Category: Media & Journalism

Gawker sells Wonkette, and other stories

• CNN reports that the U.S. blog empire Gawker Media is about to sell three of its sites: music site Idolator, the “urban travel guide” Gridskipper, and the gossip site Wonkette.

“In an internal e-mail obtained by CNET News.com, [Nick] Denton explained the sale: “To be blunt: they each had their editorial successes; but someone else will have better luck selling the advertising than we did.” The e-mail, and more, can be read here.

• Tom Foremski writes that the European software company Autonomy launches a new software “that can identify illegal content in corporate communications such as blogs, emails, any document, and phone recording, and even in video files.” Foremski calls it “A Policeman Inside Your Computer And Inside Your Corporate Blog”. [Via BMdigital on Twitter]

• According to a press release from SocialMedia Networks, the company today launched “the first social-enabled advertising network. The SocialMedia Advertising Network gives advertisers the ability to target users based upon their social network profile and behavior using applications as an advertising channel.”

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Magazines and papers are opening their vaults

Online newspaper advertising in the U.S. rose by 18.8 percent in 2007 to $3.2 billion, according to the Newspaper Association of America [via Mindpark]. And although advertising on newspaper web sites have seen double digit growth for thirteen consecutive quarters, the increase in Q4 was the lowest in the last eight quarters, “only” 13.6 percent.

However, we should not be surprised if this is a temporary dent in the curve. Many news organisations have begun to exploit a resource that has remained largely untouched up til now, namely their archives. About a week ago, Sports Illustrated introduced the Vault, a free part of SI.com that contains all the articles that Sports Illustrated has ever published, many of the images, and some video material. The Vault is expected to account for 5 percent of SI’s online revenue in its first year and then continue to grow.

Other sites have done the same and the experience from for example the New York Times is that the archives drive a significant amount of traffic, with increased ad revenue as a result. When NYT removed its pay wall last September, visits to the archive grew quickly.

– Since then, search traffic to archive pages has more than doubled, and the archives now represent 10 percent of the page views on NYTimes.com, said Diane McNulty, a spokeswoman.

In other words, as more newspaper sites follow the same route, advertising revenue will continue to increase. And with those numbers in mind, it will be interesting to follow how sites like Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet will manage to keep content behind a pay wall. Aftonbladet.se has indeed seen an increase in the number of unique visitors during the last 12 months by about 12 percent, according to KIA Index, so they’re not doing so bad after all.

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DagensPS to add Twingly and host blogs in redesign

Media Culpa can reveal that the Swedish business online publication DagensPS is planning to introduce blog links via Twingly and social bookmarking features in a new redesign. That’s the conclusion after we got access to two versions of the site at dagensps.se. The new site design, which was labelled “DEMO” just a few days ago, is not yet launched. It has a much simpler feel to it with less (and fewer) colours and lighter fonts. For example are serifs introduced for the largest headlines instead of sans-serifs.

The current design below:

dagensps_old

The demo design below includes such features as “sharing”, i.e. you can save and share articles via the social bookmarking sites Digg, reddit, StumbleUpon, Pusha, del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia and of course via Facebook.

dagensps_new

The new site will also link to blog posts via the Twingly service (DagensPS is not listed yet as a partner of Twingly).

dagesps_twingly

Under “Services” the site is set to include for example a blog hosting service (“create a blog”).

dagensps_blogg

The redesign does not seem to be ready for launch just yet since articles with the old fonts appear further down on the pages. But by the look of it the site will make better use of social media tools and have a more appealing design. Definitely a step into web 2.0.

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Is Fredrik Reinfeldt anti-Facebook?

Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish Prime Minister, held a speech on February 26, 2008 to students at the The London School of Economics and Political Science. The theme was “The New Swedish Model: A Reform Agenda for Growth and the Environment”. When I read through the speech I was somewhat baffled by the following comment in the introduction:

“It is a pleasure to be here at LSE. Anybody who wants to study globalisation should start at this institution. I believe you have the highest proportion of international students in the world.

And you are smart.

I am told that you borrow four times as many books as the average UK student. Obviously you do not spend too much time on

Facebook
YouTube
MySpace”

So, books=smart and social networks=not as smart? Books are obviously important in education, that’s a no-brainer, but social networks aren’t necessarily just a distraction. They are great tools if you want to build a network of contacts, participate in a community and explore new technologies, business models and ideas. In a networked world you have to be connected.

If Sweden is going to stay competetive in an increasingly integrated world economy we need to participate where new ideas emerge. I believe that Sweden is a net exporter of both music and film and I can see no reason why we should not be able to have the same position in the social media space.

In Reinfeldt’s own words: “Sweden must therefore be a country that better accommodates those who dare to take risks, develop their ideas and spread their wings to become self-employed.”

Some of the smartest people I know are participating in this new arena, and of course, I think they’ve read a few books too. Besides, remember that Facebook initially was restricted to students of Harvard and soon expanded to all Ivy League schools including MIT and Boston University.

Maybe I am excessively positive, but I’ll take that chance. Social networks can of course be huge productivity thiefs, but it’s more complicated than that. Instead of assuming that social networks are just a form of procrastination, we should encourage Swedes to participate in this new landscape so that we will become the most networked people on the planet. If we do that, I am sure many great new companies will emerge.

Footnote: The LSE network at Facebook has 19,698 members. I haven’t found the total number of students (or alumni) at the school, but it sure sounds a lot to me.

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Aftonbladet uses Tailsweep for blog advertising

Anton, Beta Alfa and Gnu & Tapir write that it seems like Aftonbladet has started using Tailsweep, the advertising network that runs on a number of Swedish blogs, including this one. The assumption was based on a banner that was up for a short while on artist Magnus Uggla’s blog on Aftonbladet.se. And if we look at Tailsweep’s site we can confirm that this is the case. There are at least three blogs in the sports category, including Robert Laul, and six political blogs, including Helle Klein and Lotta Gröning.

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Facebook replaces Expressen as Aftonbladet’s main enemy

Joakim at Mindpark ponders over who Aftonbladet’s main enemy today is. The Swedish daily successfully beat its prime competitor Expressen a decade or so ago, and Aftonbladet has remained the leader ever since. Expressen is no longer seen as a huge threat.

“Who is aftonbladet.se fighting against, what threats does TV4 picture, who is the morning press going to beat into humiliation? Who is friend and who is foe?” [My translation]

And maybe the answer is very close at hand. Henrik Torstensson writes about an inteview with Kalle Jungkvist, editor-in-chief of Aftonbladet Nya Medier.

“When Aftonbladet.se recently did a focus group with twentysomethings, the main competitor in terms of time to Aftonbladet.se was said to be Facebook. The choice for young Internet users was to, more or less, aimlessly surf Aftonbladet or Facebook for a while.”

UPDATE 1: Sure enough, there is a difference between Aftonbladet and Aftonbladet.se, and today Jan Helin, the brand new editor-in-chief of Aftonbladet, tells Medievärlden that “We have a distinct competitor, the tabloid Expressen”. He continues to say “Then the picture is more complex in reality, we compete about people’s time and with what you do online. But now the tabloid is in focus and every day we face Expressen on the starting line”. [My translation]

UPDATE 2: Jeff Jarvis also comments over at BuzzMachine.