Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media

(Bill Nguyen - founder of Lala.)

Reports that Apple has purchased streaming music startup Lala is bad news for companies in the crowded streaming music sector.

Apple does not have a streaming music service and has been struggling to defend its lead in online downloads. By acquiring Lala, Apple is signaling that it intends to be a major player in the fast growing streaming music sector.

It also shows that Apple is betting on a unique approach towards streaming music services and one that better fits into its current iTunes business model.

Lala offers customers a lifetime license to stream songs from its extensive music library for 10 cents per song. This is a complimentary model to Apple's iTunes store that offers downloads of songs for 99 cents each.

Apple moves against Microsoft and Spotify

The Lala deal is Apple's first major foray into music since iTunes music store was established in April 2003. And it shows that it won't give up a leading position in the music industry to numerous competitors, such as Microsoft with its Zune music subscription plan, and Spotify, the formidable European music streaming company, which is preparing to enter the US market.

Spotify has become very popular in Europe with a monthly subscription plan and an advertising supported free-option.

Ad supported music trouble

In the US there are numerous startups offering advertising supported music streaming services. Advertising supported music streaming, however, faces challenges as license fees rise.

With a paid-model such as that offered by Lala, Apple will be able to offer better licensing deals to the hard hit music industry than revenues from competitors with advertising supported music streaming services.

This will be a key differentiator in the forthcoming battles over subscribers to music streaming services. While free services may initially win listeners, it is not a viable long term model.

Lala's user interface is already very similar to iTunes, which will make it easy for Apple to win new customers. And the 10 cent lifetime streaming license will appeal to people that like to own music, as iTunes customers like to own music downloads.

Unlike music subscription plans where access to music stops when payment stops, Lala users retain full access. Why waste $15 per month on a subscription plan when for the same money you can have lifetime access to 150 songs a month, and build a growing library of music?

Again, Apple has a key differentiator that competitors lack.

Acceptance...

The Lala acquisition is an indication that large numbers of Internet users have grown comfortable with streaming music as a viable way of listening to music. The educational effort that Lala and other startups have done, now enables Apple to use its clout and take advantage of its long partnership with the music industry.

- - -
Please see my interview with Bill Nguyen, founder of Lala Oct, 2008:

LaLa Launches Next Generation Music Web Service

Also from Dec 2006:

Lala music swap site expands into streaming live performances

Congratulations to Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker Media based n New York city, for record breaking traffic to his network of media sites.

The former Financial Times reporter has 9 media sites, such as the gadget oriented gizmodo, media focused gawker, and science fiction site io9.

Mr Denton has often said that these are not "blogs" but in a memo obtained by Poynter.org, he writes:

Just a shade off 400m pageviews in November. Damn. Close. To put that in perspective, Los Angeles Times is somewhere between 100m and 200m. New York Times is about 1bn. In web traffic, we're somewhere in between. Not bad for a bunch of scrappy bloggers!

What's not clear is if advertisers value the traffic to Gawker sites the same as those to the newspapers. Even so, with traffic in between the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, the Gawker Media collection is doing very well and with much lower operating costs than at the two newspapers.

Gawker's writers are rewarded based on pageviews, a model that other online news sites have also adopted. But it looks like the metric is shifting towards increasing the number of unique visitors.

In the same memo, Mr Denton writes:

...we do need to recognize that not all pageviews are created equal. A slideshow view is not worth as much as a click from Twitter or Facebook or Digg which brings a new reader to us. Expect more emphasis in 2010 on clicks through from external sites -- and the "uniques" which measure of the number of people that we reach. We can't just satisfy our existing regulars; we have to recruit new ones.

Here is a list of Gawker sites and their latest traffic numbers: Gawker Media Network

John Byrne, the former editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek, has launched his own company C-Change Media. He writes that this is a good time to launch a new media company because there are significant advantages.

Most of traditional media remains in a complete meltdown, dragged down by high costs, old ways of thinking, and legacy work processes.

He says there is no future in these media business models:

1) Print advertising will never come back. There are just too many options for advertisers today and too much pressure on rates. Sadly, success in print will be measured in single-digit declines, forever.

2) Online advertising will never offset those declines nor save print. There's far too much competition online and far too much available inventory; and

3) Users will not pay for content, unless they're convinced it has immediate and tangible value.

Yet he points to the success of: "Huffington Post, Politico, Drudge, GigaOm, TechCrunch, and other media enterprises on the web have shown us a path forward."

The last time I looked those media companies rely heavily on advertising.

Mr Byrne does not say how his new company will make money:

It will be a network of niche products for the business audience with an emphasis on mobile applications.

Focusing on a business audience is smart because they already pay for information. But how will C-Change create a competitive advantage over Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and other business oriented media publishers? They have considerable resources and access to timely information. He will need a real-time capability. [Please see: Groovy: Real-Time Data Could Aid Media Companies - SVW]

C-Change can move more quickly than larger publishers and it could potentially attract enough users that it might one day be a good acquisition candidate.

But matching a top BusinessWeek editor's salary (est. over $500K) with the revenues from online content will be challenging. Not to mention salaries for his team of editors and technologists.

I wish Mr Byrne well but even new media is suffering along with the old. Most new media sites have to branch out into conferences to pay the bills, plus research reports. It's not easy to make a decent living --- even if you aren't old media and loaded with legacy costs and legacy thinking.

Many of the latest new media companies are taking a low-end approach to content creation, such as Demand Media which tries to commission articles related to popular search terms and pays rock-bottom rates because that's the value in media content these days. In an advertising pageview world a pageview is a pageview whether it is quality media or low-end machine generated media.

Business media markets are far more lucrative than for general media but even there we will see companies competing heavily and undercutting each other. Because they can.

C-Change's operating costs will certainly be lower than for incumbent competitors but there is still one very large cost: marketing.

Getting attention is harder today than ever before and the noise level is going to increase exponentially because everyone has access to the same publishing tools.

As Mr Byrne says:

"We're going to see a media boom in the next three years, the launch of tens of thousands of new media entrepreneurs on the Internet."

Launching a new media startup today is very challenging. It will be interesting to see what C-Change will come up with.

It's always good to see people trying out new media business models. Because if they are successful it means others can follow and that means quality journalism is preserved -- we all win.

- - -

Please see:

Ex-BizWeek Editor John Byrne's New Company Has a Name, but No Product

John Byrne to Navigate the Stormy Media Seas - Jason Fell - Blogs emedia and Technology @ FolioMag.com

John Byrne Focused on Content, Curation and Community - Advertising and Marketing Blog - AdPulp.com

AOL has an uncanny knack for making all wrong decisions at critical times.

There was a time when America Online, as it was known back in the early 1990s could have become the Internet if it had opened up its platform. It was the largest online network and had incredible momentum under the leadership of Steve Case.

Later, in 2006 when AOL opened up its platform, at a time when creating a safe walled-garden for its users would have been a great service, a great time to build a social network.

And let's not mention the acquisition of Time-Warner. That was a huge disaster and its announcement in 2000 signaled the end of the dotcom boom and the start of the dotbomb.

Now AOL has a new content strategy. Emily Steel at the Wall Street Journal reports:

Instead of waiting to sell ads until an article or Web video is produced, AOL--which has scores of niche sites, such as beauty and fashion site Stylelist, in addition to its AOL brand--says it plans to offer marketers the chance to work with its editorial team to create custom content.

AOL says that its ad model will allow advertisers to be affiliated with the content but not control what is written or created.

This isn't going to work. There is no way advertisers will want to pay for being "affiliated" with content if it is critical or is negative in sentiment, and over which they have no control.

If it works at all, it will result in bland, beige content that will not get a second click from readers once they get a first look.

And this is CEO Tim Armstrong's best plan to revamp the company as a content powerhouse?

Why doesn't he just republish press releases and advertorials? There's tons of those and they are free.

A low-end content strategy

The Wall Street Journal says that sources report that Mr Armstrong owns a 20% stake in Demand Media and Associated Content. These companies are trying to produce niche media on a mass scale by paying attention to what people are search for and what advertisers on Google Adsense will pay for.

He is attempting to bring a similar system to AOL. It will pay freelancers to produce specific articles based on how much advertising it can sell next to the content.

Mr Armstrong joined AOL in March 2009. He was previously head of Google's North American and Latin American advertising group. It's not surprising that he favors an automated news gathering and production system closely coupled with advertising -- that's how Google's AdSense system works.

But Google AdSense is not that great at monetizing content. But that doesn't matter too much because it doesn't have to pay for the content it automatically matches content on third-party sites with contextual ads.

How will AOL's system improve the monetization of content? Freelancers will be expected to produce content for free and then get paid later. Will they receive more money than if they published the content themselves and used AdSense to monetize it? That's clearly the promise.

But why would advertisers pay more to advertise on the AOL platform if they can use an ad network such as AdSense and advertise next to similar content? And they wouldn't need to become involved in the creation of content, as in the AOL approach.

It doesn't make sense.

- - -
Please see:

Business Insider gets a copy of AOL email welcoming new writers:

The email, from an editor at AOL site RentedSpaces.com, encourages writers to produce 300-500 word stories fast in a style that's "colorful, concise, [and] opinionated." But he doesn't want them to go too far.
"We're not Gawker, so be friendly and authoritative."
He tells them stories don't have to be based on original reporting. He writes, "All we want to know for a pitch is: what's the story, who broke it (AP, NYT, BW, Bloomberg,etc.), and how you will advance the story if you are following someone else's reporting," reads the email.
When writers file their copy, they're expected to "Include 140 characters for a Tweet or Facebook update."
AOL wants its editors to write in a way that will help Google will find their stories -- that they're "search engine optimized." For example, the RentedSpaces editor tells his staffers to "make sure the first few words and first graf contain the critical keywords."

The Financial Times reports that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has had discussions with Microsoft about payments to be able to index its content.

The impetus for the discussions came from News Corp, owner of newspapers ranging from the Wall Street Journal of the US to The Sun of the UK, said a person familiar with the situation, who warned that talks were at an early stage.

However, the Financial Times has learnt that Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google's search engine.

This is inline with my analysis from a week ago: Murdoch Will Negotiate Payment For Access To Basket Of Content With GOOG et al

MediaWatch Analysis Part II: Google Has More To Lose Than Murdoch

The way this story has been leaked means that Rupert Murdoch is likely setting up a bidding war between Microsoft and Google. Will Google allow Microsoft to walk away with the index to News Corp. content and quite possibly the index for other large media companies?

Google will have to bid against Microsoft because it has more to lose than News Corp and other media companies have in losing Google traffic ( it's traffic that holds little value because they can't easily convert it to revenue.)

If Google is perceived to be lacking in its index then it risks losing trust among users that it is the best place to go for search. That's risking its most valuable asset -- its brand.

For News Corp. and other newspaper companies, charging for the index and also putting some content behind a paywall, could offer a way to stop the slide in their print business. Free online newspapers are competing with their own print version.

Some newspapers are experimenting with making online subscriptions more expensive than subscriptions to the newspaper.

For example, the Newport Daily News has begun charging more for the online version of its 12,000 circulation newspaper. Nieman Journalism Lab reports:

Want home delivery of the print paper? That's $145 a year. Want home delivery and online access? That's $245. And if you want just online access -- to an electronic edition that duplicates the appearance of the print product -- it's a whopping $345.

Just because news has been free for many years doesn't mean it will remain that way. The Internet used to be advertising free and people said that users would never accept online advertising.

If charging for news content doesn't work then there will be fewer news stories being produced because free news doesn't pay the bills. The only "free" news available will be that produced by organizations representing a client -- advertorials in various disguises.

Spotify is one of Europe's most successful startups. It's a streaming music service with a large number of enthusiastic customers, and a business model that is already producing revenues.

Spotify is coming to the US and it is building a war chest. Recent reports say that it is close to securing as much as $50 million in new funding, giving it a valuation of around $250 million.

On Monday, The Conversation Group set up a "Blogger Roundtable" for Microsoft's Online Services Group that invited leading bloggers to offer their advice on how to improve communications (please see end for who was there.)

It was an interesting exercise and although MSFT executives were quick to admit they had poor relations with bloggers I question how serious the software giant is in improving relations.

For a start, there was no one from Microsoft's several hundred strong global communications team present. I recently spoke at a large internal conference of its communications team and got great feedback and great questions, so I know they are many great people within Microsoft thinking a lot about blogger relations.

Also, Microsoft pays a fortune to its long time PR firm Waggener Edstrom yet there was no representation from this firm. I mentioned this to Ron Markezich, Microsoft VP and in charge of Online Services. "There was a guy from Wagg-Ed at the back of the room but he got bored and left a while ago," he said.

Seriously not serious . . .

Which makes me think that this exercise was not a serious attempt by Microsoft to figure out how it should relate to key influencers. This is a shame because Microsoft got some excellent advice from the group. But you can lead a horse to water...

How will that advice be translated into action if the people ultimately responsible for MSFT communications weren't present?

Another reason why Microsoft is not serious about soliciting advice: If it were serious it would pay for it.

Why is this incredibly rich corporation seeking free advice on how to better promote its products and services and to tell its stories to the world? It wants us to help it continue to make huge amounts of money (nearly $6bn in operating profits in its most recent quarter.) but is MSFT helping any bloggers to pay the rent? As far as I can see MSFT does not sponsor blogs. So if it doesn't support the blogosphere how come it is asking for support in return?

Learning from Intel . . .

Intel has assembled a group of influential bloggers of which I am a member, they are called the Intel Insiders. Intel, however, does support the blogosphere. [Intel is the main sponsor of Silicon Valley Watcher and asks for nothing in return except to host its Intel widget (see sidebar).]

Also, Intel rewards its Intel Insiders and that's what Microsoft needs to do. It needs to be like Intel and use its wealth to support the blogosphere through sponsorships and pay for the advice it gets. After all, if the advice is free then that's how it will value that advice.

If we are being asked to help Microsoft pay its rent then it should help us pay our rent and support my work and those of my colleagues in the new media. That's how Microsoft can continue to engage this community.

Social media insiders . . .

From my experience with the Intel Insiders and now Microsoft's attempts to corral a similar community of influencers, there is a business opportunity here to create an independent "social media insiders" group that could provide very valuable advice to many corporations on how to communicate in this new world.

- - -

People present today:

Salim Ismael

Rod Boothby

Geva Perry

Ben Metcalfe

Chirag Mehta

Tom Foremski

Steve Wylie

Deb Schultz

Chris Heuer

Brian Solis

David Libby

Ohad Eder-Pressman

Adrian Chan

Steve Gillmor

Jeff Nolan

David Spark (as moderator)

From Microsoft:

Ron Markezich, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Online

David Howell, Director, Microsoft Online Engineering

Bharat Shah, General Manager, Microsoft Online Engineering

Eron Kelly, Sr. Director, Microsoft Online

Alex Payne, Director, Office Client Product Management

Andrew Kisslo, Sr. Product Manager, Office Client

Jigsaw is taking the issue of data portability to the extreme by declaring June 4 as "Data Independence Day" and allowing people to search and download data on one million company records in its database.

Jigsaw has trodden on plenty of toes because of its open data policy regarding people's personal contact info disclosed on business cards, which is part of the open data portability debates currently fashionable among the digerati.

I like Jigsaw, and I like the founders, they are tapping into an interesting vein regarding data and the issues around private and public ownership. And they are yanking a chain...

Here's Jigsaw's cheesy vid if you are in the mood, otherwise don't. (You can thank me later.)

Here is a short video from the session "How social networking innovations change the way people consumer media?" with moderator Irina Haltsonen from Finland, Harry McCracken, PC World and Carolyn Pritchard, GigaOm.

Here is Harry McCracken talking about why he is leaving PC World to start his own venture:

Top tips for moderators...

It must be tough to moderate a panel when you are the smartest one on the podium. It's not yet happened to me but I imagine it must be agony knowing that the audience would rather listen to you.

If you ever find yourself in such a position it is your duty to your audience to do something about it. Yesterday, I saw an innovative approach to such a situation at the Innovation Journalism conference at Stanford University.

Faisal Rehman Malik, a TV anchor man from Pakistan, was the moderator for a panel on "Innovation in broadcast journalism for the 21st century." He spoke for 24 minutes out of a 30 minute slot about his new TV project and then asked his panel to ask him questions about it. Brilliantly innovative because as a moderator you can still include your panel for a few minutes while having spared your audience a tiresome 30 minutes.

And what is Mr Malik's new TV project? It's a talk show about innovation.

(BTW, he was chewing gum throughout his talk.)

Afterwards, I asked Mr Malik if guests would be allowed to talk on his talk show. He said yes, they would. I said good luck with that.

I think that in this crowded media world where it is so tough to keep up with so much information, it is good to know that you can rest easy when it comes to Mr Malik's new TV show.

Next time you find yourself at the St. Regis Islamabad, tune into the News One TV channel and search out Mr Malik's program. You might be rewarded with a great talk show - otherwise, I find that monologues work far better than melatonin for the jet weary.

- - -

Thursday afternoon at the Innovation Journalism Conference:

Are startup media companies better at covering innovation than traditional newspapers and magazines?

Moderator: Johan Anderberg - INJO Fellow '08 hosted by Fortune.

Panelists: Anders Olofsson - Head of Digital Media; Sydsvenskan, Sweden; Thomas Frostberg - Editor-In-Chief, Rapidus News Agency, Sweden; Tom Foremski - Founder, Silicon Valley Watcher; G. Pascal Zachary - Journalist / Visiting Lecturer, Department of Communication, Stanford University.

Buzzlogic is an interesting company to watch. It tracks who is influential in the mediasphere, whcih can be a movable target. What is interesting is how Buzzlogic is trying to combine that with online advertising so that advertisers can target influential sites and the audience that they influence.

As part of that strategy, Buzzlogic has announced it has acquired Activeweave, which offers the browser companion application BlogRovR. (It fetches related stories while you browse.) The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Here is more info:

How should big brands manage their online reputation? Certainly not the Wells Fargo way...

Even though Wells Fargo has a blog page "Join the conversation" it doesn't.

Last April I had a really bad experience with Wells Fargo and wrote about it. Within minutes I had people commenting on their bad experience! It was the fastest response I had ever had to a post!

I wrote about my bad experiences several times actually. I was wondering how long it would take for a Wells Fargo representative to notice and leave a comment. As I pointed out, I'll get over my rant but the search engines will continually bring up my story and you would think that Wells Fargo would want to leave it's side of the story, at least say, "Sorry about that, here's a toaster..." or something.

But nothing came from Wells Fargo.

Sure enough, every few weeks someone finds my rant and and leaves another story about Wells Fargo. You'd think after about a year, someone might notice at Wells Fargo and "Join the conversation!"

(BTW, last month I met one of the bank's directors John Chen, the CEO of Sybase and mentioned that someone at the bank should keep an eye on what is going on online.)

Here is a recent comment about Wells Fargo from NKB that I received on March 18, 2008. I've got quite a collection and I know I will get more.

I thought I would just add my 2 cents regarding the WF's outrageous policies regarding holds.
I deposited a bonus check for in excess of $5K from my employer via an ATM and received an email a day later saying that WF will hold $4900 for a week and the remainder for 2 weeks.
Facts:
1. I am WF customer of more than 30 years.
2. The deposited check is drawn on BofA.
3. The same BofA account is used to make a direct payroll deposit into my WF account twice a month.<
4. I have had balances in my checking acct in excess of $100K over the last few years.
5. I have never had a deposit not honored.
6. The BofA check will clear overnight, I am sure. So how can WF hold my money for up to 2 weeks?
7. Spoke to WF by phone, and got nothing but policy statements.
I will probably sever my long-standing relationship with WF over this outrageous behavior. Wanted to put this on the record. Thank you.

Another commenter provided an interesting web site address: Wells Fargo Injustice

This site has been established to serve as a centralized resource which will publicly document individual instances of real or perceived employment discrimination or disability discrimination at Wells Fargo or any of its subsidiaries. In addition, ethical, information security and data privacy issues at Wells Fargo will also be addressed and discussed.

The site has a blog: http://blog.wellsfargoinjustice.com/

There is a recent post from that blog about a potential security vulnerability that could expose Wells Fargo customer bank records and social security numbers.

Wells Fargo Case Study: From Crisis Meeting To Conversation

From Wells Fargo: Blogs are interactive online forums that allow us to communicate and share ideas with our readers. We're here to start a conversation with you. Wells Fargo Blogs Join The Conversation I have a conversation I'd like to...

Posted in Silicon Valley Watcher - the business of disruption on April 28, 2007 02:37 AM

Case Study: Wells Fargo's Effective Brand Management . . . Not!

My RantWatch yesterday about Wells Fargo's poor service could become an interesting case study in how large companies manage their online reputations. Or how they don't. The post was hardly complimentary. I complained about depositing a check into my threadbare...

Posted in Silicon Valley Watcher - the business of disruption on April 25, 2007 12:29 AM

RantWatch: Extremely Poor Service from Wells Fargo

I used to be impressed by Wells Fargo, professional and with great service. My local bank manager even used to call and invite me to barbecues. That was when I had money in various accounts. He never calls anymore, now...

Posted in Silicon Valley Watcher - the business of disruption on April 23, 2007 03:27 PM

Over on my column/blog at ZDNet: Tom Foremski: IMHO, I asked:

Are trolls the rednecks of the social media world?

The topic of trolls, people who take time to leave inane, usually abusive comments, that kill conversation on blogs, and forums, and other types of social media is interesting.

Although I haven't snagged any trolls yet, (I've got an upcoming post that I'm sure will reap a harvest) I did get some excellent comments:

Calling a troll a 'redneck' would be entirely too gracious

While one can make the argument that trolls and rednecks might not "know no better" when it comes to minding their manners, I have a troll who deliberately visits to make pointed comments that show he's stalking my blog and collecting data on me before launching a nasty comment-missile. Trolls are, to me, the Debbie Downers and Grim Reapers of the social media space.

Posted by: dcwriterdawn

RE: Are trolls the rednecks of the social media world?

Sometimes those at enmity with us can be spun to the good.

Our friends will often spare us, cause they love us, while our enemies are often fiendishly foot loose and fancy free, savagely unfettered from any such fine sensibilities. The same trappings of civilization that most of us deliberately cultivate. Because we know where to go for the real gold. Riches still reside in the golden rule. Corny as that may or may not sound.

Slashing, sniping and shoulding on us is their standard schlock. They're happily or not mostly unmoved by the need of normative social constraints of the civil.

I've gained a lot sometimes from harsh, hateful unrelenting, unsparing, marauding, murderous criticism. I figure that where there's smoke, there's usually a fire.

Some of these storm clouds huffing and puffing impending doom have silver linings, quite contrary to the uncouth and nefarious stuff they spew and spray.

Sometimes I find it easy to love my enemies for the kindness they certainly didn't intend to do my way.

Posted by: preachjohn

RE: Are trolls the rednecks .... Oh Yes but

I think they should be called childish rednecks.

Of all the sites I read, there seems to be an inordinate amount of trolls in Zdnet.

Critism is fine, trolling is not.

I think a lot of misinformed posters "troll" in error due to their lack of knowledge and then end up defending the themselves against the trollish anti-trolls.

But then again, some bloggers write "troll" blogs as well due to their own bias.

Posted by: rtfa

Well done ESPN! It says it won't use advertising networks: From Media Week.

"We're heading down a path where it no longer suits our business needs to work with ad networks," said Eric Johnson, executive vp, multimedia sales, ESPN Customer Marketing and Sales.

Advertising networks are used by large publishers for excess inventory and that's how they pitch themselves to the publishers.

I know for a fact that the ad networks tell advertisers: We can undercut the ad rates of the large publishers!

The ad networks are not the friends of publishers. In the past, I've seen New York Times running Google ads on its front page, and at the bottom of the ads it says "If you'd like to advertise on this site click here." Click and you go to Google. NYT has handed over its advertiser relationship to Google. Madness.

The problem is that ad sales staff at the large publishers don't know how to sell online ads. They have to sell more, for less, and that means a lot more work to make the same commission.

Solution: Hire new sales people that don't have a legacy commission infrastructure to protect.

Ad networks commoditize content. And so do news aggregators.

How long before large publishers cut off news aggregators such as Google News, etc?

Sure, distribution is nice, for now. But if you rely on traffic coming from search engines and aggregators you are getting low quality traffic. It is fly-by-night traffic. It is web surfers killing time.

The best traffic is the traffic that comes to your site directly through bookmarks or RSS. People that know where you are, they don't need to find you.

That's quality traffic and that is traffic that advertisers want. I predict that advertisers will pay a lot more for sites that get their traffic direct and not through search engines and news aggregators. It's the same as advertising on free magazines compared with subscribed magazines.

However, most news sites rely on search engine traffic for as much as 60 per cent of their traffic, often more. They invest heavily in making their content discoverable through keywords, tagging, metadata, url structure, and a dozen more parameters.

This is a big burden and it does nothing to improve the quality of content, only the quality of discoverability.

When I look at my server logs I see that about 94 per cent of my traffic comes directly to me from bookmarks and RSS. The rest from search engines.

My advice: Optimize for your readers and not for the search engines.

But if 60 per cent or more of your web site traffic comes via search and news aggregators you can't change. It's an addiction.

At some point, large publishers will severely curtail the news aggregators and search bots because:

-The quality of the traffic they send is poor, it doesn't lead to ad conversions.

-The constant barrage of spiders and robots slows down the web site and harms the user experience.

It becomes very expensive to attract search engine traffic.

For example, about one third of my server resources and my bandwidth is used by a multitude of spiders and bots hitting my site every day. Yet they bring only 6 per cent of my traffic.

That 6 per cent of traffic cost one-third of my publishing resources. It's not much money for me, but for a large publisher?

At some point, a large media company such as ESPN, will notice that its traffic is stable, that search engines and aggregators are bringing lower quality traffic, and that that traffic is not worth the large hit it takes on its servers, bandwidth, and people required to SEO its content.

This scenario won't happen soon but I guarantee it will happen, and that's when GOOG, et al will pay ESPN and other content producers to carry their content. GOOG constantly needs "new" content but it doesn't know how to create it, it just knows how to scrape it. And that's a common technology these days and it is getting to be a commodity.

Halting the commoditisation of news and journalism...

ESPN gets it and so will others. The content that media companies create is hard to do and it is expensive - it is not a commodity.

The technology of ad networks and search engines is increasingly a commodity and its value is falling at the speed of Moore's Law. Content is immune from the commoditizing power of Moore's Law.

I know where I'd rather be.

Mike Arrington, publisher of Techcrunch says that it should be possible to roll up the top tech blogs into a "big fat CNET crushing $200 million/year in revenue business."

Dan Farber, editorial chief of CNET's News.com, says bring it on:

It's pleasing to have Mike and others targeting CNET. It must mean that we are at the top of the heap. Competitve envy comes with the territory.

In his post: The blogosphere's Napoleon Mr Farber points out a simple fact that gives CNET an edge over blogs such as Techcrunch.

...importantly, our troops across CNET News, Webware, Crave and Reviews are in the field as I speak, getting after the important stories.

Blogging is not reporting...

I agree. I'm out nearly every day and often in the evenings too, getting original content, scoops, news, and analysis. Most of the content on Techcrunch, and other blog sites is commentary on the news.

Techcrunch does get some great scoops from time to time, but that's not its main business, which is profile of web 2.0 startups. And that is true for the other high traffic blog sites.

You can't crush CNET with blog posts about news stories and profiles of online service companies.

Ego aggregator...

And there is another reason a rolling up the top layer of the blogoshpere won't work: it's a personality driven business and the egos can barely fit on the Internet let alone within a single company. Would Om Malik work for Mike Arrington, or vice versa? No way. That's true for every other A-list blogger.

Roll-ups and consolidation are a natural trend within all industries. Companies acquire other companies and reap economies of scale and other competitive advantages.

You can roll up companies but you can't roll up personalities.

Already rolled...

Also, the roll up has already been done. FM Publishing did it and continues to do it. It signed up many top blog sites to its advertising network.

And Dan Farber already did it too. When he was over on the ZDNet side of CNET, he collected some of the top bloggers in the tech sector (see my blog over on ZDNet - Tom Foremski IMHO.)

Cult of personality...

My strategy with Silicon Valley Watcher is to gradually move it away from being associated with my personality and towards building a strong editorial team staffed by media professionals - reporting on the business and culture of Silicon Valley. If that sounds like a traditional media firm that's because many traditional media principles still apply.

Today the distribution channels are different and the business models for media companies are different. But there is a lot that hasn't and won't change.

What hasn't changed is the fact that teams of media professionals create great media consistently. That's a far more effective and scalable business than personality-based media (i.e blogs).

Giant blob strategy flaw...

Also, Mr Arrington's analysis of the CNET crushing capability in creating one giant blob of a blog site is seriously flawed.

The disruption to CNET and other large media companies is coming from search engine marketing, not from blogs. Quite simply, it is more effective to advertise on a search engine than on a news site.

GOOG's quarterly financial results show this very clearly. Each quarter revenue growth from its own sites outpace revenues from content-partner sites such as the New York Times.

It is search engine marketing that might eventually crush CNET. It certainly won't be a blog site, no matter how many blogger egos are crammed into it.

It always fascinates me to see how stories move through the blogosphere and into mainstream media. It is always interesting to watch what I sometimes term the "trajectory of ideas" within the mediasphere and the ripples of influence.

I like to watch these things because they sometimes reveal an underlying nature within society. One of my observations is noticing that the timing of the publication of a news story can make a big difference in the attention it gets. And the reason can seem counter-intuitive.

For example, I published an analysis of my scoop on exploratory talks of a possible merger with Oracle, about 5.30pm on a Saturday evening.

Clearly, it's not the best time to get out in front of a large audience. Yet there were enough readers and bloggers out there to quickly bring attention to the story. Within a couple of hours 15 sites linked to the post. By Sunday morning it was approaching 40 sites, which included links from key sites such as Techcrunch, Mashable, Techmeme and also my ZDNet colleague Dennis Howlett.

The distribution of the snews tory continued to spread throughout Sunday on numerous blogs. I especially love to watch such viral distribution when it happens au natural, without any of the many promotional techniques available. I didn't email my blogger and journalist buddies to get their attention, or mass email my contacts, there was no "Digg" button, or any clever attempt to use keywords to attract search engine distribution.

It is always far more interesting to see how news stories get picked up and distributed by the Internet without using the promotional toolbox of technologies and techniques available. It reminds me of the early days of the blogger/journalist Internet community, when there was nothing much available to promote content except for the intrinsic value of the content itself, and the respect of your peer groups.

These days, it is far easier to manipulate the distribution and reach of a blog post, news story, or video. These days, it can be easier to buy the traffic and the distribution reach, instead of doing the hard work in creating content that wins because its value.

We used to talk about the meritocracy of content as a core value of the blogosphere and the evolving Internet, and that now it didn't matter who could pay for the loudest voice. That is less true today and will continue to worsen over time.

Fortunately, meritocracy is still strong on the Internet, it is even there when you least expect it to find it, such as on a Saturday evening. BTW, it's wonderful and humbling to know that there are people reading and writing about Silicon Valley Watcher news stories on a Saturday evening when they could easily be doing something else...

I'm glad that my work gets the attention that it does. And the influence it has often astounds me. Plus I'm doubly glad it happens without having to dress up my news stories with any of the many promotional techniques and technologies that are available...

By Monday morning, the blogosphere had widely distributed my news story, and there had been plenty of time to analyze and debate the merits of a potential deal. The work of the blogosphere then helped investors reassess the value of the Salesforce business. At the opening bell Salesforce [ticker:CRM] gained about 9 percent in market cap value, or more than $500m. This was good news for CEO Marc Benioff and other Salesforce longs. Mr Benioffsells at least 10,000 shares of Salesforce every day, and has done so since mid 2006 (the power of dollar cost averaging). It was bad news for the large community of short sellers that Salesforce had recently accumulated [ticker:CRM.]

Interestingly, there is another aspect to Saturday publishing. I've noticed: the mainstream media is not very good at following up breaking stories at the weekends because of its skeleton staffing levels.

That is why the blogosphere often drives the news agenda on Saturday and Sunday because there isn't much mainstream media content to blog about and link to.

For users of Facebook, inadvertently spamming your friends is one of the annoying features of using some of the Facebook apps. It is also embarrasing to share some personal stuff with a friend only to find that you sent the same message to everyone.

Plus there are things like Mortimer the travelling bear and other such nonsense that people accidentally spam their Facebook friends with. To put a stop to this, we now have the "Magic Hobo" which is an educational "spam" that explains the basic ways on how not to spam your friends.

I sent a "Magic Hobo" to my Facebook friends and now I have half-a-dozen more sitting on my walls and super walls, etc. It's funny to fight spam with spam, and the picture of the Magic Hobo is hilarious.

Here is the text that goes with it (BTW, send me a Facebook friend request, it is one way for me to get to know my readers.)

This is the Magic Hobo!

He will do STUFF ALL if you forward him on - But it's a great opportunity to send him on and spam all your Facebook Friends to say STOP sending me STUPID CRAP!

The stuffed dog does NOTHING when you forward him on...

I don't give a shit about Mortimer the Travelling Bear...

Unicef will NOT donate 5c for every forward that little starving child gets...

You CANNOT tell how many people visit your profile by spamming forward and pressing altF4 afterwards...

THINK BEFORE YOU FORWARD! Ask yourself: "Could this actually WORK?"
Chances are... No - It's just a stupid-ass ploy to clog your walls full of the same old crap again and again and again...

Join the fight against aimless spamming by spamming this forward to say "Just Say No!" to stupid-ass forwarding.

Technorati Tags: magichobo, spam

I was fortunate to meet Frank Shaw from Waggener Edstrom. He used to work with my former boss at the Financial Times, Paul Abrahams. There is an interesting story here...

http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2006/08/microsofts_pr_a.php

Paul Abrahams works very closely with Microsoft and is in Seattle on a regular basis, advising the software giant on many strategic aspects of its operations. I haven't heard from Paul in a while, so it was a delightful surprise when he called me just an hour ago.
What he wanted to tell me was that he had written a column for the UK PR Week trade publication on blogging. "I've mentioned you in it," he said. "But I've basically said, regarding all this stuff about blogs, I just don't get it..."
Fair enough, some do, some don't. However, I asked if it was a good move on his part to advertise such a a lack of understanding of blogs!?

I saw it as an opportunity for discussion. However, Paul went on vacation for two weeks immediately after publication of his "I don't get blogging column." Clearly Paul didn't want to have a conversation about it...

Frank Shaw didn't hesitate and jumped right in, in what is now a text book case of how to deal with such situations: posting in his blog and doing all the right things to defend the reputation of WaggEd.

Even more impressive was that Frank was in the middle of moving his family from Portland to Seattle yet he dove right in...(Paul was on vacation.)

http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2006/08/microsofts_pr_a.php

http://glasshouse.waggeneredstrom.com/blogs/frankshaw/archive/2006/08/31/764.aspx

I was out and about Tuesday evening at various events, Eye-Fi and UberGizmo and the subject of Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine's super talented editor came up again and again. Specifically, his outlash at PR people, publicly criticizing those that have sent him bad pitches by publishing their email addresses.

I've had it. I get more than 300 emails a day and my problem isn't spam (Cloudmark Desktop solves that nicely), it's PR people. Lazy flacks send press releases to the Editor in Chief of Wired because they can't be bothered to find out who on my staff, if anyone, might actually be interested in what they're pitching.

SORRY PR PEOPLE: YOU'RE BLOCKED

From tired to inspired

I'm a huge fan of Mr Anderson, he turned around a sickly magazine and made it into a powerhouse. No question about it, he turned Wired from tired to inspired.

Bad time of the month?

I know the pressures of a monthly magazine, you are going to press, and there are a million details to pay attention to...it is not the best time of the month to deal with useless emails, however... I discussed Mr Anderson's reaction with many people, some PR people, but especially with many veteran journalists. We all receive bad pitches, that's part of our job. We ignore or delete, and then we move on with our day. Not for Mr Anderson, things became personal:

There is no getting off this list. If you're on it and have something appropriate to say to me, use a different email address.

The list has about 370 plus emails. What puzzled colleagues and myself, is that Mr Anderson took the time to sort through and list his long tail of misbehaving PR people, it must have taken many hours. And he felt so personally injured by their behavior that he took steps to publicly shame them. Serious stuff indeed.

However, it remains a puzzling incident. I could understand this if he were a blogger, a novice, unaccustomed to the life of a journalist--and bloggers do get upset about press releases in their e-mail box that have nothing to do with their interests. Mr Anderson is a veteran journalist, ex-Economist, these should be petty annoyances at best--we all deal with them without a second thought.

But all great achievers exhibit occasional falls from grace, which is their humble way of reminding us that they are human.

(I hope to have the opportunity to demonstrate the same one of these days.)

NEW! - Get SVW on your Mobile Phone!

Technorati Tags: Long tail of bad PR

I was in a bit of a grumpy mood early this morning because it was early morning... I was in Palo Alto to be part of a Silicon Valley Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) panel on the subject of Ethics in Media and PR. And they had misspelled my name on everything(!)

Some coffee quickly improved my mood and we got into a spirited discussion on the panel, and among the attendees. I enjoyed it and I think we covered a lot of ground.

I also enjoyed meeting my fellow panelists:

Jerry Ceppos, former Executive Editor, SJ Mercury News; currently a fellow in media ethics at Santa Clara University's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

Jon Greer, media trainer and editor, 21stCenturyMediaRelations.com

Joel Postman, EVP, Eastwick Communications

I talked about my sponsors (Intel and Tibco) and said that they support what I do and don't ask for anything in return, which leaves me free to write abut anything I please. And if I do write about them, it is tagged as sponsor watch, and people can make their own judgement about the posts. I have to admit that I like the two companies a lot because they like me, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't write a juicy story if I got one related to my sponsors.

For example, I was asked by Jerry Ceppos, if someone within Intel leaked to me that Paul Ottelini, the CEO of Intel, would soon announce his resignation, would I publish the story? Heck, YES!!! That's a killer story, I'd publish it in a Silicon Valley nanosecond.

There was some discussion about a recent Wall Street Journal article that I missed, which was about Yelp, the online recommendation site based in San Francisco. The WSJ had discovered that some of its restaurant reviewers had received free meals in return for a review. I remarked that I often see top WSJ journalists at swank San Francisco restaurants being hosted by companies that they cover, at so-called "media roundtables" and other events that I attend.

Mr Ceppos was astounded and said he didn't believe it. Nevertheless, I said, it is true. He said that wouldn't fly at the San Jose Mercury.

I go to a lot of dinners, and sometimes I write about the companies and often I don't. When I do, I often say "I was having dinner with...". It would take more than a dinner at a nice restaurant to buy coverage at the WSJ, or here on SVW.

Journalists get to choose to write about companies and people because they believe it will make for a good story--there is no money exchanged. PR people have to do it because they are paid to do it not because they want to.

I also pointed out that journalists are less influenced by money than PR people because journalists chose a profession that pays very badly.

There were some very good contributions to the discussion from our audience and there was strong support for being direct and transparent in PR corporate blogging. All good things...

- - -

If you'd like to join in on the subject, Jon Greer set up a blog: http://digitalprsa.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/agenda-online-ethics-panel/

NEW! - Get SVW on your Mobile Phone!

Technorati Tags: ethics in media, New Rules Communications, ethics in PR

I was running late to Sun's Java update briefing for the media at the W Hotel for 5.30pm. By the time I found parking I'm really late and that's when Tom Abate, my buddy and business reporter at the SF Chronicle calls me.

I'm just a block away I tell him. Good, he says, I'll meet you outside my office. I meet him but tell him we have to walk across Yerba Buena Gardens and pop into the Sun event, they've already called me to ask where I am...

Fine, he says, but then we get into a long discussion about the media business and it gets later and later. Finally, we are at the W and I'm bounding up the stairs to fulfill my Sun commitment. I see a table with name tags and I recognize some of the people milling around and so I walk in, Tom follows me.

Jeff Clavier's Mom

I'm running into a lot of familiar faces. First up is Jeff Clavier, a current rising star Silicon Valley investor. I recently profiled Mr Clavier as one of the most successful angel investors around ( Silicon Valley's Rising Star VC: Jeff Clavier .) He has sold 5 companies out of 20 investments in less than 4 years, some with $50m tags. Who else has recently matched that performance I asked in my post?

"You caused me a lot of embarrassment with that article," he said. "But my mom loved it, my VC buddies didn't."

Too bad for your buddies, I said, maybe one day they will make it into SVW. Jeff, did I say anything that wasn't true?

He slowly shook his head (sadly and with great humility). Let's follow up with a proper interview I said. He nodded. (Coming up on SVW...)

John Marcom and Bloomberg

Then I ran into John Marcom, who used to be my boss at the Financial Times. To be accurate, he was everyone's boss, he ran the Financial Times business group in the US. I was always really impressed with John Marcom I felt he really understand the complex cutlure of the Financial Times, and the changes in media markets.

When he left the FT to join Yahoo in a senior marketing position it was a blow to me because there seemed to be no one else that had a measure on what was going on in the media industry. And the FT needed people such as John. So it was a rare pleasure to trade views on the media business. He's currently consulting with Bloomberg on strategic projects.

The Glam Crowd

There were a lot of people from Glam.com at the party. And I ran into Samir Arora, chairman, founder and CEO of Glam.com, a truly dynamic media business that hasn't yet gotten the full attention it deserves.

I met with Mr Arora about a year ago, at the Lucky Penny Diner in San Francisco, one of my favorite meeting places. It's a true retro diner, this is not a fake diner chain.

Mr Arora is always a dapper dresser, and I spotted him right away as I walked into Lucky Penny, sitting in the corner at a booth, in an immaculately tailored dark pinstripe suit and pink shirt.

It was a great interview and I kept waiting to write it, I kept saving it for just the right slot slot when I could make a big spalsh with it, not wanting to waste such a great interview on a heavy news day. But I never wrote it, which is my loss. I apologized to Mr Arora and asked for a second chance. He said sure, but it has to be at Lucky Penny... :-)

This is not Sun...

After a couple of hours I realized that this was not the Sun event that I had been aiming for at the W Hotel. This was the VC firm Accel's party. Tom Abate said he knew all along, but didn't want to say anything because the company was good.

Kahunas don't get bigger than this...

I snuck out of the party and went home so I could write this post and then go back out to the SF Museum of Modern Art for a party celebrating the opening of the San Francisco office for MySpace. The event was due to start at 9.30pm, which is very unusual. Office openings generally don't happen at the SF MOMA, and most events stop at 9.30pm.

I had walked past SF MOMA earlier in the evening, workers were taping lush carpet to the sidewalk and wrapping the building in cloth. Then I hear Rupert Murdoch is in town. Clearly this is no normal office opening.

I'd love to interview Rupert Murdoch, he is the savviest media tycoon around. No one else can match his investment instincts when it comes to media. No one.

And he will not ruin the Wall Street Journal, the editorial pages cannot get anymore conservative. And anyway, he can scale that business across his worldwide channels. If I were the FT I'd be very worried.

I have to go now, I''l be back. Hopefully with a Rupert Murdoch interview.

Technorati Tags: Glam.com, JeffClavier, JohnMarcom, TomAbate, SamirArora

[I recently received an email from a reader in reference to my infamous post: "Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!"]

By Harry Zane

I am retired from a career that began in journalism, turned to PR, then to marketing, and finally to consulting. And I agree wholeheartedly with what you said in your column. However, I am astonished that in 2007, PR is still slogging lower and lower into a press-release and press-conference tactical miasma.

I think the media, despite their constant carping about their dislike of press releases, are largely responsible. Many years ago, while working at a major university, I can recall a meeting of journalists and educational PR pros when the biggest complaint was that we PR folks sent out too many press releases. So we cut back, and the first complaints came only weeks later – from reporters, who couldn't understand why we were pitching stories without sending them "press releases."

I recall as well some 25 years ago working at a then major technology firm in Massachusetts when I had to fight endlessly with my peers and executives to keep the self-absorbed, self-unaware nonsense out of press releases. My "reward" was praise from the editor of the biggest industry trade journal. He really liked my releases because, as he said, they were brief and contained "no bullshit."

I took little comfort from his attaboys, however, since he ran unedited the competition's endless column inches of yammering right next to, or well above and ahead of, mine (the longer copy, rather than concise content, better fit his need for lead story layouts), creating the impression to casual readers (most trade journal readers are) that the competition had more to say than my company. Needless to say, this didn't sit well with the puffery-spouting peers and execs I'd just vanquished, either.

The reason, of course, for his actions are entirely explicable. His was a labor-intensive business, and he needed the free copy. Such is the fate of all media today: copy, no matter how untrue, uninformative, or unbecoming the author, trumps solid content.

PR people won't stop creating press releases because PR people, be they consultants, or employees will not stop serving the pleasure of their benighted bosses and clients; most media will continue to take content anywhere they can find it for little or no cost; and reader expectations for something better will continue to spiral downward with the whole sorry mess.

You are obviously a dedicated journalist with healthy amounts of skepticism and ambition. Your idea is sensible, laudable, and intelligent, but I don't see it happening. Ever.

Technorati Tags: die press release, mediasphere, PRWatch

Todd Defren from Shift Communications dropped me a note to point out that my Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die! post is on the front page of TechMeme. That was written in February 2006.

But the date doesn't really matter. I've noticed that happen with some of my other posts. Search engines will kick them back into view and others will reference them and they live again in the mediasphere.

It's interesting to watch what I call the trajectory of ideas. Sometimes I will write something I think is significant and 2 people will tell me they thought it was important. Yet I can write the same piece a year, sometimes two years later or more, and 20, or 200 people will pick it up and discuss it.

That's a totally understandable phenomenon because more people now understand the ideas and conversations that emanate from Silicon Valley about the changing nature of media and its changing mediums. With simple technologies such as RSS we can now create totally new forms of media, and totally new ways to distribute and generate media.

- - -

Please see:
Ross Dawson's Trends in the Living Networks: Deconstructing the press release: how tagging will change journalistic workflow

Brian Solis: Future of the Press Release - Acceptance

Technorati Tags: puppy

For a couple of years I've been working on this idea of a Holy Trinity of media. This is my model of how the media industry is transforming itself, and also how it is being disrupted.

The Holy Trinity of media is my way of forecasting the 3 key characteristics of all future media companies. But it is not a precise prediction.

The interesting aspect is that right now, there is no media company out there that is taking advantage of all three components. Which means that there is a very good business opportunity here.

The Holy Trinity of media is represented by the combination of: professional media; citizen media, and smart machine media.

The combination of professional journalists working within their communities to bring out the citizen stories, combined with savvy algorithms harvesting Internet content, will produce very successful media companies.

This Holy Trinity of professionals, plus citizens, plus machine collected media a la Google, will become the model for every future media company.

But it is not that simple. What is the killer formula?

Is it 30 per cent professionally produced media, 30 per cent citizen/blogger media, and 40 per cent machine media such as Google News? Or as my friend Tom Abate over at the SF Chronicle points out, is the formula for a media company different in different industry sectors? We don't know, which is great because we can figure this stuff out, and in the process, figure out new types of media businesses.

A related metaphor for what is going on in the media industry is gunpowder. It consists of three simple components, each one is stable and inert on its own: Charcoal, sulphur and potassium nitrate. If you get the formula wrong, it fizzles, when you get it right it is explosive.

If you can get the 3 components of media just right, you can build very valuable media companies very quickly.

Technorati Tags: mediasphere, holy trinity of media

We went through a multi-media world in the early 1990s, which meant documents that mixed text, with hypertext, with photos, with video, with sound.

We now live in a many-media world in which we have all of the above but fragmented into many unique media channels and formats we could not have imagined just a few years ago. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are some of the latest but by no means the last of the new forms of media. Technologies such as RSS will create many more.

Today's media companies have to support many-media publishing: podcasts, vidcasts, sms, blogs, social networks--in addition to print, web sites, email, etc; all the traditional forms of media. That adds to the costs of doing business because print is not enough, TV is not enough, radio is not enougth.

All media companies have to become many-media companies. And what makes these times interesting is that all companies are media companies. To a greater or lesser degree, all companies are media companies because they all publish to their communities: customers, employees, etc. And now they need to master the new media publishing, and the technologies to create the many-media formats. Video is a key one right now.

These days media comes in formats that we didn't know would exist. Toolbars are part of this many-media world. I rarely give free permission to use my quotes in a news release, however Conduit are an interesting part of this new media world. They recently announced more than 12m users for their white-label toolbar:

Earlier this year I wrote a post arguing that Google and other search engines should offer a link next to each result that offers a "right to respond." Because search engines will continually dredge up a post for ever, even if the original information is incorrect.

Even if a separate post corrects that error, if it isn't on that first page of search results individuals and companies, will have no way of clearing their names or correcting inaccurate information, because searchers rarely venture to second or third page results.

The Right to Respond Should be a Fundamental Right of the Internet

A few months ago I wrote a post about Google's hiring practices in its corporate communications team. A senior Google PR executive asked me to clarify a few points. I made the changes but he wanted more changes. Unfortunately his follow up email got lost in my inbox and I didn't see it for several months, and so I didn't make the changes.

In his email he wrote:

"I don't think the follow-up edit you posted is a sufficient recalibration of the reality in Google Communications. And leaving the original post out there simply leads the misperception to be repeated..and repeated."

He is right. If there was a "right to respond" available, and GOOG could easily offer such a service, then the problem would be solved.

- - -

Please see:

The Right to Respond Should be a Fundamental Right of the Internet

At the Newcomm Forum in Las Vegas this week, I kept hearing a lament that is all too common: how to deal with with negative or incorrect content about a company and its&nbsp; products on search engine results? Especially if...
Posted by Tom Foremski on March 10, 2007 4:16 PM

Ironic Design offers better proof than Intelligent Design

Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher Blog software creator Mena Trott criticizes BlogoSphere. BlogoSphere (BS) turns on blogging software creator Mena Trott. Mena Trott Implodes Onstage. News at 11 Has the BS itself imploded? It is all marvesouly entertaining, in a... -Posted by Tom Foremski on December 9, 2005 4:31 AM

By Tom Foremski
The conventional wisdom as espoused by the aggregators and search engines is that there is no value in news except in the aggregate, as Google News, Digg, etc.

That's why these are tough times for newspapers and news organizations.

However, I believe the long term outlook for journalism is excellent and that there is considerable value in journalism, much more than in the aggregators of news because the technology to do that is now a commodity. News is a value add that cannot be produced by algorithm and machine.

The problem is that we don't have a good way to recover the value that journalism produces. And there is considerable value in journalism.

Let me give you an example. Tuesday evening I posted a story that Wind River was for sale and IBM is the likely buyer. The story has yet to be proven but it came from an excellent source and one that has proved extremely reliable in the past.

Wind River stock jumped 9 per cent at the market open and by the end of Wednesday locked in a gain of nearly 7 per cent, or about $55m. That piece of information created a tremendous amount of value for a lot of people.

And business journalism continues to create a tremendous amount of value. It levels the playing field, it distribtes important information that is used to make business decisions that affect millions of people. There is a tremendous amount of value in professional journalism.

Yet professional journalism is under seige, the San Francisco Chronicle cut 100 newsroom jobs recently, 25 per cent of its newsroom. Because it can't recover enough of the value its journalists produce. This is true at other publications around the world.

What is the future? The future is the privatisation of news to those that can afford it--unless we can develop a way to pay for it. Google AdSense and other ad networks don't come anywhere close to covering the costs of news organizations.

Unless we can solve this problem--and it is one of the most serious issues confronting our society--the news will be financed by small groups of wealthy individuals that can make money from the news, and the news will be kept private.

This is the future: Subscribe to my 10K Silicon Valley Watcher Deal Flow Newsletter--launching soon. It's $10k per year and only 100 subscriptions are available. Call now and reserve your subscription.

By Tom Foremski
In March 2007 I proposed that a fundamental right of the Internet should be a right to respond to anything on the web.

There should be a tiny Right to Respond widget or link next to any content. The widget is fed by a central Right to Respond.org server.
If there is a response filed by a company or individual, it will indicate it, in the same way as my Technorati widget found at the end of each article shows readers if there are other blogs mentioning this post.
- Companies would pay to use this service, individuals would have free access.

SVW: The Right to Respond Should be a Fundamental Right of the Interne

Google News has started to offer something similar but related to news stories. If you are mentioned in a news story or have any relationship to the news story Google will publish your response right next to the story. [Hat tip to Chris Knight...]

Josh Lowensohn over at News.com explains:

Users of the U.S. version of Google News will now be able to comment on a story, that is assuming they're somehow involved in it. The process is not for everyone, and in fact requires a lengthy verification process of sending off your comment and credentials to a special Google e-mail address, and later verifying your identity via domain name and an e-mail follow-up from Google staff.

News.com: Google News rolling out expert user comments

Foremski's Take: The verification process would likely be lengthy. News is quickly consumed. By the time a response is approved few people reading the news will see the responses.

Also, this verification process cannot be done by machine because people will spoof it. GOOG always wants to use machines rather than people. Google News is completely published by algorithm. Printed in tiny type at the bottom of Google News:

The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program.

Chris Tolles, co-founder of Topix.com said that Google got the idea from Topix. Speaking at a panel at KQED on Thursday evening, Mr Tolles said that Google would have a hard time trying to moderate comments on news stories.

Corporate advantage

Google could get pre-authorize people to comment on news stories but that would benefit corporations over individuals. It is easier to pre-authorize company spokespeople and machine-match them to a keyword in the news copy.

Individuals, and small groups and organizations, would have a weaker right to respond because their response would not be as timely as that of large business groups. They would have to go through the lengthy verification process.

Google could be trumped

News organizations could potentially trump Google by offering a similar right to respond right next to their news stories. They could pre-authorize people and organizations because they are in early contact with them during the journalistic process.

I've been saying Silicon Valley has turned into media valley for more than two years. So it is good to have some backing.

Today at a fascinating VC panel, Roger McNamee, one of the top Silicon Valley investors, said Silicon Valley is doing great (despite the lack of exit strategies, and a mediocre IPO market.)

"For the first time, Silicon Valley is now represented in every form of media except television," he said.

About two years ago on a visit to New York, I wrote that someone should tell Mayor Bloomberg that the center of the media industry is moving to Silicon Valley and the West Coast. Because Google, Yahoo, EBay, (and now YouTube, FaceBook, etc) are all media companies.

New York is very cool partly because of its large media industry. The largest news and magazine companies have a heavy presence in midtown where I was staying. You can't avoid seeing their ticker tape news headlines whirl around their buildings, and their giant logos at night.

My alma mater, the Financial Times US HQ is there, and so are large offices of Reuters, CNN, Time-Warner, Hearst, etc.

But it's a shame that the center of the media industry has moved to Silicon Valley and nobody told New York :-)

http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2005/09/a_report_from_n.php

GOOG, YHOO, EBAY, etc, publish pages of content with advertising around it. They are not technology companies, they are technology-enabled media companies.

Yes, GOOG et al would rather not represent themselves as media companies because they republish content for free from media companies. Media companies will let a "technology" company do this but not another media company...

...

Please see:

A Report From New York City...
September 2005

Silicon Valley has become Media Valley - someone should tell NYC Feb 2007.

I'm at the Stanford Summit for much of this week:

. . . I ran into Dan'l Lewin MSFT VP of emerging businesses and his sidekick, Doug Free. This dynamic duo is the face of MSFT around here, and also the eyes and ears for MSFT as to what is going on in Silicon Valley. Mr Lewin tells me he has been traveling all around the world recently, India, China and also Brazil. The goal is to involve startups in the MSFT platform. I have an interview with Mr Lewin lined up for Thursday.

. . . John McCain was surprisingly good in his keynote address. Admittedly, expectations had been set very low. Tony Perkins seemed starstruck, sitting on stage next to Senator McCain, watching him being interviewed. Can Senator McCain pull out of his dive? He could.

. . . The panel on software patents was interesting. IBM said it is a big supporter of the peer-reviewed software patent process. And also said that the software patent process needs to be reformed, adding more patent examiners is not the answer.

. . . There was much discussion about the poor quality of software patents. I had just had an interesting chat with a software patent lawyer who said: "Often when a startup gets funding, they come to us and ask us to find five software patents among what they have so that they can keep their VC investors happy. We look through their technology and try to find what can be patented, they are paying us for five patents."