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For those of you who are in the Twitter “retweet” beta test, I have a word of advice: proceed cautiously.

Here’s why. Currently, retweets that are executed via the Twitter web “retweet link” are visible to your followers who are using the web interface to read your tweets but are not visible to popular third party clients.

Let me say that a different way: popular third party applications are curre...

Presentation at Convergence and Society: Changing Media Landscape, 6 Nov 2009, Reno NV

Consumers want to control their media consumption. This is a major shift in power that mainstream media organizations are still struggling with or, in too many cases, simply ignoring.

What’s annoying to those of us who have been involved with the evolution of online news for a while was illustrated by Thom Baggerman’s timeline of online newspaper research, from shovelware (1999) to “basic needs” ...

Major media owners in Canada are “crying poverty” to get regulatory concessions, according to Mark Edge, speaking at the Convergence and Society: The Changing Media Landscape (#cconf09) in Reno. And yet … they’re still making money.

His timeline of convergence in Canada, which limits foreign ownership:

See what happened to the over-leveraged firms before ….

… they went on a buying spree:

Virtually every urban newspaper in Michigan has moved to a “hybrid” delivery model, based on the one introduced by the Detroit Free Press/Detroit News, according to Dennis W. Jeffers, speaking at the Convergence and Society: The Changing Media Landscape (#cconf09) in Reno.

The hybrid model introduced by the Detroit Free Press/News:

• Th/Fr/Su home delivery
• “e-press” (PDF-like) only the other days.

Detroit News and Detroit Free Press circulation have (each) declined 5.7%; contrast this with a general decline of 10%. There has been a small shift in revenue from advertisers to readers.

Evidence of the financial challenge (from today’s Editor&Publisher): “Clients [advertisers] have moved away from ROP [run of paper] because of the cost.”

There does appear to be a slow shift in newsroom behavior in Detroit daily newspapers. However, one problem: the average newspaper reader is 55 years old – behavioral change is predictably slow.

Community newspapers — as defined by geography or shared interests — are smaller (circulation 25-30K) and may be weekly, daily or online-only. This class of papers is losing advertising at a slower rate. In Michigan, there are about 250 newspapers (every county but one has a community newspaper) in this category; 200+ are weeklies, according to Carol McGinnis. Readership percentages appear higher than in the urban dailies.

Their emphasis on local news means that they have a unique product – something key to audience in our increasingly competitive information space.

Moving to “online only” papers: Lori F. Brost provides examples including AnnArbor.com, AnnArborChronicle, AnnArborUpdate, LeslinWeeklyGuardian, GrossePointeToday, TheRapidian, DomeMagazine, SustainableFarmer (MSU), Midland Issues on the Web, MichiganMessenger, MyBayCity.com, MyAntrim, RainbowMittens, RapidGrowth, ModelD, YpsiNews.com, LansingOnlineNews, AbsoluteMichigan, GreatLakesEcho, SouthwestLansing, WestMichiganNews (IRE), MichiganLiberal.com and RightMichigan.com.

AnnArbor.com “river of news” design (most recent first) that mixes local news with traditional newspaper content (such as Dear Abby). It serves as a portal for Ann Arbor neighborhoods (or it hopes to) with local bloggers. Business model remains an issue.

Sean Baker then turned to radio and television – “broadcast to bandwidth.”

The papers will (unsure of when) be posted on the conference website.

Back in March, Declan McCullagh reported that the Obama Administration cloaked its draft section of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) under “national security” wrappers — for the general public. At the same time, the document had supposedly already made the rounds of “corporate lobbyists in Europe, Japan, and the U.S.”

Today, someone has leaked information about the U.S.-authored draf...

Hedrick Smith, Pulitzer-prize winning reporter and producer, is on UW campus today for the Danz lecture at Kane Hall tonight. He’s talking to students from two journalism classes this afternoon. Live blogged notes:

Three trends in media that are important:

(1) Changing economics “assault” of new media. not just delivery system. “Google” delivering free of charge what we spend money in producing. ...

Listening to Google CEO Eric Schmidt talk about the importance of a “new platform” while noting that “enterprise-focused” engineers are a small percentage of the company’s engineering team, I flashed back to 1984.

When Apple introduced the Macintosh with that Ridley Scott commercial, the company was making a statement about the “cultural implications of personal computers.” Apple’s deliberate shun...

Last week, Amsterdam hosted the eComm – Emerging Communications Conference and Awards, a twice-a-year global event launched in 2008. This “community focused” event focuses on convergence: telecom, cellular and Internet-based communication.

And even though GoogleWave is barely out of alpha, organizers put the architecture in place for collaborative notetaking for every session of the three-day even...

Last night in my econ class, I introduced students to the “amateur” v “professional” debate by talking about the 2007 Super Bowl, the first time any major brand had engaged fans in a contest where the winner got a Super Bowl slot. At the time, the contest spurred discussion of “professional” versus “amateur”. Note that most of western science in the 1800s and even early 1900s was conducted by, y...

Twitter search now has a FriendFeed-like boost that will enhance its usefulness while providing context: you can see a “conversation”. This enhancement suggests Twitter isn’t going to roll over and play dead even though Google and Microsoft are elbowing their way into real-time search. It also shows us how many Tweets are one-offs (not conversations), but that’s another story.

Here’s a screen cap...

I just posted this to my motorcycle/geek mailing list. Really quick, high-level thoughts. I’m working on some tips posts.

• Not surprising, your gmail ID becomes your googlewave addy
• It’s more alpha than beta
• Mac folks need to remember to install Gears, which will give you drag-and-drop functionality (among other things). WaveBoard is a better client for Macs than FF or Safari, but Snow Leopard folks will get drag-and-drop functionality only with FF Gears. That’s because Google hasn’t updated Gears for Snow Leopard; there is a hack that gives WaveBoard that functionality but I haven’t added it.
• PC folks may prefer Chrome to FF. Dunno. I haven’t decided.
• Right now, everyone seems to be TALKING (think chat or forums or mailing lists) rather than trying to do something. Not a surprise, either. New. Shiny. :-)
• I’ve started two directories: one for higher ed waves and one for UW people. Interesting exercise.
• To search “public” waves … put “with:public” in the search box. You will soon be overwhelmed (I think Matt said “drown”) because Wave keeps the blips you’ve *read* in your inbox! Eeek! You can make them go away (not sure if it is forever) by clicking “mute.”

TAFN!

Goldman Sachs bonus pool estimated at $725,000 per employee

This week, business reporters told us that Goldman Sachs 2009 third quarter profits swelled, compared with 2008, to an estimated $3.19 billion. The bonus pool stands at $16.7 billion, and, by the end of the year, it could hit $23 billion, according to reports. However, Goldman reported first quarter profits (net earnings) of $1.81 billion...

I had not thought about the long-term viability of advertising until Tuesday night’s Net Economics class. I think in my lifetime ads will not disappear, but they will continue to change. Maybe we’ll have more sponsored content, like early radio (and PBS), instead of interruptive adverts. And there will be more “free” content like Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (2009 Emmy, wikipedia).

Three tid...

Just this afternoon, I advised my communnication students that if a story seems “too” … much … to retain their skepticism.

I remembered my admonition when the following tweet crossed my timeline tonight:

Wow, crazy story. RT @kingharvest: “Wave of staff suicides at France Telecom | World news | The Guardian” http://j.mp/3EHilk28 minutes ago from TweetDeck @semmerson

I stifled any “retweet before reading” impulse and clicked the link. In the nut graph, I read: “more than 20 workers take their lives in the past 18 months.” After reading The Guardian story, dateline 9 September 2009 by the way, I learned the following from the next-to-the-last paragraph:

• In 2003, 22 France Telecom staff committed suicide.
• In 2002, 29 France Telecom staff committed suicide.

I knew that I couldn’t in good conscience retweet. Why? I did not know how many people France Telecom employed nor the suicide rate for France. I vaguely knew that suicide rates vary significantly by country and culture. So I started poking around. Was this, in fact, news?

According to WHO, in 2005 the suicide rate for French men was 26.4 per 100,000; for women, 9.2 per 100,000.

But I still didn’t know how many people work for France Telecom.

A second Google search led to this 15 September 2009 report from the Wall Street Journal: France Telecom employs 100,000 and “the number of suicides is less than the national average.”

Moreover, the WSJ article was more precise: 23 suicides among France Télécom in an 18-month period. They had more recent WHO data, as well. Today, a WSJ article reports 25 deaths in 20 months. This is significantly less than the national suicide rate.

How long had I invested in research? Less time than it has taken me to write this article, probably less than 5 minutes.

But why did I have to? The original Guardian article — published on the web with minimal length constraints — failed to provide basic contextual information. Moreover, it buried key information in the foot of the story.

I want to know what else is going on. Why is this a story? For example, that first WSJ reporter noted:

France Télécom is having more trouble than others cutting costs: 65% of the 100,000 people at the company have civil-servant contracts — dating to the time when the company was owned by the French state — and therefore can’t be fired.

What news organization other than the WSJ provided this context? And if the WSJ is providing this framing argument, what are they leaving out?

I am not saying that suicides are “OK” but I would like reporters to demonstrate an understanding of risk and statistics before writing stories that result in wringing hands, bleeding hearts and demands for someone’s head.

Mainstream media keep telling us that they are the guardians of “the truth” (whatever that is). But far too often, when I start trying to find answers to questions that should have been addressed in a story, my experience mirrors this one.

It’s enough to make your head explode. No wonder normal people escape to the sofa and the tube.

Notes for discussion at iSchool Research Conversation today:

• Twitter and Robert Scoble (early 2007)
• Twitter and journalism (winter, spring 2008 – Twitter genres, a draft)
• Twitter and politics (fall 2008 – com597, jan 2009 – Digital President)
• Twitter and journalism (spring 2009, Twitter and Politics, #140tc)
• Twitter class (summer 2009 – #uwtwtrbook)

Presentation at Association for Women in Communications annual conference, Seattle. Presentation resources.

I’m a guest speaker this afternoon in Oren Sreebny’s class on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (INFO 447). I’ll be talking about the sea change sweeping the publishing industry; specifically, I’ll be talking about newspapers. (pdf)

Paul Bradshaw shares the WordPress plug-ins that he has found helpful. He lists 85 (or so!) but says he’s only using 30-40. Check it out!

Whether it’s good or bad, it looks like “off the record” is dying a slow death, the latest victim of ubiquitous recording technology.

In case you missed it, ABC’s Terry Moran hijacked a juicy tidbit from a CNBC interview with President Obama. There are a serious ethical issues associated with ABC employees listening in on a competitor interview (they “share a fiber optic line” according to AP). Th...

(It Will Be Live, And On Your Phone)

Tuesday, 6pm
Saint Martin’s University, Harned 109
Twitter Workshop followed by discussion about Iran and Twitter
Part of The September Project

Abstract
Almost 40 years ago, Gil Scott-Heron wrote “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” reflecting on conflicts in American society that arose in the 1960s; specifically, the song focuses on equality for blacks as w...

In England and New York City, The Economist is testing a program where customers can order a copy of the magazine by 9 pm on Thursday and have it delivered to their home before 6 am on Friday. The price? The same as the newsstands, which don’t receive the magazine until 9 am on Friday.

According to AdAge:

New Yorkers who have signed up for weekly texts announcing each issue’s topics will also rece...

Microsoft Research is creating a WiFi-style system operating in the UHF TV band that allows multiple clients to connect to a local access point from a long distance. This is a direct result of a late 2008 decision by the FCC to allow “unlicensed broadcasting devices access to white spaces in the television spectrum” (from Ars).

Why is this important? The biggie, distance. This “WhiteFi” system can...

I’ve not paid a lot of attention to the fury over Apple, AT&T and GoogleVoice, but this AT&T “about face” from FreePress made me sit up and take notice:

AT&T acknowledged that it plays a role in authorizing VoIP applications. The AT&T response states: “AT&T and Apple agreed that Apple would not take affirmative steps to enable an iPhone to use AT&T’s wireless service (including 2G, 3G and Wi-Fi) ...

Our Twitter class developed this matrix for thinking about best practices:

1. Listen
2. Understand
3. Act
4. Evolve

Listen is analogous to “crawl before running.”

Understand the culture of the medium:
* Don’t sell, at least not all the time
* Avoid spamming (this is a contest warning!)
* It’s a personal space, “real” and “conversational”
* It’s transparent

Act includes the following:
* respond to new foll...