AR&D - Audience Research and Development

I think that the movement to drop or de-emphasize the page view as a core measurement metric of online advertising is great news. Advertisers and marketers want to talk to people, not pages. They care about the quality of people that engage with their ads, not the quantities of page views where they have bought space. As someone that has been involved on a number of online ad standards committees for the past 12 years, I applaud these moves. This is substantial step forward for the online ad industry.

The essential problem with page views is that it's a textbook, Media 1.0 tactic. If all the parameters are known and defined, the evidence shows that with a few smarts and a few dollars, people can be "moved." However, to do this requires static plans (how many times have you asked the bloody web to just sit still?) and a static environment, which the web is not. It's also evolving at light speed, which makes any formulaic dependence problematic.

Marketing budgets are so important in the Media 1.0 world, because scarcity is what makes it work. We can control the product costs in an environment of scarcity and use resources to draw people to it. But in a world of abundance, marketing takes a back seat to product, and the law of attraction moves to the front of the line. Why is this so important? Because the determining factor in whether a user returns is their own satisfaction, not who has the best marketing.

We talk about "driving traffic," a disgusting term that reduces people to pawns on an enormous chess board. The thinking behind this, however, is that we have control over people, as we did in the days of content scarcity. This is simply not the case anymore, and heed well the words of Mr. Morgan, "Advertisers and marketers want to talk to people, not pages."

Meanwhile, a comScore study on cookies is getting a lot of attention. Cookies are essentially how your Browser connects to a site, especially where interaction is involved. There are permanent cookies and temporary cookies. There are first party cookies and third party cookies.

The study details that when people clear cookies from their browsers, it results is incorrect counts of traffic. Unique visitors are generally counted over a month, and people clearing cookies could be counted as several "uniques," because the server's log file would "see" a new cookie.

The problem here is the same as the page view matter. We think we have to be able to measure anything before it has value. This is in conflict with both the nature and the structure of the web, because the web is more a direct marketing machine. This was acknowledged THREE years ago by Larry Light, McDonald’s global chief marketing officer, at an advertising conference, "The time has come for us to agree that mass media marketing is over."

Tacoda's Dave Morgan told me a few weeks ago that "We don't worry too much about cookies...because the real value in behavioral targeting is recency."

This kind of targeting is where the real value lies in internet advertising, and the advice to any media company -- local or otherwise -- is to invest heavily in this area.

We've got a long way to go, I'm afraid. TVB Vice President Jack Poor told an audience of furiously scribbling GMs in the final TVB session last week that "the page view and the impression are the currency of your online revenue strategy."

And so it goes.   <Permalink>

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MYSPACE NEWS GOES LIVE (Terry)
You heard it here first, friends. We said (March 8th) that MySpace would launch news in "early 2nd-quarter" and took a lot of heat from the MySpace watchers of the world for the prediction. Well, guess what? MySpace News launched yesterday using technology from a company (Newsroo) that News Corp acquired over a year ago. Who says bloggers don't break stories? 'Nuff said.

Michael Arrington told his TechCrunch readers how it works:

Like Google news, MySpace news will pull news items from a number of trusted sources via their RSS feeds. The news items will then be organized into 25 main categories and 300 sub-categories including sports, politics, style, and technology. The order of the news items will be determined by user voting, taking into account the freshness of the news. Users can vote on each item of news with a ranking of 1-5. Higher ranked and higher voted items will appear at the top of each category.

Down the road we can probably expect users to be able to submit news items directly.

Take a look at the logo and note that it has launched in Beta, the universal signal that it's a work-in-progress and seeks input from users. This is the way everything in new media should be launched, and it's a hard concept for television people to embrace. We don't tend to put things on the air that we deem "unfinished," but this is the way it's done in the Media 2.0 world. Google wrote the book on this.

We should be watching how this develops and grows, because the audience for it is the one that advertisers really want. Story ratings and referrals are automatic systems for "news" with young people, and we ought to be considering them for our own applications. It'll also be interesting to see if News Corp stacks the deck with their content as opposed to that of others.   <Permalink>

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RTNDA/NAB AFTERWORDS: THE FIGHT IS OVER; LET THE EDUCATION BEGIN (Steve)
At the end of a panel on online elections coverage and empowering citizen media, moderator Jeff Jarvis turned to the audience and thanked them for not engaging in any of the usual "us versus them" nonsense of traditional media versus the bloggers. This was a big "aha!" moment.

The fighting is over. The realization is here. And now it's time for the education.

A few years ago when Cory Bergman and I did our Lost Remote panel and said "journalists need to blog" we had a lot of arguments and even a reporter yell at us and storm out. This year we were asked for recommendations on blogging tools. Last year we talked about the impact of SlingBox and emerging online broadband video, but there seemed to be little interest. This year, people asked great questions about Joost, Bebo and other distributed media applications.

In session after session, the traditional journalism defensiveness was largely gone. Only on the matter of the use of VJs is there still contention (and plenty of it, too). But as for the movement to online media and 24/7 local information and news? Agreement at long last.

This is not to say that the struggle is over. Far from it. This just means everyone has agreed to get to the starting line. Stations have websites and they're starting to dip their toes in original content, blogs and some other experiments. I heard from lots of people this year that they read ideas from us and put those ideas into action. It's amazing and flattering to hear that - but it's even more remarkable to know that stations are embracing the personal media revolution and letting go of their former need to control information.

There is so much more that needs to happen now that the stations are at the starting line. It's now time to lace up the sneakers and gear up for the marathon. The process of education is next. Just when we think we understand the web - it changes. There's no one book to read that will mean we can take a test and get an "A" in Web. The rules change every day - and that's not hyperbole. Just this week, Nielsen//Netratings changed the entire ad game by announcing it will no longer use pageviews as a metric in measuring site rankings. Imagine that. Stations have been setting pageview goals for the past several years and building sites all around the pageview holy grail.

It's a lousy ad metric, we've said so, and now it's gone.

But there is a willingness to learn now, and that's exciting. Terry and I have been evangelizing online journalism, we joke, "since the 20th century." It's good to see everyone willing to apply 21st century thinking. Let the fun begin.   <Permalink>

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NEW MEDIA IS ALSO DISRUPTING JOURNALISM EDUCATION (Terry)
An article in CNet News this week accurately summarizes what both Steve and I felt at the RTNDA/NAB conference this week, Local TV stations face Net threat. The key word there is "face," and that's exactly what's happening. In years past, I came away from the conference with a feeling that broadcasters weren't accepting the very real business disruption of the web, but not anymore.

I want to echo Steve's comments above and add that feathers may have been ruffled, but eyes were opened, and I think we are indeed entering a season of learning.

I heard several students ask various panelists if they thought their education was in vain, because of the rise of the citizen media movement. The answer is obviously no, but I understand where they're coming from. Mike Sechrist told the group that he now looks for community people with knowledge to fill roles in the newsroom at WKRN-TV, and that's got to be scary for anybody who just spent a fortune on a degree in hopes of climbing the traditional ladder.

When I raised my voice during the opening session to complain about newbie reporters who have one foot out the door as they walk into their "first" job, a lot of people cleared their throats. One fellow came up to me afterwards and said that the solution there is to have smaller market stations pay reporters a decent salary. Somehow, it always comes back to that for the career-minded reporter.

I tried to explain to him that the expectations of someone who has lived in the community for much of his or her life aren't necessarily the same as his. As the personal media revolution grows -- and it will -- I firmly believe this will be a major issue for our industry, because, frankly, we're going to find a lot of qualified people who are already our neighbors.

We're not blind to the realities that aspects of "professionalism" will need to be shared with such people, but I'm continually amazed, as I travel around the country and meet the local blogosphere, how already well-educated many of these people are -- about our business and about the concepts of fairness and balance.

Nobody knows where this is all going, but it will certainly challenge traditional assumptions and systems. My advice to all students is to "go forth and make media."   <Permalink>

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INTERESTING DISCONNECT: COMPUTER EXPERIENCE WANTED BUT NOT LISTED ON RESUMES (Steve)
News Directors absolutely want to hire reporters, anchors and producers with online experience. Many consider it essential now, as indeed it is. Part of the transition to becoming a 24/7 local media operation is having people with online skills who don't have preconceived notions that "TV comes first and everything else comes second." So NDs are giving the edge to candidates who have computer chops.

But many of the kids coming out of school don't list their computer experiences on their resumes. It was my partner at Lost Remote, Cory Bergman, who noticed this at RTNDA@NAB, and he wrote about it in his April 16th entry, "Reporter resumes lacking web experience." Students post their resumes on a bulletin board at the convention in the hope that a news director will take notice. Bergman noted that, of the emerging reporters' resumes, "less than a quarter make any mention of the web... (although those people) likely have MySpace or Facebook blogs... (and) a lack of web experience on a resume is a non-starter for me if I were hiring for a TV reporter position -- especially in a smaller market."

So I poked around a bit at Wednesday's career fair. Why the disconnect? If news directors wanted computer experience, and the young reporters had it, why weren't the job candidates listing it?

It turns out that young reporters think it's so obvious they have computer experience that they don't even think about including it on a resume.

Here's what Stevi Nelson, a broadcast communications major at Westminster College, wrote on her blog after reading Cory's entry:

"I think, as an employer, you can pretty much assume that every recent college grad has experience with e-mail, Microsoft word, PowerPoint, and the internet (including either myspace, facebook, blogging, or all of the above)... So, if you don’t see computer experience listed on a resume, it’s pretty safe to assume that the grad wanted to save the space for something that sets his/her resume apart from the rest."

So while we're looking at resumes that don't list computer experience and thinking "non-starter," they're writing resumes and thinking "well, OBVIOUSLY, I have computer experience, so I better put down something that will set me apart."

The lesson - for both sides - is the classic "don't assume." News Directors should specify in their job openings that they are looking for people with online experience. That can be as simple as having a MySpace page, a blog or a Facebook page. Students, in turn, should not assume we're all that bright. They should understand that their online skills are the most valuable part of their background right now.   <Permalink>

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THE VIRGINIA TECH MASS MURDERS OFFER MORE LESSONS IN NEW MEDIA (Terry)
Books will be written about this terrible event, and the role of media will be scrutinized for many years to come. Frankly, I'm a little uncomfortable about the broadcasting of the killer's video and the publishing of his so-called manifesto, because every Tom, Dick and Harry serial killer seeking fame now knows the route to immortality. It was a tough call, and I can't say I wouldn't have done it. I'm only lamenting the inevitable consequence.

Among the thousands of articles already written, I want to close today's newsletter with the words of Jeff Jarvis -- that we not throw the baby out with the bathwater as we examine the various elements of the new media world and the role each played.

The essential infrastructure of news and media has changed forever: There is no control point anymore. When anyone and everyone -- witnesses, criminals, victims, commenters, officials, and journalists -- can publish and broadcast as events happen, there is no longer any guarantee that news and society itself can be filtered, packaged, edited, sanitized, polished, secured.

Like it or not, that’s the way it is. But before we start wringing our hands over the unique, one-in-a-billion exception to all rules -- the mass murderer with a camera -- let’s make sure we remember that this openness is a great and good change. It enables us all have a voice and to hear new voices.

And let’s not presume that we all need NBC or anyone to protect us from life as it is. But we do need to make sure to educate our children to be media-wise in a new media world. They will need to judge who the bad people are in life just as they will online. They need to understand that media is no longer a pasteurized and packaged version of life but life itself, witih all its benefits and dangers.