Michael Wolff, The Guardian. Mobile and the news media’s imploding business model.
Wolff writes that the news media’s reliance on advertising is getting it into ever greater trouble as news readers move from the Web to mobile platforms.
His math is rather simple. For every $100 spent on print advertising, $10 is spent on the Web. And for every $10 spent on the Web, $1 is spent on mobile.
This isn’t because marketing dollars aren’t interested in mobile advertising. It’s because the rate publishers can charge for mobile advertising is so meager.
His guestimated future: there will be more and more paywalls, at least for mobile access.
(via futurejournalismproject)
We’ve submitted 13 builds for various versions of our Star Tribune hockey apps so far this season. If we’re lucky, we’ll be at 20 by the time the state tournaments begin.
I killed my klout account a few weeks ago. Have you?
“Sorry, klout is not an acceptable word”
![teruterubouzu:
I’m an admitted QR code skeptic. A key reason is that they are hard for consumers to use. The results from this study of 500 college students back up these usability concerns.
QR codes do enjoy a high-level of awareness among college students yet only a fraction (21%) could properly scan and activate the code. Why the discrepancy? According to our findings, students simply struggled with the process. Some didn’t know a 3rd party app was needed, many mistakenly assumed it could be activated with their camera, and others just lost interest, saying the activity took too long. This could be why 75% of students said they were “Not Likely” to scan QR codes in the future. - QR Codes Go to College from Archrival
[ via College Students Cold-Shoulder QR Codes ]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvl71yyv4e1qe92fco1_1280.png)
I’m an admitted QR code skeptic. A key reason is that they are hard for consumers to use. The results from this study of 500 college students back up these usability concerns.
QR codes do enjoy a high-level of awareness among college students yet only a fraction (21%) could properly scan and activate the code. Why the discrepancy? According to our findings, students simply struggled with the process. Some didn’t know a 3rd party app was needed, many mistakenly assumed it could be activated with their camera, and others just lost interest, saying the activity took too long. This could be why 75% of students said they were “Not Likely” to scan QR codes in the future. - QR Codes Go to College from Archrival
Another reason why I hope the mobile universe swings back to web and away from apps.
The announcement that Nexus One users won’t be getting upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich led some to justifiably question Google’s support of their devices. I look at it a little differently: Nexus One owners are lucky. I’ve been researching the history of OS updates on Android phones…
I’m quite certain my friends do not need a stream of every news story I read.
The Washington Post Social Reader app unnerves me. The act of “Reading” is now itself an action. You don’t click any “read this” button. It may be benign to some but there are potential pitfalls on the privacy front.
What if your friends saw a steady stream of articles that you were reading?
Study: Sexual potency after prostate cancer can depend on age, weight, treatment type
Quiz gives facts about skin cancer
What do you think they might want to ask you about?
That is just a hastily put together example, but I think it illustrates my point.
We are what we read, and sometimes we need to explore topics and subjects that need to stay in the private realm. There are plenty of good and bad reasons why you would extensively read up on articles regarding to health, diseases, diabetes, marriage, death, suicide, taxes, depression… the list goes on.
Would you want those articles bunched together in your public feed?
The Washington Post has an Editor’s Note. Its says many things including:
“All you have to do is read, just as you normally do. No “recommending,” “liking” or “sharing” — just read and we’ll do the rest of the work. The app gets better the more friends you have using it.”
Thats a very nice spin on it.
Earlier this year when I was still at the Times we talked to Facebook about a news app. Facebook had a whole set of new features in the pipeline (presumably just launched) and this passive reading action was one of them and they were pushing hard for us to use it. It came up in conference calls and on-site meetings. I believe Facebook is very eager to catch-up or even displace Twitter as a go-to place for news, and this is how they think they can do that.
To their credit the newsroom shelved the idea. The consensus was that this was intrusive and potentially an invasion of privacy. I think after that was repeatedly communicated that Facebook lost interest in doing anything at all.
I think its one thing to broadcast your taste in music, but what you’re reading raises the stakes a bit. For now, all I have is this isolated case but everything has a beginning.
