Trouble at Yahoo!?
November proved to be a pretty big loss for famed portal
Yahoo! and a victory for social-networking site
MySpace. For the first time, MySpace recorded a higher number of page hits than Yahoo.
Read about it
here.It's a qualified victory for MySpace, to be sure. Yahoo still wins out in unique visitors; specifically, Yahoo got 130 million unique views as opposed to MySpace's 57.2 million. Still, page hits is a critical statistic. Less people visit MySpace, but they do so more often and for longer periods of time than they visit Yahoo.
Coupled with the
recent reorganization, it seems like the Internet behemoth that is Yahoo is having a hard time adapting to its fast-moving competition. Google is out-earning Yahoo by leaps and bounds, and now MySpace has out-performed Yahoo in page hits.
I believe that underpinning this story is the simple fact that we've talked about in class since September: the Internet is moving toward an individual focus. MySpace's page hits have been growing at a huge rate and will likely continue to do so while Yahoo's statistics are slowing and trudging.
I think that this trend will continue, and I believe that it is very relevant to blogging and online journalism. It's the final week of the semester, so there's no better time than now to tie this in to the larger picture. Blogging is the future of journalism, whether you like it or not. The Internet is becoming one huge discussion rather than a series of unconnected pages of information, and this is for the best.
There will always be the problem of deciding who are the good bloggers with verifed information and who are the bad bloggers trying to fullfil some political agenda, but that's part of the idea. The basic element of credible journalism, trust, exists exactly as it does in traditional media.
Blogging is becoming a little more mainstream every day, and one day it will be if it isn't already. Statistics like in the article above all point in that direction. The Internet and how we consume news will be very different 10 or even 5 years from now, I think that much is almost guarenteed.
Layout
While browsing around for Internet-related articles, I stumbled on
this interesting, little post on
Poynter about online design.
The post decried the Danish version of
Computerworld Online, which as gotten rid of many of the design elements that distinguish newspaper formats in favor of a more blog-like look. Check out the link. While I enjoyed reading a blogger talk about the need for newspaper-like design elements, I would like to argue for the other side.
There are plenty of advantages to newspaper layouts, but sometimes the transition to the Internet doesn't work out as well. With the Internet's inherit multimedia approach to almost everything, it's far too easy for a webpage to become bogged down with convoluted linking systems and different file types and such. I remember Tom Kennedy discussing how it is tough to get traffic from the Washington Post's homepage to the
multimedia section. It's not always obvious how to get to certain content, and sometimes things lost in the hundreds of links scattered about.
The Danish version of Computerworld Online isn't so much "blog-like" as it is "simple and straightfoward." There's nothing fancy, but all the content is clear and visible without all the confusion of embedded tabs and different file types. I don't mean to say that the Washington Post's website should get rid of its newspaper-like design, but I think that the average user would not mind an easier system of navigation.
A Response!
Ryan Thornburg responded to the question I posed earlier about Facebook/MySpace becoming future centers of personalized news feeds. Thornburg rewrote my question into something a little easier to analyze: "Should news sites be focused on creating content or creating user tools?"
Most news sites focus on creating content, according to Thornburg, and few of them ever went the way of Yahoo - that is, creating a portal where users had access to a vast array of Internet tools which they could use to obtain and collect information.
"[Portals like Yahoo] have become content aggregator. In fact, they've become so big that most news organizations they deal with give away their content for free to Yahoo in hopes that they will get 1 or 2% clickbacks to their site," said Thornburg.
Online news has become more similar to television than newspapers in their structural model, according to Thornburg. Newspapers are used to creating the content as well as providing delivery and aggregation, but online there is a computer that users must buy as well as access.
"It's going to have to be a pretty piece of content that will entice users to pay yet another fee," Thornburg said.
Thornburg tied it all together by posing one final question:
"Well, let's say that Facebook is the aggregator where folks collect news from a bunch of different content providers. Would you be more likely to pay for the tools of MySpace/Facebook, or for the content from ESPN, Washington Post, MTV, etc.?"
"The answer to that question will tell you who will be driving the future of journalism."
Any thoughts?
Field Trip
Mere hours ago I was in the newsroom for the Washington Post's website (
washingtonpost.com) being given a tour by its managing editor of multimedia, Tom Kennedy. While last week's discussion with Ryan Thornburg was a little more abstract in its tackling of heady online intellectualism, this week's discussion with Tom Kennedy was a real look into the daily grind of online journalism as well as the logistics behind actually implementing all of the things we've been talking about in class.
First of all, it's important to establish the sheer number of awards that Kennedy has won during his life. He won two consecutive Pulitzer prizes at the
Philadelphia Inquirer. Working for
National Geographic, he won five awards for best photography from the American Society of Magazine Editors. In the past three years, his work at washingtonpost.com has earned the website many awards including two Emmy's and a Murrow award.
One of the reasons that he keeps winning these awards is his unique philosophy on video journalism. His term is "subject-driven narrative," which roughly means that the video should be mainly told from the point of view of the subject. There is very little narrative or explanation beyond what is seen on video, almost the opposite of how traditional television news works. Kennedy said that this approach to video came from his time at National Geographic.
Echoing what we have said time and again during class, Kennedy said that interactivity is "what separates the Web from older media." To that end, Kennedy said that they are currently working on allowing comments on video along with sharing (like
usnews.com has with Facebook and del.icio.us tags).
Kennedy talked about the site's audience as well. The Washington Post is obviously a metropolitan paper on one level, but being situated in Washington places it in an international position as well. It was interesting to learn how at the same time, there is one photographer doing a daily video locally in Washington while another one is over in Viet Nam. The Washington Post website gets traffic from all over the world, according to Kennedy, and one challenge is appealing to all those different audiences.
One thing that interested everyone was when Kennedy speculated that newspapers would have to become "more analytical" in order to survive. The one-day delay that newspapers suffer from is simply too long in a time when facts can be uploaded to the Internet in minutes. While he emphasized that it was a guess, Kennedy said that newspapers could potentially focus on interpretation in order to increase its value to consumers.
Kennedy ended with a discussion of the future of the Post's website. Going along with the legally mandated switch to HDTV, he said that all of the videos on the website are being shot in high-definition. Kennedy agrees that online video is vastly underutilized. He hopes that video will play a more integral part in the overall website in the future. Kennedy said that the technology will soon increase to the point where it will only make sense to have video and graphics have a larger part in the overall presentation. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that technology is what drives much of online journalism, so I have little doubt that his speculation will eventually pan out.
A Talk with Ryan Thornburg
Ryan Thornburg is the managing editor of US News & World Report's website, but he has also worked as editor for Washingtonpost.com and CQ.com (Congressional Quarterly). He's also had a lot of experience blogging, even before the word blog was first used.
Obviously, he had a lot of experience and a lot of good stories. He started off by talking with us about blogging in general. One thing that he hit upon that I had thought in the past, but that he really hit upon was the idea of a blog as a "trusted guide to the rest of the web."
He gave this interesting fact: polls show that Tom Brokaw is more trusted than NBC. People trust other people first and foremost, and that's where a lot of the appeal of blogging comes from. There is a human element that people can trust. There's a lot of Internet out there, and it's nearly impossible to sift through it all and find the good stuff, and Thornburg argues that that's where blogs have an essential role.
Later he talked more specifically about his work at the websites of major news sites. His experience with the Deepthroat story was particularly interesting.
"We got scooped," Thornburg said. "And it hurt. ... It felt like being naked on top of a trapeze."
The story was out there, and the Washington Post had nothing on it. Thornburg appeared genuinely sorry for Bob Woodward, however. Woodward obviously has a long history with the Deepthroat story, and he felt very strongly about personally telling the story at his own pace. The story was out and spreading like wildfire, and it was "out of his control" according to Thornburg.
Once the story started coming together and Thornburg had gotten some good video interviews for the website, there was still an embargo on the story until Woodward said it was ok.
Thornburg's memory of the day is a little shaky, he says, as everything went so fast. At the end of it, Thornburg said he felt like it was a good thing that Mark Felt admitted to being Deepthroat.
"A lot of us were living in the reflective glow of Woodward and Bernstein," he said. After that, journalists could move on in a way.
Thornburg talked about a lot of other things, especially his time at Washingtonpost.com during the breaking of the Monica Lewinsky. He remembers hearing about it from the Drudge Report. He said that he underestimated the growing role of the Internet in journalism at the time.
"The media cannot control a story anymore," he said. "The early days were just crazy."
He ended his talk on something I thought was really fascinating. I've noticed the Facebook Share feature on Facebook itself, and I promptly ignored it. However, I saw it a few days ago on The Onion. Apparently, US News And World Report's website has it as well.
Thornburg mentioned earlier that he and other major media outlets have noticed that personalization pages rarely get changed. Even if people use them daily, they generally don't change their personalization settings after the first time.
Well, Facebook goes in the opposite direction now. The website's entire existence revolves around people constantly using and adjusting their personalized settings. And now, with this Share feature, people can seek out the news items and other content that they find interesting and post it. It's new and fairly primitive, but I can certainly see a future where a person can use Facebook to subscribe to all sorts of news feeds and YouTube video categories and all sorts of stuff. Rather than having a hundred personalized pages with a hundred different media sites, a person can focus on their MySpace or Facebook personalized page and get everything from there.
I will try emailing Ryan Thornburg with this and report back with what he thinks.
It's Mid-tastic!
2:12 am The Missouri Senate race has gone to Democrat McCaskill, giving the Democrats yet another pick-up from Republican incumbent Talent.
Virginia has been declared for Webb, except that was by Webb himself. Nobody is willing to declare an actual winner there, although it looks like Webb does have the advantage. All signs are pointing to Allen requesting a recount.
And Montana's Senate race is still too close to call. Both candidates could still take it at this point, meaning that a Democratic majority of the Senate is very much within the realm of possibility.
Tennessee went to Republican Corker, giving the Republicans their first big victory of the night. Whatever happens in Virginia and Montana, it's clear that Democrats have had an amazingly successful night. It should be interesting to see the President's reaction to a Congress that isn't strongly controlled by his party.
11:14 pm Multiple media sources have projected the Democrats as officially taking the House. Senate races in Montana, Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia are still too close to call. The Democrats need three of these seats in order to take a majority in the House.
10:52 pm The Senate races are coming in as expected, but the Democrats are now up six spots in the House.
Interestingly, Mark Foley's seat has gone to GW alumnus Tim Mahoney. To be fair, Foley's name had to be on the ballot even though Joe Negron was running.
9:28 pm CNN is projecting that Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse beat the Republican incumbent Lincoln Chafee, giving the Democrats another pick-up. This was another critical toss-up.
Oddly, Chafee was as moderate as a Republican can possibly get. According to CNN, he didn't even vote for Bush in 2004 - the Democratic victory thus far is definite.
9:09 pm So far it's all good for the Democrats. CBS just projected Ben Cardin beating Republican Michael Steele for the critical Maryland Senate race.
Joe Lieberman is predictably being projected to win, and I suppose that counts as a Democratic victory of sorts. It's certainly not good news for the Republicans.
8:25 pm CBS just projected Democrat Bob Menendez for New Jersey.
8:17 pm No big calls yet, but the close ones are indeed looking close. Democrats have picked up a Senate seat in Ohio with Sherrod Brown beating Mike DeWine. It also looks like Bob Casey (D) has beaten Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania.
The big races still appear to be Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, Rhode Island, Missouri and Montana for the Senate.
7:34 pm In the spirit of the day, I'll be doing time-stamped entries for the election! So far, nothing too big decided. Apparently the electronic polls weren't as hot as people were hoping, so Indiana even extended its hours. The Dems need 15 for the House (possible, probable even) and six for the Senate (er, let's just say possible).
More to come.
Happy Halloween!
To get it off my chest, I admit it: I was disappointed that Jill Carroll was not at the IWMF Courage in Journalism Awards. Obviously she was in the news for a long time and her story is a very powerful one, so the event started off on a low note for me.
Fortuneately, this didn't last long, and I found myself engrossed in the stories of the other three women. I say three women because I did not mention in my earlier entry the woman who really stole the show with both her life and her personality, Elena Poniatowska. She one the lifetime award. The first thing I noticed was her virbant, bright red clothing native to the Oaxaca. See the
IWMF homepage for a picture.
Elena was born in Paris to a wealthy family. Her father was Polish and her mother was Mexican - she grew up in Mexico and studied in America. Despite her upper class upbringing and her exposure to different countries, Elena became a journalist. And not just any journalist, she devoted her reporting to the poverty-stricken masses of Mexico. She became one of Mexico's most famous journalists and wrote many famous books. She was also the first woman to recieve Mexican Award for Journalism. Throughout all this, she never took her focus away from the poor people of Mexico who did not have a voice. Elena was a lively speaker and I have to confess, I wasn't sure what she was saying the whole time, but she was very passionate about her reporting and was even funny at times.
The event was more of a public conversation with the winners than a ceremony. In many ways, this was much more poignant than a simple awards ceremony with speeches. Recalling the explosion that nearly killed her, May Chidiac was crying as she spoke of her family coming to her in the hospital. "I think it was a miracle I was saved," she said.
Gao Yu talked much more about the evils of the Chinese government than her own imprisonment. "In China," she said, "all the media does not have the right to publish their own stories." She said that there was "not much difference nowadays than with Mao." Gao lamented on the Chinese people's inability to access unfiltered foreign media, and that nothing is published domestically without the consent of the government.
May discussed why she continues to do journalism despite all the risks for her. Of all that was said tonight, this best summed up what the Courage Award is about: "I wanted to continue defending my country. If nobody does, Lebanon will be transformed to all the other Arab countries. If you die, it's a shame if you have to die coward."
