future

Digg update and alternatives….

September 9, 2008 By Dan Thornton

In an update to my last post on Digg, the good news is my colleagues and I are now unbanned from Digg, following several emails. It’s good that the ban was lifted, as not only would it have left some of my colleagues unmotivated about social media, but I’m also quite determined to see if there’s a way to be successful at driving traffic on Digg without gaming the system – and to do that requires legitmate access rather than cheating and going through proxies, or using autoscripts etc. There’s quite an interesting profile of the top Digg user, MrBabyMan on ReadWriteWeb, and whilst our own Digg saga was developing, there was a rash of stories regarding whether or not he uses a script to autosubmit content.

But whatever happens, during my last post, I referneced quite a few sites which provide a major developing threat to Digg, as it continues to inhabit a world between the massive traffic of Yahoo Buzz, and the smaller focus of sites like Sphinn on the same technology premise.

RSS sharing: Personally, I use two web based RSS readers – Google Reader is my main reader, but I keep an account at Feedeachother because I got to know the sole person behind it, Udi Falkson, it’s got a lot of features which are as good as Google Reader, and it’s good to have a place for feeds which I read for pleasure and aren’t work related, stopping my main reader becoming incredibly overwhelmed. What both sites offer – and what almost every RSS reader contains now – is the ability to easily share stories with friends and fans via the sites themselves or emails etc. As user networks grow, this provides one major method for content of interest to appear in front of me.

Social news aggregators: In Web 1.0, this meant Digg. Now, however, it tends to mean sites like Twine and Socialmedian. These services combine uploading discovered content with methods to follow ‘friends’ who submit quality news, and to comment around it, re-share it, and discover more via recommendations. Numbers at the moment are small as Twine is still in private beta, and Socialmedian has recently emerged, but they’re growing:

Social networks/microblogging/lifestreaming: Lumping together everything from Facebook to Twitter to Friendfeed basically revoles around one thing. Recommendations from friends. I build networks on these sites from people I know or discover who share interests with me, and therefore, their recommendations carry a certain weight with them. Can I say the same about 800 random Digg users or Amazon reviewers? I know which of my friends can recommend video cameras, mobile phones, or good hiphop. And I’ve already built up this information in getting to know them and adding them. Do I want to have to start researching each Digg user, particularly when the top Diggers tend to submit and rate so much it’s seemingly random – one of the flaws of the Shout system and blind digging the content your friends send for reciprocal links.

Niche ranking sites: It doesn’t take much to create a ranking system – probably less work than getting an article on the front page of Digg! Hence sites like Sphinn, which concentrate on Marketing news and discussion. And bearing in mind that the ‘Digg Effect‘ is infamous for traffic which may have a high Bounce Rate, and low loyalty, the smaller niche sites have a benefit for attracting and interacting with likeminded individuals. Plus you need far less popularity to get to the front!

The majors: I’ve already mentioned Yahoo Buzz and the huge amounts of traffic it can bring. As major newspaper and media sites evolve towards becoming more digital, they’ll increasingly be seeking ways to aggregate and curate online content. They’ve got sizeable audiences, and a wider perceived range of interests than the ‘Digg Crowd’. If you’re not looking for technology specifically, would you browse Digg, or an aggregator run by the New York Times or the Guardian?

Something completely different – human search: I’ll be honest and admit I didn’t see a use for the likes of Mahalo when I first encountered it. Why search within a far smaller sea than Google can trawl, and rely on weak-minded humans rather than our robot overlords? But I always like to use something for a while before making a judgement, and I’m glad I did, because the Mahalo homepage and the plugin for Firefox have become really useful for seeing popular stories and sources of information (the plugin also improves Google search with a handy summary information box!). Now I get an overview of recent stories, which have had an element of human filtering. And it’s showing pretty good growth:

All of this information is coming to me without needing to visit the Digg homepage on a regular basis, or research the small group of Digg users who can effectively make or break a story. I could subscribe to sections by RSS, but given the churn of stories, and the fact I’m not interested in every car or internet news story, it becomes problematic. Instead, I can rely on friends and family who know me to be able to show me things they think are a) Cool, and b) Things I’d really like by their own self-selecting mechanism and no real effort on my part.

I’m intrigued to see how other people feel, especially after some of the great comments to my last post on Digg. At the moment, I can’t see an easy solution for Kevin Rose and the team, but I’ll try and outline some possibilities in my next post.

Does Blip.fm show a route to monetisation for Twitter?

August 25, 2008 By Dan Thornton

It took me a couple of passes to get the value of Blip.fm as opposed to existing streaming radio online like last.fm. At first, for some reason, it wasn’t running properly and playing each track in turn for me, which didn’t help! But now it’s becoming a great way to discover new music recommended by my friends, even if I normally revert to streaming my last.fm library for longer periods. The two compliment each other is the same way as someone like John Peel complimented by record collection, but I couldn’t always make it through an entire show before some obscure German techno forced me to change radio station.

Blip.fm helps me find new music by effectively allowing users to Twitter with each song they choose, giving it some context, or publicly proclaiming their love for it etc. And I can aggregate these choices into my own list, give ‘props’ to other users for good choices, and filter the overall stream via my friends, just as I would with Twitter.

Where it might give a clue to revenue streams for microblogging is in offering the direct link to buy any track as an MP3 via Amazon. So if I like a particular track or artist, the opportunity to make a quick impulse purchase is always there – and it’s backed up by allowing me to listen to the track based on recommendations by my friends.

The only weakness is that not every track is available, and I need to be aware that I want to listen to this track offline, in my car, on an Ipod, at the time that I’m experiencing it…or be able to find it easily, and at the moment there’s no way to search my Playlist, or add individual songs to my Amazon wishlist.

But if what if this model was more widely applied – to offline magazines and books for example. And to products as well? One Twitter Affiliates scheme which wasn’t tied into a sole retailer, but operated as an aggregation service to allow me to recommend almost anything, and offer a direct link?

It’s probably the quickest and simplest method of monetising the Twitterati. And people can be persuaded to link their recommendations to returns for themselves or even for charity, as something like Squidoo shows.

It would be possible to test the theory if individuals listed book recommendations etc via existing Amazon etc affiliate accounts, but this may lead to confusion and disappointment if it isn’t flagged up as such before an unsuspecting user follows the link – but Twitter and the extra 20 characters could flag referral posts quickly and uniformly.

The only question for me is who tries it first – Twitter, or an enterprising external team? Anyone know a good developer? 😉

How TV companies 2.0 can make money

August 2, 2008 By Dan Thornton

This all came from two articles by two of my Twitter connections, starting with Charles Arthur writing on the Guardian website about the need for television companies to come to terms with filesharing. In it, he suggested TV media firms could make low quality versions of their shows available as they are broadcast as a way to encourage people to download a high resolution version.

Peeebeee (Peter Bowyer) examined the link Charles had made between music and TV companies and the effect downloads are having, and suggested that the way the music industry can monetise is not necessarily applicable (low quality freebie for driving high quality purchases), mainly because music will be replayed over and over.. .

It’s taken me a while to respond because I wanted to add something to the conversation, and try to hypothesize how I’d monetise online television. (If you think it’s taking me a while, try asking Google about Youtube!) And although I don’t work in television (Aside from the sadly discontinued MCN Daily…*shudders*), my day job consists of working out how it can be possible to fund a large magazine and website company from engaging community.

My theory is that the answer is more obvious than you’d think, because it’s something that film companies have already done, when they sold us on DVDs. Aside from allowing us to posture about the quality on our widescreen television, and pause without burning through a tape, DVDs convinced many people to part with money for the value of the extras which were included – even for films they might already own on video.

So expand the same theory to online. I may already be able to watch a film or TV programme via filesharing or a legitimate streaming channel, but what could be added to a package which would make it worth parting with a small amount of money? Could you include DVD-style extras and outtakes? Could you also include background information? How about putting complete series together online, or the works of a particular writer, director or actor. Which could then be sold on DVD, and as a complete download?

And what about also including all the related links, reading material, and even User Created Content?

Now I could find a lot of this via a fair bit of web searching, but that takes time and effort – and increasingly the exponential growth of material online means people are looking for ways to filter content, and aggregate it efficiently, and are willing to pay for it. As Steve Jobs once pointed out, finding a copy of a song via filesharing can translate into working for less than minimum wage – fine for time-rich teenagers, but not for anyone feeling time-starved.

And providing best-of reading material for certain content would be a incredibly useful for information rich shows. Ironically, while my partner has been watching Hollywood films on DVD over the last two weekends, I’ve had the time to watch the inspirational ‘Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams’ by Randy Pausch, and also ‘An anthropological introduction to Youtube‘ by Michael Wesch.

Both times the Youtube video was an hour or more long, which is fine for me, but would be better in DVD format for the non ‘digital natives’ I’d love to shave them with. They both refer to people, places, and reference works which might be useful to have in digital and print form. Both lecturers have previous work which would be useful to have included (not just videos, but written articles and academic works etc). And neither of those works is likely to even appear on a mainstream (Say Freeview for the sake of argument) TV channel in the UK, where we have to make do with a short internet show once a week on the BBC, and the occasional programme discussing the risks of online networks.

Essentially, any content which doesn’t require high budgets and production values is already legally uploaded and available on Youtube. Anything that does incur a huge cost is losing part of it’s audience to filesharing, or is being served online in ways that can be frustrating (You can’t watch a show on BBC iPlayer after seven days, and that’s about the best of the bunch). None of it is giving me a reason to pay a couple of pounds to get extra value, as opposed to the imported DVD boxsets I own, signed by the director, and containing material I wouldn’t have otherwise seen at the time without a lot of hunting around.

It’s not about criminalizing fans who fileshare and promote your product. It’s about making use of the advantages of being large scale content creators and giving those fans reasons why it makes sense for them to spend an amount to invest. iTunes isn’t the best music store in the history of the world, but if you’ve got an iPod it’s easy to go there and spend a few pounds/dollars, rather than sorting out filesharing software and downloads. Despite access to films online, and the Xbox film service permanently attached to my HDTV, I still subscribe to Lovefilm, because it’s easier to get films delivered than order them online legally, due to the shocking state of broadband speeds outside major cities in the UK. And that’s what has cut my DVD purchasing, way more than availability online.

Give me a reason to pay for TV and film which justifies itself in terms of making my life easier, and giving me more than enough value to justify it to myself, and it won’t just be me who will be tempted…

NB: And actually, artists are already pioneering this in the music industry. Just look at the $1619420 Trent Reznor made from the recent Ghosts album.

Twitter shakes the ground under major news websites: How they have to adapt

July 30, 2008 By Dan Thornton

It’s happened again. Yet again, an earthquake has occurred, this time in the U.S. – and yet again I found out about it from Twitter as it happened, rather than from one of the news websites minutes later. In fact, I’d even reported on it, and uploaded an image from Twitter to 140Char (Now available at http://www.thewayoftheweb.net/earthquake-hits-us-and-twitter/ ) before the BBC website had any coverage.

And when the BBC does cover it, look at the lack of any responses. Now compare that to the sheer amount of updates which occurred on Twitter, even during the quake itself.

As microblogging sites increase and users can upload almost instantly from mobiles, news websites need to respond in a far more proactive way. I know the BBC is UK based, but even American media like CNN were apparently late to the party.

For a while news websites have had increased competition, particularly from prominent blogs, but they still had the resources to be the first point for news, and the first place people headed for if they wanted to upload pictures and videos. One significant early stage of Citizen Journalism was the London Underground bombing in July 2005. But now people already have significant networks and reach to share thoughts, images, and video incredibly quickly with a potentially large circle of people without needing the news portal to distribute it. In fact, during 9/11, when traffic brought news websites to a halt, I was ignoring the television to use Instant Messaging and forums to chat with friends in the U.S and at large news organisations to find out what was happening.

And if Twitter or similar tools become mainstream, breaking news is over. You might still get a few minutes grace on embargoed content before it’s replicated throughout the world, but reacting to something just happening? By the time your assigned staff reporter is taking notes, or your Web Producer has been woken up, Twitter users around the world (Tweeple) are already reacting.

As far as I can see, there are a few options still left:

1. Stop autofeeding your late news to Twitter. Particularly when we already know about the earthquake, and it’s been on your website for ages. It highlights that you haven’t bothered understanding how it works. And it isn’t the first time. Earthquakes in China and the UK, Heath Ledger’s death…you got beaten before and you’ll get beaten again.

2. Do make sure all your reporters have decent mobile phones. And can update straight to a Twitter account without worrying about grammar, subbing, or waiting until you have a story to link to on your main website. It’s not about driving traffic, it’s about breaking news. That’s what journalism is about. Get back your reputation for breaking news, and people will respond. And then when you do release an in-depth analysis on the website, and aggregate information, you’ll have an audience which responds.

3. Start aggregating Twitter onto your site. It takes two seconds to set up a Twitter Search result. Put a space in your news template for RSS feeds, and use them to plug Twitter in as soon as something happens. Start collating all the notable Tweets, and speaking to the people behind them. You’ll get responses far quicker than making your reporter get out of bed.

Alternatively:

1. While your print product is already falling, and you’re coming to terms that things are changing a bit more quickly, microblogging takes away one of the major selling points of a major news company. You no longer have scoops, and because you’ve cut back to save costs in an uncertain time, you don’t have the staff or resources to file in-depth analysis and responses to breaking news quick enough to beat experts on blogs, and aggregators.

Don’t stop evolving halfway out of the swamp.

Not a cheerful post perhaps, but the internet evolves faster than any previous form of communication. It took a good 10 years or so for the real effect on the media, and the decline of print and television to be felt to the point major corporations and companies got scared and started really responding. But while the slow pace of change happens within the organisation, outside the pace of change is far quicker – and it’s always happening. There is no single answer to maintaining a sizeable presence on the internet unless it is to become an organisation that can respond quickly and efficiently to new challenges on a monthly basis – even if it means ripping up your website and starting again! Halfway measures will satisfy less and less people. And they’ll definitely be uploading their complaints in 140 characters.

Edit: Turns out the LA Times is running Twitter in a Technology article highlighting how well it works for news, which you can see here. Strange then, it isn’t integrated into their general news coverage? The Guardian putting Twitter on blogs is again, a tiny, tiny step in the right direction, but it’s a start I guess – even if it isn’t working at the moment!

Internet usability demands centralisation

May 8, 2008 By Dan Thornton

Normally internet usability refers to the design and placement on a website to allow users to easily interact, but I firmly believe there’s an important new item which is hugely important in making any website, widget or service usable.

And that’s allowing centralisation.

Now I’ve moved to my own domain, I’m trying to update two years of links – on social networks, blog directories, wikis, forums, websites, other people’s blogrolls etc, etc, etc. And I’ve realised exactly how much work is involved in changing my url on all those sites. And that’s the same for all the major events in my life (such as the birth of my son recently), or even keeping minor details up-to-date and relevant (Do I still like the same music and films as I did when I filled out my Facebook profile, or the last time I updated Myspace?).

More and more people are online, and although the numbers of promiscuous profile creators are small compared to those who are happy with one site and profile, that’s changing. And it will change more and more as niche networks and groups form and grow – and advertisers etc see more value in targetting those niches.

It’s where ideas like Google Open Social work, with an API that works across numerous websites/networks. And although I don’t think it’s always suitable to limit every internet user to one ‘real’ linked ID, I do think it’s now essential that anyone collating information from internet users looks at the best way to allow that information to be updated from one central place. You might lose one or two clicks from someone being forced to update, if they see enough value – but the flipside is it’s too much hassle to update so people don’t bother coming back at all – ever.

And for something like a domain change, it can mean a website stops sending me any referrals, and drops even further off my radar.

That’s why something like Last.fm works, and why so many more users utilise its’ ‘scrobbling’ technology to track the music they listen to, rather than using it to find new music etc. If you’ve got a site which has a field to list music, don’t make me fill it out. Let me link to Last.fm, or Pandora. Or create somewhere that I can update once and feed out to all my various outlets. That’s one reason why Twitter works (I’m @badgergravling btw). A Twitter update can be done via a variety of desktop clients or other sources, and then end up on my blog, on FriendFeed etc, etc. Sites like FriendFeed are tackling the problem from the aggregation perspective, and allowing a huge range of inputs to be put into one place – but where’s a system for allowing me to make a huge range of outputs to all the relevant destinations without traipsing for hours around the net?