The enthusiastic future of new mediaFounder of pop culture site The Enthusiast Mel Campbell explains the difficulty of running an news site that takes time but pays no money and how unwilling readers are to pay for online media.
New media
New Kid on The Block: the enthusiasm of The Enthusiast
The story of bright indy publication The Enthusiast is sobering for those who embrace the possibilities of new media.
Kiwi pointers on how to define news media, beef up regulation
The New Zealand Law Commission recently released an issues paper that elegantly deals with the very same issues the Finkelstein inquiry is considering in Australia, including how to define “news media” in the internet age, and what a beefed up regulation system might look like.
Simons: being first, or being right?
If mainstream media outlets spend their diminishing resources in a futile battle to be first, then they will race themselves out of business to no useful end. That is not where resources should be deployed.
Simons: will Fairfax apps change the fundamental outlook?
Can the slick new Fairfax apps for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald save the newspaper journalism business model?
New media v old media: a question of moderation
The question of pre-moderation vs post-moderation of reader comments on a publisher website is a fascinating one. It’s also increasingly integral to modern news outlets, writes Jonathon Oake at blog The Spongeist.
Tanner fights the devil of fragmentation, and maybe the ghosts of the Hawke-Keating years
Lindsay Tanner’s concerns about the dumbing down of democracy reflect fundamental changes in our media driven by the internet.
Convergence and the great tradition of stifling innovation
History shows big media have successfully used regulation to stifle competition. The Convergence Review poses the same threat.
Is ‘exposure’ worth working for free?
A group of freelancers are suing Huffington Post for compensation over past work they did for free. Online publishers — including Crikey — often have writers work for free. Should writers do it?
Superinjunctions and the Streisand Effect
A superinjunction is now the ideal way to attract attention to legal cases that would otherwise be ignored.
Apple: saving old media, or just making them its bitch?
“Media is dying”, was the call. Now there’s a new one: grab an iPad and bend over for Apple. Frustration with Steve Jobs’ digital powerhouse is growing.
How the Huffington Post works (and yes, they pay staff)
Jason Linkins clears up some of the myths of Huffington Post, explaining that there are paid staff who do the majority of the work behind-the-scenes, although many of the other bloggers whose content is used aren’t earning money.
Smart summer reading: Carr’s The Shallows — a big grizzle about the net
The internet is turning us into “pancake people” — flat and wide, with no depth to our thought, according to Nick Carr. But is that shallow thinking? asks Ben Gook.
New New Matilda attempts old old media strategy
If online commentary website New Matilda doesn’t raise more than $60,000 in the last week of its last-ditch subscriberthon, its virtual doors will be shut permanently.
New Matilda: $80,000 in two weeks?
Online commentary and opinion website New Matilda has only two weeks left of its fund-raising drive, otherwise it’s the end for the publication. Perhaps if some more $20,000 donations appear, it’ll stay open…
How to succeed in new media
Gawker founder Nick Denton is currently in the process of redesigning his websites, ditching the traditional basic blog structure in favour of formats more conducive to images and video. Tim Dunlop presents his mini masterclass in new media tools and tips.
Mark Scott: Journalism’s Golden Era
Lots of journos like to harp on about the old days of journalism, when deadlines were few and money was plentiful. But, says ABC managing director Mark Scott, journalism today is a more democratic, in-depth and thrilling affair than the days of yore.
Psst, Google TV: TV is about making money
Did Google really believe that the US TV networks would allow them to re-distribute their content through the Google TV service? Pretty naive of them if that is the case, says Dan Barrett.
New New Matilda has lift-off
It’s the re-launch of online commentary website New Matilda! Back up and publishing every day until Christmas, to see if the publication can prove financially viable. It’s going for a community radio station subscriber model, rather than paywalls.
Online news: the Year of the Dwarf Penis
Internet journalism isn’t just sex, gore and photoshopped galleries of celebrities as fruit. Think of the Iran protests and the WikiLeaks Collateral Murder video, says Crikey editor Sophie Black, in a defence of online news.
Crimes in 140 characters or less
To prove that policing isn’t just about car chases and gang fights, the Greater Manchester Police Station tweeted every single incident that got called in. It’s a fascinating look at the busy-but-banal look at policing.
HuffPo makes moolah
It might not pay any of its contributors — well a few journalists, but not its opinion articles — but popular news website Huffington Post is now making a profit. It’s traffic is up 80% this year.
The new New Matilda
Online commentary website New Matilda is reopening its virtual doors once more, after a well-publicised closure in June. It’ll return as a paid subscriber site, and expects to be back to full publishing capacity in 2011.
The differences between public servants and journalists
The controversy over the outing of the blogger Grog’s Gamut has now passed out of the hands of newspapers and the blogosphere and on to the desk of senior public servants, who have some interesting questions to wrestle with, writes Margaret Simons.
The journo who wrote a 1000 word story on Twitter
When Ford was forced to pay US$131 million damages after an Explorer rolled and killed a young man, no news services picked up the story. So writer Adam Penenberg took to Twitter.
