insights on the future of media

8/3/2019 Insights on the Future of Media

1/15

Insights on the Future of MediaBy Steve Rubel, EVP, Edelman

Volume I - January 2012


2/15

Introduction

Its easy to forget but back in 2008 a lot of people weredeclaring that the media as we know it was dead - or dying.In fact, one enterprising Twitter user, Paul Armstrong, set upa special account (@themediaisdying) to chronicle the press

alleged death spiral. Today it has nearly 25,000 followers.

Yet, a funny thing happened on the way to the funeral. Themedia, faced with the threat of extinction, used sheer will andinnovation to turn things around. Today the fourth estate isarguably stronger than ever. This even as the global economysputters.

Consider TV. The networks have all aggressively deployed an

armada of second screen experiences for tablets and smartphones. These apps, which curate Twitter and Facebookstreams in a single place, are encouraging live tune in byessentially creating a social show around the show.

Theyre not alone. Stalwart newspapers like The Guardian andThe Washington Posthave created immersive news experiencesinside Facebook. Theyre even syndicating full text storiesinside the social juggernaut.

The bet as paid off. In just two months since these social newsplatforms were unveiled The Guardian said it saw site trafficincrease by more than a million page views a month. ThePost, not to be outdone, has seen a sharp uptick in newsreaders under 35. And Yahoo is expanding their Facebookintegration to many more properties.

2@themediaisdying on Twitter (top), Get Glue social badges for TV shows (bottom)


3/15

Finally, blog-based upstarts like theHuffington Post, Politico andEngadget, all of which pioneered the use of short-form, rapidfire posts, are now expanding into long form content. Thisincludes ebooks and tablet magazines.

There are countless other examples. The media is back in a

big way. And this is having a significant impact on howbusinesses synchronize and prioritize where, when and howthey tell their stories. This process, to borrow a term fromHollywood, is often called "transmedia storytelling."

Curious about the medias reincarnation, in 2011 I set out ona journey to learn more. I visited media executives andreporters, technology vendors and social networks - all in aquest to identify some common best practices. Five new

"rules" emerged.

In this scrapbook I share what I learned.

# # #

3


4/15

I - Curate to Dominate

My journey to dissect a re-invigorated media began with JimBankoff - CEO of Vox Media. When we met for coffee lastspring Vox was operating one site: the highly successful Sports

Blog Nation (SBN). Since then it has expanded into tech with a

new sister site, The Verge.

I didn't know what to expect that warm April day. But what Idiscovered is that vertical curators like SBN may soon play alarger role in how we consume content than many of us mayrealize. This has ramifications for both journalists andcommunicators.

Sports is one of the largest and oldest online interest verticals.

The category is dominated by large brands - sites likeESPN.com and Yahoo Sports, which rose to prominenceduring the 1990s.

Suddenly, however, the edges are fraying. First, athletes andteams are becoming their own media channels. Beyond that,new curators are moving in and disrupting the business. SBN,for example, rolls up the best independent blog voicescovering individual teams into a carefully curated network.

The Bleacher Report, meanwhile, takes a more open, crowd-sourced approach. Today it's the 12th largest sports site,according to comScore.

Both SBN andBleacher Reportare demonstrating that there's ahuge opportunity for new media brands to emerge that focuson separating art from junk. This is all a result of too muchcontent and not enough time.

4

JimBankoff,VoxMedia


5/15

Sports media, however, is filled with analysis - an editorialasset that is always in high demand. But what about breakingnews, which is more of a commodity these days? Can acurator win in news too?

According to the 3.3 million people who follow the MSNBC-

owned @breakingnews account on Twitter - the sub-140-character answer is "yes." That's where we pick up the story.

To learn more, I sought out fellow Hofstra University alumLauren McCullough. She recently joined @breakingnewsfrom AP as a Senior Editor.

I was surprised to hear from Lauren just how much MSNBChas bolstered the Breaking News brand, which it acquired

from an enterprising Twitter user a couple of years back.MSNBC has turned it into a 24/7 news operation thatcurates links faster than anyone else. In addition to itssubstantial Twitter footprint, MSNBC has pushed the brandaggressively into Facebook, Google+ and via its own web site(breakingnews.com) and mobile apps.

The @breakingnews team aims to find and credit the originalsource of a story. This can be difficult. So the team has set up

a way for other reporters to tip them when they have a scoopvia a simple hashtag. This also gives the source additionalexposure for their stories.

Curation, I learned, doesn't need to be a business. It can be afeature too.

5

LaurenMcCullough,MSNBC
http://breakingnews.com/http://breakingnews.com/


6/15

One of the notable trends to emerge in the last couple ofyears is that journalists are finding meaningful content rolesbeyond the media. In 2010, the BBC's Richard Sambrook,for example, joined Edelman (my employer) as our ChiefContent Officer. He's not alone. Facebook hired Columbia

Journalism School grad and wunderkind reporter Vadim

Lavrusik to help journalists use the platform to engage theiraudiences. Tumblr earlier had hired Mark Coatney fromNewsweekfor the same purpose.

Another individual in a similar role is Daniel Roth, who lastyear joined LinkedIn as its Executive Editor. But what makesRoth unique, as I discovered when we met for coffee lastNovember at New York's Ace Hotel, is that he is a curator.

LinkedIn Today - the network's news platform and Roth'sfocus - is quickly becoming a go-to source for business newsacross many of key verticals. Need proof? Consider thatLinkedIn is routinely one of the top sources of traffic to biznews sites.

6

Curation is a buzzword these days - so it's murky still what itstrue potential may be. On the one hand, an emerging group ofcurators like Flipboard, MediaGazer and TechMeme aresuccessfully mixing human and social algorithmic editors.Former Time Inc. journalist Josh Quittner joined Flipboard asits editor. Techmeme and MediaGazer too have editors.

On the other hand, Staci Kramer, editor of PaidContent.org,helped me see that there's a difference between curation(editorializing) and aggregation (compiling) - which is what someof these sites do.

Still, what's clear is that a new layer is emerging where humans,specifically editors, help us separate art from junk in the vast seaof digital content. And this will be a recurring trend in the years

ahead.

# # #

LinkedIn's Roth (L), Tumblr's Coatney

(M) and Facebook's Lavrusik (R).
http://paidcontent.org/http://paidcontent.org/


7/15

II - Data Mine and Time

Math: I don't know about you, but for me it's a four-letterword. I had always suspected the same truism heldthroughout the journalism world. After all, the field is filledwith liberal arts graduates. However, that's not what I

discovered. It turns out that quite a lot of what we see in themedia today is at least shaped by data mining and timing.

Lurking behind the scenes at many media companies is anemerging field of data journalists. This group not only knowshow to mine the numbers, but also how to turn them intodata-driven insights that influence (but don't dictate) editorialdecisions.

Drake Martinet, Associate Editor at Dow Jones'All Things Dtech site, is basically a real-life version of the Robert Redfordcharacter in The Horse Whisperer- except with data. He poursover mountains of information and provides actionableinsights to colleagues. The key, Martinet says, is to speak in

verbs, not nouns.

Timing, meanwhile, is the name of the game at theHuffingtonPost- now part of AOL. The site has a traffic and trends

team, I learned during my visit there, that spots topics thatare hot on social networks and search engines and then writesstories about those it deems newsworthy. This not only leadsto solid reporting, but also a pretty good way to capturerelevant inbound traffic too.

7


8/15

The HuffPo is not alone in using data to inform their timing.Several media brands, including theEconomist, are workingwith SocialFlow to more effectively optimize when theirheadlines are seeded into Twitter. The Business Insider,meanwhile, uses Newsbeat to dig through their data andmake much of it public via their Engage-o-Meter.

Although I haven't polled media companies directly, Isuspect most prefer to keep these strategies close to the vest.However, the above examples show that increasinglyeditorial decisions are being at least guided by data, even asnews still rules.

It's also worth noting that there are other startups emergingthat are arming the media with technology that enables it tounearth such insights.

One such company is Storyful, which is stacked withrefugees from the news business and advisors like Joe

Webster, who like McCullough, also worked at the AP.

Storyful (not to be confused with Storify) filters throughthousands of tweets to find primary sources who are close tobig, newsy topics. This includes on-the-ground sources ininhospitable places and also third party experts closer to

home.

Storyful, Webster shared with me when we met in October,saves journalists time by rolling up sources into privateTwitter lists. The end result is that the start-up's mediacustomers are not only more informed about they news theycover, but they are faster at it too.

8

All of this may soon become more automated. Alreadytechnology is becoming mature enough where machines canactually write more formulaic stories with little or no humaninvolvement. This includes filing post-game wrap-ups andearnings reports. According to The New York Times, a startupcalled Narrative Science has partnered with The Big Ten

Networkto do just that.

Machines will never replace humans. However, journalism isbeing increasingly shaped by machines

# # #

Storyful (above) and itsevangelist, Joe Webster(below)
http://chartbeat.com/dashboard/?url=businessinsider.com&k=4bbb5a03ffbd1d760ecf0ba8d9f27ef7http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/business/computer-generated-articles-are-gaining-traction.html?pagewanted=allhttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/business/computer-generated-articles-are-gaining-traction.html?pagewanted=allhttp://chartbeat.com/dashboard/?url=businessinsider.com&k=4bbb5a03ffbd1d760ecf0ba8d9f27ef7http://chartbeat.com/dashboard/?url=businessinsider.com&k=4bbb5a03ffbd1d760ecf0ba8d9f27ef7


9/15

III - Keep Stories Alive

One of the notable ways that the media has evolved in thelast several years is in how it has been forced to adjust to thenew economics of attention. It has arguably adapted more

quickly than some corporations.

The universal truth is that quality content is no longer scarce.It's abundant. The public's time and appetite for information,however, remains somewhat finite. Therefore every mediabrand is facing increased competition for the same eyeballs.This has spawned a massive and escalating war for page

views.

This is where we pickup the story. What I discovered last yearis that attention warfare weapons today go way beyondobvious devices like information graphics, slideshows and"listicles." Some media brands, it seems, are going to greatlengths to keep their stories alive longer than others.

Seeking answers, in October I hit up one of the wisest peopleI know: Robert Scoble - a leading tech influencer andRackspace's corporate storyteller. His advice to me was to

keep an eye on "verbs."

A few days prior to our breakfast Facebook had unveiled anew way for major media companies to build social newsexperiences on their platform. What's notable is that thesesend a cascade of social actions to the newsfeed - verbs thatgo beyond "like" to include "read," "watch" and "listen."Scoble's view, which I questioned then, was that this movewould dramatically re-shape how we discover content.

9

Scoble (L) and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.


10/15

Scoble shoots 50% from the tech pundit free-throw line. Thistime he maybe right.

Facebook late last year revealed that the media companiesthat jumped into create social news experiences actually sawa dramatic increase in readers... to theirweb sites. TheGuardian is recording an additional one million page views

per month. The Washington Post, meanwhile, has seen an influxin coveted under-35 readers. And Yahoo is getting so muchnew traffic from Facebook that they expanded theirrelationship to dozens more sites.

Social networks are a media engagement elixir. This is truefor once-static magazines too.

A few weeks later at Mashable Media Conference I learned

how TV Guide has turned its tablet apps into a personalized,live social water cooler for more than 5 million people. Theseapps are sometimes called "second screen" experiences. Theyare meant to be used while watching TV.

At the same conference, Michael Lazerow, CEO of BuddyMedia, revealed how the media companies that add a simplesharing option to common interactions on their web sites(like completing a poll) will cascade "verbs" into Facebook.

This directly leads to a 12.98% increase in site traffic.Lazerow has done the math!

Add this all up and what I learned is that the media isleveraging the power of social networking to help keep theirstories alive longer. They've gone beyond just pumping outlinks to creating fully integrated experiences that arepersonalized through the lens of your friends.

# # # 10

BuddyMediaCEOMichaelLazerow(above).


11/15

IV - Roll in the Deep

Los Angeles is not widely viewed as the pantheon of deepthought. However, it is where the future of media isincreasingly being defined. That's where we pick up my questfor knowledge - at USC Annenberg, which I visited twice last

year.

The future of media is not just about short-attention fare liketweets, but also a renaissance in long-form, vertical contenttoo. To quote pop star Adele, the press is "rolling in thedeep."

This realization started with Geoff Boucher from theLATimes, who I met at a USC event last spring. Boucher is a 20-plus-year veteran of the paper who once covered a string ofgang murders that rocked the city in the early 1990s. Todayhe is a journalistic hero of sorts; a pioneer.

Boucher always had a geek streak running through his veins.In 2008 he channeled his love for words and wookies toconvince theLA Times to launch Hero Complex - a blogcovering the worlds of comic books, graphical novels andscience fiction. The site has been a huge hit.

There are examples of a resurgence in long-form contenteverywhere - and not just in places where you would expect.

Let's start with the rule-breakers that have transformed

journalism over the last five years. The Huffington PostandPoliticohave both launched successful ebooks.Engadget, meanwhile, istaking this a step further with the launch of its own tabletmagazine.

The old guard too is keeping up. After the death of Apple CEOSteve Jobs bothBloomberg BusinessWeekandFortune repackagedarticles from their archives and made them available as paidebooks on Amazon's Kindle platform.

Boucher (L) with Steven Spielberg (R)

11


12/15

What's more, as people spend more time reading on tablets, sitesthat help users consume longer fare, such as Instapaper,ReadItLater and Scribd, have all blossomed.

These discoveries led me back to school. Specifically, I soughtout USC's Dr. Henry Jenkins, who many consider the foundingfather of "transmedia storytelling." (He first identified the trendback in 2003 while at MIT.)

Dr. Jenkins, now an advisor at the USC Annenberg InnovationLab, shared how there are now two kinds of content that weengage with in our day.

First, there's "spreadable media" - short-attention span contentthat we snack on. This includes tweets, headlines, status updatesand more.

Then there's "drill-able media." This is longer form content thatprovides analysis, depth and context. This format, once thedomain of professional content creators, are now moredemocratic and open to all to create. Dr. Jenkins cites fan-created wikis chronicling theLostseries as an example.

Dr. Jenkins believes that the latter group offers what he calls"adaptive comprehension" around what we see spreading acrossour screens. Most of his research is focused on how pop cultureis evolving along these two planes. However, the above examplesillustrate, how deep content is undergoing a renaissance.

# # #

12

USC Annenberg (above) is now home to Dr. HenryJenkins, who first coined the phrase "transmediastorytelling."


13/15

V - Covet thy Superstars

The media business has more in common with professionalteam sports than many realize.

Media brands are like teams. We are loyal to certain ones

and, sometimes, despise others that conflict with ourworldview. I haven't met anyone who loves both MSNBCand Fox News equally or for that matter the Yankees and theRed Sox. You can't. They're polar opposites.

Columnists and commentators have long resembledfranchise players who perform well at their craft, help theteam win and "fill the seats." They are names like Friedman,O'Dowd, Kurtz, Lupica, King and Stern. They pre-date the

digital era and are all associated with the teams they play for,just like icons from the sports world - Magic, Jordan, Kobe,Jeter, Montana, Beckham, Rooney, Brady and Gretzky.

Where once only a few journalists could become truepersonal brands (a phrase some despise), what I found inspending time with the media is that in the digital age thingsare different. Many young reporters come into the businesseither with a personal brand or the intent to create one.

They know that it will not only help them in their careers,but also can create massive value for their employers - asmeasured in traffic.

This emerging group, I found, is fearless. They break all theunwritten rules. Yet, they always remain respectful of whopays their bills. In exchange, they are increasingly beingrewarded with room to innovate.

Boucher's work at theLA Times with Hero Complex is oneexample but there are many others. ESPN, for example, last

year created Grantland- a platform for Bill Simmons and agroup of writers to further expand their passion for sportsand movies. The New York Times, meanwhile, has allowedwriters like Brian Stelter to flourish as "beat hubs" who canspan platforms. Stelter, acknowledged at the MashableMedia Conference that having a personal brand lets him"punch above his weight." He also showed us a thing or twoin how to use Tumblr for reporting, which he did in thewake of the Joplin, Missouri tornadoes.

The sporting parallels don't end there. For every companyloyalist like Stelter and Simmons there are countless ofothers who turn to free agency. This includes the likes ofMichael Arrington (formerly with TechCrunch) and JimRomensko (formerly with Poynter) who left and launchednew sites.

The drama over star journalists at times resembles thehoopla that preceded ESPN's 2010 airing of "The Decision"- where NBA superstar Lebron James revealed he wasleaving the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat. Theworld of tech journalism, in particular, has been rocked bysimilar drama. A number of personal brands have venturedout on their own. While others have jumped to new outletslike The Verge.

This isn't necessarily a new trend. However, what Idiscovered over the course of my conversations withdifferent journalists is that everyone now - even the die-hardink-stained crowd - recognizes they are part of the war forpage views. They must adapt to be heard.

13


14/15

They have lots of help. Many national and even local mediacompanies are now hiring cross-trained reporters who can doit all - report, live blog, tweet and even create videothemselves.

Some, likeNew York Times business reporter Tanzina Vega,

bring these skills to their day-to-day beat coverage. Vega lastfall shared with me at a small gathering of journalists thatshe often files video with her stories.

Others, like Anjali Mullany at theNew York Daily News,remain behind the scenes. She helps reporters at the Newsincorporate live blogging and tweeting into their workflow.

Scribes also are getting help from the social networks too.

Tumblr and Facebook, as I wrote earlier, both have dedicatedex-journalists on staff. They are equipping individualreporters and entire media organizations to engage audiencesdirectly on these sites.

In the digital age, journalism remains true to its core.However, above it all, hangs the almighty pressure to increasepage views. And this is creating more pressure on journaliststo become personal brands.

# # #

14

BrianSteltersTumblronJoplin


15/15

Credits

Steve Rubel is EVP, Global Strategy and Insights for Edelman - theworld's largest independent PR firm. In his role, he helps teams andclients understand the future of media and develop integratedstrategies. Rubel shares links and insights on the future of media onTwitter (@steverubel) and via The Clip Reporton Tumblr atsteverubel.me. He can be reached at [email protected].

(The opinions expressed within this ebook are his and do notnecessarily reflect those of Edelman or its clients.)

Photo credits: lenahan, jdlasica, theredproject, scobleizer, trainman, mashable,r80o, sambrook, popculturegeek, joi. Icons by graphicnode.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenahan8/5907498294/http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/83211801/http://www.flickr.com/photos/theredproject/3332644561/http://www.flickr.com/photos/r80o/4427326494/http://www.flickr.com/photos/sambrook/2372151576/http://www.flickr.com/photos/popculturegeek/5991831928/http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/2258124778/http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenahan8/5907498294/http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/83211801/http://twitter.com/steverubelhttp://graphicnode.com/http://graphicnode.com/http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/2258124778/http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/2258124778/http://www.flickr.com/photos/popculturegeek/5991831928/http://www.flickr.com/photos/popculturegeek/5991831928/http://www.flickr.com/photos/sambrook/2372151576/http://www.flickr.com/photos/sambrook/2372151576/http://www.flickr.com/photos/r80o/4427326494/http://www.flickr.com/photos/r80o/4427326494/http://www.flickr.com/photos/mashable/5731615186/http://www.flickr.com/photos/mashable/5731615186/http://www.flickr.com/photos/trainman/1836179783/http://www.flickr.com/photos/trainman/1836179783/http://www.flickr.com/photos/scobleizer/2781182428/http://www.flickr.com/photos/scobleizer/2781182428/http://www.flickr.com/photos/theredproject/3332644561/http://www.flickr.com/photos/theredproject/3332644561/http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/83211801/http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/83211801/http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenahan8/5907498294/http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenahan8/5907498294/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.steverubel.me/http://www.steverubel.me/http://twitter.com/steverubelhttp://twitter.com/steverubel

insights on the future of media

Documents