Cynodon't

A paywalled NYTimes is not better than free. Therefore, it will fail.

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:12:52 -0500

OK, so the whole world knows that The New York Times committed itself to stuffing the “free news on the internet” genie back into the bottle. Details haven’t been worked out, but the idea seems to be that they’re going to charge an access fee to “heavy users” while letting casual readers dip into a limited number of articles or pageviews for free. I’m hardly alone in thinking this is a bad idea that will fail to fix the Times’s problems. But not because the very idea of charging for digital goods is an abomination. It’s a fine idea. But this particular version of that idea will fail because a paywalled New York Times is not better than free. And it needs to be.

Free is pretty great. It’s everywhere, it’s the bedrock of 10+ years of internet culture. So anything that costs money has to be… better than free. It’s that simple. So simple as to sound meaningless and tautological, perhaps. But it’s not. It’s just gotten obscured by a lot of hand-waving and hoo-hahery and answers to questions that are easier to ask than the one that really matters. I have paid for digital goods with no gritting of teeth at all. You have too. But one thing HAS to be clear and true in order for that to take place. It has to be better than free. A five-year-old can understand this.

Example: I paid a couple bucks for the paid version of the Instapaper iPhone app. People pay for apps all the time, but I single this out because I’m not a heavy iPhone user (I only have an iPod Touch) and this is the only non-free app I’ve ever installed. I used the free version of Instapaper for a couple weeks and then (miracle!) I actually sought out the paid version. I was eager to buy it—and it’s on the expensive side for an iPhone app. This is the kind of customer any business—digital or otherwise—wants and needs in order to thrive.

Why is the paid version of Instapaper better than free? Because it is a more powerful product that does what it does BETTER and EASIER than the free version. (Is this sounding like a broken record yet?)

What is better and easier for readers about consuming news behind a paywall, compared to free? Absolutely nothing, as far as I can tell. It’s literally the opposite of something worth paying for: it removes ease of use, powerful functionality, accessibility, depth, and other things we’ve become accustomed to. Therefore it is unavoidably, fundamentally, inherently subtractive. What kind of person seeks out and is eager to part with her money for that privilege? The only way to make that transaction happen is to force someone into it. And the word we usually use for that kind of thing is “penalty,” “fine,” or—in the least-worst case—“tax.” And nobody puts up with taxes unless you’re the government.

So when the whole internet convulses over paywall announcements like this, we’re not flipping the bird to basic economic reality. (Well OK, some people are, but they are mostly 4chan types.) What we really mean is, “Don’t tax me, bro!”

The New York Times has a whole R&D division. Their mission is supposedly to develop new “products.” A tax on your best customers isn’t a product. Can’t they come up with something that’s better than free? Something I want to buy? Times Skimmer is super-neat and all, but it’s not adding any essential value to what’s already on offer.

I wonder what they’re asking themselves in that department—what the core unifying question is that underlies all their experiments. If, at the end of the day, it doesn’t somehow reduce to “What can we create that’s better than free?” then they’re kind of just fucking around while Rome burns, aren’t they?

It’s a hard fricking question to ask, but at least it’s a clear one. And answers are out there. Keith Kelly has some good ideas to get started with. (In fact, I stole the whole “better than free” coinage from him.)

Making science easy to understand is hard. This is the...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:30:44 -0500

Making science easy to understand is hard.

This is the triple-colorcoded “mind map” I scribbled out of near-desperation while editing my latest web-documentary for Nature.com.

For the web-docu I recently produced for Nature.com, I forced...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:47:00 -0500

For the web-docu I recently produced for Nature.com, I forced the poor researcher to electrically shock herself half a dozen times on camera. So, of course, I felt obligated to take a spin on The Stimulator (as it’s called) myself.

Science!

(The shocking starts at 1:28.)

Why innovating when your back is against the wall is innovating too late

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:26:46 -0500

I just found out that a print client I’m pitching saw one of the worst year-on-year downturns in ad volume of any pub in the U.S. And that was a year ago. Internally, they seem pretty healthy, but that could just be on account of natural attrition taking care of any staff reductions they might otherwise have been forced to enact.

So here’s the dilemma: how does that shape what I’m pitching them? In other words, should they be more or less ambitious in terms of engaging me to help them build new online businesses?

I’m thinking more. Here’s why:

Having a digital business, however tiny, with a dedicated audience and something approaching breakeven on the P&L, is like having an embryonic alternate business model in your back pocket. It’s sitting there in its growth medium, slowly expanding, slowly building your institutional knowledge, slowly building your identity as a provider of that sort of content.

And some day, if you start getting desperate — if you sense that you are at one of those inflection points where revenue from your usual sources is about to take a dive rather than continue its gentle decline — you have other businesses you can activate.

You can start pumping money into this digital business; you can finally put down for some marketing, for an expanded staff, even if it’s just freelancers — for some sales people who actually know how to sell this product.

Because the most important key to the success of an editorial property is having traction in the first place. An audience, even if it’s small. Some revenue, even if it’s not that great. Some technology, even if it’s a pile of hacks. A production workflow, even if it’s half-broken.

The bottom line is that it’s easier to scale an online content play / revenue stream than it is to synthesize one out of thin air, in a great big hurry.

There are just too many steps you can’t skip over. Too many mistakes that are better to make when your online content play is tiny and you can screw up in a consequence-free environment. This isn’t like a magazine launch (not that those are anything to emulate, these days) — you can’t just waive the magic money wand and automatically have your editorial on every newsstand in America: Youtube, Digg, iTunes, word-of-mouth — online, these can hardly be bought; or at least we don’t know how to yet.

So the most important thing is to start. And the second most important thing is to sustain. To be patient. Growing an online adjunct to your old media empire is like nurturing a child — and really, your audience, in aggregate, is going to act like one. Be nice to them, be consistent, and they will grow. Flake out and suddenly you’re the parent who left, and that audience will be hard to regain.

Slow and steady, that’s the key. That means the best time to have started is years ago. All the more reason to get on it now.

"Newpapers and magazines are still getting roughly 30% of all advertising expenditures—yet if you..."

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:09:07 -0500

“Newpapers and magazines are still getting roughly 30% of all advertising expenditures—yet if you look at their share of media usage, they’ve got between 7% and 9%. Thats why they’re having so much trouble.”

- quoth 24/7 CEO David J. Moore almost a year ago (but it’s even more relevant today)

"inexcusable. this is what happens when total fucking morons go into business with no clue about data..."

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:42:59 -0500

“inexcusable. this is what happens when total fucking morons go into business with no clue about data policy. the webapp thing is a total red herring - this is about data storage not access methods. amateurs.”

- Ma.gnolia Suffers Major Data Loss, Site Taken Offline

"The notion that the enormous cost of real news-gathering might be supported by the ad load of..."

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:00:07 -0500

“The notion that the enormous cost of real news-gathering might be supported by the ad load of display advertising down the side of the page, or by the revenue share from having a Google search box in the corner of the page, or even by a 15-second teaser from Geico prior to a news clip, is idiotic on its face.”

- News You Can Endow

Streaming video cannibalizing DVD rentals, says Netflix

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:06:41 -0500

Streaming video cannibalizing DVD rentals, says Netflix

video made by / for Science (the journal) isn't so great

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:25:07 -0500

video made by / for Science (the journal) isn't so great:

I really wish it was better. I love Science. I guess everyone’s got to start somewhere.

News is now officially dead

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:34:06 -0500

Yahoo News’s latest syndication partner? PR Newswire.

That’s right: now PR is news.

Example.

"A quick analysis [of Scoble’s 1000+ videos] reveals some get no links, others get a couple...."

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:49:16 -0500

“A quick analysis [of Scoble’s 1000+ videos] reveals some get no links, others get a couple. However, when he surrounds them with text, it’s a different story. Why? Text! It provides context and I suspect for many it’s a proxy for the video.”

- Why Text Remains King of the Web

Youtube stripping the audio from clips with infringing music

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:27:45 -0500

Youtube stripping the audio from clips with infringing music

TRACING THE HISTORY OF FAKE RAP

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 19:28:15 -0500

TRACING THE HISTORY OF FAKE RAP:

“One aspect of fake rap that we haven’t addressed yet is just how fucking depressing it is.”

"I think the magazine publishing companies that will be most successful will be the ones that become..."

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:21:44 -0500

“I think the magazine publishing companies that will be most successful will be the ones that become multimedia companies and become more of a marketing service partner with their advertisers. Magazines are already doing creative that was previously only done by agencies, and I think you’ll see more of that.”

- What this year holds for magazines

CBS kills sort of OK show, puts creators on totally awful show

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:23:40 -0500

Turns out the producers of MobLogic are now doing a show called Novel ADVNTURS.

Besides the positively mongoloid name, this show has the distinction of laboring under one of the most prima-facie awful premises ever: a book club that “lives the books they’re reading.”

<blockquote>And so, the four women start a new kind of book club, picking a “novel adventure” for each book.</blockquote>

I’d say the only thing it has going for it is that CBS apparently suckered Saturn into funding the entire thing in advance.

Note to advertisers: this is a great way to waste money.

CBS pulls plug on Wallstrip, pulled plug on Mob Logic (and I missed it)

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:16:08 -0500

CBS pulls plug on Wallstrip, pulled plug on Mob Logic (and I missed it):

The lesson, as usual: overhead is what kills shows, not lack of popularity. Popularity takes time — enough time that any show that is a significant drain on the bottom line will be killed long before it becomes an “overnight” success. Plan for 1-2 years before something serialized in the news format becomes a hit — always. (And even then, that “hit” may only be breaking even. That’s the current market reality and there’s no getting around it.)

Why most online media properties are wildly over-valued

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:17:36 -0500

Why most online media properties are wildly over-valued

Time Spent Watching Online Video Jumps 40% in One Year

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:48:23 -0500

Time Spent Watching Online Video Jumps 40% in One Year

Internet-Ready TVs Usher Web Into Living Room

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:45:17 -0500

Internet-Ready TVs Usher Web Into Living Room:

“A key factor in the push are new TV sets that have networking connections built directly into them, requiring no additional set-top boxes for getting online.”

Conde Nast on why it creates ads for clients at cost

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 14:04:58 -0500

Conde Nast on why it creates ads for clients at cost