Freelance Unbound

Could the iPad be the saviour of journalism? Maybe – but only if we are able to swallow some unpalatable truths.

Nielsen’s been doing some interesting research on digital tablet users (iPads and the like). Apparently they are more valuable than users on other devices, including smartphones and PCs. They like (or tolerate) advertising more, they consume more content and are more likely to buy something after they see an advertisement.

People also rather like their tablets. Nielsen says users who have bought a tablet device start to use it more than their laptop or desktop PC.

Tablet owners are still very much in the minority – only about 5% in the US and 1.3% in the UK, according to someone from Deloitte, quoted everywhere, but with no real source to back him up. Which means any numbers about how valuable tablet owners are need to be treated with caution.

But even so, anecdotal evidence from publishers and bloggers shows that more people are visiting content sites using iPads, and the numbers are growing.

Why are media owners likely to get excited? Because, unlike ordinary PCs, tablets are much more proprietary. To access content you need to buy apps – and tablet makers, like Apple, are much more in control of the user experience than they are on PCs. Which makes it more difficult to access copyright material without going through paid for channels. People also seem to have got used to paying for services on closed mobile systems, unlike on PC.

Very old readers will remember the early days of the world wide web, when internet service providers tried to keep web users a prisoner in their “walled garden” of web services. For may early users, AOL was the web – anything that AOL didn’t offer didn’t exist.

But that didn’t last very long. It was very easy to find rival ISPs to open the door to the chaos and anarchy of the early web. And easy to find software tools to help you – everyone ran Microsoft’s OS, apart from the few Apple die-hards, so there was a de facto standard. And content spilled onto the web in such profusion that free seemed to become the only possible business model.

But finally things seem to be swinging the content owners’ way. Cleverly, rather than try to fence off internet content (take note, Rupert Murdoch), tablet makers are turning the device itself into the walled garden.

Which means that web users will pay for content – as long as it’s delivered to them on an iPad (or similar). They’re willing to pay not because the content is necessarily so valuable, but because the device itself is very desirable and they want to use it.

So, yes – the iPad may be the saviour of journalism – but only if we understand that, in the process, journalism will just become a nice accessory for the iPad…

If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a slightly disturbing TED Talk by liberal US political activist Eli Pariser. He’s worried about how the big online players are automatically filtering the content we see according to what they think are our preferences – without our knowledge or consent.
Most telling are the examples that show how Google searches are unique to each searcher – even if they use exactly the same keywords – and how Facebook decides to remove content that doesn’t match your clickthrough pattern – even if you’d prefer to keep it available.
So much for the free-for-all of the web…

Spotted on the Telegraph web site – an increasingly desperate attempt to get users to click on more pages.

Is there any particular reason to turn a simple statistics-backed list items – “Top 10 jobs graduates want” – into a picture story? especially a picture story that requires you to click 10 times to get to the end of it?

You can imagine the sales pitch at the web analytics conference with senior management – “It’ll be engagement metric nirvana! We’ll get 10 clicks for the price of one!”

I can’t really see this ever having been a picture story in the hallowed old days of print. Is this the best that newspapers can do to drive their online traffic? And I love that classy classified jobs ad link at the bottom…

It’s funny how the idea that all publicity is good publicity sometimes doesn’t filter through to the people you’re writing about in business features.
My latest thrilling trade press feature is about the tobacco industry. Yes, I know – I’m evil for even taking that brief. Hey, my dog has to eat.
So what sort of responses have I got from companies involved in supplying said evil industry?

Company spokesperson:I did put your email below to my client and received a response earlier today – unfortunately it is not something they feel they can comment on at the moment

Company spokesperson: “I have forwarded your request to our Tobacco […] business but unfortunately the relevant contact will not be available to help in this instance as they will be unable to meet the deadline.”

Hapless trade press journalist: “We have some flexibility on the deadline – does that help?”

Company spokesperson: “Unfortunately our contact will not be available for the next couple of weeks (I think you mean years – ed) to make any comment”

Company spokesperson: I’ve just been informed by someone that unfortunately it’s company rule not to comment on anything tobacco-related. (Though it’s not a rule, clearly, not to work on anything tobacco-related)

So – there you have it. You’re all quite happy to take the tobacco companies’ money, but you’d rather we didn’t know about it…

“Americans are hungry for news” – apparently. So some people think the US government should subsidise it to the tune of $30 billion a year. Here’s a fascinating documentary from PBS (sort of the US BBC) that talks with po-faced solemnity about the importance of the fourth estate…

Following the recent debate over bribes for bloggers, I offer a recent and unmediated arrival in my inbox from the lovely Gemma at Fido PR:

I have attached information about a new exhibition about journalism in war zones that I thought would be of interest for your blog.

Imperial War Museum North in Manchester is presenting the UK’s first major exhibition about British War correspondents, revealing the people behind the news reporting in war zones from 1914 to the present day. The dangers, difficulties and dramas of the job are told by reporters in their own words in interviews specially recorded for the exhibition.

There are many unique, historic items from household name reporters on display for the first time. You can see the bullet that deflected into Kat Adie’s leg in the conflict in Lebanon, a burqa worn by John Simpson to secretly enter Afghanistan in 2011, the typewriter Michael Nicholson used to write his reports from Vietnam and one of Martin Bell’s trademark white suits, which became familiar to viewers during his reports from the Bosnian war.

Well – that’s lovely. And it’s free, too. It runs from 28 May 2011 to 2 January 2012. Go to www.iwm.org.uk/north for more details.

So – um – where’s my freebie? Gemma? Gemma?

[NB: note to all PR agencies. You know, I probably won’t do this again.]

Via Get Satisfaction comes this nice graphic of the relentless decline of print media.

Well, when was the last time you bought a newspaper?

Apparently Twitter users are cross because Twitter-friendly image upload service Twitpic has changed its terms to allow it to sell on users’ uploaded images for a profit.
Yes – it’s annoying. And yes, it flies in the face of what copyright law intends.
But, you know, that’s what happens when we get used to the idea that all the services provided to us on the web have to be free. Or, “free”.
Delicious users ran up against this in another form recently, leaving people with thousands of bookmarks panicking that they would lose the record of, sometimes, years of online browsing.
Companies have to make money somehow – the question is how. Facebook is managing through advertising – and will doubtless sell on its store of aggregated user analytics. But Twitter? User data will play its part, but its revenue model is far from clear.
Which leaves all those ancillary services floundering, really. How is a company that spends its time uploading millions of images to the web at no charge going to stay in business? When we resolutely refuse to pay for it?
This is the problem with free services generally. Before you commit material that is (a) valuable and/or (b) sensitive to the internet, make sure that you have as much control over it as possible. It’s a pretty good reason for paying for your own web hosting – and making sure you back up your files regularly…
 

Here’s the level of argument in the “Yes” and “No” camps for the Alternative Vote referendum tomorrow.
“Yes”: a motley band of comedians and actors think it’s a really good idea. Hmm – I never knew Honor Blackman had all that expertise in electoral reform.
“No”: Nick Clegg likes it and nobody likes Nick Clegg. So it must be a really bad idea.
God help us if we had to vote on anything important, then…

It seems the gutter is just the place to be to divert a load of bottom-feeding traffic from Google’s door to your high-minded publication.
Here are six of the top ten search strings to find Freelance Unbound yesterday:

• andrew marr affair
• andrew marr affair with
• who did andrew marr have an affair with
• who did andrew marr have affair with
• andrew marr affair who
• who did andrew marr affair with

In fact, any permutation of the words “Andrew”, “Marr”, “affair” and “who” would have propelled you to the front page of Google, where a host of eager scandal hunters were happy to click through to your inconsequential and tacky blog post.
But will they stick around for the serious debates on digital media, privacy, payment mechanisms and higher education? It’s doubtful frankly.
Watch out for much more lowbrow trash here in future…