To aggregate, or report? On successful online publishing

If there's one issue online publications have really battled with, it's the teeter-tottering relationship between the creation of original work and the aggregation of third-party content.

For years, most news organizations have operated under the guise that everything in their (newspaper, magazine, website) was original. But hawk-eyed readers would notice the "Associated Press" (or "Hearst" or "Cox" or "AFP" or...) bylines in the newspaper, and note that such content was republished from somewhere else.

The reasons for doing so are many: sometimes it's to fill space in a regional paper without resources; other times it's to ensure broad (Washington, D.C.) or acute (New Haven, Conn.) local coverage without committing costly resources.

The same thing is occurring online, and that's no surprise as the digital medium matures. The problem now is that stories break online, which means they can be republished very, very quickly without clear insight (or regard) as to who originally reported the story.

Online, the struggle remains over how to properly attribute content. (It certainly doesn't help that publications don't establish style rules for this.) But what's really interesting is how websites -- particularly smaller ones -- are filling the gaps.

In an interesting dicussion via Twitter yesterday, Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam and AllThingsD senior editor Peter Kafka exchanged a few questions about building a digital publication around the (expensive, time-consuming, valuable) creation of original content versus the aggregation of (free, quick, with little lasting value) third-party content.

Here's the exchange:

Brian Lam: the net's greatest threat to journalism is not old vs new, its that reporters no longer get as much exposure to new sources in real life.

Peter Kafka: @blam biz problem, not tech. Encourage reporters to walk around, make calls, they will. Reward them for reblogging, they'll do that.

Brian Lam: @pkafka true. but remember, in old media, they rereported stories from scratch that were already written by comp., instead of links. worse!

Peter Kafka: @blam true dat. plenty of old-media was (and is) essentially reblogging. that's my point - not tech, but biz model.

The Editorialiste: @pkafka @blam so how to solve biz model incentive problem? what's the answer?

Brian Lam: @editorialiste I think its a judgement call between aggregation and reporting. and a resource thing. reporting is expensive if done old way.

The very reason this exchange can occur is because of the Internet's link-based economy: now, you can legally, through fair use, reproduce a paragraph or so of someone else's content, so long as you attribute it to them and include a link back to the original work.

Never before was that possible in such a dynamic way: often, newspapers would cite reportage by other papers, but in newsprint, there was no link to help you find it. Similar but worse, broadcast organizations often based their own coverage on original newspaper reports without citing the original source at all.

The exchange also shows that online players -- my peers, since both write for competing publications about technology -- are constantly thinking about the online business model.

Both AllThingsD and Gizmodo stay afloat with some level of reposting third-party content -- sometimes it's a copied quote, link and original analysis; other times it's a rewrite of a scoop first published by another publication. It's a particularly popular thing to do in technology coverage, since so much of it is based on products, and therefore based on nonexclusive press releases.

However, both sites regularly offer original content. In the Wall Street Journal tradition, Kafka often reports on the inner dealings of tech companies. Lam's team publishes tips/scoops on unreleased gadgets with some regularity.

Both offer a mix of original and aggregated content. At the time of writing, Gizmodo counts 15 names on its editorial masthead (plus a regular columnist, plus two interns); AllThingsD counts five names on its editorial team (plus a columnist, plus an intern).

Not all of Gizmodo's 15 are full-time, and many AllThingsD's staff double as full-time reporters for the Wall Street Journal. For both, aggregation is important -- there's simply no way either publication can cover everything quickly and originally.

The problem, of course, is to what degree. Both Brian and Peter make valid points in the conversation above:

• How do you stay on top of breaking news if you're always doing original reporting?
• How do you become more than a regurgitation mill if you're always rewriting or rereporting third-party content?
• And is online reporting really the same as what mainstream media used to do, just more transparent?

As Brian notes above, it's a matter of resources. Online media garnered eyeballs by reposting everything it possibly could -- that's how it got its popularity. With popularity came some degree of money, which allowed for more staffing, which in turn allowed for more original content.

Gizmodo is a great example of this: it first made its name finding everything it could on the web about tech and transformed itself into a portal for the topic. Once it achieved a large audience (and money), it hired more editors to handle the aggregation, while its original team moved into original content.

Now, Gizmodo's become more of a magazine: it's got a cadre of low-level editors working on the day's quick-hit breaking news; it's got several regular columnists offering value through analysis; it's got a couple of high-level editors who work on what magazines call "special projects": regular features, or one-off special runs of coordinated content.

Unlike tech rival Engadget -- which has surpassed Gizmodo in absolute pageviews -- Gizmodo is now trying to differentiate by offering value through original ideas. (Engadget's done a measure of this too, but not nearly as much.)

And wouldn't you know it, Gizmodo has been making content-sharing deals with several popular tech websites. Gizmodo has become, if I may be so bold, its own wire service. (And other publications indeed find it cheaper to repost Gizmodo's content. But is that such a smart idea on the web, where you can always easily access the original version? That's for another blog post.)

(AllThingsD I'm leaving out of this, since so much of its content derives from the Wall Street Journal's regular reportage. However, the site has established a separate "Voices" section for outside, reposted coverage.)

Kafka's point above is that the business model forces trained reporters to work on unoriginal content, which I agree with. But it's Lam's point about budget that's really central to the situation. With a growing budget, more popular publications can afford to hire staff to work on original content: new features, marquee columns, event coverage.

With a modest budget, even the most bootstrap of reporters must resort to reposting or opining to keep the content flowing in between bouts of original reporting. (Unless a larger parent company is willing to subsidize this costly original reporting; see: Condé Nast and The New Yorker.)

So what's a publication to do? How do you leap the hurdle to move from repurposed content to original reporting? After all, you don't want to hire a full staff of reporters if you don't yet have the popularity to draw the eyeballs -- and thus earnings -- to support it.

Similarly, you don't want to hit a traffic ceiling in which you've got each one of your few reporters pushing content at full-tilt -- so much so that it's to the detriment of their work. That's also unsustainable.

(A side note, by the way: it remains unclear whether aggregation itself is sustainable. Can publications become news portals, or will that be the exclusive territory of Google, Yahoo and Comcast? Will we then begin an arms race for original reporting, or does non-automated republished news still have enough ROI to make it worth the effort?)

Aggregate, or report? On its face, it seems you don't really have a choice. Your popularity dictates the answer to that.

The challenge, then, is how to graduate from one sphere to the next.

On brands and your publication

Seth Godin recently defined "brand" on his blog.

His take:

A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. If the consumer (whether it’s a business, a buyer, a voter or a donor) doesn’t pay a premium, make a selection or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that consumer.

Your product or service is your publication. The name, logo, masthead, story selection, layout, photographs, videos, advertisements, social media profiles, and yes, even staff themselves -- it's all a part of your brand.

Ask yourself: Do I know who my readers are? Are my readers who I (and hopefully my advertisers) want them to be?

I'm posting this here so I'm reminded to think about what my publications stand for and how I can improve them based on that knowledge. You should, too.

It may be publishing and not journalism -- but it's best to understand your place in the ecosystem.

On reader (and viewer) loyalty

I received a call this afternoon on my cell phone from a dance company that I see perform once, perhaps twice per year.

The company's spring season is around the corner, and the sales representative wanted to offer me, the customer, a package subscription deal that allowed me first crack at reserved seats for shows in May, June and July.

The catch? A subscription entails four different shows in a row, same time and day of the week.

After several minutes ducking the hard sell, I politely declined the offer. I did the same exactly one week ago to another representative. I did the same last year to two or three more.

By most standards, I'm a casual customer. I don't follow the individual shows and seasons, and I only attend when I have the time and money. My ticket purchase history reflects this impulsive streak.

But the company continues to call my cell phone and insist that because I'm a loyal customer -- having seen one show this year -- I ought to consider signing up for three times as many shows I usually see, six months in advance.

An e-mail advertising the new season probably would have been enough to get me to convert. (Cheaper, too.)

If a customer/reader/viewer/user is on your list, it doesn't necessarily mean they're loyal. It means they're interested.

The growth of the web (and RSS, and Digg, and Stumbleupon, and Facebook, and Twitter, and...) has created many loyal customers, but it's also created plenty of interested customers.

Both are valuable.

Tina Brown and the fight to save journalism

If you're a writer, get out of your comfort zone. 

If you're an editor, surround yourself with writers.

And if you're starting an online publication, do so with conviction. It will work.

Eventually.

Sage words from celebrated editor Tina Brown (Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Talk, and now The Daily Beast) last night at Columbia Journalism School's Delacorte Magazine Lecture, a weekly public lecture by notables in the publishing world put on by Victor Navasky of The Nation.

Brown's Daily Beast -- for which at least one friend of mine writes -- has been in the spotlight since its launch last fall. A new media venture by an old-media person, if you will.  An online pubication brave enough to not accept (interns aside) free work. A digital venture (questionably) backed by IAC's Barry Diller. 

But Brown revealed last night that the venture is very much her vehicle for figuring out how publishing can survive in a "free," online-only environment. Correction: not just survive, but thrive. And in this current state of media flux, it's exciting to me to know that someone is pursuing something with conviction, and not floundering about trying to stay afloat.

Highlights which I'd like to pass along to you, readers:

• Deploying narrative journalism on the web successfully is Brown's greatest challenge.
• The Daily Beast continues Brown's tradition of high/low coverage (or "class and trash," as I like to call it.)
• Some of her best writers didn't start as writers at all. Some of her best writers were passionate about topics they weren't writing about for a living. It was Brown's challenge -- and naturally, to her benefit -- to correct this. Example: Dominick Dunne, whom she told to keep a diary; Jeffrey Toobin, whom she simply gave enough time to develop his own (less-than-legalese) voice.
• Editors must "make their world writers," and surround themselves with them. They are immensely creative people, she said, and you must know their strengths and weaknesses and, of course, always have talent on hand.
• A big area for development is in-depth, feature-length business journalism. Not closing-bell coverage, but CEO profiles and such things. "Capture characters," she said. 
• The Daily Beast is doing what newsweeklies should be doing -- analysis and less breaking news coverage -- in the smart and intellectual way that Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report are struggling to transition to at the moment. But, with the added benefit of linking off to the best of the web's stories.
• The advantage of analysis: "People are gadflies, but they're also obsessives." So while hopping on the breaking news train is fine, people are still drawn to long-form, in-depth analysis telling them something they didn't already know.
• "A good editor (at least, one in the vein of Tina Brown -- Ed.) likes a strong staff around them." Strong as in personality: "I have a terrible weakness for irritants."
• Working online is actually less stressful/anxiety-ridden than print, because there are much fewer moments when someone's piece is cut because of limited space. "It's more physically grueling, but it's not as stressful in terms of disappointing people."
• "It's so fashionable to trash the press all the time."
• On the theory behind paying writers and investing in them: "You have to invest in people." Unlike her big-budget Conde Nast days, Brown can't hire writers on contract anymore, so the web environment makes it harder to develop people and give them a financial safety net at the same time. On the other hand, limitless space is helpful in that regard.
• 2009 is the year of the freelancer. "The Gig Economy," she called it.
• The Daily Beast has started to solicit advertisers, which will be its main revenue stream. Ads will appear in the spring.
• On outsourcing journalism: "I think it's preposterous." 

Before attending, I knew little of Brown. I knew she and Arianna Huffington (The Huffington Post) were often cited as brash new editors-in-chief/publishers in the new media/online journalism world. I knew Brown had a fantastic pedigree. I knew she was British. 

But that's about it, honestly. So I was surprised when I heard these wise words come from someone who has been in the magazine business so long -- and who seemingly got into online publishing by necessity.

Brown spoke honestly and thoughtfully -- she wasn't there to publicize The Daily Beast, and didn't really reference it unless it was referred to in a question she was asked.

In listening to her opinions and advice, I came to respect her for this reason: she had a clear view of what she wanted and where she wanted it. An entrepreneur, she was pursuing publishing online, she wanted talented writers, she didn't want to cut corners nor spend funds happily. 

Personally, I don't like everything about The Daily Beast. (For one, I think its design, while adventurous, is a little hard to digest.). But I do now understand why things are the way they are on the site, and the thinking behind those decisions.

An old professor of mine likes to use the phrase, "Acts of commission, rather than acts of omission," when referencing online work. I can see that in operation at The Daily Beast.

Brown's vision may not be an ironclad business model, but it was her conviction that struck me. At a time when so many journalists -- newspapermen and women, freelance writers, editors, publishers, etc. -- are running to the next thing (blogs! Facebook! Twitter!) or just simply lamenting their own downfall (layoffs! cut pages! no ads!), I found it refreshing -- exciting, really -- to hear such a clear voice at such a cloudy time in journalism.

Why You're Losing Your Magazine Job

Magazine behemoths such as Time Inc. and Conde Nast (and Hearst, more quietly) have been slashing staffers and budgets in large numbers recently.

The reason? The economic downtown.

Or is it?

AllThingsD's Peter Kafka notes in a new post that publishing houses are also shedding ad dollars left and right, indicated in this graph from MediaPost, which is based off ad sales data from magazine trade publisher Media Industry Newsletter:

The problem? It's not just the steep decline of ad pages due to the recession -- no, it's because magazines were running flat even before the decline, thanks to a fundamental shift of ad dollars away from print and toward the Web.

In other words, magazines were barely getting by as it was, and an economic throttling just sunk an already barely-seaworthy vessel.

Remember two and a half years ago when I asked why newspapers were beating glossies to the punch on the Web? In that article, I lamented the ill-preparedness of magazine publishers in their Web dealings: flashy but poor "destination" sites with poor usability and poor brand representation that served only as subscription centers, rather than as logical extensions of the brand with original content (CondeNet, I'm looking at you).

Now it looks like magazine companies are finally paying the price for their (expensive but ineffective) dabbling.

Or, in other words: that's what you get when you only have one full-time staffer ("Web editor") for a magazine's entire online presence.

So should magazine editors contemplate an online-only career? Maybe -- it's not clear, because the magazine as a vehicle for content still has the tangible value: the bring-it-into-the-bathroom factor (a factor not as strong as it used to be).

Logically, then, I expect magazines to go on a decline, but not bottom out. Unlike newspapers, who peddle breaking content (strictly, "news"), magazines peddle much more design and commentary. So while daily newspapers will gravitate toward analysis to keep their printed product afloat, magazines already have a safety net in the basic nature of their product.

So what about magazine jobs?

It still doesn't look good. Kafka writes:

"It's unclear how many jobs the Web is going to offer, since digital content is worth so much less than its analog counterpart, at least in the eyes of advertisers."

But that's quickly changing, since there are so many more eyeballs on the Web. As circulation numbers steadily decline, advertisers will gradually place more value in the Web, and publications would be wise to encourage that. After all, there are no printing costs (just hosting), and overhead is so much lower thanks to almost-free distribution.

There are even rumors confirming such things: For example, the dissolution of men.style.com (for which I've previously expressed my disgust) and the launch of distinct sites for GQ and Details.

But that still doesn't replace the original magazine, and in that way, the website will forever be an extension of the original (printed) brand.

Still, I blame magazine publishers for not being prescient enough. For example, have you seen the website for T, The New York Times Magazine? It's not perfect by any means, but it's an innovative way to make a website stylistically mirror the printed publication. There are several highfalutin publications that see T as a competitor. Why not also one on the web?

So where does that leave the magazine editor?

Well, start polishing that resume and brushing up on your HTML -- if you don't know what CMS stands for, you're just as much in trouble as the editorial assistant who hasn't heard of Adobe InDesign.

What Magazine Publishers Don't Want You To Know

Unbelievable investigative report by Craig Malisow of the Houston Press:

In the eight months the Press investigated door-to-door magazine sales across the country, the industry has seen at least three murders, one rape, two attempted rapes, one stabbing, one attempted murder, one vehicle fatality and one attempted abduction of a 13-year-old girl.

Interviews with former agents reveal a constant party atmosphere where agents have easy access — often thanks to their managers — to drugs. The agents come primarily from two populations: reprobates who need to leave wherever they are fast, and vulnerable kids from unstable families who believe that hopping into a van full of strangers is better than what awaits them at home.

Read more of What Mainstream Publishers Don't Want You to Know About Door-to-Door Magazine Sales: That kid at your door with a magazine order form will tell you a story -- part sad, part hopeful. The truth will be infinitely worse than you can imagine.