Biased reporting by Digital Media Evanjournalists

My RSS feeds contain mainly digital media news and blogs. It’s a good way to keep up with what’s happening and to spot new ideas early on.

But what bothers me about Digital Media bloggers, journalists and evangelists is the biased reporting on developments in the online or mobile domain. And it especially bothers me when it’s done in a “old versus new media” style.

This week I came across this post on TechCrunch which looks at some statistics gathered by AdAge. The title of the blog is already totally biased: Top 100 AdvertisersShifted $ 1 Billion to the Web Last Year At The Expense Of  TV And Newspapers.

…overall media spending in “measured” categories (TV, print, radio, Web) by the top 100 advertisers was flat in 2007, with 0.3 percent growth to $61.3 billion. But spending on Web display ads rose 33 percent to $4.2 billion. This is yet one more piece of evidence that dollars are flowing from traditional media to the Web.

If you (1) take a look at the original article on AdAge and (2) look at the numbers below, you will see that there is no evidence whatsoever that the ad budget shifts are from old to new media. What’s happening is that certain media have lost budgets and since there is slight growth in the overall budget, this money has gone to other media that has grown. It is even more likely that for instance part of the TV ad spend has been shifted from Network TV and Spot TV to syndicated and cable TV. Same for loss in newspapers, which might have gone to magazines for a great part.

  These kind of messages by TechCrunch and other digital media evangelists frightens people at so-called old media companies since they only hear doomsday scenarios while, when you look at the facts, old media still rules (take a look at the numbers below) and even grows; be it not at the pace of digital media.

 

Why magazine publishers just don’t get it*

 Rafat Ali writes on paidcontent.org about magazines going online. He makes an excellent point as he concludes:

At the end of the day, magazines are about communities of interest, whether professional or lifestyle driven. If magazines keep that driving mantra in mind, and use the Web for all its is worth, things could begin to look brighter and bigger on the monetary side soon.

Most magazine publishers understand the fact that their readers are a community of interest.  Then why do online initiatives of most magazine publishers not take off as they should? I think because many magazine publishers still do not understand that online publishing is something completely different than offline publishing. They are separate businesses with their own dynamics in content and advertising and they should be organized as such. Maybe the biggest obstacle for magazine publishers is that their business is still doing too well, and they are not hurt by online business enough. That’s a shame, because it is not about the end of magazines, it is about the opportunities online.

*with the exception of course of the company I work for

Good news for Old Media…for a change

Deloitte & Touche U.S.A  put out some good news for us “old media” companies:

Favorite and promising new television shows beat the Web as the most frequent media conversation topics for all generations

• Extensive amplification with the Millennials as they tell the most people about what they like
• 52 percent of Xers are visiting television show Internet sites

Printed magazines are an integral part of every generation’s life

• 72 percent enjoy reading magazines over finding the same information online
• 58 percent of Millennials agree magazines help them learn about what’s “in”

Compared with online activities like surfing the Web and downloading music, all generations aspire to reading a book in the coming year

Advertising Insights

64 percent  tend to pay greater attention to print ads in magazines or newspapers than advertising on the Internet

More than one-in-four would pay for online content vs. being exposed to ads

Search engines and word of mouth are the most effective means for driving Web site traffic — 85 percent of Xers are influenced by someone’s recommendation

87 percent of respondents continually visit the same Web sites

Generation Xers are a little more responsive to advertising”

“Millenials” is age group 13-24, “X-ers” is age group 25-41.

Let’s hope it’s not just to please D&T’s big old media clients

iPhone digital magazine

It was just a matter of time until someone made a magazine readable on the iPhone. The people at Texterity made it. Great for marketing purposes, but as with digital magazines which I wrote about earlier, not the real thing (not a website nor a magazine). Still, it looks impressive!

Facebook could rescue Business 2.0

Wow, who would have ever thought that: Facebook-group wants to save Business 2.0. Read their letter to the Reaper at the Magazine Death Pool.

Buying the magazine is probably more effective… Nevertheless: good cause and a world premiere in activism.

Go to facebook now and join!

Digital Magazines are like self-made Handsfree Phones

What if you are a magazine publisher and you want to do “something” with your magazine online? One of the options is that you publish a so called digital magazine*. To see some examples you can look for Monkey Magazine, or for a little bit more sophistication look at People Magazine, or if you want it really stylish look at the Dutch ElleGirl.  It absolutely looks great: a magazine with sound, moving images, clickable links. But why in a magazine format if you are online?

Publishing = Copyrights Business…for now

In the publishing business copyrights are still extremely important. According to this message at the FIPP site, the World Association of Newspapers and some other publishers interest groups have come up with an Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP): form of copyright control on the Web. Will this standard enhance the amount of quality content on the net?

Probably it will because the standard will enable publishers to control who has rights to see what part of the content.  But aren’t copyrights an artefact of pre-WWW times?

Print to Online: it’s not easy

The Washington City Paper  posted a leaked memo of The Washington Post with their 10 Web principles. The memo was directed at the newsroom staff and it says in essence: “we are taking the Web serious and so should you”. 

Social Networking Moms

Lee-Ann Prescott (Hitwise) published some interesting stats on Social Networking sites for specific target groups. Who said social networking was only for Teens or Professionals?

Magazine goes Video

Probably the best example of a magazine that extends its content to Video is Vice. Their VBS.tv is a good example of how to make creative and interesting WebTV.

Magazine Publishing is Content Aggregation

The future of media will be determined by how well legacy media companies survive the unbundling of their business models, how much better legacy companies like News Corp who have acquired a platform (MySpace) can restructure their business, and the degree to which the new native platform media companies like Google can position themselves to dominate the new media landscape.

According to Scott Karp, legacy media companies need to deal with the unbundling of their business model. But what is this business model in case of a magazine publisher?