ONA 2008: Repurposing

Here is some stream of consciousness from the ONA 2008:
Former BBA reporter-turned-academic Alfred Hermida lamented a stat that came out of the Online News Association 2008: all tv and print newsrooms are repurposing content from their traditional media for the Web. He asks if it is "time to end repurposing?" Obviously shoveling content in reality continues, but what about its usefulness?
I am not sure that we are considering this repurposing anymore. I am sitting in the LaTimes.com session where the organization is discussing how they streamlined their newsrooms. "We are trying to culturally change how we are doing things," said one member of their "Innovation Team." "There are no Web reporters. There are no print reporters. There are only reporters."
But there are different audience considerations here with different information channels, right? For example, at this Chicago Tribune multimedia editor I was talking to told me she writes four different headlines for every story: 1) for the home page; 2) for the inside page; 3) one for Google and 4) one for Digg. Can one reporter consider all these different kinds of audiences? Certainly it's not a ton more work to write different headlines for one story, but what about changing the format of your story (whatever media platform you choose)?

More notes from ONA 2008: BLOGGING

Thoughts on Blogging:

• Be specific, have a point
• Reference what others are saying about your topic (ie if you are writing about a speech, refer to what others said on their blogs or Twitter. Which means you need to know those venues and go to them.)
• Embed photos, video, LINKS
• Don't forget to have something to say.
• "A blog is a process for reporting, which might become a story."
• “A blog is not a noun. It is a verb”
• Don't just write the entry and forget about it. Go back and engage in the conversation.
  
• "It is a publishing format, not just a tool."
• KEEP IT SHORT.
  
• Linking is KEY to blogging.
• Blogging is not just about posting. It is about engaging as a writer, with audiences.
  
• And oh yeah, have a point.

Am Back! Let's just jump in with New Ad Models

I am in Washington D.C. at the 2008 Online News Association's annual conference listening to a panel on optimizing and monetizing news sites. The panelists are collectively calling for completely new ad models that are based on the audience, rather than the page views and content.

Online ad sales are way down this year so far, according to the panel manned by Joe Apprendi, the CEO of Collective Media, Ken Doctor, a News Industry Analyst of Outsell, Mark Rose, the director for Sales Strategy at the Tribune Company, and Bob Benz, a partner at Maroon Ventures:

• The entire industry in first half of 2008 is at $38 billion in rev. and that is the lowest it's been at since 1996.
• Ad reps need to cut the cord from traditional legacy ad models.
• Instead, they should be looking at INTERACTIVE ad sales and AUDIENCE-CENTRIC SALE as well as newsroom partnerships and niche content (as opposed to "commodity content," which I am guessing is basic breaking news material).
  
• Also, the newsroom should get over itself AND the Wall, and start looking at ad staff as allies rather than enemies.
  
• Finally, specialized, niche packages that so many newspapers are doing on the web these days are two-three clicks deep from home pages, and tend to be forgotten by ad reps. New ad models need to "monetize" those opportunities. Such opps can give ad revenue an "8 time lift in performance" compared to general news.
  

So have we now destroyed the Wall in order to save journalism? Seems kind of ironic.