Category: Journalism

The AP versus the Aggregators

This morning the New York Times reports on the annual meeting of the Associated Press, and the remarks by AP Chairman William Dean Singleton that the organization “was mad as hell” and not going to take it any more from the portals and internet sites that use, abuse and profit from  its content under the guise of “fair use.”

Rather than rely on the Times — an AP member — for the news, I dug out the full text of Mr. Singleton’s remarks:

“On Saturday, the AP Board of Directors unanimously decided to take all actions necessary to protect the content of the Associated Press and the AP Digital Cooperative from misappropriation on the Internet.

The board also unanimously agreed to work with portals and other partners who legally license our content and who reward the cooperative for its vast newsgathering efforts — and to seek legal and legislative remedies against those who don’t.

We believe all of your newspapers will join our battle to protect our content and receive appropriate compensation for it.

AP and its member newspapers and broadcast associate members are the source of most of the news content being created in the world today. We must be paid fully and fairly.

We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories. We are mad as hell, and we are not going to take it any more.

You will be hearing more about this important and exciting campaign in the coming weeks and months, but I wanted to share this with you today. I know all of you will be looking forward to playing a big role in this cooperative effort. “

Here’s the problem in a nutshell.  The AP is ticked off at Yahoo and Google and other big portals for running ads against excerpts of its content — even when those excerpts and headlines link to the full-text version on the original AP member newspaper’s website. AP wants to be paid by the portals for the privilege of lifting its headline and ledes and then linking back to the full-text. They’ve been moaning about this since early 2008.

From the Times article:

“This is not about defining fair use,” said Sue A. Cross, a senior vice president of the group, who added several times during an interview that news organizations want to work with the aggregators, not against them. “There’s a bigger economic issue at stake here that we’re trying to tackle.”

But the details remain to be worked out, she said, including how to limit use of articles and how to share revenue. When asked if The A.P. would require a licensing agreement before a search engine could show specific material, Ms. Cross said, “that could be an element of it,” but added, “it’s not that formed.”

This reminds me of the edict of a former CEO of a former employer (not Forbes) who decided that he would ban links into his content by competitors.

This also reminds me of the lawsuit pending here in Massachusetts by Gatehouse Media against the Times and Boston Globe for linking to Gatehouse’s weekly newspaper websites and drawing its headlines and leads together in an attempt to create “hyper-local” aggregators.

I see two fundamental religious differences in the philosophy of linking and linkage.

1. Internet geeks and techies, like myself, see the “hyperlink” as the essence of the Web and that most content on the web should be linkable and not walled off.

2. Publishers and lawyers want to be compensated for the cost of producing the content that gets linked to, and are aggravated by ads sold against a page containing a link to the page they created.

Prediction? AP is clutching at straws. This is an embarrassment for them and their members who are hurting hard and need all the traffic they can get. The quid pro quo in linkage is traffic and the portals are dumping billions of free page views into their laps. Shut off the links and start chasing sites on a battle against the concept of “fair use,” replacing the debate into one about “fair share” and no one wins.

Shooting fish: Blog Sluts

I would no sooner pay a blogger to mention a product or service than I would pay a reporter for the same coverage.

The notion of engaging a third party — agency or individual — to produce content about a brand or product is tantamount to deceptive advertising and a mark of stupid desperation on the part of the marketer who approved it. (clarification: and then publish it as being ostensibly “objective”)

I have no issue with lending a product to a blogger or reviewer affiliated with the mainstream press under the usual terms of a loaner/reviewer program. I would not gift product or services  nor pay a fee to the writer.

Note the last word: “writer.” Bloggers, like journalists, are “writers” in my mind. I don’t care if their preferred medium is an audio podcast or a video Vlog — if they publish content publically and with an eye of making money from that traffic via advertising or promotion of their services, they are, loosely, to my mind, a “writer.”

If bloggers want to be accorded the same respect and gravitas of a professional journalist/writer then they need to abide by the same code of ethics. Journalists don’t accept money to cover stuff. Period. They may do that in some backwards nations, but not in the USA. Bloggers who join any sort of program that compensates them for coverage of any kind — positive or negative — openly disclosed or not — are, in my traditional ethical mindset, crossing the line.

Bloggers in the social media space — consultants and theorists — are probably due some excuse if they check out these services and report on them dispassionately. But as an ongoing revenue stream and practice — it’s grounds for not being considered in any media plan. I understand there are many bloggers who need to make some money from their blog and I don’t dispute their right to monetize their traffic, but payola is crossing the line. Contextual advertising, or an overall sponsorship is one thing. But paid posting is a no go.

Bloggers don’t need to behave like a Washington Post reporter: accepting no gifts, no junkets, pay for “free” coffee, and avoiding anything that would indicate a bias. Blogs seem more like oped — at least at a personal level — than the press, but if a blogger wants the respect and authority accorded to the mainstream press then they need to behave like one. Disclosure statements are not enough.

I recently unfollowed one prominent social marketing blogger and columnist for perceived ethical transgressions. I regret that I am unfollowing another today. I am not going public with my unfollow list, but let’s say there is a coterie of social marketing bloggers — not actual marketers but theorists or agency people — who are really pissing me off with their echo chamber and questionable ethics. I am turning them off.

I am not going to call people out in public anymore. This social marketing niche is getting way too incestuous and repetitive and frankly, stupid in its repetitive back slapping, re-affirmation, ego stroking, and over amplification of the same desperate case studies.  Rather than squawk and bitch I am simply turning up the squelch. End of rant.

Disclosure: I don’t run ads on this blog, I used to be a reporter, no one sends me free stuff (other than Uncle Fester), and I need to stop being angry so much.

Esteban beat me to this on Dec. 4th

PC Magazine To Kill Print Version | All Things Cahill

Mark Cahill on PC Mag’s decision to ditch dead trees and go all-digital, a reminder of why Mark remains one of the best media strategists out there.

“I believe we’re seeing the tip of the iceberg. Those that can make the jump will start to make that jump quickly. Notably, I expect to see trade journals become a relatively rare beast. Ivory towered experts lecturing professionals about their profession is a thing of the past. Instead, users will gravitate to profession-based niche social media. The journals will slowly cease to exist, and the magazines that remain will be serving the less technical of the professions.”

PC Magazine To Kill Print Version | All Things Cahill.

* Mark and I worked together at Reel-Time and IDG.

How many times should I pay for the same thing?

If I pay for the New York Times to be delivered to me in hard copy every morning, do I have an automatic right to the electronic edition delivered to my Kindle? If I pay the Wall Street Journal.com an annual fee do I deserve to get the Kindle edition for free?

This is a buy once/use many times in many different formats argument – not a multi-user argument, though the metaphysics of simultaneous media consumption is very trippy, e.g. I pay one pay-per-view charge for the movie and the entire family can watch it. But each of us pays a ticket to enter the theater (obviously because the theater is in the business of renting seats, not content). Being a music copy protection crank, and a notorious copyleftist, I will acknowledge my responsibility to pay for original works and not pirate them, but must I pay, as the man said in Men in Black, for The White Album yet again because a new format has been developed?

The newspapers in particular – that’s a tough one. Obviously they need every dime of new revenue they can get, and if they can build circ electronically then power to them, but what about faithful subscribers to that content in other mediums? Should we not get an all-inclusive license however we want it delivered? I can see the papers actually paying me to go paperless – a green rebate like the grocery store that knocks a nickel off the tab for every recyclable bag I bring with me in lieu of paper of plastic. But no, I suspect a couple things at work – specifically to the Kindle case.

  1. Kindle doesn’t feel like an open format that the New York Times can offer like, say, a PDF version for download from its site. It’s Amazon’s and that’s that.
  2. Amazon is getting a piece of the transaction, so what do they care that I pay the NYT directly for the paper edition?

So, what happens if Bezos opens the Kindle format to the public domain and publishers can suddenly go direct to their subscribers, and if their circulation management tools are strong enough, recognize a subscriber seeking a multi-channel license and discount it accordingly?

Amazes me that 12% of all Amazon purchases of that portion of its book inventory that has a Kindle version are indeed for Kindle owners. E.g. – take a best seller, put it online in print and kindle formats, and more than ten percent of the customers buy it for the electronic device.

Death Of Print: Forbes.com exacts revenge of nerds on Forbes

The jungle drums of the Forbes.com alumni network are starting to rumble today, reacting to the piece in Gawker yesterday and Valleywag this morning that Forbes.com is making a power move on the print side at Forbes Magazine. “What’s your take?” emails are hitting my inbox.

So rather than indulge in some sort of retromingent nyah-nyah-told-you-so crap — it’s been eight years since I’ve darkened the Forbes door and I have nothing but positive memories (save for the f@#king CueCat). Let me give some useless armchair quarterbacking. First, read the Valleywag stuff:

“A tipster tells us that a “big shakeup” is coming, with the editorial staffs of both magazine and website getting “smashed together.”

Death Of Print: Forbes.com exacts revenge of nerds on Forbes.

My take:

1. Forbes.com’s president and publisher, Jim Spanfeller, is a magazine publisher first and foremost. It’s in the guy’s blood — Inc Magazine, Yahoo! Internet Life — the man is a publisher’s publisher and essentially would now be (if the rumors are true) be rushing into a void left open for the past decade when former publisher Jeff Cunningham departed for CMGI. The “publisher” named to replace Cunningham was Rich Karlgaard, the founding editor of the late tech mags Upside and Forbes ASAP. Rich was given the publisher title in the late 90s when Forbes was hot to establish a toehold in the Valley — opening a big bureau in Burlingame near the row of airport hotels so they could get some logo love visible from 101.

2. Karlgaard is an editor first, and not an ad guy. Where Cunningham was a classic space salesman — the guy who could sell pages, Karlgaard was the intellectual technology front man, a great speaker who had a solid tech network in the valley. Forbes brought in former American Express publishing exec Jim Berrien to semi-fill the Cunningham shoes in NYC at 60 Fifth Ave.. update: Berrien is no longer with the business, and I have no insights into how the ad side of the magazine is organized.

3. Spanfeller consolidated Forbes.com following the interim CEO reign of Jeff Killeen, who was brought aboard during my stint at the dot.com to put a professional CEO face on the business during the pre-IPO planning of 1999. When the bubble popped, I bailed, Killeen hung on a year, but without a solid publishing/ad sales background, was outgunned and moved on to become the CEO of GlobalSpec. Enter Spanfeller.

4. Spanfeller took the business separation put in place during my tenure and by the pre-IPO structuring to really set Forbes.com off on its own trajectory.  That separation gave Forbes.com its own corporate structure but an exclusive reprint license to the magazine content. The new editor in chief, Paul Maidment, came in from the Financial Times. With no past allegiance by Maidment to the print side (but interestingly an executive editor’s title on the print masthead), the beginning of a serious separation from the magazine side was underway, paving the way for Spanfeller and Maidment to build Forbes.com into what it is today — a completely independent operation with a robust balance sheet and a business model fundamentally different from the mag. The mag and the dot.com never played well together (update: no print/digital operation ever has and ever will anywhere IMHO). I was able to hold things together in the early political years as an alumni of the dead tree, but with me out of the way, I understand things drifted further apart, with some experiments in “loan-a-writer” going on with print people serving in the dot.com newsroom, etc.. Efforts by some of the print side to get involved — Dan Lyons asking for a blog, getting rejected, starting Fake Steve Jobs — never were really welcomed.

5. The mag feels and reads like a deer in the headlights. All mags do, but Forbes is sort of where it was in 1995. Bill Baldwin, my ex-boss, is the smartest man in the room, but he’s a contrarian and happiest in a geeky tax code/mutual fund fee story. He has not put Forbes in a miniskirt and halter top the way Andy Serwer has tarted up Fortune.

6. Forbes, as a brand, is very very proud of the dot.com — Forbes.com kicked the snot out of its print competitors early on because Tim Forbes gave it carte blanche to do what it needed to do without any political bullshit from the print side. Now I think Forbes and Elevation Partners are killing the division between the two properties — likely undoing the corporate separation put in place during the IPO process — and co-locating the edit teams.

Predictions:

1. Baldwin moves upstairs and a new EIC comes into the print side. I’d bring Gretchen Morgenson — Forbes alum — former contender to replace Jim Michaels, back from the Times.

2. Ad sales get merged.  Spanfeller becomes the main man on the business side for both print and dot.com sales.

3. Karlgaard remains in the same role. After all, he brokered the Elevation investment.

4. Elevation starts to throw its weight around more. I agree with Valleywag. This mashup is their doing.

The blight known as Vibrant Media

Sorry publishers, but a sure sign that you suck is when you start running those deceptive double-underlined Vibrant Media/IntelliText ads on your articles. Forbes.com had the wisdom to crush these long ago (after an tribute to slain Moscow bureau chief Paul Klebnikov carried a double underlined link to a life insurance advertiser). I just went to PC Magazine to read a perfectly decently article about PC vendors and crapware/bloatware, and lo, hover over the wrong thing and this black hole sort of appears (like the second coming of the popup from hell) and obscures the text. Do I really need to see the word “laptop” emphasized and see this black chasm until the unit renders?

Want to know why Engadget and Gizmodo and TechCrunch and GigaOm are eating the lunch of the tech press? Because of crappy shenanigans like Vibrant’s. Or rather, lack of. update: and kudos to sites like CNET that also forego the linky-badness.

Geez PC Mag. Maintain your dignity. I have told our teams NOT to run these types of intrusive tactics out of respect to our customers and readers. I may have to do the same with our agency when it comes to running on sites that permit this stuff.

The Media Equation – All of Us, the Arbiters of News – NYTimes.com

This is a very important column by David Carr on the effects the Web 2.0 Games are having on the containment of content by the mainstream media. Very important. This is it ladies and gentlemen. Image of little boys with their fingers in leaking dikes comes to mind. Take 10,500 athletes, give them video cameras, cell phones, whatever, and watch them share what they see with the world.

“On Friday, NBC spent the day trying to plug online leaks of the splashy opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in order to protect its taped prime-time broadcast 12 hours later. There was a profound change in roles here: a network trying to delay broadcasting a live event, more or less TiVo-ing its own content.

Consumers have no issue with time-shifting content — in some younger demographics, at least half the programming is consumed on a time-shifted basis — they just want to be the ones doing the programming. Trying to stop foreign broadcasts and leaked clips from being posted on YouTube — NBC’s game of “whack-a-mole” as my colleague Brian Stelter described it — was doomed to failure because information not only wants to be free, its consumers are cunning, connected and will find a workaround on any defense that can be conceived.

The Media Equation – All of Us, the Arbiters of News – NYTimes.com.

Real Dan replaces Fake Steve

Dan Lyons ends a couple weeks of silence after pulling down the shutters on the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, quitting Forbes, and joining Newsweek as their new Steve-Levy-Tech-Eminence.

The new blog is The Real Dan

“So I wanted to get out and stay out. I really did. I wanted at least to have the summer off. But stuff keeps happening and I can’t resist. Jerry Yang and Carl Icahn and Steve Ballmer continue doing their frigtarded three-way monkey dance. It’s getting to be like one of those Ricky Gervais bits in the original Office (the funny one) where he lets the scene go on too long and it goes from being funny to being painful … and he still won’t stop. He makes you watch. It’s terrible but you can’t look away. And, if you’re me, you can’t help rushing to the computer to make fun of it. So thanks a lot, Ballmer-Icahn-Yang, for not letting me getting any rest. Just when I thought I was out, you pull me back in. Bastards!

Plus look at the ridiculous shit happening in the rest of the Valley.”


Good to have him back, I was missing my daily dose.

Reel-Time changes hands

Reel-Time.com joins the NameMedia Inc. family of niche community sites – Reel-Time Forums

I won’t get all weepy and sentimental, but my first web project — Reel-Time: The Internet Journal of Saltwater Fly Fishing, has been sold after 13 years of private operation by myself , my co-founder Thorne Sparkman, and editor/webmaster, Mark Cahill.

The site goes to Name Media, the Waltham, MA domain company founded by IDG’s former CEO, Kelly Conlin.

I was a founder-emeritus for the past five years, backing out of the partnership with Thorne as my interest in the site waned and my ability to fund it declined along with my interest. I came up with the concept and name in 1994 when Chris Locke (co-author of the Cluetrain Manifesto) asked me to write a series of columns on the impact of the Internet on journalism for Internet-MCI, one of the first major portal plays. In that column I basically made a version of the Long Tail argument, saying the infinite scalability of the net would lead to the dominance of niches. The syllogism was that a website about fishing would not be as successful as one about fly fishing, which in turn would be less valuable than one about saltwater fly fishing, etc.

So, as a strawman, I discussed the theoretical business plan of a site called “Reel-Time” as a play on “Real Time” — another business plan I had kicked around with Mitch Kapor in 94 when we thought there would be an interesting place on the net for a 24 hour, real-time news site.

So, over sushi one night in NYC, my fishing buddy Thorne Sparkman (who worked in digital at Time Warner Electronic Publishing) and I agreed to launch an actual site called Reel-Time. We registered the domain, spent a week at my place on Cape Cod coding the first HTML, hacked an email archive tool into a crude discussion/community forum, and launched via word of mouth on the USENET fishing forums.

Was it a success?

Sure. Here’s what I got out of Reel-Time:

  1. I never got paid a dime. Seriously. 13 years. Not a penny. I suck as an entrepreneur.
  2. I met a ton of great people.
  3. I was given the challenge to launch Forbes.com on the basis of my experience launching Reel-Time.com
  4. Everything I know about dealing with online dickheads, flamers, lusers, and the tinfoil turban club I learned at Reel-Time
  5. The knowledge that if you want to ruin something fun, make a business out of.

Mark Cahill, the man who kept Reel-Time ticking, helped broker the sale with Name Media and will continue to drive the site. Me? I watch on, glad that something that started in my bedroom in 1995 will continue to live on past my inept management.

“When Reel-Time.com, the Internet Journal of Saltwater Fly Fishing was started in 1995 by Thorne Sparkman and David Churbuck, the internet was still in its infancy. Over the years, Reel-Time.com has grown to become the premier destination on the web for Saltwater Fly Fishermen, offering vibrant forums, up to the minute fishing reports, and informative articles.

“That success came at the expense of a lot of work and investment by Thorne. Indeed, over the years there were a great many people who put in a lot of hard work, from David and I spending many a sleepless morning in front of the computer cranking out Fishwire reports, to the Forum Moderators, whose selfless efforts are one of the prime reasons for our success.

“I’m pleased to announce that today begins yet another stage in the Reel-Time.com journey. The site has been acquired by NameMedia, Inc. of Waltham, MA, a major player in the emerging field of niche community media.

So, what’s it all mean to you”