Video: Future of Media, April 2011

For those who missed the Future of Media event on April 6, 2011, the following clips have been made available. You can also read a written recap of Future of Media 2011 here.

The discussion topic centered on the relationship between start-ups and media companies; entrepreneurial journalism; gamification; paywalls; and the future of media. The panel was made up of the following individuals:

1. Jamie Angus, Acting Head of News at BBC World News.
2. Jon Taylor is Senior Director of Content for CTV Digital Media.
3. Mathew Ingram, a senior writer with the technology blog network GigaOM.
4. Chris Boutet is the senior producer for digital media at the National Post.
5. Kathy Vey is Editor-in-Chief of OpenFile

The panel discussion was moderated by DigitalJournal.com Managing Editor, David Silverberg. The clips from Future of Media April 2011 event are in order below.

Each clip is rendered in low- and high-resolution versions depending on your bandwidth. You can view each clip in high-definition.:

Part 1: How optimistic should we be about media’s future?

Part 2: Digital-first strategies

Part 3: Journalists, Twitter & Facebook

Part 4: Mobile

Part 5: BBC’s coverage of the election using social media, user-generated content

Part 6: Revenue, paywalls

Part 7: Start-ups working in news

Part 8: ROI from tablets/mobile development

Part 9: Augmented reality

Part 10: Is the news media over-staffed for the global age?

Part 11: News sites VS. aggregators

Future of Media recap: Start-ups, gamification and ‘pay-what-you-can walls’

by David Silverberg and Chris Hogg

The future for media organizations is not all doom and gloom, and there is more opportunity and experimentation happening today than ever before. That was the overall discussion at Digital Journal‘s Future of Media panel discussion last night in Toronto.

In a meaty conversation that sunk its teeth deep into topics of start-up culture, gamification and paywalls, editors and experts discussed why we should be optimistic for legacy media and start-ups experimenting with innovative news projects.

The insightful debate included a wide array of media experts: Jamie Angus, acting head of news at BBC World News; Jon Taylor, senior director of content for Bell Media Digital; Chris Boutet, senior producer for digital media at the National Post; Mathew Ingram, a senior writer at GigaOM; and Kathy Vey, editor-in-chief of OpenFile. The discussion was moderated by David Silverberg, managing editor of DigitalJournal.com.

The theme of the night could be summed up by Ingram’s poignant one-liner: “When you’re on Death Row, it’s easy to find religion.” He referred to the important wake-up call many newspapers faced with plummeting ad revenue and an upturned business model.

Boutet of the National Post agreed and said his outlet has adopted a digital-first strategy to allow readers to easily consume online news, while making sure the print product still had strong long-form content. “It needs to start with digital and end in print,” he said.

The conversation often veered into the benefits and dangers of using on-the-ground reporting from citizens in global hot spots. Angus said the BBC had previously ignored social media but now the organization is increasingly incorporating tweets into its reportage. “That could never happen two or three years ago,” he admitted.

Ingram replied, “When Twitter came out, I don’t think anyone would have predicted newspapers would have entire staff devoted to their Twitter account.”

Vey, who runs the collaborative news start-up OpenFile, said she’s optimistic about journalism’s future, considering how many important news start-ups have made an impact in the U.S. She just wishes Canada could better nurture start-ups and entrepreneurs.

The conversation around start-ups took up a better part of the night, with each panelist discussing how a news organization could benefit by having an entrepreneurial approach to media production. Panelists agreed the lean approach without expensive overhead and the willingness to try new things is an important part of determining media’s future.

That said, Boutet, Vey and Ingram agreed entrepreneurial skills are not something journalism students learn in school, and students don’t enter j-school with the goal of graduating, starting their own company and trying to compete with a big newspaper.

Boutet said newsrooms need to create an environment where experimentation is encouraged, and an entrepreneurial mindset helps. He noted how the National Post has designers, programmers, digital media producers and journalists within the same area to facilitate collaboration.

Ingram agreed, saying a news experiment today can happen in an afternoon with $1,500 and a programmer who fires out some code. But that often doesn’t happen because the small numbers and quick turn-around time are not how media executives typically think. “They think in terms of months, not days,” Ingram said.

Some mainstream media outlets are stepping up their online news initiatives and experiments. At the National Post, for instance, the newspaper partnered with GeoPollster to allow people to check-in to venues with Foursquare with their political party affiliation, so a certain restaurant can be Conservative if enough Conservatives check-in to that spot en masse. “We wanted it to be fun,” Boutet said, and many panelists agreed entertaining media projects and “gamification” could benefit news outlets.

Taylor, from the newly minted Bell Media, said the growth of mobile and tablet platforms have also dramatically shifted focus and opened up many new opportunities for media outlets, especially broadcasters. “My job has 100 per cent changed because of those platforms,” he said. “We’re learning with everybody else. It’s constantly evolving.” Taylor said he’s hopeful the rules of the TV game will evolve into a more futuristic model, where it’s not just watching TV on your tablet PC, say, but also being able to swipe something from your tablet onto your TV somehow.

He also spoke about new revenue possibilities for broadcasters, saying there’s “no magic bullet” but that old ideas are becoming new again. “I think the answer is going to be a multitude of things, which include digital sponsorship, we have sponsors we have advertisers,” he said. “In the TV world you can only get so innovative, in the digital space it’s nearly unlimited.”

Taylor said the “This show is brought to you by…” line is something we’ll likely hear more often, but that media organizations have to be careful how they balance sponsorship and production. He said sponsors need to be happy with the presence, but broadcasters have to make sure content is not overly swamped with advertising messages.

Angus agreed that mobile is an integral part of the future of media, noting that rapid adoption of mobile phones in some places such as Africa have replaced more traditional platforms such as radio. Angus said the BBC, and media organizations that reach massive audiences in very rural places, have new challenges because they must think about the medium or platform through which the message is being delivered. In some areas, media is consumed through more than just a newspaper or Internet connection. Angus said organizations who want to reach wide audiences now have to think about how much the end-user will have to pay to consume content via mobile versus other platforms when they decide where to invest and how they want to target new audiences.

On the topic of cost, the panel  discussed paywalls and how they fit in the media’s future. The BBC’s Angus and Ingram were at odds on this issue. Angus suggested the paywall experiment by the Times of London and New York Times could be the harbinger of things to come. ”What if they’re right, doesn’t that change things?” he asked. Ingram shook his head and said “But the Times of London lost a lot of pageviews…and now they’re just an expensive newsletter.”

After some debate among panelists, Angus went back to the idea and admitted that while it may not be popular among readers it may be necessary for media outlets. He said if it becomes the norm, it may give media organizations enough of a revenue stream to encourage them to invest in the digital media space.

Boutet didn”t like the idea of a paywall because it’s an ultimatum that does not allow the reader to suggest how much they think content is worth. Telling a reader to pay $10 per month or go away, Boutet believes, is the wrong approach because it’s an all-or-nothing attitude. “What about a pay-what-you-can wall?” he suggested, saying some readers may not want to pay $10 per month but would be willing to pay $5. Having the option to let people price a product themselves provides a news organization with the opportunity to market-test various pricing options and determines what people will pay.

The panelists generally agreed a paywall or pay fence would work with specialty content, such as Wall Street Journal‘s financial news or ESPN.com‘s in-depth sports coverage. Ingram was unsure what metric would be used to measure success, though. “Does it look like 200,000 people paying to read your content, or does it look like millions?”

So what’s in store for the future of media? The panelists all seemed to agree experimentation is important and that the news industry as a whole is in better shape today than it has been over the last few years. That said, there are still a number of questions that need to be answered as far as concrete business models that will take shape.

New technologies such as augmented reality provide some really interesting opportunities to media companies, and mobile phones, apps and tablets are a game-changer for how, when and where people consume content.

The overall tone of the night was optimistic, with panelists agreeing wholeheartedly the future looks much brighter than the past. Media organizations now need to focus on experimentation, and partnering with start-ups is a cost-effective way to innovate new ideas.

The panel also agreed newsrooms need to shed old attitudes and get people to talk to their audience in a two-way conversation via social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter, while at the same time remember that every word they say is essentially speaking on behalf of their respective media outlets. What you say, when you say it, and how you say it, are guidelines that media organizations need to quickly decide.

Watch video from this event here

 

Future of Media Preview: A Q&A with the National Post’s Chris Boutet

Chris Boutet, senior producer for digital media at the National Post, discusses the changing media landscape and working with a “digital-first” strategy. Boutet will be speaking about journalism at Digital Journal’s Future of Media event on April 6.

Chris Boutet is senior producer for digital media at the National Post.

Originally from Edmonton, Boutet moved to Toronto where he was the night news editor at Dose magazine. In 2006, Boutet joined the National Post as a part-time sports copy editor after his hockey blog caught the attention of sports staff during the Edmonton Oilers’ Stanley Cup run.

When the National Post relaunched its website in 2007, Boutet joined the new online team as a blogger and homepage editor. He was named the Senior Editor of product and engagement in 2009 and became Senior Producer in 2010.

Boutet and his team have worked to change the way the National Post thinks about its digital presence by introducing innovative reporting and content delivery strategies that have shifted the focus toward serving the needs and interests of an online readership. He has led the charge in integrating the use of social media and real-time reporting techniques into the daily workflow of the newsroom.

Leading the National Post’s social media strategy, Chris’s team has cultivated thriving networks on Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Tumblr that have helped the National Post reach vast new communities of readers. He has helped to establish a collaborative newsroom environment that encourages innovation, whether it’s creating new ways to engage with casual readers or turn a static online graphic into a runaway viral hit.

In a Q&A with Digital Journal, Boutet discussing the skills a modern-day journalist needs to have and what it’s like working with a publication with a digital-first mandate.

Digital Journal: To make it as a journalist today, what core skills do you need? What core skills will you need in the years ahead?

Chris Boutet: I’ve always felt the most important character trait for a successful journalist to have is fearlessness. Whether you’re walking up to the front door of the family of a murder victim to try get a quote, or walking up to your editor to sell your big story idea, it’s a job that requires remarkable courage and confidence.

Beyond that, though, it’s also vital to have a strong sense of curiosity, adaptability and a willingness to experiment. With so many new storytelling tools and platforms emerging every day, journalists need to be constantly evaluating how effectively we are using these tools to tell better stories and connect with our readers.

There’s so much discovery and evaluation happening right now in online media. We can’t be afraid to fail if we’re going to find new ways to succeed.

Digital Journal: You work for a company that says it wants to take a digital-first strategy. How does that play out in your day-to-day and what does that look like?

Chris Boutet: The “digital first’ mandate was a wake-up call to newsrooms that we needed to change the way we think about how our print and online properties work together.

In most newsrooms, the workflow has traditionally been built around the print product, with web, mobile and social media presences thought of as separate from, or supplementary to, that core.

At the National Post, this mandate helped to further shift our reporting and editing resources to towards creating a dynamic and robust online product first, then using those same resources to build out a print product that was both complementary and distinct.

Digital Journal: How has your printed newspaper been affected by digital media and what will it look like in years to come?

Chris Boutet: In print, the National Post is as great a read as it’s ever been. It’s a boldly designed paper with an insightful, cleverness and irreverent wit that makes it unlike any other newspaper in Canada.

If our increased focus on digital has changed print at all, it’s perhaps freed the newspaper up to focus less on the “breaking” and day-to-day news that online does better and more on analysis, features and commentary to create a more thoughtful, “long read” experience.

To me, the long read is one of print’s greatest strengths. The tactility and slower pace of consumption make the time spent feel luxurious and almost decadent, especially after a long week of chasing an endless stream of news developments online.

I think in the years to come we’ll see more news organizations start to cultivate an image of their print product as a luxury, boutique item that should be pored over and savoured.

Digital Journal: What kinds of editorial experiments have you tried in order to create audience? How do you measure success?

Chris Boutet: At the National Post, we are constantly exploring and evaluating new and better ways to reach our audience and improve their reading experience.

In the last two years especially, social media experimentation and expansion has been a major focus for our news organization. Gone are the days where you could create a great website and expect people to come to you.

Today, our online readership wants us to come to them, to be engaged and active in the same networks they use every day.

The National Post‘s reporters and editors use Twitter to deliver breaking news and create new contextual content streams that make the news easier to follow, understand and share. Our Facebook fan page has evolved into an online hub for lively debate, especially around our political coverage and commentary.

In the last year, we’ve also found unique new ways to deliver our content on Tumblr and Foursquare.

With social media, there are myriad ways to measure success. Follower counts and referral traffic back to the site are decent core metrics, but a good social presence goes beyond that. We keep a close eye on what content is being shared, how it is spreading and what people are saying about us.

Digital Journal: What should digital media outlets be doing that they’re not doing now?

Chris Boutet: Some of the best online news organizations are where they are today because they embraced a more agile, startup-like approach to their product development.

Experimentation and innovation is key as the industry forays deeper into the digital space and we learn better ways to reach and serve our readers. Top-down, boardroom-style direction can’t react quickly enough to the ever-changing landscape. Building a product system around small, independent teams of reporters, editors, designers and developers is an excellent way to encourage creative thinking and speed up the implementation/evaluation cycle.

Also, bring more developers into your newsroom. You really can’t have too many.

Digital Journal: What revenue channels beyond advertising do you think we’ll see become more prevalent in the digital media space?

Chris Boutet: It’s an interesting question. Online readership numbers are now outpacing print, and the pressure is on to build a stable revenue model around digital.

But a major reason that news organizations were able to build that online reader base in the first place was by making our content easy to find and free to read. So how do we make money without shutting out our readership and losing that scale and reach?

The key is not just to create something that has value to your readership, but also to have your audience agree with you on what that value is to them in real dollars.

I think we’ll be seeing a lot of experimentation with costing on mobile app products and paywall/content metering models.

The industry needs to get away from trying to tell our readership what they should be paying, and instead let them tell us what they will pay. Rather than throwing up another paywall, why not try a “pay-what-you-can wall” and see what the value of your product really is to your readers?

Digital Journal: Outside of Facebook and Twitter, what start-ups do you think are making a big difference or impact in the world of media? How so?

Chris Boutet: So many to mention, but a few of my favourites at the moment:

Toronto’s own ScribbleLive: Their real-time CMS is a powerful reporting and crowdsourcing tool that is getting better every day. They take user feedback very seriously and are always thinking about how to improve the product.

Foursquare as well has opened a lot of doors for the National Post and other forward-looking media organizations who are interested in exploring the value of geo-located news delivery.

Tumblr has been around for a while, but it’s just now building out the organizational framework that is making it a more meaningful and effective broadcast tool.

The National Post is also intrigued by Instagram as a content platform. NPR is doing some interesting work in that space and we’re seeing others like NBC and CNN get into the game as well.

I’ll also mention WordPress, as the National Post has been using it to power our blog network for almost a year now and it’s done so much to improve the agility and visibility of our online news product.

This Q&A is part of a 5-part series:

1. An interview with OpenFile Editor, Kathy Vey
2. An interview with journalist Mathew Ingram
   
3. An interview with National Post senior producer, Chris Boutet
4. An interview with the head of BBC World News, Jamie Angus
5. An interview with Jon Taylor, Senior Director of Content for Bell Media Digital

Bio: Chris Boutet