BLOGGING / ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNALISMHofstra University

Prof. Vaccaro

JRNL 10

Today’s roadmap

• Discuss the schedule

• REMINDER: Blog your class notes during lecture

• REMINDER: Tweet notes and links to your blog entries. Use #JRNL10

• Lecture on blogging, entrepreneurial journalism and more about the business of journalism

Blog vs. Traditional Media• Opinion• No set style• Completely online• Citizen journalists• Anyone can do it• Free/sustainable

• Objectivity• Proper style• Print/online/TV• Trained journalists• Hired by company• Biz team needed

Popular Blogs• Top blogs on internet

as of 9 a.m. Thursday:

• 1. HuffingtonPost• 2. BuzzFeed• 3. Mashable• 4. Business Insider• 5. Verge• 6. Gawker• 7. Gizmodo• 8. TechCrunch• 9. Engadget• 10. Ars Technica• 11. TMZ

Why are they popular?

• Focus on one subject area

• Packed with information

• Constant changing homepage

• Perfect amount of multimedia

• Mix between paid/unpaid writers/editors/bloggers

• “What’s now” content … hip, unique, trendy

Let’s analyze the top five blog sites …

• 1. HuffingtonPost

• 2. BuzzFeed

• 3. Mashable

• 4. Business Insider

• 5. Verge

Analyze the top blogs from list

Blog Basics

• More characteristics defining a blog

• Unique content, some related to a specific niche

• Frequently updated - new content should be at the top

• Every entry has a headline/body text and includes hyperlinks

• Contains a spot for reader comments/feedback

Blog Basics

• San Jose Mercury News added a blog in 1999 and changed journalism

• Every newspaper has blogs

• Every major newspaper has broken news via their blogs

• Every reporter hired now, is asked if they know how to manage/run a blog

What are your favorite blogs?• Tell us your favorites?

• Let’s look at newspaper blogs …

• Vaccaro• Let’s Blog it Out (Entourage), Newsday• Jim Romenesko, journalism industry• MLB Blog network, baseball• Hardball Talk• Pro Football Talk

Creating a blog• Make a plan: editorial/business

• Choose a blog system• Blogger/Wordpress

• Choose a theme/design

• Extras/Gadgets/Widgets

• Build your audience• How? Remember from our second class?

Tips for Bloggers• Organize your ideas

• Be direct and to the point

• Use appropriate language and style

• Be the authority with a personality

• Link, summarize and analyze

• Be specific with headlines/tagging

• Post early/post often

• Use images and multimedia elements

• Participate in the community/social network

• Write less and with conviction

Blog Ideas and more specific ideas• News >>>>>• Education >>>>>• Hot-button issues >>>>>• Animals >>>>>• HS Football >>>>>• Politics >>>>>• Hot topics >>>>>• History >>>>>

• Police/fire news• Sachem Schools• Immigration• Puppies, Morkies• Sachem Football• Newsday LI Politics• Community calendar• 1940’s Europe

Other Blog Creation Tips• Define your competition … who else is writing about

this topic?

• Who cares about the topic? Will anyone read or see this?

• How can I make this a visitor destination?

• Live blog and host talk sessions … think outside the editorial box

Microblogging• We’ll talk more specifically about this when we go over mobile in-depth, but for the sake of the

term “microblogging” …

• Using Twitter and Facebook to get your message out quickly

• Effective medium for breaking news

• Can host chats/Q&As

• Extension of your editorial reach

• Building a digital community

• Another reach for advertisers

• Building your brand tweet-by-tweet

• Create lists and communicate with others

• Go mobile (big discussions to come on this)

Planning multimedia• Assess situation for adding multimedia to your story and

platform … (could relate to web/mobile/blogs)• Photo galleries

• Photo slideshows

• Audio

• Video

• Info graphics

Tips on info layering• You have all this content? How do you place it in nonlinear

format on your platform and have it make sense?

• Create each element to stand alone

• Only include redundancies that are necessary

• Avoid editing your ideas in early stages of planning … having too much is not a bad thing, you can always cut down. Having too little is a problem.

Assess multimedia potential• Can the story be broken down into several topical chunks?

• Does the story describe a process? (Info graphs, video and photo galleries are perfect to displaying a process of events)

• Is the story laden with stats and figures? (info graphs and data visualization will help you!)

• Is there emotional narrative to be shown? (Video shows action and events as they unfold)

Assess multimedia potential• Are there dramatic visual moments that can be captured in

photographs?

• Does the story contain strong historical references? (Interactive timelines add context)

• Is there potential for animation? (gifs, memes, flash, cartoon, art design?)

Entrepreneurial Journalism• Let’s apply what we just learned about blogging and

microbloging to the following notes on entrepreneurial journalism.

• You should know how to build a media platform before trying to build a media brand. They go hand-in-hand, but the work behind the brand is what actually counts for the reporters/editors/journalists.

• You need to think and act as a publisher, business development executive in some aspects of journalism. The industry dictates this evolution.

How we got here?

• In 2005 newspaper advertising revenue was at an all-time high with $48 billion income, while in 2010 that same number dropped to $23 billion.

• Newspaper circulation declined by 25 percent.• A third of all newsroom jobs from 2001-2010 were cut.

• The growth of the Internet and digital technology has hindered the print model and changed the world forever.

Adapting to change• There was considerable change at the start of the 20th

century in media and publishing and they benefited from print circulation totals that hit 15 million towards 1915.

• What didn’t work was in the opening decade of the 21st century when they attempted to use print sales models online.

• In 2010, online advertising revenue grew 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion. MSNBC.com, for example, grew 7 percent in revenue last year and has continued to operate for free like a startup since its inception in the mid-1990s. Microsoft and NBC News share that venture.

Inside the numbers• In the first half of 2012, internet advertising revenues climbed

to an all-time high of $17 billion, representing a 14 percent increase year-over-year, according to IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and prepared by PwC US.

• This performance is compared to the landmark $14.9 billion reported for the first six months of 2011.

• Also marking a 14 percent year-over-year increase, second quarter internet ad revenues for this year hit $8.7 billion, up from $7.7 billion during the same time period in 2011.

Inside the numbers• Highlights of the report include:

• Mobile generated significant growth – almost doubling year-over-year – up 95 percent to $1.2 billion in half-year 2012 from $636 million in the comparable 2011 period

• Digital video, a component of display-related advertising, saw an increase of 18 percent year-over-year, bringing in a little over $1 billion in revenue in the first two quarters of 2012 compared to nearly $900 million in the first six months of 2011

• Search revenues in the first half of the year totaled $8.1 billion, up 19 percent from nearly $6.8 billion during the same timeframe in 2011

• Display-related advertising revenues in the first half of the year totaled almost $5.6 billion, accounting for 33 percent of 2012 half-year revenues, up 4 percent from $5.3 billion in the first half of 2011

• Retail advertisers constitute the largest category of internet ad spending for the first half of this year, claiming 20 percent of the total revenues at $3.4 billion, while Automotive brought in $2.2 billion for first-half 2012, marking an uptick to 13 percent versus 11 percent of category spend reported for half-year 2011 at $1.7 billion

Taking advantage of opportunity• How do you open a new product and change the new media frontier?• Engagement: No longer are journalists expected to

shout the news from a remote location, they are on the ground with the people.It’s a form of news collaboration, according to Briggs.

• Building trust: Being transparent with the audience and giving them what they want in an online medium.

• Embracing diversity of voice: You must be open to different view points through different dispersal methods. Fair and balanced with the submersion of new media technologies.

What makes a successful news start up?

• Analyze common traits of other successful startups … both positive and negative

• Learn how some blogs have grown into big businesses or other mediums like books or magazines

• Get inspired by others who have beat the odds

• Set your own goals and achieve

What makes a successful news start up?

• Quality content pays

• Understanding how to do business while being a journalist

• Test, test and test some more

• Pick a niche and go deep

• Target audiences for targeted advertising

• Check out the new app economy

• Be ethical and stick with it

Creating revenue models• Syndication: Will other companies pay for your content?

• Custom content: Will people log onto your platform and pay for specific content?

• Online advertising: What do you offer that the competition doesn’t?

• Advertising: Will you work with a third-party ad agency to plate your ads on other networks as well?

Elements of Innovation• Ideas do not fall off trees … you need to:

• Be creative: envision something that doesn’t exist.

• Risk: be willing to go way outside the box if you think it will work. Sometimes it doesn’t.

• Hard work: easier said than done sometimes, and very cliché, but you know what it takes to be successful and it doesn’t happen over night in most cases.

• How innovation is taught? Business schools have taught innovation through numbers and finance for years, now CUNY offers an entrepreneurial masters program for journalism. You can learn to think like an innovative digital journalist.

Make innovation a strategy• Make a priority

• Make failure acceptable

• Set goals

• Be agile

• Develop communication infrastructure

• See innovation as a product

Bring a start up culture to your newsroom

• Get hired for an older media company with traditional ways? No problem. It’s your turn to shine.

• Divide and conquer: Think hyper-local and give authority to more people but in concentrated areas.

• We report, you decide: Monthly meetings can be used as a way to report to your team how new projects are working. Good and bad.

Other start up keys• Find start up funding before you build your audience, if

you need the cash

• If you’re looking to charge, ask yourself, will customers ay for your product or service?

• Understand the basics of product development: cost, communication, control, longevity.

Choosing the right technology• You need a platform you understand and can work in• Choose the right host and right theme for the design of your

site• Enhance your site with advanced features:

• Event calendars• Live blogs• Live video• Mapping• Databases• Bulletin boards• Social media/bookmarking• Email marketing

Assignment No. 1

• DUE NEXT CLASS

• Prepare an editorial/business plan for a blog idea that could be utilized as a real website …

• Be prepared to have it done in class and talk about it, along with your classmates, in front of the room live before the class period ends.

Assignment No. 1• Post the business plan to your class blog

• Headline: “Assignment No. 1: Biz Plan”

• Things to include• Blog idea with specific focus• Who is your demographic? Why?• How will you execute on coverage?• Types of multimedia you would use• Brief thought into types of revenue models• How would you staff your company? Hierarchy of workers?• List at least five types of content you’d include: news articles,

commentary, daily columns, etc.

Next up• Next class JRNL 10-A (Tuesday) … Feb. 26• Next class JRNL 10-B (Wednesday) … March 6

• For Wednesday class, NO CLASS, Feb. 27 (professor has previous engagement)

• Assignment No. 1 is due next class

• Lecture will be on Digital Photography