TheWayoftheWeb

It’s very rare I purchase a book. The last two were Tribes by Seth Godin, and Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur by Richard Branson, both of which have a lot to teach anyone in business and in social media marketing.

(Incidentally, after writing about Business Stripped Bare, here, a nice young lady named Natalie emailed me to say that there’s a widget to display the first 43 pages of the book, which you can see here. Meanwhile, my thoughts on Tribes and how to get it for free, or just 95p on iTunes are here.)

Anyhow, if you prefer to read from a printed page than a computer screen, then there are two more additions that I can recommend investing in.

The first is Dave Cushman’s The Power of the Network, which collects his white papers and more into a single download for 49p, or in printed form for £4.98 via print-on-demand site Lulu. (Disclosure - Dave is a former colleague and friend of mine - enough that I’m credited in the book!). Well worth reading - or buying for someone who is interested in how social media is changing. It’s particularly interesting due to Dave’s lengthy experience as a print journalist and sub-editor before his ever increasing adoption and insight into the changes multimedia is having on everything around us. He’s running a blogger review programme - and also giving any profits to Kiva, which allows you to fund people to change their lives and make their own way out of poverty.

The second is Jonathan MacDonald’s Every Single One of Us: Vol 1 The Communication Ideal, which looks at the underlying principles and makes bold predictions for the future advertising, marketing and personal brands - and is relevant for anyone in the media, internet and mobile industries. (Disclosure: I’m a very small part of a distinguished list who were involved in supporting and helping it’s creation). Jonathan’s CV speaks for itself! Plus he’s probably the closest thing to a legitimate social media rock star, thanks to his musical talents. It’s a £2.99 download or £14.95 for the print edition, and all the money is going into a collective pot to continue the concepts he’s building as part of a group. You can see it explained in a far better way, here.

Actually, cobblers to it and I’ll add a couple more - Joseph Jaffe is offering a very special deal for people buying certain amounts of his books Life After the 30 Second Spot and Join The Conversation  (I’m a big fan of Join the Conversation), ranging from signed copies to a day’s consulting. Take a look at the offer on his blog, Jaffe Juice.

Now I know a lot of people reading this will probably have heard of these people, read their blogs and be familiar with their work (or at least you should!), but the print editions are perfect educational materials for anyone who still associates a ‘blog’ as being something where a geek talks about how he sits at home on his Xbox, talking to his virtual friends. This might help them realise that in the modern world, everyone is doing it via mobile, internet, their console - and that to really be a geek you’d have to go much further. That’s why I love the fact that Seth Godin references the term Otaku, which I’m familiar with due to my love of video games and Japanese culture. It’s for anyone with an almost obsessive interest in something, whether that’s social media, videogames, motorcycling, football or anything else.

There’s a great William Gibson quote from the Observer used at the end of the Wikipedia article:

‘The otaku, the passionate obsessive, the information age’s embodiment of the connoisseur, more concerned with the accumulation of data than of objects, seems a natural crossover figure in today’s interface of British and Japanese cultures. I see it in the eyes of the Portobello dealers, and in the eyes of the Japanese collectors: a perfectly calm train-spotter frenzy, murderous and sublime. Understanding otaku -hood, I think, is one of the keys to understanding the culture of the web. There is something profoundly post-national about it, extra-geographic. We are all curators, in the post-modern world, whether we want to be or not.’

So go and buy some presents for the Otaku who don’t realise that’s what they are, and how the web can empower their interests, specialities, and dreams.

(And seeing as I’ve got the books, I’ll have a smart phone, a net book, an MP3 player and a new car stereo please!)

I’ve got a hunch that might develop into a theory with a bit of love and attention, and though it was worth sharing.

We all know that print media is in decline - ranging from slight drops to terminal free fall depending on the market. But does this mean print will cease to exist?

Or will there always be a print market as a niche of the digital world, in the same way as vinyl still exists as a viable niche within the music industry?

Ignoring the fact that an ageing part of the population will prefer print for a few more years to come, are there ways to ensure that people under 30 engage with print in some way? After all many vinyl sales over recent years are not aimed at an ageing population, but at a young, cool, DJ market who choose it over mixing with MP3s and CDs even now.

In this way, vinyl becomes remarkable, a talking point, and a Purple Cow. It signifies you’re a DJ, with either skills that require vinyl, or retro taste, and that you’re willing to go further to obtain a particular song in the format you want - whether it’s a new record, or a collectible classic.

I’ve been thinking about how print could become remarkable again, having achieved it as a medium for spreading the news before the arrival of mass radio and TV, and as a home of great content. Why, even in the face of decline, is there not more experimentation? For instance, with the impact of the financial crisis, why wouldn’t a broadsheet try printing a 5 page version, with only financial news, and selling it for a far lower price? (Perhaps the costs of printing and distribution etc might be overcome by mass sales and the publicity?).

Perhaps more titles need to look at the sales of anthology editions of certain brands - for instance videogame magazines Edge and RetroGamer have both published anthology editions which can command high prices on ebay.

Or a hand-printed, collectible newspaper? The Manual was actually distributed a week or so ago as an attempt to reawake the idea of print as collectible and powerful.

Empire magazine has always had some interesting cover ideas (Disclosure I work for publishers Bauer Media), like the 100 different covers for their recent rundown of the 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. As well as the famous quotes on the spine of the magazine.

Some magazines have experiment with size, mostly going to A5 ‘handbag size’ for the female market. (Male mag Jack failed despite writing which echoed the days when Loaded magazine had articles worth reading). But as the market is changing so rapidly, maybe there’s something more that could be tried?

Or considering a brand like Moleskine evokes a sense of luxury and culture in notepads, perhaps small runs of magazines could appeal to that market?

It’s late and my memory is failing me, so I’ll ask if anyone has any more ideas and examples of the extraordinary and remarkable?

Disclosure: I work for Bauer Media, which has a large portfolio of magazines in the UK. Nothing here indicates any projects that I know of. Any original ideas written in the comments remain the property of the author - however, if someone does come up with an amazing idea, it’s likely you might get an email from me. If you’d rather express your idea in private, please do email me at thewayoftheweb at googlemail.com

It’s happened again. Yet again, an earthquake has occurred, this time in the U.S. - and yet again I found out about it from Twitter as it happened, rather than from one of the news websites minutes later. In fact, I’d even reported on it, and uploaded an image from Twitter to 140char.com before the BBC website had any coverage.

And when the BBC does cover it, look at the lack of any responses. Now compare that to the sheer amount of updates which occurred on Twitter, even during the quake itself.

As microblogging sites increase and users can upload almost instantly from mobiles, news websites need to respond in a far more proactive way. I know the BBC is UK based, but even American media like CNN were apparently late to the party.

For a while news websites have had increased competition, particularly from prominent blogs, but they still had the resources to be the first point for news, and the first place people headed for if they wanted to upload pictures and videos. One significant early stage of Citizen Journalism was the London Underground bombing in July 2005. But now people already have significant networks and reach to share thoughts, images, and video incredibly quickly with a potentially large circle of people without needing the news portal to distribute it. In fact, during 9/11, when traffic brought news websites to a halt, I was ignoring the television to use Instant Messaging and forums to chat with friends in the U.S and at large news organisations to find out what was happening.

And if Twitter or similar tools become mainstream, breaking news is over. You might still get a few minutes grace on embargoed content before it’s replicated throughout the world, but reacting to something just happening? By the time your assigned staff reporter is taking notes, or your Web Producer has been woken up, Twitter users around the world (Tweeple) are already reacting.

As far as I can see, there are a few options still left:

1. Stop autofeeding your late news to Twitter. Particularly when we already know about the earthquake, and it’s been on your website for ages. It highlights that you haven’t bothered understanding how it works. And it isn’t the first time. Earthquakes in China and the UK, Heath Ledger’s death…you got beaten before and you’ll get beaten again.

2. Do make sure all your reporters have decent mobile phones. And can update straight to a Twitter account without worrying about grammar, subbing, or waiting until you have a story to link to on your main website. It’s not about driving traffic, it’s about breaking news. That’s what journalism is about. Get back your reputation for breaking news, and people will respond. And then when you do release an in-depth analysis on the website, and aggregate information, you’ll have an audience which responds.

3. Start aggregating Twitter onto your site. It takes two seconds to set up a Twitter Search result. Put a space in your news template for RSS feeds, and use them to plug Twitter in as soon as something happens. Start collating all the notable Tweets, and speaking to the people behind them. You’ll get responses far quicker than making your reporter get out of bed.

Alternatively:

1. While your print product is already falling, and you’re coming to terms that things are changing a bit more quickly, microblogging takes away one of the major selling points of a major news company. You no longer have scoops, and because you’ve cut back to save costs in an uncertain time, you don’t have the staff or resources to file in-depth analysis and responses to breaking news quick enough to beat experts on blogs, and aggregators.

Don’t stop evolving halfway out of the swamp.

Not a cheerful post perhaps, but the internet evolves faster than any previous form of communication. It took a good 10 years or so for the real effect on the media, and the decline of print and television to be felt to the point major corporations and companies got scared and started really responding. But while the slow pace of change happens within the organisation, outside the pace of change is far quicker - and it’s always happening. There is no single answer to maintaining a sizeable presence on the internet unless it is to become an organisation that can respond quickly and efficiently to new challenges on a monthly basis - even if it means ripping up your website and starting again! Halfway measures will satisfy less and less people. And they’ll definitely be uploading their complaints in 140 characters.

Edit: Turns out the LA Times is running Twitter in a Technology article highlighting how well it works for news, which you can see here. Strange then, it isn’t integrated into their general news coverage? The Guardian putting Twitter on blogs is again, a tiny, tiny step in the right direction, but it’s a start I guess - even if it isn’t working at the moment!