media

Does mainstream media really boost Twitter followers?

January 26, 2009 By Dan Thornton

There’s been some coverage of the appearance of Twitter on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, due to both @wossy and guest @stephenfry not only being ‘celebs who Twitter’, but actualy ‘celebs who really get how Twitter works’.

Martin Belam calculated that Stephen Fry had increased his follower count by 16% between the filming on Thursday and Sunday morning.

Personally, I’d have calculated any effect from when the programme was first shown, as that’s when new followers would appear. Neville Hobson used Twittercounter to count 4000 new followers for StephenFry in the first 24 hours, but really focuses on the increase in activity and conversation from existing Twitter users about the TV mention. (Techcrunch UK also has a summary of the TV coverage)

But hang on a minute.

Even if we take the total at 10.30pm on Sunday, @stephenfry has gained 8864 from an audience of 4million+. Meanwhile 84% of his followers appeared before the mass media appearance, by finding him on Twitter and spreading the word.

So he gained 8/10 followers by conversation, word of mouth and social networking, and just 2/10ish by broadcasting on the biggest national TV station in the UK.

Does mainstream media coverage really boost followers or validate Twitter?

What’s happening to rock stars and Hollywood actors isn’t new…

December 18, 2008 By Dan Thornton

Something has struck me about one of the major challenges facing entertainment celebrities – along with the though that maybe many more ‘normal’ people have faced something very similar over the last century.

In the past, people with in skilled manual occupations spent years learning their trade and craft, served apprenticeships, and worked their way up to a point where they had experience that gave them security – until in many cases machines were able to offer lower cost solutions which put them under threat.

Now actors and musicians who have worked at their craft for years, and been fortunate enough to have built long enough careers to become established face technology which mean that the skills they’ve built up alongside their talent – finding management, working with record companies and film studios, etc, suddenly gets challenged by the fact anyone with talent can produce a song and distribute it digitally, or create a film for a relatively low cost and release it via the internet.

I’m just wondering if other people think that this is one reason why some celebrities are taking the hugely proactive step of writing a letter to The Times complaining about the fact that internet piracy is apparently threatening the fact that the creative sector, according to the letter ‘comprises 7 per cent of the total economy, and is growing faster than any other sector.’ A bit of a paradoxical argument if ever I heard one.

Entropy 2.0

November 15, 2008 By Dan Thornton

Steve Rubel posted a risky bet on his personal blog, Micro Persuasion, yesterday, that ‘By January 2014 I will wager that in the US almost all forms of tangible media will either be in sharp decline or completely extinct. I am not just talking about print, but all tangible forms of media – newspapers, magazines, books, DVDs, boxed software and video games.’

While I don’t doubt he’s right that all forms of tangible media will have experienced a sharp decline, I’d differ slightly in my belief that most will continue as niche products – in the same way that vinyl exists for some DJs and collectors. And I’m not sure about the timescale.

Although he makes a compelling point with many great examples of how digital content is becoming increasingly mainstream, I think there’s a tendency to almost imagine one day when suddenly all the printing presses stop, and we all ‘go digital’.

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper. The Hollow Men, T.S Eliot.

Physical products won’t go out like that, despite the predictions I’ve heard since I started in online publishing almost a decade ago. Think of the concept of Entropy, the natural decay of all things – or the erosion of land by the force of the sea. Both are gradual, and yet completely unstoppable physical forces like the changing habits of consumers and the constant innovations in technology.

Yes, many companies, products and industries are in sharp decline, which is likely to be accentuated by the current global economy collapse, and there’s a desperate need for most to innovate new revenue streams. But there are still isolated cases of success in traditional media, and there are still sizeable profits being made, even by declining titles. Will these have been eradicated to the point on non-existence in 6 years? I think that depends on the age of the consumers of those titles, and the likelihood of them continuing to buy physical products from habit or affection.

The era of physical content distribution domination for print, audio, film and videogames is coming to an end, but there are still barriers to overcome. Rather than the UK increasing broadband speeds and bandwith caps, for example, the U.S. is instead seeing them introduced. That’s a major barrier to film and videogame downloads, which can be a hefty size to acquire.

But the item for me which is most likely to drive this transformation is missing from Steve’s otherwise comprehensive list. And that’s the smart phone (the iPhone for the sake of argument). For the first time there’s a consumer device which combines digital music, photography, telephony, communication, blogging, applications and almost everything else, and which is easily able to feed Flickr, download from iTunes etc, etc, etc. It provides an attractive and increasingly familiar conduit for digital content which isn’t as imposing as a PC for the non-geeky, and reaches those who don’t spend their working days on a keyboard. On my recent holiday, I cursed my lack of a smart phone when I had to constantly remove the memory card from an old digital camera to upload to Flickr. And when we lacked a GPS, or mobile internet access to look for a location. And the fact I couldn’t access Twitter or my blogs without using a PC old enough to have a floppy disc drive!

Personally I think the physical content carthorse will continue to plod along for a fair while longer – if I had to pick a date out of the air, I’d probably pick 2020 as the cut off point for physical products reaching the very margin of content delivery – but don’t make the mistake of thinking I wouldn’t advise any company to be investigating every alternative opportunity as if they’re life depended on it, because it certainly does.

Saving print media- at least part of it

October 19, 2008 By Dan Thornton

I’ve got a hunch that might develop into a theory with a bit of love and attention, and though it was worth sharing.

We all know that print media is in decline – ranging from slight drops to terminal free fall depending on the market. But does this mean print will cease to exist?

Or will there always be a print market as a niche of the digital world, in the same way as vinyl still exists as a viable niche within the music industry?

Ignoring the fact that an ageing part of the population will prefer print for a few more years to come, are there ways to ensure that people under 30 engage with print in some way? After all many vinyl sales over recent years are not aimed at an ageing population, but at a young, cool, DJ market who choose it over mixing with MP3s and CDs even now.

In this way, vinyl becomes remarkable, a talking point, and a Purple Cow. It signifies you’re a DJ, with either skills that require vinyl, or retro taste, and that you’re willing to go further to obtain a particular song in the format you want – whether it’s a new record, or a collectible classic.

I’ve been thinking about how print could become remarkable again, having achieved it as a medium for spreading the news before the arrival of mass radio and TV, and as a home of great content. Why, even in the face of decline, is there not more experimentation? For instance, with the impact of the financial crisis, why wouldn’t a broadsheet try printing a 5 page version, with only financial news, and selling it for a far lower price? (Perhaps the costs of printing and distribution etc might be overcome by mass sales and the publicity?).

Perhaps more titles need to look at the sales of anthology editions of certain brands – for instance videogame magazines Edge and RetroGamer have both published anthology editions which can command high prices on ebay.

Or a hand-printed, collectible newspaper? The Manual was actually distributed a week or so ago as an attempt to reawake the idea of print as collectible and powerful.

Empire magazine has always had some interesting cover ideas (Disclosure I work for publishers Bauer Media), like the 100 different covers for their recent rundown of the 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. As well as the famous quotes on the spine of the magazine.

Some magazines have experiment with size, mostly going to A5 ‘handbag size’ for the female market. (Male mag Jack failed despite writing which echoed the days when Loaded magazine had articles worth reading). But as the market is changing so rapidly, maybe there’s something more that could be tried?

Or considering a brand like Moleskine evokes a sense of luxury and culture in notepads, perhaps small runs of magazines could appeal to that market?

It’s late and my memory is failing me, so I’ll ask if anyone has any more ideas and examples of the extraordinary and remarkable?

Disclosure: I work for Bauer Media, which has a large portfolio of magazines in the UK. Nothing here indicates any projects that I know of. Any original ideas written in the comments remain the property of the author – however, if someone does come up with an amazing idea, it’s likely you might get an email from me. If you’d rather express your idea in private, please do email me at thewayoftheweb at googlemail.com

Re: Citizen journalism and the fake Steve Jobs heart attack

October 4, 2008 By Dan Thornton

I was going to make two points regarding the discussion of Citizen Journalism in the wake of the fake article posted on CNN’s iReport ‘Unedited. Unfiltered. News.’ The article falsely claimed Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack, and had a big effect on Apple share prices.

Tim Windsor beat me to one of my points, pointing out that the blame for this should lay more with CNN than citizen journalism in general. Many people seem to have ignored the fact that one bad article on one implementation of Citizen Journalism, does not mean the concept as a whole is flawed – even on the CNN site there’s going to be a good ratio of interesting, factual stories to the fake ones, let alone taking every instance of Citizen Journalism across the internet. After all, how many newspapers have ended up in court because of errors or false articles and images? Did that end print journalism?

My second point is around fact checking and reprinting and responding to articles. Increasingly we all get our news from a huge variety of sources, both mainstream and individual-generated. This means that as receivers, we need to be more proactive in judging all our inputs. Particulary if, as bloggers and content producers ourselves, we intend to republish and share that information. In a world where everyone is a potential news source for their friends and contacts, it’s damaging to our own individual reputations to spread something which is old and out-of-date, irrelevant to our contacts/friends/audience, or simply false.

It’ll take time, and better tools, but increasingly people will be looking for more ways to verify information. When I see breaking news on Twitter or Facebook etc I check it against mainstream news via Google News etc. When I read mainstream or non-mainstream websites and blogs, or microblogging etc, I measure it against what I know about the sorurce, whether it’s a friend who might have discovered exclusive news, or an organisation I know has generally been reliable. And that’s just basic fact checking.

After all, Reader Reception Theory has been around since the 1960s, meaning that the understanding of a text is shaped by the interpretation of a reader based on their own experiences and culture. Journalists have always been trained and told to question everything and check all the facts. And there have been enough cases where rumours and fictitious articles have been well publicised.

On the plus side, the debate around Citizen Journalism has not only reminded me of a planned blog post which never saw the light of day, but also helped further ideas for a couple of applications I’ve been thinking about. And Steve Jobs is OK, which is good!