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TypePad’s Journalist Bailout Blog Program – Seems funny, but also valuable

November 20, 2008 By Dan Thornton

I’m a huge WordPress fan, I’ve used Blogger a fair bit, but I’ve never got round to really trying TypePad – however I’m suddenly tempted after reading about their Journalist Bailout Program.

All you need to do to enroll is to send them your last piece for a broadcast magazine, newspaper or broadcast journalism venue, and for a limited time you’ll get:

A free Typepad Pro account. (Usually $14.95 a month)
You get enrolled in the Six Apart Media advertising program
They’ll promote your new site on Blogs.com
And more…

You could see it as sarcastic, or just an attempt to grab publicity, but I think it really is more than that. If Typepad manages to secure a few trained and talented journalists (and their updates says they’ve had a flood of submissions), then they have some new quality voices to promote their service.

Blogging as a whole will always benefit from new voices, regardless of where they come from. But some ex-journalists may add some more legitimacy in the minds of those still trying to deny it’s a mainstream media source.

The only slightly depressing thing is that evidence predicts the majority of those signing up will play for a bit, make a couple of posts, and then lose interest. But those that persevere long enough to start getting value from it will be welcome additions to the blogging world.

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.

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.

One of my favourite sources of inspiration…

July 11, 2008 By Dan Thornton

One of the things that inspires me most outside of the tech and marketing world is reading the stories of motorcycle racers. Way back in the 1950s and 1960s, they’d line up on a race grid at the start of the season knowing that some of the people alongside them would probably be dead by the end of the year, and then race at three figure speeds on cobbled streets between houses.

Compared to that, the struggle to upload a video to Facebook doesn’t seem quite so traumatic! One great example is Jim Redman: Six Times World Motorcycle Champion, which includes his return to winning at Daytona at the age of 63!

As a British motorcycling fan, it’s an unwritten rule I have to mention Barry Sheene, and this is probably the best book about him: Barry : The Story of Motorcycling Legend Barry Sheene. And I can’t ever mention motorcycling racing without the greatest of the current riders – and one of the greatest of all time, Valentino Rossi: Valentino Rossi: Motogenius. All three books are in my own collection (Disclosure – Mat Oxley and Michael Scott both wrote for MCN during my time there, but I never really spoke with them…)

If you want a flavour of roadracing, you need to see a DVD of the Isle of Man TT: Isle of Man TT 2007, and I’d recommend watching the current MotoGP championship on the BBC (Also on iPlayer). If you watch it and claim to still prefer car racing, for example, you’re obviously mad.

Here’s a trailer for the MotoGP-based film, Faster, which sums it all up quite nicely:

It’s been a long – and wet – weekend

July 7, 2008 By Dan Thornton

It’s amazing how blogging guilt can motivate a post at 10.40pm on a Monday night, but I’ve been a bit lacklustre. Mainly because I had a great weekend hanging out with my baby son, playing a little Xbox 360 (Rainbow 6: Vegas 2 is still my game of choice), and generally staying off the laptop as I’d originally planned to start rebuilding my car. But as the rains came down, the only choice was to hang out in the dry – which I duly did.

Getting back online, I was reminded how much I actually enjoyed this blog in the gap between starting to write on this new url, and finally setting up Google Analytics. Because I had no way to tell if anyone was reading – except for the occasional comment – I suddenly started relaxing and writing for myself again. No pressure to hit keywords, or make sure I updated regularly, or to increase my audience. Hopefully I can carry on in that vein, despite my foolish registrations on Technorati, Feedburner, and even the Adage Power 150, to put myself up against a large number of quality blogs.

Related to that is my reaction to the news my colleague and friend David Cushman has started regularly contributing to Stowe Boyd’s /Message. In the old days, I’d have probably felt a bit jealous if someone got picked up by a bigger print publication. But now it’s a lot easier to be magnanimous – mainly because any link from either of the two blogs now helps me far more than before!

In all seriousness, the nature and power of an increased network means that building, maintaining and valuing the success of friends, colleagues and peers suddenly becomes a lot more important than cutting ties to anyone who dares move on to other things. You never know what opportunities it may bring, and who may end up following a link to Dave, and then to here. And suddenly it really does become more about the people within a team working collaboratively, rather than always competing – and despite the hippy sentiment, it’s easy to find the value that can bring to any business.

*In a wave of productivity, there’s also a new update by me on my new group blog, 140char.com, dedicated to all microblogging. And don’t forget to subscribe via RSS if you don’t want to miss any posts here.