:: LNR Journalism ::

"Just trust us" vs. Building Trust in the News3.0 Aera

The Nieman Journalism Lab published a document marked as "AP confidential" on August 14, 3:35 p.m on their website. What grasped my attention was a discussion in the comment section of the page. Was Nieman Lab right to publish a confidential document? Was permission granted?

I do not try to give an answer to these questions here. It's not up to me to comment on the legal aspects of this move. The main question which came to my mind was: how to build trust today?

Bradley J. Finkes wrote: "Mere readers aren’t supposed to ask such impertinent questions. After all, Nieman is pioneering the future of journalism, which will be more transparent and interactive than the stodgy 'just trust us' attitude of traditional media outlets. That old media has rightly lost the public’s trust for such dodgy tactics as using anonymous sources, documents obtained under deliberately shadowy conditions, and playing softball with influential organizations."¹

The News3.0 Trust Center. In the News3.0 network of journalists, concepts like "trust" will need a completely different systemic approach and therefore physical expression than in traditional (online) media. The journalist has to build trustworthiness himself. He needs a proven track record of his own. Brand names would not have that impact in New3.0 as they have today. A News3.0 trust center constitutes a triangle of the historical track record of a journalist, user feedback and quality evalutation by professional associations of journalists.

⁽¹⁾ http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/08/heres-the-ap-document-weve-been-writing-about/

Breaking Down Barriers Against More Value

Cameras today are proprietory machines full of man-made barriers to new and exciting features. They were built to fullfill marketing and sales purposes and not to exhaust all current opportunities. 

Think of a camera's mission to house technical innovation and not to be primarely a vehicle to drive companies' sales. You will end up with what Standford computer science professor Marc Levoy and his graduate student Andrew Adams would call "camera 2.0".

In a collaborative approach between Stanford Computer Graphics Laboratory, Nokia Research Center Palo Alto Laboratory and also supported by Adobe Systems, Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, and the Walt Disney Company, they developed an open source camera to enable users to create new features for the camera by writing aps that control all the camera's functions -- focus, exposure, shutter speed, flash, etc. Cameras could be taught new tricks with downloadable apps, analogous to iPhone apps.

Camera 2.0 shows that if you release innovation by breaking down barriers you might get even higher value to serve people better. The next level of news - News3.0 - will need to discover ways to utilize the open source concept as well. There is more value in an open than in closed systems - in the long run.

More details can be found on the Stanford Computer Graphics Laboratory website. You can also read the official Standford press release.

YouTube Video:

From Print to Online to Print - The Changing Value Chain

An article from Read Write Web¹ rose my interest today. It was Google's announcement that all content from Google Books is now searchable from the Search Options panel the company introduced earlier this year. That was not a surprise at all. But what's the big picture?

Just one day before, September 17th On Demand Books announced Google has signed an agreement with On Demand Books (PDF), which grants them access to Google's vast library of public domain books. Now if you're interested in a book which is public domain you can easily print it on demand - at least at any of the places which have already an Espresso Book Machine^®. Now a book of 3-400 pages can be printed with a speed of 145 pages per minute and at a cost of about 1 cent per page within 3 minutes. In our sample for $4. The machine can be purchased for as little as $100,000. A demonstration of the machine can be watched online at YouTube: The Espresso Book Machine.

"Unfortunately" the current legal issue with all non-public domain books is that they're protected by copyright which protects them from being illegally copied - at least that is the mission of the law. What would happen if this barrier falls?

Secondly: let's think of an author who does not longer want to wait for her book to be published. She signs a contract with Google for a revenue share when her digital book available in the Google Book "store" will be printed on an Espresso Book Machine^®. Google becomes Amazon but with the power of a publisher.

⁽¹⁾ Source: RWW on searching Google Books

News3.0 - T-Rank, Truth As A Key Indicator

Old media has a truth problem: "A lot of people are already skeptical of the “Old Media.” I don’t believe anything in the media unless it’s independently confirmed by outlets I believe tell the truth. For instance, DC media low-balled estimates of protesters as 60-70,000 even though the US Park Service estimated 1.2 million. I don’t think the truth can be hidden as it has been in the past."¹

In News3.0 "truth" will be a result of an aggregation process of influencing factors: total of people confirming, origin of the source, relevancy of the source, proven track record of the journalist, impact of the news and the feedback of the network where it will be published. The result of this aggregation process will be a factor I would like to call "Truth Rank" or T-Rank in accordance to Google's PageRank, although "Page" is a name there. All current media do neglect this instance of a multidimensional model I propose here.

Note: The content of this document might be revised in the future due to new insights or findings.

¹ Sample found here: http://blog.thought-mesh.net/archives/2009/09/the_next_version.php

News2.0 - What (social) business models have failed?

I found the following interesting information on Adam Tinworth's blog today: 

"NEW YORK - As the bid deadline for ailing BusinessWeek magazine approaches the McGraw-Hill title is revealed to have spent $16m on creating its social networking site, which is generating little cash. BusinessWeek launched its social networking venture Business Exchange in 2007. By 2008 it had spent $16m on the site, which is estimated by the New York Time to have generated just $600,000 in revenues."

All print titles even the larger one fail to launch a profitable social networking strategy. At least I haven't heard of any lucky one. This fact goes hand in hand with my own experience with my premium club on XING.com a few years ago. Special interest communities have little momentum to create net effects so that investments. Net effects are a MUST for many of the Internet business models to be successful. Many titles in Germany have moved to social networks instead of starting their own for that reason. As long as you are positioned as specialist and not as something for the masses these seems to be the rule.

The raison d'être of Publishers - Their Right to Exist

Why do we need publishers?⁽¹⁾

Publishers are necessary to guarantee stability and continuity of the publishing process. They secure the availability of the publishing platform (e.g. magazine, newspaper, book series) and transform the content during the publishing process by selecting, editing, reviewing, aproofing and publishing.

They offer access to the public fostered by their marketing and distribution activities and concepts. Without marketing and sales effords no one would even know about new content. Publishers also provide the journalists with a work desk to ease daily work and to give them access to sometimes expensive information sources.

In contrast to libraries, publishers can generally ensure the short-term archiving of their publications. The time dependent offer of information is another aspect of the current role model of publishers.⁽²⁾

For sure and not to forget about the business side: publishers (hopefully) finance articles upfront and invest in technology and infrastructure journalists can't afford.

More importantly publishers build brands. While each journalist helps to build brands through her unique contribution, a publication itself destiles the history of each single reader's experience in its brand identity. While every journalists adds to the overall brand awareness of a specific publication everyone also benefits from its history. Brands are huge umbrellas and publications can become brands. That's why to write for a specific publication can be major honor.

So while we might not doubt if publishers were needed or not, we might question if the current business and role models were the best answer to the basic question of how to publish these days.

⁽¹⁾ I've followed partly the argumentation of Thomas Connertz, Bernd Hess, Stuttgart: Wofür brauchen wir eigentlich Verlage? (PDF-Download)

⁽²⁾ Taken from ⁽¹⁾. The authors quoted from IFLA / IPA (International Publishers Association): Preserving the Memory of the World in Perpetuity: a joint statement on the archiving and preserving of digital information. http://www.ifla.org/V/press/ifla-ipa02.htm

Impact of the Google Book Search Copyright Class Action Settlement

The German Government sent an Amicus Curiae document over to the NY court yesterday to intervene against the Google Book Search Copyright Class Action Settlement⁽¹⁾. It expresses the concerns of the German Goverment against the worldwide impact the settlement will have. The settlement of a class action lawsuit was brought by authors and publishers, claiming that Google has violated their copyrights and those of other Rightsholders of Books and Inserts, by scanning their Books, creating an electronic database and displaying short excerpts without the permission of the copyright holders.⁽²⁾

The problem: the German law doesn't know "class" as legal term. The current settlement would effect authors or right holders in general (the "class") and has a severe impact on service providers of similar services outside of the US as well.
Although IP access to digital books will use IP based geotargeting to restrict retrieval of information, this type of access control can easily be bypassed. Secondly, Google achieved a competitive advantage because it did not ask the rightholders before it started the Google Books initiative. Alternatives like EUROPEANA and libreka were at a disadvantage. 
The German government argues in addition, that the settlement would infringe the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works ("Revidierte Berner Übereinkunft")⁽³⁾ and the WIPO Copyright Treaty - WCT⁽⁴⁾.

For sure the current legal solution would cement the power of one company in the way how it can handle copyright in the near future neglecting competition in this market. That's the reason why also other major market players Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo are cooperating against Google's recent activities. But also copyright holders might have to be active in the future to defend their rights.

⁽¹⁾ BMJ - Amicus Curiae - Press Information in (German)

⁽²⁾ Google Book Search Copyright Class Action Settlement

⁽³⁾ Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works

⁽⁴⁾ WIPO Copyright Treaty - WCT

Crowdfunding - Pitching for Money

Crowdsourcing has become a common term already. While "crowd" probably had a bad connotation in the past,it becomes more and more attractive today. The main purpose is to utilize the collective wisdom of more than one to achieve a given goal. In contrast to cooperations, crowds can assemble and disassemble at any time. The same with crowdfunding, which describes "the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money together, usually via the Internet, in order to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowdfunding occurs for any variety of purposes, from disaster relief to citizen journalism to artists seeking support from fans, to political campaigns."⁽¹⁾

What makes crowdfunding so powerful?

It is a casual approach to funding and not as formal as traditional fundraising or specialized grant applicatios. It indicates direct support for a matter of interest. It supports financial aid at the low end, as you can donate little money as well. It requires an online community or social network. It allows support even in long distance relationships.

⁽¹⁾ Found that definition: http://crowdfunding.pbworks.com/

⁽²⁾ Crowd psychology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_psychology

⁽³⁾ More about reciprocity (cultural anthropology): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_cultural_anthropology

⁽⁴⁾ Literature: The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki

ACAP - Managing Access-to-Content Permission in the Digital Age

While many newspapers get bancrupt, industry is heavily searching for new business models and ways to control access to intellectual property.

Gavin O'Reilly, President of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA)said: "We continue to attract ever greater audiences for our content but, unlike in the print or TV business models, we are not the ones making the money out of our content. This is unsustainable. Publishers failing will benefit no-one, least of all consumers, or indeed the search engines and other aggregators who currently make huge profits on the back of our intellectual property".⁽¹⁾

Publishers and search engines collaborated after an intensive year-long pilot in 2006-2007 to develop ACAP, a protocol to control the creation, dissemination, use and protection of copyright-protected content on the worldwide web.

ACAP, Automated Content Access Protocol, is "a non-proprietary, global permissions tool that puts content owners in control of their online content in a way that is conducive to developing new online business models, putting new, high-quality content on the net and to maximizing the benefits of the relationship with search engines."⁽²⁾

More:

⁽¹⁾ Source: http://www.epceurope.org/presscentre/archive/International_publishers_demand_new_intellectual_property_rights.shtml

⁽²⁾ Source: ACAP - Website