Sports Illustrated shows us the future

Please watch this video. Its a graphic illustration of whats coming and why we should be so excited to be in media. Strong brands with original high quality content are going to be set free by technology and will thrive in the digital era.

Newspapers - time to co-operate?

If magazine publishers can get together and cooperate why can't newspapers?

At this infection point it has to make sense for newspaper publishers to work collaboratively on setting standard models for content charging, digital access and a united front in debate with content aggregators.

Doesn't it?

In the magazine world the greatest names in publishing Hearst, Time Inc, Conde Nast and Meredith will next week launch an independent digital consortium supported by News Corp, to develop a digital news stand. Last week Hearst with support from others launched "Skiff", a standard technology platform and planned electronic reader, promising to give publishers more control of their digital fortunes.

"For the first time the publishing business are way ahead of the trend" says Mark Ford, Time's publisher.

There are so many great minds beavering away inside newspapers trying to figure out the way forward - alone and isolated from the rest of the industry. Surely its time for the newspapers greatest names to swallow their pride and cooperate? To work on the problems and opportunities together. To develop and execute a cohesive plan to together. To emerge from this crisis stronger and ready for the digital era.

Alas it won't happen. There will continue to be a collectively hand wringing and tub thumping at newspapers industry get togethers like the recent World Newspaper Congress in Hyderabad, but self interest will keep the titles and their businesses apart. And the industry will suffer longer than it needs to as a result. The frustrating thing is that standards will emerge eventually they always do, but not for awhile longer.

Ironically I think the industry might coerce (rather than cooperate) around an 'no charge' for content position. There will be publishers that will choose not to rally to Murdoch 'pay walls' battle cry choosing to wait it out and see whether they benefit from a customer upswing away from paid sites to their free sites. I wonder whether this is driven by a desire to ‘get Murdoch’ or a genuine strategic position. Additionally, I foresee publishers coalescing around the aggregators (especially Google and Yahoo) with some like Murdoch choosing to fight and others like Germany's Axel Springer choosing to work together to create a “one-click marketplace solution” for their online content.

Resurgence in sale of Vinyl

Sales of vinyl albums have been climbing steadily for several years, proving its a trend not a fad.

Through end of November, more than 2.1 million vinyl records had been sold in 2009, an increase of more than 35 percent in a year, according to Nielsen Soundscan. That total, though it represents less than 1 percent of all album sales, including CDs and digital downloads, is the highest for vinyl records in any year since Nielsen began tracking them in 1991. Rock on.
Toby Constantine
Director | Market Evolution Ltd

Research | Analysis | Insight | Advice | Action

Sent from my handheld

£850 billion bank bailout

LONDON (Reuters) - The price tag for bailing out UK banks has hit £850 billion pounds according to the independent National Audit Office (NAO)

No further comment ..............

Facebook hits 350m users

The incredible growth of Facebook has taken us all by surprise. It gone from 150 million to 350 million in less than one year trouncing its competitors (including the once mighty MySpace) in the process..

Google blink first in battle with Murdoch

Mr Murdoch's aggressive stance against search engines and news aggregators seems to have paid off (abit). Google appears to have conceded (alittle)

LONDON (Reuters) - Google is offering news publishers a way to attract paying subscribers without having to remove their content from Google News search results, after some media companies accused it of profiting from their online news.

The Web search giant said it would adapt its so-called First Click Free program to prompt online readers to register or subscribe to a news provider's site after reading five free articles from that publisher in a day.

Previously, the user's first click on any article would be free for an unlimited number of articles, provided the user did not click through any more links from any article.

Newspaper's digital device

I hadnt seen this so thanks for our friend Lopo (www.wahanda.com) for sharing.

Its amusing, but its also restates the case for why newspapers are relevant in this digital world

Quote of the day

"Producing journalism is expensive. We invest tremendous resources in our project from technology to our salaries. To aggregate stories is not fair use. To be impolite, it is theft.

Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, in an address to US media regulators

Quote of the day

"We were promised that eyeballs meant advertising, clicks meant cash. Free costs too much. News is a business and we should not be afraid to say it."

Les Hinton, the chief executive of Wall Street Journal publisher and News Corp subsidiary Dow Jones, at the first session of the WAN-IFRA World Congress of Newspapers in Hyderabad.

Read the whole speech here. Its well worth it

Big Companies blow up start-ups

I thought this article was interesting and worth a read. Its all about how many great start-ups have been acquired and ruined by the hugh tech companies (Yahoo, Microsoft, Google etc)

Its well worth a read

Its also a lesson to big companies everywhere - acquiring smart young companies isnt the answer to future proofing. Its like daddy dancing at the disco!

Another iPhone football app

The Sun's new iPhone app - allowing Dreamteam owners to run their teams on the go - has just launched into the crowded app market.

We applaud the thinking, we helped launch a mobile based version of the Telegraph game about 4 years ago (which proved to be somewhat ahead of its time) but we're watching this space closely to see how this now develops.

Looking forward to seeing the next football gaming developments coming to market shortly. It's a great way to cement engagement with this audience

INM completes debt restructuring - finally

The Indie publisher has—finally—put an end to its debt restructuring saga. The company won shareholder support for its finance package at an EGM in Dublin on Thursday and has already secured bondholder support. The sale of South African advertiser INM Outdoor was also approved.