Businesses: Their place in community conversation?
Jeff Herr
As we’ve worked on expanding the community offerings on my news company’s web site, we’ve been faced with debating how businesses can be involved. The situation arose in the early beta stage of our MySTLtoday.com site, when a string of coupons from an advertiser in our bridal marketplace showed up in the midst of readers’ comments.
Raising concerns about that prompted an e-mail discussion with Jeff Herr, director of interactive media for Lee Enterprises (our parent company). Jeff makes great points in his e-mail, excerpted here with his permission: Read more
Interesting stuff I saw online from Oct. 11 to Oct. 16
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet from Oct. 11 through Oct. 16:
- Alton Telegraph fights subpoena over Web posters' identities – Metro-east news – Belleville News Democrat – "The newspaper argues in its motion that Web site posters are protected sources because 'in the digital age a newspaper or reporter receiving information in this fashion is no different from anonymous tips provided to newspaper reporters telephonically or in written form.'"
- Blogging journalists: pt.2: Blogs and news ideas: “The canary in the mine” | Online Journalism Blog – "For blogging journalists, blogs have disrupted the traditional processes of journalism in a number of ways. Respondents spoke of a clearer perception of audience needs and interests as a result of comments and visitor statistics, which in turn fed into the choice of topics and angles to cover."
- How Much Do Top Tier Bloggers and Social Media Consultants Get Paid? We Asked Them! – From ReadWriteWeb: "We asked 20 top-tier tech bloggers and social media consultants to tell us how much they get paid, by the post, by the hour or by the month – however their rates are set. Half of them told us, on the condition that we wouldn't disclose who they were or where they worked. "
- Oregon Shield Law Protects Anonymous Commenter from Citizen Media Law Project – "According to the Portland Mercury, staff writer Amy Ruiz wrote a post in January 2008 about Portland mayoral candidate Sho Dozono. In the comments section, a site user going by "Ronald" posted negative comments about Dozono's ties to a local businessman, Terry Beard. The same commenter allegedly posted similar statements on the Willamette Week site. Beard filed a motion to compel the two online newspapers to give up "Ronald's" IP address before an Oregon state court. The two competitors teamed up to oppose the discovery request and won. "
Social media ad gap — between value and revenue
Mike Kelly
There’s no question that social media has exerted its influence in terms of audience and market valuation. In a webinar sponsored by the American Advertising Federation yesterday, I learned how big the revenue gap is, in terms I had not seen before.
AAF board member Mike Kelly, senior advisor for Veronis Suhler Stevenson, gave the presentation. He noted that MySpace, Classmates.com, Facebook and YouTube generate a mere $6.50 per user in revenue on average. On the other hand, Google, Yahoo!, MSN and AOL generate $55 per user, on average.
This, in spite of numbers like: Read more
Ethics of Facebook friendship: Can it really be a conflict?
I read this piece from the American Journalism Review and tagged it on my Delicious account…but I thought it was interesting enough to delve into in more detail. The question it poses in its headline: “To Friend or Not to Friend? Should reporters befriend their sources via social media?”
I’ll offer my answer right up front: Why not? Read more
Interesting stuff I saw online from Sep. 30 to Oct. 5
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet from Sep. 30 through Oct. 5:
- (On Facebook…) To Friend or Not to Friend? | American Journalism Review – One point of view, from NYT standards editor: "…being a friend on Facebook…is essentially meaningless, and everybody knows that. So it's hard to imagine any real conflict of interest that could arise from your being a friend of somebody on Facebook and writing about that person."
- What The F**K is Social Media? – Terrific (and irreverent) slideshare on what social media is. Yeah, it's been there awhile. Yeah, I just found it. (via JackLail.com).
- How shared bookmarks can make you smarter >> Teaching Online Journalism – Vis-a-vis discussions we've had in social media brownbags in our newsroom: "How can bookmarking make you smarter? By cutting through the junk and the spam. People bookmark sites because they judge those sites to have value."
- Tracking Yourself and Your Blog Brand Across the Online Social World « Lorelle on WordPress – Interesting tool for tracking your brand. "The Yahoo Pipes Social Media Fire Hose searches across Twitter, Flickr, Friendfeed, Digg, various search engines, and even includes blog comments. It creates a custom feed you can then add to your feed reader."
- SR.com: Spokesman-Review to cut staff; editor resigns – These guys were leaders among smaller papers in online. "Jim Kershner, president of the Spokane Editorial Society, which represents the editorial department, called the cuts brutal. The 86-person union will lose 21 members in the layoffs…"
- Newspapers First Need to Redefine 'News' to Move Forward Online – "This is a strategy to be executed foremost on online and mobile rather than print. (Though personalized print editions aren't out of the question in the future.)" Funny that this came out the day I wrote about ending the print publications. Neat coincidence.
Kurt's Tweets- Realizing how woefully out of touch I have been with this part of the county. (@ Saint Louis Bread Company) http://4sq.com/5z5Bfh
- Just had my first Gmail phone call -- with my parents -- and the quality was fantastic. Wow. http://tcrn.ch/a8GndI
- Another day, another interview. Fingers crossed. (@ Saint Louis Bread Co) http://4sq.com/avGImL
- Helping my son learn the first 20 elements on the periodic table. Disturbed by how many more elements there are since I studied this stuff.
- Giving blood. (@ St. Martin's Episcopal Church) http://4sq.com/aiWuEk