Tablet Trends

Ever since the release of the iPad, newspapers, magazines and other publications have been pumping out apps and redesigning content and advertising options for the new type of digital content.

But are people reading them? And more importantly, are people buying them?

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism in collaboration with The Economist Group has recently released a study that analyses how people are using their iPad and what they are using them for.

The Good:
- 11 percent of adults in the U.S. own an tablet
- 77 percent of these owners use their tablets everyday
- Consuming news is the most popular activities on the tablet
- three in ten users (of the 77 percent daily users) read more news say they read more news than they did before purchasing the iPad
- 42 percent of the daily users say they regularly read in-depth news articles and analysis on their tablets

The Bad:
- Close to a third of daily users have paid directly or indirectly for news content
- 40 percent of the news users go to the web browser on their tablets instead of using an app
- less than 20% go directly to apps

The Ugly:
- 21 percent of the people who have not paid directly for apps said they would be willing to pay $5 a month for certain publications if that was the only way to receive content
- 83 of the people who use apps for their news said that free or low cost was a factor in their decision to download an app

Even though people are reluctant to pay for apps, the high use of tablets as a news source is promising.

Professor Hollander, associate professor of journalism at The University of Georgia believes that newspaper companies mad the mistake by giving away news content for free. Hollander said that when people pay for an app they feel psychologically obligated to use it. Also, charging, even a small amount, is what begins to push the consumer into a different mindset. A mindset that is willing to pay for news instead of relying on free sites.

The fact that people are using the tablet as a news source is promising. If companies can find a way to change the mindset of the consumer to pay for news, it can be a new source of revenue. It won't make up for the lost advertising dollars or solve all of the industries problems but it could be a start.

Smart & Sexy

Peanut Butter and Jelly
Milk and Cookies
Jack and Jill
Cowboys and Indians
Shrimp and Grits
R2D2 and C3PO...

Somethings just go together. Smart and sexy typically don't.

It's not that being smart isn't sexy, it's just not the first thing you notice. You have to actually take the time to talk to someone (which rarely happens these days) to realize they are smart whereas sexy is usually noticeable at first glance.

So what does this have to do with the media? Today, the Newspaper Association of America launched a new campaign to emphasis the importance of newspapers (print or digital) called "Smart is the New Sexy". Here is what the campaign says:

"News isn’t really news anymore. In fact, news has become something else entirely. Talking heads pass as news. Sound bites pass as news. Opinions pass as news. Snazzy graphics pass as news. It’s time to make a stand for the one place you can still get ‘news news.’ The kind with substance. The kind that makes you feel smarter when you finish reading it. The kind that makes you a more interesting person to talk to, a savvier shopper, a more engaged citizen. That’s the kind of news we’re talking about. The kind that’s written for people who want more than just a headline. The kind you can only find in newspapers – print or digital."

The definition of news has certainly changed. Many people consider tweets from their friends and Facebook statuses a part of their daily news. We no longer have the attention span for long-form journalism and newspapers continue to cut expenses, content and jobs.

Is this new campaign going to change all that? doubtful. First of all, the campaign itself is neither smart nor sexy. Telling people that the newspaper is sexy doesn't make it sexy. Plus, the videos that go along with the campaign are about as sexy as my grandmother's socks.

"I like the homegoods part of it," said one woman. "I actually will keep that circular in the car with me all week."

I find it hard to believe that in this time of digital coupons, iPhones and laptops that someone would be collecting newspaper coupons in their car.

The videos do nothing to show the sexy side of journalism in fact, if anything the videos hurt the campaign. No one that is featured is particularly good looking and all of them state fairly obvious facts.

"Nobody covers local news as a priority more than the newspaper," said one man.

DUH. Obviously a local newspaper's priority is local news. The question is, is it the news that the audience wants to read?

The news is important and I think that most newspapers still have a lot to offer the readers that they serve. This just happens to be a time of change in the journalism industry and this campaign isn't going to change the need for change.

There is nothing sexy about carrying around a newspaper. The ink gets on your hands, you look awkward trying to fold and refold the paper trying to get to the different sections. It doesn't look sexy when it's covering up a homeless guy, it doesn't look sexy rolled up at the end of your driveway and it doesn't look sexy when your kid is making a paper mache mess.

If you want your information to be sexy, get an iPad. It's easy to read, instant, clean. informative and I believe it is the future. Sorry NAA but I don't think smart is going to be the new sexy. Technology has and always will be sexy, just look at James Bond.

Turning Digital into Dollars

On August 21, 2011, Scot Morrissey, publisher of The Athens Banner-Herald announced that the the newspaper would be embracing a "digital first" philosophy and focusing it's efforts on onlineathens.com.

It's no surprise that papers are turning their eyes towards the digital future. Last spring there was a lot of experimentation with digital content. The New York Times initiated a paywall in order to profit from online readers, The Daily was launched by Murdoch, a iPad only news app and Patch.com began to spread across the country to deliver local news.

But is the digital craze paying off? For these new ventures, it is too soon to tell. There are ways to get around the New York Times paywall and it doesn't take a computer hacker to figure it out (just clear your web history). Patch.com needs to work on the quality of content and The Daily is sending mixed messages to it's target market by offering low quality journalism on a high end product. The Daily might be fun, interactive and pretty but you have to have to be able to afford and iPad to read it.

Gannett, however, is making digital turn into dollars. Monday, Gannett Co. posted 10 percent digital revenue gain for the third quarter.

Though these numbers are positive, the majority of this revenue came from their CareerBuilder website, not publication websites.

In spite of this disappointing news, "across the company, USA Today and its local sites served over 1.3 billion mobile page views in the first half of the year -- up 107% from the same time period a year ago," wrote Gavin O'Malley for Online MediaPost News, "The company said its USA Today app has now been downloaded more than 10 million times."

Overall Gannett Co. is doing better than before and as companies experiment with different platforms and develop digital content, we will see this trend in other companies as well.

Now What?

Generation Y

Millennial Generation

Generation Next

Echo Boomers

SAD (Self Absorbed Delusionals)

Digital natives
Screenagers
Generation Me
Generation Why
Wired Generation
MyPod Generation
Generation.com
SAA (Self-Absorbed Assholes)
IWWIW (I Want What I Want)
"I want to be different, just like my friends."



These are all ways to describe my generation but no matter what you want to call us, we are in trouble. We are graduating with degrees, debt and no where to go. About 14 percent of college graduates from the classes of 2006 through 2010 can’t find full-time work.

My management professor spent the first day of class telling 300 hopeful students how they will graduate without job offers. Great way to start your senior year right?

So what do you do when you can't find a job? Do you move back home? Do you head off to grad school to kill time? These are the questions that I am facing as I make my way through the year and step closer to the ominous month of May when these questions will have to be answered.

For journalism majors hoping to work for newspapers, the future is bleak.

I don't need to tell you that the industry is struggling, you can read plenty of articles about that. But when it comes to hiring, one newspaper editor said (in a report based on a ASNE survey), "The biggest obstacle we face as an industry is bringing youngsters into the business...We have a mature and experienced staff. I am lucky that way. But we are not bringing in new and less experienced people. I am concerned for all those college kids out there who cannot find jobs."

In this case, grad school seems like a good option.

Cecil Bentley, Director of Grady College External Relations and my newspaper management professor told me, "If I had the choice to hire someone with an extra degree or someone with experience, I'd hire the experienced person every time."

He recommends that students move home, take on an unpaid internship to build their resume if they find themselves without any opportunities.

Of course the better option is to find those internships early and build your resume before you grab that degree.

Noreen Malone wrote, "Being young is supposed to mean you have the luxury of time."

Unfortunately, time is no longer on our side. Time is money and for students, time is student loans and a pile of debt.

I guess all we can do is build our resume and hope that after graduation we stumble across a job. If you have any other advice, ideas or tips, I would love to know, and so would the thousands of journalism students graduating in May.

The 3 Rs of Journalism

We all know the 3 Rs - reduce, reuse and recycle.

In the world of journalism the R words are bad words. Content must be new, fresh and always updated. You would never re post a status, so why should you republish an article? Been there, read that, on to the next.

That's not what leaders at the New Yorker think.


The iPad allows publications to distribute content at little to no cost. Plus, the labor for the articles is already done, so what have you got to lose? Nothing. The profit can only go up.

That's what's going on at the New Yorker. They are organizing old content into groups and republishing it on the iPad. The project started with "At the Ballpark", a collection of baseball articles dating back to 1929. Now there is also golf and sustainability collections, only available on the iPad.

These collections are especially appealing to advertisers looking to target wealthy readers and associate themselves with specific topics.

Even though online news has created an environment in which people get their news instantly, it has also created an environment in which news and be reused and recycled.

Check out the original article.

Journalism or PR?

Journalism and advertising have always been closely connected but a recent article written by Anthony Ha suggests that the relationship might be closer than we thought.

Companies are using journalism more than ever to promote their products.They are looking for ways to become more credible online and increasing their use of blogs and social media. The article suggests that rising journalist may find themselves working for companies and promoting products rather than working for newspapers and magazines.

Good news for journalism students.

I love anytime someone emphasizes that a degree in journalism doesn't mean you are heading straight to the newsroom. Personally, I love studying newspapers and the industry. I think is is fascinating to see where things are heading but I have no desire to actually cover a beat. But is content marketing too close to a public relations move to be considered journalism?

Here is the example from the article -

"Yaron Galai, CEO of content recommendation startup Outbrain, recalled a campaign that he ran with a hotel chain. At first, the chain promoted a blog post about its iPad app, but when that failed to pique anyone's interest, it refocused on a blog post listing the top hotel apps—the advertiser was on the list, but not at the top. More importantly, it was an article that people actually wanted to read, and it resulted in more downloads for the hotel."

The first blog post was clearly a PR move. It was written about the specific app with the intention of promoting it. The second post is debatable. Is it a PR? It was still attempting to promote the app. Was it journalism because the report was objective? The article featured other apps and the advertiser wasn't even at the top of the list!

What do you think?

Book Review: Basic Black

If you are a woman getting into the world of news, magazines and publishing, I hope you know who Cathie Black is and I hope you pick up her book.

Who wouldn't want to take advice from one of Fortune magazine's "50 Most Powerful Women in American Business"? (By the way, she made that list seven years in a row)

The book is full of personal stories about Black's journey in the publishing industry. You will read about some familiar characters such as Rupert Murdoch, Atoosa Rubenstein and Al Neuharth. She tells stories about success, failure, embarrassment and how to keep your head up no matter what.

Though the book is focused on the professional world, a subject that isn't considered a "fun" read, Black's down to earth voice comes alive to make the subject interesting and exciting. Above all this book is motivating. I have never been so ready to grab my diploma and head out into the world to find my first "real" job.

I want to say so much more about this book but really, you should just read it yourself!

New Websites and Boobies

On Monday October 3, Arianna Huffinton introduced some new Huffington Post websites. These websites include Huff/Post 50, Huff Post High School, Huff Post Weddings and Huff Post Gay Voices.

This afternoon, I've been exploring these sites and reading a couple articles. Huff Post High School has some good advice on college applications, some pictures of celebrities and a few Homecoing videos. I don't know how many high school kids would use this as a source of information but it is a cute attempt to attract some younger readers.

Of all these sites, I found my favorite article on Huff/Post 50. It was an article about boobs.

The Splendors of Boobs by Lee Woodruff is a fun, easy read and perfect for a Saturday afternoon. It goes though different terms for boobs and gives explanations for each one. Hooters, The Girls and Tatas made the list along with some other classics but even boobies was left off.

Check it out and let me know what you think and enjoy this clip from my all time favorite TV show.

Occupied.

Yesterday I walked by a protest and was handed a flyer. Not such a big deal in a college town, but this flyer caught my attention. Here is what it said:

The flyer was a response to a local Occupy Wall Street protest that was going on by the arch in downtown Athens.

Now, since reading this flyer I have discovered that these are NOT the actual demands of the Occupy Wall Street protest. There was a list of demands posted on occupywallst.org but they were posted by a single user, not by the organization.

http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-for-occupy-wall-st-moveme/

I am not here to comment on the protest or take a side but I will say I was relieved to find out that these were not real demands. They are outrageous, but the flyer got my attention. I wanted to find out exactly what was going on.

I discovered a lot as I read about the protests but what sparked my interest the most was the Occupy Wall Street's newspaper, The Occupied Wall Street Journal.


First of all, I was surprised to hear that they were printing a paper at all. Newspapers are not people's main source of information anymore (see previous post). According to the Pew Research Center's The State of the News Media Report, ad revenues (which make up the majority of a newspapers overall revenue) at newspaper organizations fell about 6.3 percent last year.

Well, this paper is different than most, it is funded by donations through Kickstarter, an online pledge system that is focused on funding creative projects. According to kickstarter.com The Occupied Wall Street Journal had 1,241 backers and $54,310 pledged as of October 7 (11:30 a.m.).

Even though this paper is not at all objective because #1 all the money comes from people supporting the protests and #2 all of the writers are taking part in the protest, the articles are still worth reading. If you don't know about Occupy Wall Street and want to learn more, there are some really well written articles explaining what its all about.

If you want to learn about the protests, the best articles to read are “The Revolution Begins at Home” by Arun Gupta or “Occupation for Dummies” by Nathan Schneider.

I particularly enjoyed "Pushed Out of Our Homes and into the Streets" written by David Kempa. The article opens up with a personal story about his mother and step dad who are being kicked out of their home. He describes their situation and then goes into his own story.

"Never did I think about covering finance or national politics," Kempa writes. "Never did I want to write about our nation's financial crisis."

But now he is. He is writing for The Occupied Wall Street Journal and very passionate about the protests. He closes the article explaining what the protests are for and the attention that they have gathered.

His article is so effective because he makes the reader understand why he got involved and why he cares so much about the topic. By understanding his passion, the reader understands why the protesters are out there, even if they don't agree with the cause.

If you want to learn more about Occupy Wall Street check out the official site or see the rest of the paper.

Unfortunately, there is no official pdf version on the website, what I have linked you to is just a photograph, but it is readable. For a protest that has nation recognition taking place in a society where most news is read online, it is absurd that there isn't a clean online version. I am sure we will being seeing it soon.

News Travels Fast. SUPER Fast.

Well, I told myself I was going to post everyday and so far I'm not off to a very good start. Hopefully I will be able to make it up to you now. Since my post Tuesday, inspired by the announcement of the iPhone4S, you all know that Steve Jobs has died.


I found out last night at about 8p.m. as I was leaving one meeting and heading to another. A girl ran through the hall and screamed at her nearby friend, "Steve Jobs is dead!" My first reaction was to check Twitter. I saw

a tweet from NPR News saying, "Apple Visionary Steve Jobs Dies At 56 http://n.pr/pcnRMC" and I knew it was true, a legend had left us.

I looked back later to discover 16 tweets on my newsfeed proceeded the NPR post that informed me of Jobs' death all within minutes of each other. Man, "news travels fast" is an understatement.

News travels SO fast that by the time I got home from my meetings and saw my roommates, no one even needed to mention Jobs' death. It was safe to assume that after an hour of the breaking news all five of us knew. The only thing that was said was, "That's really sad about Steve Jobs." the response among us all was, "Yeah." It blows my mind that after ONE HOUR it's old news. Even though newspapers still ran headlines this morning about his legacy and articles are still being written about his life, everyone knows that he is dead.

As I am writing this I decided to text my friends and family to find out how they heard the news. Here's how they responded:

Facebook - 4
Twitter - 1
Word of Mouth - 6
Email - 1
Gizmodo.com - 1
CNN.com - 1
Buzz on the trading floor - 1 (this would be my brother...)
Text message - 1
TV - 2
Radio - 1
Who's that? - 1 (I thought he was being sarcastic but it turns out I am friends with someone who didn't know who Steve Jobs was. I got a text a few minutes later that said the Apple guy? Wow.)

I was surprised to see that word of mouth was the way most people heard the news. In these situations, most of the people were sitting next to someone who found out though a website or twitter. We are not only news sources for each other on Facebook and Twitter but just by interacting with others. We want to be the first to know and the first to tell others, it is a race for information.

With Twitter, Facebook, online news, and a constantly communicating society we don't have to walk to the end of our driveway and pick up the paper to know that Steve Jobs has died. It takes less than an hour for everyone to assume that everyone else knows what is going on. In this world, if the news is big enough, it will find us.

iPhontastic

Today Apple announced the new iPhone 4S. It is an exciting day for us all, especially me, because I will finally be getting rid of my Blackberry Curve. Yes, I am still using a crackberry. Besides the fact that I will no longer have to watch the sand timer of death do flips on my screen, I will finally have a phone that allows me to read on the go.

It reminds me how much smartphones and other mobile devices affect our reading habits. This fall, The Red & Black, The University of Georgia's independent student run newspaper, stopped printing a daily paper. The Red & Black is now a weekly paper with it's focus on digital content.

I spoke to Rachel Bowers, editor of the Red & Black who said that part of the reason for the change was the popularity of digital content.

“Walking around campus you see so many kids on their phones and you walk into a classroom and there’s just laptops everywhere." said Bowers, "There’s not papers folded out.”

I applaud the Red & Black for trying something new. They are addressing the fact the industry is on the move and they taking necessary steps to keep up. The problem is that now, students have to seek out the news instead of being able to pick it up on their way to class.

For those of us who do seek out news, we have to be able to read it at a convenient time. Unfortunately, in my life, this has not been an option lately. Like I said, I have been carrying around a Blackberry Curve which has a terrible online format. I also choose not to carry around a laptop because it is heavy, the battery life does not last long enough and it would only distract me in class.

So, believe it or not, my excitement for the iPhone4S goes beyond Angry Birds, FaceTime and scanning QR codes. I am finally going to be able to get my UGA news on the go.

I hope that other students with smartphones, or the lucky few who have iPads, seek out the news. It is so important to get college age students in the habit of reading the paper so that they are well-informed citizens. Now is the best time to acquire good news reading habits and since The Red & Black is free, there is no reason not to check it out.