media

Why external links are the only realistic answer

August 23, 2008 By Dan Thornton

There’s been some discussion on the practice of linking internally within a site, kicked off by this piece by Tim O’Reilly, and spreading to places like JP Rangaswami’s Confused of Calcutta. JP references the Cluetrain, and the idea that links subvert hierarchies, and break the broadcast model and walled garden approach.

Which is entirely true.

But I think there’s more we need to understand before we can cure the problem of non-linking or just internal linking, and I think some of it is down to ideas which are rooted deeper than even traditional publishing.

I think some of it is down to ambition and desire. There’s an interesting passage in the Michael Moore book, Stupid White Men, where Moore explains the lack of taxation and control of the rich in the U.S. as a product of ‘The American Dream’. The majority of people don’t want to heavily tax and control the top 5%, because the American Dream tells everyone that they can make it, with just the right amount of hard work and luck. And who wants to restrict their dream life before they’ve even got there.

Of course, it’s incredibly hard to accumulate that kind of wealth – Moore points to Europe as having a more realistic approach where people generally want to achieve a comfortable life, rather than one of incredible wealth. And while that may be a huge generalisation, the fact there’s a Swedish word, ‘lagom‘, which is used to sum up the culture and approach as being ‘just enough’ suggests there’s some basis in fact.

And the same division applies to websites.

If you believe you can cover everything on a topic, or that’s your ambition, then you’ll think internal linking is enough. Wikipedia limits or deletes external links (particularly to commercial organisations) – yet I know for a fact that thousands of people happily follow those links for more information every single day.

And unless you’re one of the big 1% of websites that can match Wikipedia, or the BBC, or even established names in relative niches like Techcrunch and Robert Scoble, you need to re-assess where your aims are taking you. It’s not impossible to become one of the top five tech bloggers in the world, but it’s highly, highly unlikely.

The best thing to do is to be realistic and accept that unless you’ve got a lot of backing, a lot of time, or are incredibly lucky, then you’re not going to become an overnight millionaire – and whatever success you have will take a lot of work. That means you won’t be able to quit your day job, or spend all your time organising a crowd-sourced army of contributors. So you have to be realistic about it, go with the strengths you offer in particular, and link to the rest.

Hence why I’d recommend some highly qualified people to talk about link journalism, like Scott Karp or Jay Rosen. And there’s the more grass roots approach of Pat Thornton (no relation). And there’s more on how journalism and publishing can save itself by linking and changing it’s aims from Howard Owens.

These ideas apply whether you’re an individual blogging alone, or a Mega News Corp, or anywhere in between.

There’s a great Stowe Boyd quote:

‘“I am made greater by the sum of my connections, so are my connections.”

So make yourself great by making relevant connections. Google will reward you for it, your readers will see you as a filter for all relevant knowledge rather than an annoyance when they have to search for the context of what you’re written, and the world will be a far better place.

Interesting questions for marketing

August 11, 2008 By Dan Thornton

My Bauer Media colleague Dave Cushman has raised some interesting questions in an excellent blog post: 17 lessons for the new marketing.

Hopefully he’ll forgive me for pointing out that as an ex sub-editor and production editor, blogging has had an effect on his spelling! Unless assetts is a clever pun!

He raises important questions about the purpose and value of content in the modern world. One which is navigated via Google, RSS, social networks, and chat. One in which it’s possible to find almost any information/content for free if you have the time. And Bill Drummond’s 17 project is definitely a good trigger for thinking about new ways to consider content.

I do disagree that having an almost infinite amount of music means it loses value – in terms of interest, and whether participating always gives rise to a richer experience than being part of an audience – even of one. As a musician, I’ve had some appalling times trying to play with groups of people – and I’ve had some superb times listening to recordings alone or with friends. And sites like Last.fm allow me to listen to far more music than I’d have encountered via broadcast media.

And in the modern world, long dead musicians are being remixed, reproduced, and mashed into new symphonies by people who weren’t even alive for the original recordings. It’s not about retreading the path of the minstrel back to the dark ages by dismissing recordings, but embracing the new ways of continues creation for a piece of content by new artists and new technologies.

Perhaps this is one of the most important lessons – and one which necessitates the move from broadcast. That of constant change. What may work for me at one moment can change within seconds, and the only person who will know that change has happened will be me. And that constant change is only made possible by broadcast technology (ever wondered by uploads are so much slower than downloads?) being re-purposed by the end user in the same way as radio gave rise to pirate stations, and video and digital TV gave rise to lo-fi film-making.

What we’re both striving for is a new outlook and way of doing things to ensure future relevance and success. David sums it up with his opening question for editorial/media types:

What do you do if you don’t have any content?

And points out how that leads to the likes of Google, Youtube, Wikipedia and Twitter. Interestingly only one of them is an undisputed financial success, but in terms of content, they have an almost infinite amount and yet create nothing except the context in which to access it all.

When asked about resourcing levels, I once heard someone say ‘Content will take care of itself’. I don’t believe that’s true. What I believe is that ‘Content will be created by itself – and it’s our opportunity to take care of it’. And that means the creation experience, the publishing experience, the marketing experience and the live experience. All things that traditional media companies have experience of doing, and could now begin to perform as a service, rather than an end in itself. After all, as David would say, we’re in an era of unfinished symphonies.

(And I’ve since learned that it applies to Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy:

“The percussion loop is the “belly break” sampled from a Bob James‘ cover of Paul Simon‘s “Take Me To The Mardi Gras” which was also used by Run DMC on ‘Peter Piper’. The voice at the beginning of the song is a sample of John McLaughlin“. – from Wikipedia.

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!

Measuring marriage – and social media

May 19, 2008 By Dan Thornton

I’ve been involved in a lot of discussion about measuring social media and social networks, particularly around readership, influence, and social media and community marketing. And I quite often hear the quote that such measurement is like ‘figuring out if you have a good marriage’, which comes from Ian Schafer of Deep Focus. The Adweek article in which is appears goes on to say: “Quantitative measurements will only get you so far. “You can’t assign a number to that,” he said.”

I’m no analytics or statistics expert, but when I thought about, it occurred to me that there’s actually quite a lot of quantitative measurement of marriages that does go on. And judging whether you’re in a good marriage certainly requires benchmarking in some quantitative or qualitative way. Just the same as social media measurement can go pretty far in indicating whether your audience sees you as their one true love:

Anniversaries: Wedding anniversaries have rules (Paper for the 1st year? Gold for 50) to indicate the length of time to all interested parties – because a general trend would be that longevity equals a good marriage. By the same token, longterm, loyal, returning readers indicate you’re doing something right!

Divorce rates: By the same token, you can watch trends on divorces to see if a group is happy in marriage. And you can watch single visit users, and definitely unsubscribers and users deleting their accounts to gauge the same thing for your site. And unlike general figures for splitting up, you’re able to easily isolate individuals to explore the reasons in more detail.

Holidays and presents: Whether it’s a dowry, or the amount your partner spent on the wedding/honeymoon/Valentine’s Day/Birthday presents etc, at some point even the most romantic soul has probably looked at how much is being spent as a guide to how much their partner cares. That’s why engagement rings are supposed to cost 3 month’s wages, for example. And a key metric in the website/user relationship is definitely click-throughs and sales conversions.

Romantic dinners: One of the big tips about marriages is to make time to go out and spend quality time romancing each other. You could see that couples in a good marriage enjoy this time, chat all night, gaze longingly at each other across the table, etc. By the same token, you can monitor the bounce rate and time on site of your visitors to see if they’re visiting several pages and enjoying your company – or splitting at the earliest opportunity.

Doing the housework: Does your partner invest time and effort in doing their share around the house? Do they help to make it a home? And do your users invest time and effort in submitting User Generated Content? Do they customise their profiles? Do they comment on stories and forums?

Are they faithful?: In the modern digital world, it’s highly unlikely a visitor will use just one site in any area of interest. But rather than sulking about their polygamous ways, it’s about following them and looking at who their affair is with. Figure out what is so attractive about the other websites they visit, and look at whether you can beat it, or use it in some way. Rather than seeing them continue to stray, inject some romance by dressing up your website in the RSS feeds of the other destinations, for example.

Talking about your partner: One of the big qualitative and quantitative benchmarks is seeing how often your friends talk about their partners, and whether it’s normally in a good or bad way. That can be with friends over a coffee or a beer – or in a survey by a magazine. Whatever the source, it’s what prompts you to go home and ask why your partner doesn’t treat you as well, or tell them how badly someone else is doing. And it’s the big one for social media measurement, because it’s all about the referrals and the recommendations. Recommendations and links are the equivalent of public displays of affection.

Now, if you combine all that information about two individuals in a relationship, you start seeing that actually, there’s quite a lot of ways you could build up a reasonable idea of whether a relationship is being enjoyed by the people within it, and then be able to compare it to other marriages. It’s not 100% accurate, and maybe they’re staying together for the children, but metrics never cover ever 100%

And by the same token, there’s a huge wealth of information already available on social media marketing, especially if you’re already tracking the normal metrics via a standard analytics package.

The trick is working out what to add to what is already available (influence of prominent couples/recommendations for example), and how to bring it all together into something that is understandable. That’s the alchemy.