Copyright treaty "will encourage online publishing"

The World Intellectual Property Organisation's international copyright treaty comes into effect today. WIPO's director general, Kamil Idris, argued that the new rules will encourage copyright owners to put their work online because their enforcement rights are now much more clear. However, civil liberties organisations have countered that the new rules will restrict freedom of speech and expression.
(From Financial Times)

How to blow up Google

Appropriately enough, Blogdex, the blog of blogs, took me to an article on the power of blogs and their influence on Google. It turns out that blogs can be used to make a "Google Bomb", whereby keywords in referring pages can boost the rating of a site that may not even contain those keywords. The inventor of the term, Adam Mathes, lobbed the first Google Bomb by referring to his friend Andy Pressman's website with the words "talentless hack". A year later the site comes Number 1 in a google search for "talentless hack".
(From Corante)

News Corp says there is no way to profit from web publishing

Peter Chernin, president and COO of News Corporation, argued that there was "no viable business model" for the internet at the Financial Times New Media and Broadcasting conference. News Corp websites will be run merely as promotional vehicles for the print publications.
(From Financial Times)

Germans win e-paper race

Katja Riefler observers on Poynter's E-Media Tidbits that electronic edition distribution is not just being monopolised by Olive and NewsStand. Several German newspapers, eg, Rhein Zeitung, developed their own technologies in 2001. "More than 1,000 of [Rhein Zeitung's] 8,700 original subscribers have converted to a paid subcription in the first month, although you can only buy the e-paper as an add-on to the printed edition as yet. The price varies from 2 Euro to 5 Euro a month."
(From E-Media Tidbits)

Trinity Mirror posts £11.3m loss

The Media Earnings Watch on FT.com keeps track of company reports by media earners. Trinity Mirror last week posted a loss of $16m and said that the advertising market has remained "tough" in 2002.
(From FT.com News)

Online input good for newspaper classified

Report by the Advanced Interactive Media group argues that allowing advertisers to buy and input classified ads online is good news: it reduces costs, generates new revenue (both in attracting new customers and encouraging existing customers to spend more), and improves customer service. Not surprisingly the study was sponsored by a company that provides an online classified input service. Download report (800K pdf).
(From AIM)

Don't get complacent

Journalist Dale Peskin argues that newspapers shouldn't get too smug about the dot com crash, and that new media could spell the end for newsprint. His reasons: (1) Everyone is a journalist. Hacks are no longer uniquely qualified to inform. Communities and networks can be much more effective than one-directional broadcasting of information. (2) Consumers place a low value on online newspapers. Newspapers provide information - but people want entertainment nowadays. "News organizations thrive — or fail — on their ability to create experiential stories, and their ability to create products and services that evoke emotion." And newspapers may not be best qualified to do this. (3) Content is not king. "The capability to connect consumers — one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many — is more valued than the capability to produce content." (4) The Internet is rendering newspapers obsolete. "Two emerging economies provide models for growth and a future. A service-based economy enables access to a variety of paid-for services delivered through electronic networks. An attention-based economy enables news companies to create a new kind of wealth based on their capacity to extend their brands and their stories."
(From American Press Institute)

Charge for your most valuable assets

Discussion on New Media Age about the implications for the UK newspaper industry of the FT's decision last week to charge for an area of its website. "It's been widely rumoured that Guardian Unlimited will be introducing some kind of subscription services before too long. If that happens we will see if the market for paid-for services is unlimited or not. "
(From New Media Age)

The bad guys always use Windows...

Article on Wired reinforcing the cliche that in TV and Hollywood dramas, the good guys always use Macs and the bad guys use Windows. In the series 24 the standard model applied - except there were two disconcerting exceptions. One goodie starting using a Dell PC; and worse, a Mac user started to look like a traitor. However, to the relief of Mac lovers, the Dell user turned out to be the traitor. "The producers of 24 pooh-poohed the idea of any connection between computing platform and moral fiber." Who're they trying to kid? Amusing discussion (and pictures) on Metafilter.
(From Wired)

It's for you!

MIT have invented an "Audio Spotlight" that projects a beam of sound so narrow that only one person can hear it. The technology could be very useful in fields from entertainment (eg, no more squabbles over what to listen to on the car stereo) to military (to confuse or inflict pain on enemies).
(From Wired)

Webhead goldfish

Frequent web users end up with an online attention span of about nine seconds - the same as that of a goldfish. The impulse to move on to the next choice means we lose the ability to concentrate, Ted Selker of the MIT told the BBC. The answer, Selker argues, is to give yourself goals and not to "be pushed around by the most exciting words in a never ending sea of information."
(From BBC Sci/Tech)

Another web-supports-print study

Media Week features yet another report suggesting that online success supports print circulation rather than eats into it. "The study, by Starcom Motive, says that "on average, titles with websites attracting more than 100,000 monthly unique users enjoyed a sales increase of 5.4% between 1999 and 2001. Meanwhile, papers without a strong website saw print sales fall on average by 3.5%." The reason? "Good newspaper websites help shore up sales ... by building brand equity. The better the site, the greater the stature afforded to the brand." The study saw no correlation between circulation and advertising spend.
(From Media Week)

Newspapers should pay attention to mobile devices

PDAs, handheld tablets and e-paper will be more pervasive in the latter half of this decade than the web is now, according to Digital Deliverance's Vin Crosbie. Crosbie argues that newspapers should act now to create models that will work well - for customer and publisher alike.
(From American Press Institute)

Outing says: Get Flash

Editor & Publisher's Steve Outing sings the praises of interactive and multimedia content on news websites, and observes that the big boys in Spain, El Mundo and El Pais, are at the vanguard. The Society for News Design is offering a new award for pioneering news design on the web.
(From Editor & Publisher)

OJR assesses NYT on NewsStand

The Online Journalism Review has taken a look at the NewsStand version of the New York Times. "Is the E edition worth it? As a once-in-a-while substitute or add-on, yes. Every day? Not for us and -- my educated guess -- not for most inveterate Times readers with easy access to the print edition."
(From Online Journalism Review)