[CARTOON] I am the Very Model of a Modern Communications Major
Posted: May 8, 2012 Filed under: Department of Education | Tags: Gilbert and Sullivan, XKCD Leave a comment »I love you XKCD, please never change. I highly encourage you to enjoy the whole cartoon-musical ode to Penzance and “Every Major’s Terrible”, but here at Sot4th, I have to point out the specific knock on Communications majors:
There Is No Slideshow In This Post
Posted: May 8, 2012 Filed under: Department of Digital | Tags: slideshows 1 Comment »It’s hard to imagine a large news site these days that hasn’t gone for the ol’ paginated slideshow post. Something with lots of visuals? Why keep them all in one place, force the user out of the reader or their docile single page viewing and with each click, voila, a new PV and increased time on site.
They are the bane of many a HuffPo reader’s existence. It’s why The Atlantic‘s Alexis Madrigal leads his excellent post on the topic with what may be my current favorite chart:
The piece was inspired by news that Washington Post President Steve Hills was actually encouraging the use of slide shows to juice PVs as a measure of readership, which, as Madrigal notes, somewhat bucks the industry trend of the last few years to stop measuring by page view and start counting unique visitors (a much more robust sense of the reach of a site). Madrigal’s words on what this is all about:
If you’re trying to juice page views, your staff will ineluctably be forced to make galleries. Where else can they get a 10x or 20x multiplier on their work? I can guarantee you that will not help you break the kinds of stories or do the kinds of analysis that will keep people coming back. Not only that, but it’s demoralizing to your best people, the ones who want to be out there producing their best work.
Worse, readers may click through your slideshow, but they’ll hate you a liiitttle bit more than they did when they got to the site. And I bet they’ll feel the same way about whatever advertiser was unlucky enough to get stuck on the page with some stupid thing that a reporter did with a little bit of hate in his heart and fingertips.
This is still the old math of the industry, at the end of the day. It’s circulation as ad inventory, and if you can boost “circulation” with a simple trick or multiplier, you’re going to.
More Are Reading the News from Newspapers, Just Not In Newspapers
Posted: April 25, 2012 Filed under: Department of Print Leave a comment »Newspapers improved upon their website traffic in the first quarter of 2012 with a 4.4 percent increase year-over-year in adult unique visitors (113 million) and a 10 percent increase in adult average daily visitors (25 million).
Further, newspapers achieved a more than 7 percent increase in unique visitors ages 21 to 34, with average daily visits by this age group up 17 percent and total visits rising by 15 percent, an analysis performed by the Newspaper Association of America with data provided by comScore reveals. Young audience engagement with newspaper websites also is demonstrated by a 10 percent increase in average daily visitors in the 18-to-24 age group.
The Cost of Free Content
Posted: April 23, 2012 Filed under: Department of Digital | Tags: ads Leave a comment »I have one of those “ad free blog” things over here. Then again, in no universe to I get anywhere near actual traffic that I’d actually be able to sell ads against, so it’s a bit of just a thing that’s there instead of an ad.
However, there are lots of really smart people who hang around the Internet who rely on ads, and thanks to this post over on Panjiba, you get a sense of the numbers. Brilliant piece and great transparency to explain what is going on.
Give it a read, and maybe consider clicking an ad or two over there if it interests you.
2.27 Billion Internet Users Can’t Be Wrong
Posted: April 19, 2012 Filed under: technology Leave a comment »
So, I guess things grew a bit around these parts in the last five years (via FJP).
This is Bigger than Facestagram
Posted: April 18, 2012 Filed under: social media, technology | Tags: facebook, Instagram, The Zuck Leave a comment »
There is an outstanding profile in the Economist on Facebook and why buying Instagram just may work. Reading through, though, I think there’s a nice sweet spot of a quote that illustrates more about the media world right now than just the $1 Billion dollar grab by Zuck et al:
Instagram has proved irresistible largely because of two big trends that are transforming the technology landscape. The first is the rapid rise of the mobile internet, which is being driven by a proliferation of smartphones and wireless broadband connections. The second is the desire of people to be able to share stuff with their pals from wherever they are.
I have long argued that mobile’s biggest advantage out of the list of things that separate it from other media is that it is a pretty powerful tool to have with you at the moment when you want to create content. As the capabilities of cameras on phones have blown away the basic digital quickshots – and taken a step out of the process to get them into the sharing spaces of the Internet – this one-device shift has been huge.
There’s another trend to put against Facebook and the photo war, and part of that is what drives people back to Facebook over-and-over again:
So, if you’re the biggest photo library in the world, and you know that photos drive the most engagement on your site, you need to make sure you can continue to keep up with how people are sharing photos, right? When you consider that Instagram boasts a pretty solid platform for engagement that doesn’t include Facebook at all (something that was surprising to me as a newer, Android user), the competition is there.
This is bigger than just the combination of the two companies. It’s an acknowledgment of how content creation and social engagement play together from a mobile story. The mobile Web and social interface isn’t exactly going anywhere, and rather than reinvent the wheel and the process (I’m looking at you, people with Circles), you have to steer into that one.
Facestagram is not the edge of the bubble. It’s recognizing the trend.
Oh, So That’s the History of Copyright
Posted: April 17, 2012 Filed under: legal department | Tags: copyright, Star Wars Leave a comment »Answering questions like, “Why does George Lucas’s copyright last so long?”
via Mental Floss
Who’s Not Online? Pew’s New Study Tells Us
Posted: April 13, 2012 Filed under: Department of Digital | Tags: Pew Internet Leave a comment »For as much as digital is important, there are still several groups who are not active online users who must be reached in traditional ways. Pew released a new study that looks into some of these groups. The bullet points:
- 1 in 5 American adults aren’t online.
- Those who aren’t online? Senior citizens, those with lower education or living in households with low levels of income. Interestingly, Pew also noted that people who wanted to take the survey in Spanish (instead of English) were also less likely to be online.
- Those who aren’t online aren’t likely to get on it in the future: only 1 out of 10 of those not online said they’d be interested.
- Have a disability? You’re about 25 percent less likely to get online; that includes a small percentage (2%) of people who’s disabilities actually prevent them from using technology.
There are plenty more insights to come out of this, for sure. Moral of the story, digital isn’t for everyone.
QOTD: Shirky on Publishing
Posted: April 11, 2012 Filed under: publishing | Tags: Clay Shirky Leave a comment »I love this sentiment, I think it’s right to the point of how things have changed:
Publishing is not evolving. Publishing is going away. Because the word “publishing” means a cadre of professionals who are taking on the incredible difficulty and complexity and expense of making something public. That’s not a job anymore. That’s a button. There’s a button that says “publish,” and when you press it, it’s done.
Logic Baffling Comment Policies
Posted: April 18, 2012 | Author: Dave Levy | Filed under: Department of News | Tags: comment policies | Leave a comment »Spotted at Romenesko: