It is interesting to see what sort of skills publishers are looking for when hiring a journalist. Nature, the magazine has a current vacancy. What are they looking for apart for experience in scientific matters?

'..Working primarily online, she or he will be able to report on and analyse news developments under tight deadlines, but will also have many opportunities for other forms of journalism, from feature writing to podcasting......

......Experience in and/or aptitude for editing, audio journalism and the development of interactive web projects will be an advantage....'

Yet more research (via Podcasting News) indicating that traditional TV is now showing the same decline as traditional press as more and more people move online to consume news and entertainment.

For companies using press and broadcast media to advertise to the market they will need to start to seriously look at online content delivery. The global brands have already started to look at creating platforms targeting 'communities of interest' where people can interact with the brand and each other. This investment in 'customised communities' is bound to increase as traditional media continues to lose its audience. The loss of ad revenue can only speed this shift.

It seems Twitter was first to break the news of the earthquake in China. It is interesting the comments a BBC journalist makes on their blog about how its speed and multiple sources plus ability to link to 'citizen journalists' video and photo uploads means it could be a serious tool for news gathering.

The media need to engage with this new technology. Even the most well served news gather organisation cannot be everywhere. Eye witness reports are a valuable source of information and have a 'first person' perspective that journalists who come to the scene later will not have. They can look at other aspects and 'backfill' details as they become available.

For many in the media Twitter could become a very valuable source of 'heads up information'. As we live in a 24/365 world that few minutes will be an early warning that gives them an edge in getting to the story before their rivals for that important 'scoop'.

If you care about influence and where traditional media and new media are going check out what Colin Byrne of Weber Shandwick says about this report (I checked but not yet available from Amazon - as Colin says the official launch is tonight so maybe available tomorrow).

Business people need to look carefully at how the public are choosing to obtain, use and distribute information. The 'Blogoshere Daily' has a far higher circulation than any publication. Any PR or communication plan that fails to include blogger outreach and social media elements risks missing an increasingly important channel. If wanting to communicate to younger people it maybe the only way judging by their use (or lack of it) of print and broadcast media.

Jeff Jarvis on the use of Twitter by news organisations to get 'breaking news' information using a citizen journalist type concept...

It's like having a million (or whatever the numbers of Twitterers there are) eyes and ears monitoring the world. At a time of tight budgets it is like having a mass of foreign 'stringers'. Journalists back at a remote location can make a call to physically go to the news or leverage the resources of local citizen journalists with the professional journalist acting as editor.

I did some research for a presentation recently looking at the decline in print circulation of newspapers and how they are 'compensating' with increases in online traffic. Here is the lastest news from Hitwise, looking at the Independent

Anyone in marketing or PR must be watching how traditional media deals with changing consumers behaviour. With declining readerships and ad revenues print is under pressure. Jeff Jarvis in his latest post looks at what newspapers need to consider doing to stem and reverse the decline.

In the just published 2008 PRWeek/PR Newswire Media Survey (Source: WOMMA blog) 73% of journalists said they use bloggers as a source of information as part of their research.

What does this mean for companies?

They need to be either self blogging or engaging in conversations with bloggers or they are going to be missing two important elements in the communication mix - bloggers (about 10% of total population online) and the media themselves.

GM are big advertisers - spending about $3b. AdAge has just announced that GM plan to move half their advertising budget online over the next few years. They already spend almost $200m on banner and online ads. The online budget will grow almost 8 times to $1.5b. Traditional TV and radio ads will decline.

Sources close to the company have said

"....The goal is to go well beyond the banner....to encompass gaming, search, mobile and a broad array of interactive applications, according to several executives close to the automaker...."

GM already are very active users of social media, blogs and podcasts but this appears to be a significant increase.

As companies are finding the traditional forms of communication (ads, direct mail etc) are declining in effectiveness they are exploring the social networked approach.

There was a time in my career when getting a Ziff Davis 'Recommended Buy' award was as powerful as having Delia Smith use or mention your product on her TV show. A good or bad ZD review could almost make or break a product.

In fact it was so powerful in my time at Tektronix that we used to put the Gold Award or Recommended Buy logo on all our advertising and even ran an ad of all the awards we had won in Europe under the headline 'Great colour but don't take our word for it'. Our 'Grand Slam' was to get the top slot in the reviews in the French, German and English editions. We did that on more than one occasion I remember.

Now the news via Podcasting News that ZD is bankrupt due to falling demand for advertising.

The fall off in advertising revenue has been huge from a high of $215m in 2001 to last years figure of $40m.

In the same week 3 people who I respect and listen to on different sides when it comes to considering the future.

First Tim Beadle of Marketing Improvement says as one of his forecast for 2008 that...

Web 2.0, or the semantic web or the user-generated content web (choose your favourite term) will be quietly dropped as businesses and consumers recognize the inherent risks of a) linking web systems together and b) telling the whole world about yourself. If Web 2.0 becomes anything, it will become the home of web applications that will work well on a mobile phone. As more and more phones adopt the format of the iphone, why would you need a big, heavy laptop or clunky PDA?

This is in the same week that both General Motors and Coca Cola announcement even greater support for user generated media and social media conversations rather than traditional marketing.

In the same week the head of Intel talks about the 'personal and portable web'. Tim is wrong on the first count. User generated content is here to stay. I do agree with him on the second point. Smart mobiles with customised applications merging the functionailty of PDAs and laptops with location specific filtered information will be available in the next 5 years. I cannot wait for my smart phone to start delivering specific information based upon my Facebook profile and other information when I arrive in a country. Give me some maps. Locations of places to eat based upon known availability (and if reservations are needed) and filtered to reflect other peoples recommendations. The recommendors profiles will be matched and ranked against my profile so giving me more confidence to trust their judgement. To me that is where the real value of social networking lies. Using their generated inputed of experiences and recommendations to influence my decisions.

Now check out what Jeff Jarvis says in his latest blog about journalist training and them having their own personal blogs. Also see what David Brain, CEO of Edelman Europe says about candidates having social media awareness and experience.

Is this the start of a trend?

An article in Ad Age today says WPP shop Ogilvy & Mather is to layoff staff due to a downturn in traditional ad revenue. As more and more clients move to digital marketing and social network marketing the ad agencies are finding their commission based revenue model no longer works.

A great post by Saad Saraf in Brand Republic on media consumption in multiethnic communities. One very interesting statistic is that internet usage is 50% higher than for the UK average.

The latest figures show the continuing decline of newspaper revenues. They make painful reading (thanks for link to Podcasting News)

The rise and rise of Social Media continues....

• Another teen magazine - CosmoGirl - closes as readership and ad revenue declines (Colin Crummy, Press Gazette)
• The BBC have announced that one of their reporters will use social media tools to report on the Turkish election (Graham Holliday, Press Gazette)

As reported in Press Gazette the circulation of mainstream press continues to decline (April 2007 figures). The only mainstream title to grow was the FT.

Media with online sites continue to see traffic grow. The latest audited figures for unique visitors to their web sites show the following:

1. Guardian Unlimited            - 15.1 million
2. Times Online                    -  8.9 million
3. Sun Online                       -  8.2 million
4. Telegraph.co.uk                -  7.4 million

Interesting research by Marketing Charts into the power and influence of social media in making a purchase decision.

Thanks to Michael Seaton at the Client Side Blog for the heads up and link.

What it is shows are the two most important reasons for using social media are:

·         ‘wisdom of the crowds’ (53%)

·         the ability to engage in conversations. (24%)

Both of these are usually unavailable via traditional media product reviews.

As you have breakfast this morning how many of you will wonder if what you have just seen, heard or read is really accurate and fair?

The International Centre for Media and the Public Agenda at the University of Maryland, USA has produced a report looking at public trust in broadcast media outlets. They studied 25 print and broadcast outlets to see how transparent they are.

The Guardian newspaper came top with the BBC and Financial Times both in the top 10.

Research such as Edelmans Annual Trust Barometer shows decline in trust of politicans, press and the broadcast media by members of the public.

The reseach by the ICMPA looked at global news sites that are most transparent about their operations.

They considered 5 areas and the news organisations policies to them

• Corrections - admitting errors and making corrections
• Ownership - disclosing ownership and policies effecting editorial control
• Staff policies - covering conflict of interests
• Reporting policies -disclosing any
• Interactivity - allowing readership comment and feedback (The FT was one of only two in the top 25 to score full marks in this area)

So how is it going so far? Steve O'Hear of ZDNet interviewed Shane Richmond of MyTelegraph.

What is really interesting is the age range of participants (10 - 80+) and the large number of 50+ who are active. Over 3000 people have started blogging in just 2 weeks - many for the first time ever. Of course once posted many people comment and so the conversation 'ripples' out.

Compare that to the traditional 'letters to the editor' which is ponderous and very restrictive.

The BBC are moving fast with their Web 2 strategy for both TV and radio.

The objective is to allow users much more freedom of choice in terms of programmes and delivery platforms. To this end the BBC have announced an internally developed iPlayer which will allow users to download content to PCs, Macs, smart phones, personal MP3 and video players.

At the moment they are looking at a 7 day ‘listen again’ option and have to ensure the iPlayer can support Apple. No date has been given for the introduction of the service.

Over on Radio 1 (source Digital Bulletin) they are launching a new interactive web site to allow more user generated content to be uploaded, the creation of personalised play lists and interactivity. Webcams in the studio allow listeners to watch radio!

Many BBC programme presenters have been encouraged to have their own blogs and engage in dialogue with their audiences.

In a separate announcement a couple of weeks ago the BBC opened 1000 hours of its archives to an on-demand experiment with 20,000 people in a pilot. The places were signed-up for within days. If successful the objective is to allow any viewer access to every programme from the BBC’s enormous archives. (I have seen BBC figures quoting 1 million hours of programmes being made available in time – the mind boggles!)

What the BBC hopes from the pilot is to better understand the audience preference for content delivery – full programme or clip compilations? Download or streamed live? They also want to experiment with paid for content and free content. This is the real issue at the heart of BBC finances. Should the ‘back catalogue’ be seen as already paid for via licence fees or can it be charged for providing extra revenue to supplement the BBC licence fee funding? Equally for ITV the issue is how fair is for the BBC to get licence funding and use this to move into commercial fee generation by charging for its back catalogue?

ITV not to be outdone have also recently announced their strategy (source Informitv) They are going to provide live streaming, a 30 day catch-up option and access to archives. The service could be live within a month or two. ITV will use advertising to primarily fund a free service but have said they will consider charging a ‘per view’ fee on some programmes. Live feeds will carry the same adverts as normal TV but interestingly the audiences for viewing-on-demand (narrowcasting) can be profiled and so delivered much more targeted advertising. So while ‘narrowcast’ audiences will be smaller the advertising rates may stay high due to the focussed targeting capabilities. ITV hopes to have 20,000 hours of programming online by year end.

It goes without saying that DVD manufacturers and rental outlets are very concerned at these developments!

Having been involved in a fair few crisis management situations in my time on both the client and agency side I found this from Steve Rubel and a link to a Google blog very interesting. Google have analysed what happens to searches immediately an issue or recall becomes public.

I have personal experience of crisis management having created a few and been involved in damage limitation in others. My recommendations to companies are as follows:

1. Have an immediate ‘holding position’ statement already prepared. Valuable time is lost in getting a message together, approved, signed-off and released. In the ‘old days’ pre-internet you had time to sort things out. Today the internet and social media networks give you hours not days and weeks to get sorted.
2. Have an outline ‘Crisis Guide’ that details what is the ‘holding statement’, who is authorised and trained to make it, who is back-up reserve if that person is unavailable and what the next step is. Make sure the guide covers all sorts of situations. The better prepared you are the smoother everything will fall into place.
3. Have all the communication links in place – your PR agency for external communication, internal employee communication plans and a ‘special project team’ that will work together for the period of the crisis. Usually valuable time is lost finding out who will be authorised to speak and then decide what to say. Have this pre-agreed especially up to and including board level. You need a board level ‘stakeholder’. The unexpected will happen. Someone at the highest level needs authority to react and give guidance.
4. Take charge of the news agenda. Don’t wait. Some of the best managed situations have been where the company takes the initiative. Don’t think in today’s era of Citizen Journalists that you can keep things under wraps by ‘drip feeding’ journalists. It will get out. Do you want to be reacting and responding or prepared and managing?

From my experience this is what usually happens with a company. Cock-up not conspiracy theory prevails.

• News trickles out in the market that there is a problem. The noise grows. The company may not have all the facts and senior management may not even get to hear about it as it takes time to filter up the organisation.
• When asked for comment the company plays for time by saying ‘no comment’ which fuels stories and rumours that they have something to hide. They may but more usual they are just trying to buy time.
• The usual truth? In back ground mode the company is frantically trying to understand the issue, get all the answers ready and prepare people to release the official statement. Because so much is at stake this involves many people. This takes to organise and is with any committee approach, it takes time to get consensus. That ‘dead time’ is when most damage is done. By the time the prepared statement is due to be released things have usually moved on. The company is now chasing the story and is continually on the back foot.
• In meantime the silence is filled with more stories and rumours that the company has known about it for some time and tried to hide it. Now the story is not just the issue itself but company ethics and behaviour.
• The company may now face not only class action suits from affected parties but possible shareholder class action suits alleging corporate and management negligence.

The company itself is now the story as much as the original issue. Brand and company reputation is negatively impacted. The share price falls. In retrospect it can have all been foreseen. Early warnings were ignored or the management processes and procedures were not in place or formally followed.  

To see how some companies have managed this issue of crisis management see articles by Mallenbaker and WPP.

The March ABC figures will make grim reading for owners but also advertisers and media buyers who track these things.

The big question....

'Where is the audience going to get information and how can I ensure I get my message across to them?'

The answer is online - through social media sites, social networks and tools.

I have contributed to those ABC figures. Until a couple of years ago I got two dailies, a couple on Sunday and watched the evening news most nights. I then started to get information via the BBC and Google news alerts on the internet. I stopped having the papers delivered and only occasionally bought them when commuting to a meeting by train or flying. I stopped watching the news every evening and reduced to a single Sunday newspaper.

Today I regularly read a number of blogs and through them get access to news stories I do not always pick-up myself. I use Google Alerts and other online news services to keep informed. I still often, but not always, get a Sunday newspaper as much for the exercise of walking (and carrying it back with all the inserts and supplements - almost as good as going to the gym!) I usually only read a couple of sections and so feel a bit guilty about so much being re-cycled without even being read. I am not an eco-warrior but I have thought about the environmental cost of printing and physically distributing newsprint especially when I fail to read big sections. But on the other hand using a PC to access the internet costs too. It then becomes a highly complex argument to see what is environmentally kinder. I cannot even factor in having the pleasure of Sunday breakfast in bed and reading the newspaper as I have wireless broadband so I can have my breakfast online too. 

There must be many other people out there like me. The challenge for advertisers and their agencies is how to engage me online as that is where I spend a lot of my time and take a lot of my content.

After my post the other day about the continued decline of traditional media adevertising and the rise and rise of online media comes the news that Google is buying DoubleClick for £3.1b. (See also BBC online report)

Microsoft, Google and others have been looking at DoubleClick since they announced they were 'looking at their options'. The current private equity owners of DoubleClick had put a price tag of £2b+ so Google has paid a hefty premium but in return they get an end-to-end solution for online advertising.

Google through its search engine and YouTube social media site have a massive 'audience' that they can deliver contextual advertising to. Narrowcasting or permission based marketing is what is at the heart of the decline of traditional advertising. Broadcasters and traditional print media are seeing audiences decline in the face of other forms of delivery anyway (satelite, cable and internet) but in addition 'interrupt' marketing is having less and less impact. The future growth opportunity is in highly targeted and relevant advertising and marketing. If you are in a position to understand the content being delivered (as Google does) you can provide a great service to advertisers. With DoubleClick this becomes even better.

That's what the premium is worth!

At the National Union of Journalists annual conference a vote was passed to hold a national strike on November 5^th to protest about the cuts and changes being faces in the media. (See Press Gazette for more information -

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/article/130407/jeremy_dear_nuj_journalism)

There was also a motion both condemning the loss of UK based journalists jobs through outsourcing but also supporting improved rights for those overseas outsourced journalists. A real dilemma for delegates and the Unions. (see Press Gazette for details -

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/article/130407/nuj_reuters_mirror_outsourcing)

As to be expected the downturn in fortunes for print media as readership and advertising declines is having an impact through ‘downsizing’.

To understand the issues facing traditional media you just have to read what was said by the Guardian Unlimited blog editor, Kevin Anderson,  at the Guardian Changing Media Summit. Kevin said that ‘..newspapers are in denial about how they have to get online’. He also rejected the automatic use of celebrities and well know journalists saying ‘I would much rather editors have someone...who can make a real connection with readers’. He warned against using celebrities or well-know journalists as a blogger.

Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor, predicted that more content would be citizen generated and the best journalists should be working out ways to engage with citizen journalists. .

The Internet Advertising Bureau recently released figures for 2006. It showed that whilst ad spend on traditional media declined, online spending grew by over 40%.

Online now accounts for over £2b or 11.4% of total ad spending. This means it has overtaken print media and is second only to TV which had spending of £3.9b.

Looking at the figures and extrapolating the continued decline in TV and the increase of online (even at a reduced rate of 20%) it can only be a matter of 24 months or so before online will be number one.

The reasons in my view:

• Broadband usage is increasing both in coverage and speed.
• People, especially those under 35, are taking more content via the internet rather than traditional media.
• Active content generation and contribution is replacing passive consumption so readers are moving to internet based social media sources (blogs and podcasts) for stories and news (Whilst a low percentage will post stories as citizen journalists or even comments many more people actively read the comments and pass on stories and information to 3rd parties)
• Age barriers on using the internet is declining as software and PCs become easier to use and the IT educated generation grows older (PC adoption grew rapidly in the 1980’s. People who were then 25+ are now in their 50s and comfortable with technology)
• The internet provides a rich platform to consume information at a single point of delivery (people can watch video, listen to audio and read blogs and search engine delivered articles all at one location) 

Watch the video presentation of the report

Didn't get the Sunday Times this weekend. David Brain, President and CEO of Edelman, Europe blogged about an article which looked at traditional and new media.

The truth is kids today are not watching traditional TV but neither are they outside playing. They are getting social online. Not only participating in special interest communities but creating content. How many budding Spielbergs are out there using parents (or maybe their own video camera) to create a visual masterpiece? 

Years ago parents would have had to watch the kids put on a mini play in their own bedrooms or playrooms but now the kids can record it and share it with a worldwide audience. If it is really special it can become as popular online as an Hollywood blockbuster.

I wonder how many talented people never got to share their creative content because of publishers and producers rejection slips? How many today will self publish via the internet?

Two interesting reports showing the continued decline of traditional media.

The growth in traditional advertising spending will slow during the period 2006 – 2009. During the same period internet ad spending will grow six times faster. Source: ZenithOpimmedia as reported by Brand Republic.

A really interesting analysis of internet search activities by LeeAnn Prescott of HitWise on the recent Apple iPhone and Microsoft Vista product launches.

In the week immediately after each products launch an an