughly a fifth of The Advocate’s weekday circulation of 98,000, with Sunday circulation of about 125,000. Georges plans to double the number of the New Orleans subscribers. Georges, who called TP “wounded and confused” these days, also brought two former TP editors who were laid off during massive downsizing last summer, Dan Shea and Peter Kovacs, to The Advocate. Boone says Kovacs will be editor and Shea the chief operating officer and general manager, with “full authority” to implement any changes they see fit.

Boone quotes Shea, who said: “The Advocate has a unique short-term opportunity to strengthen its position in Baton Rouge, develop a digital strategy and gain market share in New Orleans.”

Ryan Chittum at Columbia Journalism Review throws in his own analysis of the situation, mentioning that the Newshouses have deeper pockets and the TP still has about 130 people in its newsroom, so it will take a lot of investment and good decision-making for Georges to deliver what he promises. However, it’s not impossible. Chittum writes that:

[I]t throws another roadblock up for what I’ve argued is the Newhouses’ liquidation strategy in New Orleans, and the family has already squandered much of the enormous goodwill the Picayune had in New Orleans with their actions over the last year. The Advocate has a big built-in advantage in state politics and in LSU sports. It will also not have a hard time poaching talent from the Picayune and its layoff pool.

The backdrop to all this is the dismal state of the newspaper industry. We’re all for healthy competition, particularly when it means more journalists on the streets and in the newsrooms. But a war of attrition that bleeds both owners would be the worst case scenario for New Orleans, a city that needs good journalism as much as any in the country.

Chittum sums up what many (locals, at least) are feeling:

NOLA’s hamhanded PR not going to win back the trust of Picayune readers who have been so badly burned in the last year. The company controls one of the great brand names in American journalism in the Times-Picayune, and it goes and names something TPStreet.

It will be interesting to see if maybe some laid-off TP journalists will end up at The Advocate, and whether TP’s still-loyal readers will benefit from any of this.

Image by Editor B (Bart Everson).

The post Who Will Benefit From the “Louisiana Newspaper War”? appeared first on SixEstate.

Much like the Segway, Google Glass has geek appeal. Like with the Segway, that could well come with the high price tag to create an aura of a “toy of the affluent,” which could kill its widespread adoption.

On the other hand, people felt that way about the first cell phones and then the first smartphones. The “elitist” handsets that used to weigh up to 10 pounds were an oddity, viewed as expensive toys for the rich. Now, only a few years down the line, they are nearly ubiquitous.

Segway’s Social Stigma

Currently, only Glass Explorers like myself will have the units, and the projected price tag when they hit the market next year is rumored to be in the $800 range. Those of us chosen as Explorers (read, beta testers for the device) have to shell out a cool $1,500 and pick them up in person at the GooglePlex. At the moment, many of us are simply waiting for the go-ahead. (And I intend to record some of the process and blog about it here.)

That financial cost of adoption, much like the Segway price tag, severely limits the number of those who can afford to acquire Glass. As with most technology, it will take a while for the intersection of market and production to bring things within the common man’s reach.

In the meantime, it does present a great platform for mockery. Omni-evangelist Robert Scoble was one of the first to test-drive the new toy (surprising no one), and one of the first to spawn a new meme due to his own foolishness. His now infamous “shower pic” is only the first of a bunch that Wired has gathered together under the title, “Will these guys make Google Glass uncool?”

Just look at the new jargon. “Glasshole” is now the pejorative of choice for critics. Rebecca Greenfield of The Atlantic Wire not only noted the rise of the term, but engaged a number of linguists to examine how it has started and spread:

Even before there were so many Glass wearers out in the wild, ‘glasshole’ had started to catch-on beyond the tech-set. After first appearing in TechCrunch in January, it was selected as the Urban Dictionary word of the day in March. Then, just the other day Business Insider sanctioned it as the ‘new word to describe inconsiderate Google Glass users.’ Or, in the words of Bruce Schneier the legendary computer security expert: ‘We’re seeing the birth of a new epithet, ‘glasshole.”

It is possible that the perception of the product is probably the biggest hurdle it faces.

Portable Phones? They’re a Fad

In the late ’70s, we saw the debut of the Brick, the first cell phone. Actually, the Brick celebrated its 40th birthday on April 4. The phone was huge, ugly, and ostentatious. In fact, it had many of the same aesthetic problems as the Segway. Most people never thought those phones would catch on, much less turn into a real-world counterpart of the “Star Trek” tricorder. The thing is, they not only caught on but became perceived as indispensible.

That’s the other side of the coin. Will Glass provide enough functionality at a low-enough price to become commonplace, or will it end up as a specialized tool for a few specific settings? Will it retain the heads-up display or be mounted on the wrist (or take some other form)?

Personally, I think that wearable computing is imminent. Google would be foolish not to make forays in that direction if they are going to get into the hardware business.

#GlassExplorer

As SixEstate’s resident Glass Explorer, I should be getting mine in a month or two, with luck (as mentioned, Google still has not given us the timeframe as yet). Once I do, we will take an inside look at the tech. Think of it from a media creator’s perspective — the ability to shoot video, engage in live videoconferencing, take pictures, etc., without needing to reach for gear — is going to add a lot more spontaneity to the job.

For a corporate blogger, this can provide a wonderful first-person perspective with which to do, say, video tours. I’m hoping to set up one with the Old New Orleans Rum, whose distillery is not far from my home.

Questions? Comments? Please leave them for me here.

Image by Rob Pegoraro.

The post Google Glass: Next Segway or Smartphone? appeared first on SixEstate.

And it is called Ghost.

“The concept of the blog has transformed journalism in the last ten years,” begins the Kickstarter pitch, “like the mp3 did to music so some of the biggest ideas and discoveries over the last decade have been broken through the blog.”

The crowdsourced project is still open for supporters but has already exceeded minimum funding. “And yet,” founder and developer John O’Nolan intones, “in the last ten years not a lot has changed when it comes to the software.”

The premise is thus: As WordPress is evolving it is being used more frequently as a content management system (cms) platform for Web design. In fact, WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg said just last month, “I see the future of WordPress as a web operating system.”

WordPress’s original functionality — blogging — has become overshadowed and bloated by other features. Blogging has specific needs. Enter, Ghost.

Ghost will emphasize aesthetics and usability. For example, the two-pane interface will show Markdown language on the left and a live preview on the right. Gone are the days of flipping back and forth for formatting and display issues.

Ghost will also feature simplified dashboards for both content management and statistics that reduce drill-down hunting for important metrics. Moreover, it will ship with social-sharing tools included. This will be an improvement over managing an unwieldy assortment of plugins.

One aspect of particular interest to me, and probably you, too? How Ghost will manage multiple editors and authors in an online newsroom format. Here, Ghost has the most potential to serve blogs that are scaled beyond solo bloggers. Here at SixEstate we manage multiple newsblog sites, and Ghost’s innovation in this area will be exciting to watch.

Like WordPress, Ghost will be free and open-source. This means an entire universe of products, services, consultants, extensions, apps, and other (for profit) add-ons will arise. That’s exciting because it will mean a new generation of tools and, hopefully, more people blogging.

One final thing to point out, as evidence of a shift in thought: Ghost is being developed as a nonprofit.

“Why should you care? It means that no one owns shares of monetary value in the project. We’re building Ghost because we want online publishing to be better. We want to make decisions focused on that goal, not on building a startup that we can sell to Facebook for $1billion,” writes John O’Nolan of his work on Ghost with co-founder Hannah Wolfe.

Working outside the standard “startup sellout mentality” Ghost, like WordPress, may open the way to blogging for huge swaths of people and in the process make its millions (and more) indirectly. That’s something to “like.”

The post Soon You’ll Be Seeing Ghosts appeared first on SixEstate.

A SixEstate reader noted, “The other night, Brian Williams snuck in a 20-second pitch for an acid reflux remedy. I believe it was, in fact, a product placement, not news.”

Compared to some of the other things that transpire, this is a big fat “so what?” Who cares if a suit on TV engages in the occasional bout of covert commercial advocacy? Except, as anchor of “NBC Nightly News,” Brian Williams is “seen by more U.S. television viewers on a daily basis than any other individual.” And since he is also managing editor of his news program, The Buck Stops Here should be on a placard over his desk, as it was over the desk of Harry S. Truman.

A Matter of Trust

Williams has won more awards than Carter has pills — another old saying that was itself an early, if unconscious, instance of product placement. In 2007, TIME magazine named Brian Williams one of the 100 most influential people on the planet. There is, in short, a trust issue. If homeboy were raking in illicit swag, in return for his numerous gratuitous mentions of products and companies, it would be a matter for concern. Because, could the public place an ounce of faith in anything he says about anything?

The newsman has been connected with the concept of stealth advertising for quite a while. Back in 2005, George Simpson of MediaPost asked the simple question:

Can I trust that Brian Williams is wearing that tie because his wife bought it for his birthday, or because the ‘product placement department’ ordered him to wear it?

In the fullness of time, another newswatcher came along and started a blog whose content consists of descriptions and attempted decodings of every item of neckwear in which Brian Williams has ever stepped before a camera.

Documenting Brian Williams’ Product Placements

More significantly, a fed-up news consumer and blogger named Norman Charles has devoted an online career to tracking the news anchor’s habit of sneaking references to advertisers’ products into everything. This charmingly monomaniacal blog is called The Nightly Daily, and Charles says of its origin:

Brian Williams’s hidden agenda (to shamelessly promote himself, his broadcast, his sponsors and other NBC shows) motivated me to begin submitting comments to his blog at msnbc.com. Their refusal to print most of my comments led me to start this blog.

In the profile section, Charles gives his interests as:

• Exposing the hypocrisy at “Nightly News”
• Revealing Brian Williams’ true motives for airing stories
• Pointing out spelling, grammar, math, and factual errors in “Nightly News” stories

He provides example after example of inappropriate coziness between news staff and corporate interests, such as stories about:

• how carefully (frequent advertiser) United Airlines cleans their planes
• the new gourmet coffees served up by (frequent advertiser) McDonald’s
• the new Heinz ketchup packages
• Universal Studios and the 30th anniversary of The Blues Brothers (a Universal property)

And then there is negative advertising, i.e., taking a swipe at the competitor. Charles says:

On the Aug. 26 Nightly News, Brian read a ‘news story’ about a recall of Johnson & Johnson hip replacement implants. Once again, this story was planted on Nightly News for the sole purpose of helping Smith & Nephew — a regular sponsor who also make artificial hips… Brian’s obvious goal was to steer people away from J & J artificial hips and towards those made by Smith & Nephew.

The Porous Wall Between Advertising and Editorial

In another post, he provides a comprehensive list of beneficiaries of these glowing stories –
“Chrysler, Requip, Aleve, Chevy, Lifewater, Smith & Nephew knee replacements, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Heinz ketchup, Kraft Foods, the University of Phoenix, United Airlines, Boniva…,” and says:

These are all Nightly News advertisers that someone on the broadcast (usually Brian) has gone out of their way to plug in a ‘news story’ [...] Nightly News is one big product placement repository! Virtually every night, Brian (or someone else on Nightly News) goes to great lengths to plug a product that regularly advertises on the broadcast.

Nightly News correspondents are often required to mention one or more sponsors in a story just so that the producers have an excuse to put the sponsors’ logos up on the screen (Walmart is a frequent beneficiary of this practice).

Of course, Charles is not the only one who has noticed Williams’s propensity to lavish faux-news credibility upon advertisers. Carrie Martens, in an article about a sandwich franchise’s incredibly persistent and ubiquitous product placement, voiced this opinion:

… [W]hatever you think about product placement, you gotta hand it to the Subway folks. They really know how to get it done. I’m half expecting to see Brian Williams eating a Subway footlong while delivering the Nightly News.

Interviewed by Williams aboard Air Force One in October, President Obama spoke of his confidence in the ability of women to make their own decisions after consultation with their families and clergy, and without the involvement of politicians. Despite the President’s clear words, viewers seemed eager to find occult meaning in the fact that the publication Women’s Health was visible in his magazine rack. It seems the mere presence of Williams can inspire suspicions of foolery.

The News Show Named After a Sponsor

In October, a sassy website called Chickaboomer discussed the Republican candidates’ debate and remarked on an aspect of the reportage, as Williams chatted with “political embeds” (is that a euphemism for “exploited interns”?). Was the mention of an MSNBC ”Morning Joe” sponsor a product placement or an fortunate accident? Here is the quote:

Williams (grammatically correct but awkward): ‘What is the number one consumer product on the road without which you cannot do?’

Chick embed: ‘Absolutely coffee! Preferably Starbucks. Uh, you know, Grande Skim No Water Chai.’

Williams: ‘I thought you were going to say an iPhone or something.’

Something to Help That Gag Reflex

Getting back to that acid reflux segment, there was no breaking news in the story. No one had mentioned this medical device in the news for months. Yet here is the entire transcript of Brian Williams’ 20-second soundbite, twice endorsing the product (our emphasis added) via hearsay. This is the entire transcript of the news segment — ask yourself if this sounds like news or a pitch:

Something new from the world of medicine. What’s being called a kind of tiny magnetic bracelet implanted at the base of the throat. It is shown to greatly help patients with acid reflux. The magnets help to make weak muscles close, cutting off the reverse flow of stomach acid. Some patients say the surgery has been a panacea for them.

Here is a paragraph from Charles, concerning one of Brian Williams’ stock performances that he loves to hate:

Next, it was time for another alarmist health-scare story. This one was about the link between sleep apnea and cancer. The message of this story: If you snore or don’t feel rested after sleep, you’re going to get cancer. Like the ‘Air Scare’ story earlier, these alarmist stories keep viewers from changing the channel because we want to find out if we’re going to die soon. As usual, this story also had an alarmist title: ‘Cancer Risk?’

Some people wonder why “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” even has a health segment. Should health stories that often impact only a small portion of the viewing audience edge out hard news stories? The program doesn’t have a regular sports segment, even though a roundup of sports scores would likely draw greater interest than health news. The reason for so many health segments should be obvious.

Infomercial or Newscast?

In a paper titled “Explaining Attitudes Toward Direct-to-Consumer Advertising (DTCA),” researchers Stephen Ceccoli and Robert Klotz examined who is advertising on “NBC Nightly News” and discovered that 41% of all ads were for pharmaceuticals. When beauty aids, dental care, and dietary supplements are added, the total is over 50% of the ad time for health-related ads.

During the 2012 flu season, no one was more aggressive pushing flu shots than NBC News Chief Medical Editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman, who came to “NBC Nightly News” from advertiser Johnson & Johnson. In February 2013, at the end of flu season, Brian Williams aired one more segment on the subject, stating that “the flu vaccine has actually been a dismal failure,” preventing Type A flu in those age 65 and older only 9% of the time.

“NBC Nightly News” is not unique in sacrificing editorial integrity for ratings or revenues. What is surprising is the number of people who still think NBC News — or any major news provider — is an objective source.

Image by Chickaboomer (Marty Davis).

The post The Many Ties of Brian Williams appeared first on SixEstate.

The critical question is: Should your company retain ownership of the content on your blog, or should you hire a professional team to do the work for you? The answer: It all depends on your expertise and bandwidth.

Is It Really More Expensive to Outsource?

Christopher Ryan, CEO of Fusion Marketing Partners, states that “The question of outsourced marketing vs. the DIY model has major operational, organizational and financial considerations.” Ryan rightly points out that “[...] there may be (but not always) cost advantages to the DIY model.”

For starters, if you already have even one marketing expert on staff, owning your corporate blog internally could be the perfect extension of your existing team’s expertise. Before contracting with outsourced experts, consider if you truly have the internal talent and bandwidth to create and maintain a professional blog.

Remember that blogs require daily maintenance to be successful in reaching your revenue and traffic goals. If you don’t have an internal team that can write quality content, respond to user comments, and design a polished and professional look, it will cost you more in the long run to employ a DIY methodology, because without these skills your blog won’t move any needles. Unless you know you have the time and expertise, outsourcing your blog will actually save you both in the long run.

Benefits to the DIY Model

Hiring a professional team like SixEstate takes the effort and guesswork out of corporate blogging, but there are plenty of reasons to keep this process in-house. Expert internet strategist Dave McBee puts it this way:

Clearly, this is the best option from a quality and branding point of view. No one knows your products and services better than you. No one knows your clients better than you. You’ve got the most expertise and the best chance of writing content that is the perfect fit for your site.

By keeping your blog under your own roof, you retain full control over every function. Costs are controlled, content tone and style are all driven in-house, and you’ll never have to worry about contractors missing deadlines. Every post will be authentic and full of relevant knowledge — critical attributes to any well-trafficked blog.

The Case for Outsourcing

The real problem companies see when they take the DIY approach to is consistency. It’s clearly not realistic to assume you’ll have someone on staff who is fully dedicated to your blogging efforts. Chances are your existing team is already task-saturated with various urgent marketing and content-related responsibilities. A blog that is not consistently updated and monitored quickly loses its readership, and for good reason. Most digital content becomes outdated in a New York minute, so keeping things fresh and current is very important.

Blog posts need to adhere to ever-changing SEO tactics in order to get the biggest bang as well. Hiring a team of content experts will ensure you have professionals who watch every last trend in search engine algorithms, and can constantly monitor results to make sure your rankings are moving in the right direction. If you do not have an SEO expert on staff, you should definitely outsource your corporate blog.

Final Thoughts

As you ponder your DIY-versus-outsourcing conundrum, consider Ryan’s thoughtful summary: “The bottom line is that you need to have a model that helps you generate the most awareness, leads and revenue at a reasonable acquisition cost.”

Take an honest look at your company’s content goal and your current expertise and time availability. Don’t try to squeeze your blog into an already overworked team. If it’s not readily apparent that you have just the employees to create a stellar blog that your competitors will envy, it’s time to call in the experts.

Image by RGBStock.

The post Professional Blogging — DIY or Outsource? appeared first on SixEstate.