OMG! A Newspaper for Tweens!

by Brian Reich | 4 Dec 2008, 3:59pm

I wrote a post at WeMedia about a newly launched news/newspaper site for Tweens called TweenTribune, and the potential it has to revolution the industry. I’m interested for a few reasons: First, tweens are the next generation of news consumers (and consumers period) — so if you understand how they get and share information, you’ve got a bright future ahead.  Second, I have been advocating for news and newspaper sites to go niche for a long time, and nobody has ever been willing to try it.  I get to live vicariously through this experiment.  Finally, unlike most online sites that aggregate content for a specific audience, TweenTribune’s content is pulled by hand, not by some autobot or feed engine.  The founder, Alan Jacobson, combs through hundreds of sites each day to find the stories that he believes will satisfy the interests of his tween audience and then organizes them.

The model is simple.  But that doesn’t make reaching and engaging a tween audience easy to do.  I was able to talk briefly (over email, and by phone) with Alan Jacobson about his new site, and the challenges it creates.  Here is an excerpt from our exchange:

Q: Why don’t tweens consume news through the traditional sources?

A: Because the traditional sources deliver boring news in an appealing way. Tweens would read print or any other medium if it was compelling, relevant or interesting to them. My daughters read all the time. Can you spell “Twilight?”

Q: How do you design a newspaper differently for a tween than some other audience?

A: I think the need to design differently is a myth. Good design is about usability, no decoration. That’s why TweenTribune doesn’t look like other sites for kids. Instead, it’s clean, simple and straightforward. Just the facts, ma’am.

Does Tween Tribune have to be online to reach this audience?

A: Yes and no. If a print product delivered the same content, it could work. But it would almost impossible for tweens to interact with the content at TweenTribune unless it was online. Interaction is one of the great strengths of online.

Q: How else might tweens consume news?

A: The form doesn’t matter. It’s all about the content. But tweens won’t be using laptops for long. Soon, they’ll want all their information needs met by their smartphones. And this will require new ways to convey information for much smaller screens.

I am not a tween, but I am now subscribed to the TweenTribune daily newsletter, so I can see how it goes.  I’ll keep you posted.

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I want XM and Sirius to merge

by Brian Reich | 20 Jan 2007, 2:00am

I really want  XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite  Radio to merge.  

Why?   I want to  hear  Dave Niehaus, the best color man in baseball, call  Mariners games for me every night.   I want live happily in Boston and know how  my Seahawks and Sonics are playing without stalking the crawl  on the bottom of ESPN2 each night.   I want to follow NASCAR without having to sit in front of my television for six hours on a Sunday.    Its not just about sports though, I  want to  hear what Oprah and her friends have to say about  eating healthy and decorating my house.   I want to get public radio coverage from around the country without having to sit by my computer and stream it.   I could go on.

All that is available to me, of course, but only  if  I subscribe to both XM and Sirius.   I have come close to choosing before.   I  received Sirius as a Christmas  present two years ago and never activated it - mostly because because the football season was already winding down and I didn’t want to wait until next season to start getting full value out of my subscription.   I have gotten all the way to the checkout screen on the XM Satellite Radio  website three times in the last few months, in anticipation of another exciting baseball season, only to bail out  in hopes that the rumors of a merger will soon come true.  

If  XM and Sirius merged, I could buy one good piece of hardware and one subscription and get everything I wanted.   I would pay good money for it.     I would enjoy it thoroughly.   I don’t think I would be alone.

Simply put, I don’t think my desire to hear a variety of different types of programming from one source  is unreasonable.   And I think it is well past time when the two satellite radio giants, and the government, got in line with my thinking.

Joe Nocera writes in the New York Times today (Times Select subscription required) about the possible merger between XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio.   While most of his column is about the regulatory aspects of the proposed deal and whether the FCC would support the  creation of a single satellite radio giant, he does get to the heart of the matter - and seems to be in agreement with me.

[The two companies]  also compete, of course, for content. Most famously, Sirius has Howard Stern, who signed a $500 million five-year deal with the company and moved his shtick to satellite radio at the beginning of last year. (Last week, the company announced that Mr. Stern had earned an $82 million bonus, claiming that he brought in far more revenue than he cost the company.) XM has an Oprah Winfrey station. Sirius has professional football and has pried Nascar away from XM. XM has Major League Baseball — and took the National Hockey League away from Sirius. Both have loads of news and talk and music channels, but XM’s channels tend to be more eclectic than Sirius’s.

On the face of it, this all sounds terrific for consumers. “Choice is always a good thing,” said Ryan Saghir, who blogs about satellite radio at Orbitcast.com — and opposes the idea of a merger. But it is not quite as terrific as it sounds. For one thing, what if you are a fan of both baseball and football? What kind of choice is it to have to decide between them? Or what if you like both Howard Stern and Oprah? (Well, O.K., that’s not a good example.) It is hard to think of another technology that forces subscribers to make that kind of choice.

Joe Nocera wants to listen to baseball and football on the same device, and the same subscription, as well.   His column sounds like a desperate plea from a  radio junkie like me  to make it happen.   Hey, Sirius and XM… hey, FCC… if you won’t listen to me, will you listen to Joe Nocera?

I can understand why the FCC might be nervous about giving the green light for a merger of this size.   But with appropriate monitoring and regulation - to ensure that a merger betwen XM and Sirius wouldn’t drive prices for consumers out of proporition with the market (something Nocera seems to argue isn’t likely because of the continued  influence of free radio) - the potential benefits to consumers far outweighs the risks.    And I can understand why XM and Sirius are both believers in their product so much that they would rather compete to the death than cede control of their operation to their arch rival.   But really, would you all think about the consumer for a moment?

Rather than  forcing customers to choose betwen services (a fact that I believe  is actually driving down interest in satellite radio, and probably radio in general), the FCC could bless the creation of something  that would provide a far better radio product than what is available today.   XM and Sirius could create the ultimate radio programming center, pitting their efforts against folks like Clear Channel who have sucked all the feeling out of radio in their quest to dominate the airwaves everywhere.   The merger would force  traditional radio stations to  compete  with better programming and an alternative business model (advertising instead of subscription — a mix  which  I think is totally possible if you do it right).   And, best of all,  I wouldn’t have to live without access to the programming I want because I find it unreasonable to have to buy/subscribe to two services instead of one.

Please FCC?   Please XM and Sirius?   Do it for Joe Nocera!   Do it for me!

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SRI In the Rockies: The Big Picture

by Brian Reich | 30 Oct 2006, 2:00am

I spent the weekend in Colorado Springs, CO attending SRI in the Rockies, the annual gathering of the socially responsible investment industry in the United States.   I was there to  participate in a panel about online marketing and host a  topic table at lunch on the same topic.   I also had an opportunity to attend some of the speeches and sessions — and learned some new things about climate change its impact on disease, micro-finance and, perhaps most interestingly, the future of the internet.

Bob Veres, an author, speaker, and one of the most influential people in the financial services industry (socially responsible or otherwise) gave a talk entitled ”The Next Society.’   The focus of his talk was how the world of sustainable investments has changed, and continues to evolve, and how the world is now following the lead of SRI - for the better.   He noted that a decade ago, social screens were seen as a depressant on fund performance while today, social screens are the very best way to evaluate corporate character and avoid surprises in your portfolio.  

Then he launched into a commentary on the changing nature of communications and how it relates to the tough work of changing the world.   Here are my (rough) notes:

- The media industry is in crisis.   Stories are covered and then disappear.   Stories are covered by people who don’t know much about the subject and who have a very short attention span.   The future of news will be an environment where you can access a lot more information, a lot better information, from people who know a lot more than reporters.   And it will make everything more focused, more meaningful, and more actionable.

- The web has created a hostile world for advertising.   As we move towards the web as a content delivery vehicle, corporate america will not be able to artificially create demand for their products and services.   It is harder and harder for advertisers to gain interest and traction.   That is why TV advertising is suffering and that is why the future of communications will be information/content-centric, and not marketer driven.

- We are experiencing the death of the consumer economic system.   Why?   It doesn’t relate to the issues that people actually care about most.   That has also given rise to the concept of “Life Planning.”   People are finding they don’t want more stuff.   They want more fulfillment from their lives.   How do they know?  

Ask yourself, if you had one day left to live, what would be your biggest regret?   Write down 30 goals you want to achieve this year (the first ten will be easy, the second ten more difficult, the third ten will make you did deep).   If you had all the money in the world, what would you want to do?      

- How can we change the world?   He offered two directives:

1) Operate in your zone of personal genius.   Imagine a circle, with a circle inside that, and a circle in side that.   At the center of that innermost circle is a   blue dot  that represents your greatest energy, focus, and passion.   That is where we must all operate - get rid of the distractions and just work within our blue dot.

2) Hire a coach to help you get there.   They will help you put aside all of the work you do for others and help you focus on just what you need.   The coach will nag you because they will present your own goals back to you in such a compelling way that you will do for them what you can’t seem to find a way to do for yourself.

- The way we work is changing.   You are going to see most of the world’s work being done by ad hoc teams who are experts in their field and who are operating within their blue dot.   You will see corporations (who right now have office buildings filled with generalists and inefficient information flow based in hierarchy not expertise) “melt like sugar cubes in the rain.” The people who own the assets will control them - you won’t need marketers, etc.

- The internet will become the superconductor of human and financial capital.
The speech made  me think.   Not sure quite yet what it all means, but rarely does a conference speech make me think like this one did, so that must mean something.

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Shut Up & Run the Ads

by Brian Reich | 28 Oct 2006, 2:00am

I wrote a post yesterday discussing the marketing efforts behind Shut Up & Sing,  the new documentary about the Dixie Chicks and their criticism of President Bush.   You didn’t see it?   Nobody did.   My  computer froze up and I lost the text before I was able to put it up online.   Too bad — when I wrote it yesterday morning, this was a small story and my analysis looked really solid.   Now its a big story and I am late to the conversation.   Alas.

So what are people talking about?

The documentary tracks the fallout that resulted after lead singer, Natalie Maines, said she was “ashamed” that President Bush was from Texas, the Chicks’ home state.   The comment  prompted a boycott of the Chicks’ music by conservatives and opened up a discussion about freedom of speech among scholars and those in the music industry.   Time passed, things died down.   But now, the documentary has brought the controversy back to the fore — and with a new twist.

A handful of media venues have refused to run advertising promoting the movie.   The LA Times covered it yesterday.   There was a story on NPR’s Weekend Edition this morning.   And the Washington Post summed it up this way:

It all started earlier this week when Weinstein submitted ads for its new Barbara Kopple documentary “Shut Up & Sing” to the broadcast networks for review by their standards and practices departments.

NBC said it “cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush.”

CW said it “does not have appropriate programming in which to schedule this spot.”

Weinstein said: “Eureka!”

And on Thursday evening, it sent out a news release headlined:

“In an Ironic Twist of Events, NBC and the CW Television Networks Refuse to Air Ads for Documentary Focusing on Freedom of Speech.”

“It’s a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America,” bemoaned Weinstein Co. co-chairman Harvey Weinstein.

“The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is sad and profoundly un-American,” he added.

As I see it, this hubub was not only anticipated by Harvey Weinstein and his team,  it was a key part of their promotional strategy.   How else would you get coverage for a small-budget documentary film in today’s big-budget Hollywood movie promotion craziness?    We have a very  tense election cycle coming to an end just two weeks from now, and a national media that is feasting on  any criticism of the war, or the President, they can find.    All you had to do was light the fire.  

Of course, now the networks are in a no-win situation now — if they don’t run the ads, the press continues to cover the story (helping the movie gain traction, and the stations look selectively moral), and if they do run the ads, they look like they caved.   I think they should run the ads - networks would benefit greatly by becoming a part of the political dialogue and  letting the population decide on its own.   Be fair, show ads promoting and criticizing the movie if that opportunity exists, but don’t limit one perspective from being heard because you are afraid of your audience.

Give credit to Weinstein and Co. for recognizing the opportunity to use the news cycle to promote their movie.   It is not a new strategy — MoveOn got into a similar fight with CBS around the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, and I have had clients whose online ads that venues have refused to run because of an arbitrary content standard.   In both cases  press coverage resulted and the message ultimately got to the target audience.  I don’t think it will work  for any movie or event, but its a strategy that more organizations should understand and pursue.

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Summertime

by Brian Reich | 30 Jun 2006, 2:00am

Will Smith once opined “summer, summer, summertime…
time to sit back and unwind.”   But an article in Media Daily News today suggests that “a large majority of Americans stay wired during their vacations,” making unwinding a bit of a challenge.

In a survey of adults over 18, with at least one child under the age of 18, and all of whom planned to take a family vacation this summer… “…85 percent are  bringing cell phones, 75 percent bringing digital cameras, 35 percent bringing portable CD players, and 33 percent bringing portable gaming devices along for the ride. Meanwhile, 87 percent said they plan to check personal e-mail, and 36 percent will keep up on work-related e-mail.”

From a marketing standpoint, this is good news.   Usually the summer is a dead period — its a challenge to reach people using the online advertising, blogging, and other techniques we traditionally employ.   But with word that people are staying connected, particularly because of their cell phone, the opportunities abound.

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Why Newspapers Still Win (sometimes)

by Brian Reich | 16 May 2006, 2:00am

Mark Cuban and I are on the same page when it comes to the value of newspapers.   Print newspapers continue to offer more substance than their online news counterparts.   This is what Cuban wrote on Blog Maverick  over the weekend:  

So if the choice came down to newspapers at the breakfast table, or regurgitation online. Newspapers at breakfast win.

Whats the moral of the story ? Depth and differentiation beat speed and regurgitation.   I read the NY Times business section with a grain of salt, knowing it can be less than factual, but I read it every day. I   know that they differentiate themselves by finding topics of interest to me that I cant find anywhere else. If they find something I care about, the net, among other tools, allows me to find out more. The NY Times business section gets my business because their stories are different from the stories I read anywhere else.

During the playoffs, I make sure to read the local newspapers because they have made the decision to differentiate their coverage to include depth and in some cases differentiated information, far beyond what is available online. If they invested the same effort during the season, I would be sure to read it every day. Im sure fans of other sports and topics would feel the same way.

I love the speed and access to news online as much as anyone, but I read because I want to learn something.   Until the online news business model  prioritizes content over aggregation, there will always be room for thoughtful reporting, analysis and commentary.   Since  print journalists seem more committed to producing that kind of content, there will always be room for print newspapers as well.

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Newspaper Circulation Down

by Brian Reich | 9 May 2006, 2:00am

No surprise that print newspaper circulation continued to decline, according to data released on Monday.   In fact:

Of the 25 biggest papers in the country, 20 reported drops in circulation. Of the five that did not drop, the gains were all less than 1 percent. Those were USA Today (2,272,815), The New York Times (1,142,464), the Chicago Tribune (579,079), The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., (398,329) and the Detroit Free Press (345,861).

I start each morning reading newspapers — the Washington Post, Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Boston Globe and Boston Herald, the LA Times, and the  Chicago Tribune — but I read all of them  online.    I do read the New York Times and Wall Street Journal in print,  but only  because I like having something to read while waiting for the bus.   On days when  I drive into the office, I read those papers online.   Its just a personal choice to have something in my hands for the commute, not a deliberate choice to support print.  

Newspaper publishers spin the drop  saying it is part of a strategy to push more information online where advertisers find greater value.   If that is true, then the strategy is working becuase “newspaper-run Web sites had an 8 percent increase in viewers in the first quarter,” according to an article in the Tribune. “The data …found that newspaper Web sites averaged 56 million users in the period, or 37 percent of all online users in the period.”

Here is more coverage from the Boston Globe, Seattle PI, and LA Times.

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Who’s Reading the Newspaper?

by Brian Reich | 18 Apr 2006, 2:00am

The Center for Media Research reports new data about the readership of newspapers and online news  (taken from a study released by the Newspaper Association of America).   The topilines:

  • 116 million adults are reading the newspaper over the course of a week and 55 million Internet users visit a newspaper Web site over the course of a month.
  • Unique visitors to newspaper Web sites jumped 21 percent in 2005 and page views increased by 43 percent over that same period.  
  • Newspaper web sites attracted 14 percent more 25- to 34-year-olds and 9 percent more 18- to 24-year-olds.
  • 78 percent of the 149 million adults who live in the top 50 markets read a newspaper over the course of five weekdays and one Sunday.  
  • 69 percent of 18- to 24-year olds in the these markets are reading a newspaper during the course of a week.
  • 65.7 percent of consumers with household incomes of $150,000 or more read the newspaper on an average weekday, and more than 71.7 percent on an average Sunday.

And in the least surprising, yet likely to attract the most attention TAGS:

  • Newspapers own 11 of the top 25 national news and information Web sites, and locally, newspapers provide the dominant information site in most of the top 75 markets.

The newspaper industry still has a lot of work to do before it completely transforms itself from a print-only news medium to the propriters of highly interactive information centers.   I’m still not entirely sure they will succeed in their transformation  – it is  entirely possible that when we look at similar data in five or ten years that the newspaper industry will barely be represented in these studies and that the new information providers will be individual citizens, full-time information aggregators, or some new category we haven’t thought of yet.   I hope newspaper companies do find success online because the history and knowledge of how good journalism must be conducted is wrapped up in them and it would be a loss for us all if that wasn’t carried over to new and developing mediums.

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