BoomTown » journalism

As Traffic Booms, Is HuffPo Ready to Make Some Real Dough?

Kara Swisher — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:21:53 +0000

For the past few months, the Huffington Post has been on a bit of a tear–both in terms of traffic gains and in its hiring of some big talent for key positions.

Now, those execs are focusing on using that consumer momentum to achieve what has eluded the Huffington Post thus far: Making some serious bank from the privately held news and media site.

How to help marketers to better understand the site and, therefore, spur this significant monetization will be his main focus at the Huffington Post, said Greg Coleman to BoomTown in an interview over the weekend.

Coleman–a former Yahoo (YHOO) advertising exec, as well as one for Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL–was named president and chief revenue officer a month ago by Huffington Post’s new CEO, Eric Hippeau.

Hippeau, who was himself just appointed in June, is another well-known online media exec and has been a big investor and board member of the Huffington Post. (You can read a thorough interview by Staci Kramer with Hippeau on paidContent.)

“It’s important for advertisers to know how big we have gotten, while also highlighting this amazing audience of influencers we have gathered,” said Coleman, in his first media chitchat since taking on the job. “I think it is the beginning of a tipping point.”

Well, of course, Coleman would say that, as the guy looking to drum up interest among marketers in spending their money on the Huffington Post.

But stats seem to indicate that consumers are increasingly liking what the Huffington Post is creating, because it is starting to surpass some well-known media icons on the Web in traffic.

While more of this increase is going to be due to a socialization of the news–the Huffington Post has an aggressive deployment of Facebook Connect called HuffPost Social News–the growth is more about building a brand people trust and seek out.

According to recent reports from both comScore (SCOR) and Nielsen Online, for example, the site just became larger than several online brands of big media companies, such as the Washington Post (WPO), in terms of unique monthly visitors.

In its September report, Nielsen clocked the Huffington Post at 9.47 million uniques, up 26 percent, while the Post site was at 9.2 million–a drop of 30 percent.

According to the Nielsen, the Huffington Post is within spitting distance of USA Today’s Web site (9.9 million), a Gannett (GCI) property.

And, it is bigger than Hearst Newspapers Digital (7.9 million) and the BBC (7.2 million).

For September, comScore has the Huffington Post (at 6.83 million) besting the Post (6.77 million)–as well as WSJ.com (6.7 million), a unit of Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp. (NWS).

(The Wall Street Journal site, to be fair, makes a chunk of its revenue from subscription fees, rather than relying solely on advertising from traffic like the Huffington Post. And full disclosure: Dow Jones owns this site.)

In any case, big traffic is key for most news sites, and internal numbers from Google (GOOG) Analytics that Huffington Post execs cite are higher, as is typical for most sites, pegging traffic at about 27 million monthly uniques with more than two million reader comments per month.

Huffington Post co-founder and blogging icon Arianna Huffington attributes the recent boost in traffic to the site’s proclivity to “start conversations” that interest readers, such as her recent suggestion that Vice President Joe Biden should resign.

“We are aiming to go beyond just facts, to create a narrative,” said Huffington, who thinks the speed of news helps attract visitors to the site. “We think bringing journalism to a new level is exactly what people are looking for.”

Perhaps. But, even if traffic increases continue to bear her theories out, she and others have said that the Huffington Post still has not been regularly profitable despite doubling annual revenue–mostly in advertising–to what some estimate to be about $8 million in 2009.

While the site is aiming to invest rather than focus too hard on showing profits, Coleman said he would like to make revenue seven times larger in the next years, building on the performance of the site to vaunt past old media giants online.

“This kind of thing is a milestone for the marketing community,” he said. “Our goal is to be the top Internet newspaper, and this points out that we are on our way.”

To do that, he will have to spend some of the $37 million in funding that the Huffington Post has raised from venture investors.

While the edit side is using the money to expand the number of news categories, Coleman said his focus will be on building a higher caliber team of sales and marketing execs with deeper relationships to big clients.

“Unlike selling an auto page on Yahoo (YHOO), our site has a more complex sales process that takes some time for people to understand,” said Coleman. “But once they get it, it should be an easier sale.”

Until then, check out the video of the entire interview I did at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference with Huffington and Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth in which they talk about the future of journalism and more:

[ See post to watch video ]

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Internet Cowboys

Kara Swisher — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:19:33 +0000

BoomTown is clearly losing a step in the summer doldrums and forgot to post this lovely movie that I did while in Jackson Hole, Wyo., last weekend for an event called the “Internet Cowboys un-Conference.”

What’s an un-conference? Well, it was less organized, there were fly-fishing and elk nearby and it involved a whole lot of thinking big thoughts in the much bigger outdoors.

I was invited there by one of the hosts, well-known Israeli entrepreneur Yossi Vardi–the other hosts were Idith and Yuval Almog, at whose home the third annual event was held.

My job? To to give a “big idea” talk titled: “Journalism Is Dead? Long Live the News!” (or maybe it was: “The News Is Dead? Long Live Journalism!”). It was about how old media was trying to innovate to stay relevant (and alive!).

In any case, it was actually a very bracing time and here is a video I did interviewing some of the participants (and below that is one of the classic Willie Nelson tune, sung by him and Waylon Jennings):

[ See post to watch video ]

Walter Cronkite: That's the Way It Was (And Always Should Be)

Kara Swisher — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:40:39 +0000

Of all the many journalists I admire, Walter Cronkite is perhaps right at the very top of the list.

With an unerring sense of fairness, consistent equilibrium that is sorely missed, rigorous adherence to ethics and standards and a crackerjack reporter, the legendary television newsman and anchorman–who died yesterday at 92 years old–was also never afraid to show his humanity.

The most famous instance came after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and Cronkite had to deliver the bad official news about his death. He teared up, ever so slightly, all while he kept his composure and did his job.

(See the video below, which he did, incredibly, live.)

That he did it so well, time and again, whether talking about the futility of the Vietnam War or about some amusing story that crossed his desk at CBS (CBS) News, is a lesson we should all pay attention to.

At a time when journalism is changing so rapidly, as the business models of old are buffeted by the gale-force winds of the Internet, it’s important to remember that what Cronkite represented never goes out of style–no matter how news and information are delivered.

In today’s noisy media universe, he should serve as an example of how to be booming without being shrill and commanding without being a blowhard.

I might sound like a crabby old media type (as if I care!), but it’s too easy to argue that the old needs to be flushed out and the new is always better.

Sometimes, this is true.

But Cronkite understood that people value accurate, straightforward and quality news, which he always delivered and would do so today to viewers, no matter the medium.

He was a class act and it’s a sad day because he is gone.

But Cronkite does live on on the Web, so here are some great videos of him in action to enjoy and appreciate.

Kennedy Assassination:

Martin Luther King Assassination:

Total Eclipse of the Sun:

That’s the Way It Is:

TwitterGate: Out Damned Spot!

Kara Swisher — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:10:16 +0000

For all the noisy hubbub over should-we-or-shouldn’t-we-publish confidential documents hacked from password-protected accounts of Twitter employees, as well as a Twitter spouse, it is actually pretty simple.

Stolen equals stolen.

But, because this is a “hot” issue and it concerns an even hotter Web 2.0 company–Holy traffic-gooser, Batman!–the debate will surely go on and on, even as the stolen information inevitably leaks its way out.

Still, let’s not pretend what it is and is not.

It is most definitely not, for example, one of those great dramatic moments in journalism.

Thus, comparing the ruminations over whether to publish egregiously obtained information–however true–to the debate over a major event like the New York Times publishing the Pentagon Papers is pathetic.

It is, though, a tempest in a Silicon Valley teapot.

In point of fact, my colleague Peter Kafka, who works from New York, wrote me tonight:

“Was at a fancy schmooze tonight packed with digital media bigwigs: Viacom, NBC, News Corp, plus lots of start-up guys. TwitterGate was on *no one’s* lips. I talked to one guy who has a stake in the company and he pretty much shrugged about it–several people had no idea about it at all. Total non-news.”

It is not, however self-righteously (and pompously) put forth, much of a dilemma.

As the very clever John Gruber of Daring Fireball put it: “What you may ask, is the dilemma, since it is clear that any decent human being would simply refuse to have anything to do with something so lurid?”

Indeed, it is unequivocally wrong to publish documents you know or think were stolen or hacked, because it is aiding and abetting that theft.

In this regard, then, there should be no difference between “Web” journalism and the old-fashioned journalism–acting as if the former gets a “process journalism” (what a crock!) pass at standards and ethics that should be eternal and unwavering, no matter the medium.

And it is a little like pitting “gay” marriage against marriage, in order to create a false dichotomy, designed only to obfuscate the issues.

So, it also isn’t kosher to try to take focus of your own wrongdoing by pointing to other practices, which is almost always an obnoxious reach by the willfully immature.

While comparisons to leaked company documents have been made–and BoomTown knows from leaked corporate memos–this is a lazy-man’s argument, since it simply does not track.

The Twitter docs were stolen from personal accounts, an obvious pilfer, which immediately changes the equation completely.

While you certainly can have a lively debate about whether Yahoos should pass along some widely distributed memo that CEO Carol Bartz penned to the company, it is not even close to the same thing.

And, more to the point, if someone sent me emails jacked from Bartz’s own email account, I would not need even a second to know I would never use such information.

As I tweeted earlier today: A credible source a reporter knows giving accurate info is clearly different from a thief rifling through someone’s sock drawer.

That is especially true when you use material from a person you do not know. For the record: When I post a company memo, for example, I know and check out exactly who’s giving it to me and I don’t publish stuff just because it happens to land in my email box.

And, a minor beef, blaming victims for the theft by saying they have weak or inadequate passwords is also pathetic. It’s kind of like blaming people for being robbed because they had crappy locks.

I suppose there is a point in there, but the real finger of blame should always be firmly pointed at the burglar and those who fence his nicked goods.

That brings me to my final point–thinking you can handle dirty material and then act as if your hands are clean.

How hands get dirty is a concept even my children understand.

And if my kids ever said: “Hey, this stolen stuff is going to get out anyway, so let me be the one to ladle it out as I see fit”–I’d ground them for life.

BoomTown Interviews Arianna, Ken and Eric About Huffington Post Exec Changes: BAM!!

Kara Swisher — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:18:43 +0000

Apparently, if you want to think about the growth of the Huffington Post as a culinary dish, perhaps today’s replacement of CEO Betsy Morgan with longtime online media powerhouse Eric Hippeau might appear under the Emeril Lagasse cooking cliché: Let’s kick it up a notch!

Both co-founders of the online media site, Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer, said as much in interviews I did with them this afternoon, after news of the change got out–even as they praised Morgan for the strong work she had done in the 18 months she had been in charge.

“The deal is that we simply have been growing so fast that we needed more firepower to accelerate in expanding the site and monetizing it,” said Huffington, who is also editor-in-chief of the Web news site (and pictured above).

“Things are going great, but things could be going even greater,” added Lerer, who is chairman of the Huffington Post, noting that a more experienced exec was needed at this juncture to take the business to the next level.

“Eric is a peer at all the big companies we need to partner and deal with…and right now, while things are difficult in the economy, is the time when you can really build a company and we had to take advantage of that opportunity.”

So, ipso facto, Morgan was out in favor of Hippeau, who was the key player in the $5 million investment in the Huffington Post by SoftBank Capital in 2006.

Hippeau is a director on its small board, which also includes Huffington, Lerer and Oak Investment Partners’ Fred Harman. Morgan will be vacating her board seat.

Oak recently added $25 million to the funding kitty at the Huffington Post, money that Lerer and Huffington said had not been used yet.

But it soon will be, both noted, with the site expanding aggressively into the local arena, investigative news and verticals such as tech.

It is all being done to build on what has been a strong traffic year for the Huffington Post, which claims it has over 21 million unique monthly visitors.

Nielsen Online has pegged that at the lower figure of 8.9 million, but reported that the Huffington Post was one of the fastest-growing, year-over-year news sites.

Despite that, the site still has not been regularly profitable, said Huffington, despite doubling annual revenue–mostly in advertising–to what some estimate to be about $8 million in 2009.

Hippeau (pictured here) has a lot of experience working at a panoply of early online media businesses, including as CEO of Ziff-Davis.

He has also been a longtime Web investor, pushing for SoftBank’s early investment in Yahoo (YHOO), where Hippeau remains a board member.

That should not present a conflict for Yahoo, said Hippeau, which had a short-lived publishing partnership with the Huffington Post.

Hippeau, who has been a managing partner at SoftBank, will become a special partner and adviser to the investment firm. In this capacity, he will continue to work with three start-ups–Buddy Media, BuzzFeed and ThumbPlay.

Hippeau, who is now diving back into an operating role for the first time in almost a decade, said it was hard to pass up the chance to run the New York-based Huffington Post.

“I could not pass such an opportunity, especially with the explosion in the delivery of the news and opinion on the Web,” he said. “This is really the place to build the next really big brand.”

To get to that level, Hippeau said that a lot of things have to happen at the site going forward.

“Clearly we have got to make the revenues commensurate with traffic of the site and size of the opportunity,” he said. “At the same time, we have got to make sure we are very community-focused and using all kinds of new tools to increase engagement.”

Hippeau noted that journalism was changing radically, and “what people want to know is what are people thinking and how can I contribute and we are just at the beginning of this phase.”

Of particular interest to him are real-time data and real-time communications–on sites like Twitter–and the growth of smartphone usage.

“We are getting into a situation in the U.S., where it is so much easier to access all kinds of information and so much more portable,” said Hippeau. “Everyone has talked about convergence for a long time and it is finally here and we are poised to take great advantage of that.”

The moves at the Huffington Post were first reported by paidContent.org.

Huffington appeared onstage at the recent D: All Things Digital conference with Washington Post (WPO) publisher Katharine Weymouth.

Here is a highlights video of the interview I did with them:

[ See post to watch video ]

Today Apple WWDC, Tomorrow Google Apps (With No "Process"-ing Here!)

Kara Swisher — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:43:37 +0000

Does the tech march ever slow down?

Not this week it doesn’t! And Digital Daily’s live-blogger de tutti live-bloggers John Paczkowski will be there to cover every move.

Today, in case you haven’t heard, is the big annual Apple (AAPL) event: The Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The keynote at the Moscone Center kicks off at 10 AM PDT with Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, along with other Apple execs. They will be presenting to 1,000 developers, at what is now the only major products event for the iconic and innovative Silicon Valley company.

A passel of press, as well as John, will also be there, along with our Web guru (and closet Apple expert) Adam Tow. They’ll be liveblogging and posting photos to the All Things Digital site throughout the event.

It’ll be a lot of iPhone news, according to reports, with possibly an upgraded device and all sorts of new features and software.

But, unless it is their lucky day, Apple fanboys likely to have to wait a little bit longer for the return of Apple’s leader Steve Jobs, presumably astride a steed bearing a giant tablet iPod Touch.

According to The Wall Street Journal last week–whose report is finally, finally, finally the most solid, thus far–Jobs is set to return soon to the helm of Apple after a six-month sick leave.

And that means reports of Jobs’ imminent demise early this year were, as it turned out, quite premature.

Which makes it laughable that those who trumpeted someone’s allegedly fatal illness without even close to adequate sourcing are now–as the specifics of their clear overreaching have faded–they were sort-of right, since, you know, he was sick.

But let me review what was reported then, using a single source: Jobs was “declining rapidly” and “it may be even worse than we imagined” and, quoting the source directly: “Apple is choosing to remove the hype factor strategically vs. letting the hype destroy Apple when the inevitable news comes later this spring.”

Oops, it is June now and Jobs appears to be on the mend, it did not turn out to be worse, even if he was quite sick, and spring has passed without the “inevitable” happening. Close is only right in horse shoes, especially in this case.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring. I certainly don’t, but neither does anyone else, which is why–unless you’re looking at Jobs’ medical reports or hearing from someone who has seen them–it’s pretty much an impossible story to get right either way.

So, no matter how much they try to defend themselves in a recent piece in the New York Times (which was silly enough in its toothless blogger-bashing)–claiming it is fine and dandy to insinuate that someone is at death’s door without, you know, knowing for sure if it were true–it’s just lame all around.

But, lamer still was the climbing-onto-a-very-high-and-precarious-horse reaction to that dopey Times article, by giving these dog-ate-my-homework reporting lapses the even sillier moniker of “process” journalism.

I confess I am utterly flummoxed by this term, because it seems to boil down to:

We have a firm commitment to report it wrong until we, um, get it right or someone, anyone, please hurry, corrects us–not that we’ll ever admit an error, just like mainstream media!

Actually, it sounds more like processed cheese journalism–completely without nutrition and eventually bad for readers’ health. But eat up and get obese on it, because it’s free and cheap and even tasty at times!

But, I digress.

After all the Apple news is chewed and re-chewed up by one and all, Google (GOOG) will be holding an app event tomorrow, also in San Francisco.

Said a Google email: “At this invitation-only media gathering, we’ll announce product news, share perspectives of new enterprise customers, see demos, and review the Google Apps business. You’ll have the opportunity to speak with a number of senior IT decision makers who have moved their businesses to cloud computing, as well as Google executives, and engineering and product managers. We hope you’ll be able to join.”

Paczkowski will, of course, join and be serving up organic liveblogging fare, full of vitamins and minerals and all the good stuff, both fast and accurate!

Process that.

But, fear not, it will also be, as usual, quite tasty too.

Apple Co-Founder and Dancing Fool Steve Wozniak Talks!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:56:37 +0000

Today, at the Silicom Summit at Stanford University, BoomTown was on a panel about consumer media, and right in the front row paying rapt attention was Steve Wozniak.

It was the same Woz–the famous nickname of the Apple (AAPL) co-founder–who was also staring back last week at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference and taking it all in.

Thus, I used Woz as an example from onstage today, in making my point how to practice a new kind of journalism using simpler tech tools–like the Flip digital video camera and this blog, as well as Twitter and more–and doing quick and informative reporting about, say, well-known tech figures I see all over Silicon Valley.

As in: See Woz, stick my trusty Flip in Woz’s face, ask Woz annoying questions and, presto, we’ve got a lovely post about what he’s been up to.

Such as this video interview, in which Woz talks about a wide range of things from Apple to Google (GOOG) to sassy Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz (he’s buying stock!) to Twitter to innovation to social networking and, yes, dancing.

Woz, a verifiable tech legend, loves to talk–but not about his ex-partner Steve Jobs’ health this time–and it’s good to listen.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

A Techtastically Busy Week: A Grab Bag of Digital Stuff to Consider

Kara Swisher — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:31:58 +0000

It’s another packed week for tech, especially in Silicon Valley, where the kibitzing never ends and the econalypse is almost completely ignored.

First up this week is an event today at which BoomTown will appear called “The Free! Summit: Inside the Digital Economy” in San Mateo.

Given all the recent debate about free versus paid, as traditional media companies take aim at the issue, it should be interesting.

I will be on an afternoon panel called “Business Models That Work,” which is about the the future of news and what’s next for journalism in the digital economy.

The other panelists are: Dan Gillmor, Director, Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship, Arizona State University; Alan Mutter, Adjunct Faculty Member, Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and founder, “Reflections of a Newsosaur”; and Marshall Van Alstyne, Associate Professor of Information Economics, Boston University and Visiting Professor, MIT.

Later in the day, the event will morph into the third “Tech Policy Summit,” where I get to do a one-on-one interview with Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer, Chris Kelly, who is still at the social-networking site but is also now running for the job of California’s Attorney General.

(My All Things Digital partner Walt Mossberg will appear on Tuesday, along with a solid slate of speakers.)

On Thursday, ContentNext Media is holding its third EconSm conference, this time focusing on mobile, in an all-day event in San Francisco.

Speakers include: Zander Lurie, CFO, CBS (CBS) Interactive; angel investor Ron Conway (see my recent video interview with him here); Eric Johnson, president and COO, Wolfgang’s Vault; Joe Kennedy, CEO and president, Pandora; and Kevin Thau, director of mobile business development at Twitter.

Wrote paidContent’s Staci Kramer: “Much has changed as we get ready for our third EconSM–including the name. The acronym is still the same but this year it’s about the intersection of social and mobile. Social media has passed the gimmick stage–although not everyone has figured that out–and is part of the daily fabric for an increasing number of people.”

And, if you have even more time, the Aspen Institute has just published J.D. Lasica’s 110-page e-book, “Identity in the Age of Cloud Computing: The Next-Generation Internet’s Impact on Business, Governance and Social Interaction.”

Lasica told me that he wrote the report after a roundtable of 30 experts in identity and technology (people like John Seely Brown and Esther Dyson) was convened in Aspen to discuss the ramifications of the cloud on a societal level.

He talked the Aspen Institute into releasing the e-book under a Creative Commons license, the first time it has ever done that.

And lest you think this is too focused on just Silicon Valley, I missed attending the Seattle 2.0 Awards last week, but here are the winners:

Best Start-up: Picnik
Best Boot-strapped Start-up: Picnik
Best Start-up CEO: Jonathan Sposato (Picnik)
Best Start-up Technologist: Nat Brown (iLike)
Best Venture Capitalist: Matt McIlwain (Madrona Venture Group)
Best Angel Investor: Geoff Entress
Best Start-up Product Designer: Peter Roman (Picnik)
Best Service Provider to Start-ups: Shannon Swift (Swift HR Solutions)
Best Blog from/about Start-ups: TechFlash/John Cook
Best Social Event for Start-ups: Lunch 2.0 by Josh Maher

Kara Visits Hollywood News Blog, TheWrap.com (Complete With Cottage HQ Like ATD!)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:00:02 +0000

While the current meme is that traditional journalism is getting the stuffing knocked out of it by the digital onslaught, it neglects to notice that a lot of really sharp news reporters are actually getting some real traction by finally starting to be serious about creating online sites designed to compete.

As case in point, BoomTown recently went to visit the offices of TheWrap.com, a Web blog aimed at dominating breaking news about the business of Hollywood and the entertainment industry.

Funded by Seattle-based venture firm Maveron, it was founded by former New York Times and Washington Post reporter Sharon Waxman.

With a small team of writers, editors and one single business person–and run out of a cottage in back of her house in Santa Monica, Calif.–Waxman is trying to combine the high standards and ethics of journalism, the news-breaking abilities of longtime pros and a low budget.

The business plan is, no surprise: Advertising.

(Hey, just like All Things Digital! Except Waxman is near a pretty beach and our San Francisco-based World HQ–also known as a cottage behind my house–is foggier.)

In any case, innovative efforts like Sharon Waxman’s might become the rule rather than the exception in the future of the news media.

So far, on her own since its launch in late January, TheWrap.com is garnering several hundred thousand daily visitors each month, moving close to the Web sites of trade publications that cover the industry.

Here’s my video interview with Waxman, in which she gives the who, what, where and why:

[ See post to watch video ]

Arianna Huffington Talks About New Managing Editor Singh!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:12:01 +0000

While in Los Angeles today at the AlwaysOn OnHollywood conference, BoomTown ran smack into blogging empress Arianna Huffington.

She was there to give a speech called “Video Killed the Radio Star…But Can the Web Actually Save Journalism?”

Her answer was a decided yes, especially with great journalists working online, such as the new managing editor of the Huffington Post, whom the mega-blog has just hired.

That would be former CNET Networks Editor-in-Chief Jai Singh (pictured here), who quit the tech news and reviews company last year after a dozen-year run.

“The bottom line is the Huffington Post has figured out how new media should be…and that’s what attracted and appealed to me,” said Singh in an interview today.

While only on the job for a few days, he noted that he will be looking at more video on the site, as well as focusing on its new vertical strategy.

Singh is moving from San Francisco to New York, where the Huffington Post HQ is located. (Huffington herself is, ironically, located in L.A., doing her work out of her Brentwood abode.)

Singh has been a true online news pioneer, creating News.com for CNET in 1996. CNET is now owned by CBS (CBS).

Here’s my video interview with Huffington, talking about Singh’s appointment and the future of the news business:

[ See post to watch video ]

Kara Visits With PBS MediaShift Blogger Mark Glaser

Kara Swisher — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:01:52 +0000

Recently, BoomTown had a lovely lunch with PBS new media blogger Mark Glaser (pictured here).

Glaser is a longtime free-lance journalist whom I first noticed when he wrote a weekly column for the USC Annenberg School of Communication’s Online Journalism Review, post-Web 1.0 bubble, as well as for the most excellent “Media Grok” daily email newsletter for the now-defunct Industry Standard back in the midst of the froth.

Glaser was always able to cut through that with a clear-headed tone–while maintaining a respect for what was good about traditional journalism, as well as an excitement about the possibilities of new media.

His MediaShift site for PBS has recently gotten much beefed up, with interesting pieces about a range of digital media topics, from a cool map-timeline combo from the Washington Post to a new business venture called the Printed Blog to, of course, the impact of social media on journalism.

(There is also an interesting closely linked site called “Idea Lab,” which is a group blog about reinventing community news in the digital age.)

Glaser writes on the MediaShift blog about once a week and has about a dozen contributors.

A recent post–and thank goodness for some counter-programming in the blogosphere–was titled: “Warning: Dependence on Facebook, Twitter Could Be Hazardous to Your Business.”

Here’s my video interview with him, on a range of issues facing the media in the interactive world (apparently, journalists don’t know everything!):

[ See post to watch video ]

Technologizer's Harry McCracken Speaks! (Yes, There Is a Top Five List!)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:00:30 +0000

Yesterday, BoomTown had a much-belated lunch with longtime tech editor and writer Harry McCracken to catch up on how life has been going since he started his own tech blog site, Technologizer, this past summer.

The former editor-in-chief of PC World got a lot of attention in 2007, after he stood his ground over editorial meddling by former CEO Colin Crawford, who tried to kill a “Ten Things We Hate About Apple” story.

McCracken quit, but was soon back on the job at the IDG unit, with Crawford kicked upstairs to corporate.

But, within a year, McCracken had left again, this time to strike out on his own at his Technologizer site, which is owned and operated by him (and using Federated Media to sell ads). It covers a wide range of tech topics, from PCs to smartphones to the future of cloud computing.

I like the tone of Technologizer, which also uses freelancers to supplement McCracken’s daily posts, a lot.

But what I like better still and which I hope to see even more of in the tech blogosphere at large is the obvious respect McCracken has for accurate reporting, strong journalism standards and also trenchant analysis that actually gives a reader insight into a story.

In addition, McCracken is a very nice guy, as you will see from this video, where we discuss a range of things (and yes, PC Word-style, I get him to make a list of key tech issues too).

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Well Said: Ana Marie Cox on Bloggers Then and Now

Kara Swisher — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 19:51:26 +0000

The more things change, the more they actually do change.

At least, according to this excerpt from a 10-questions interview former Wonkette blogger Ana Marie Cox, who now contributes to Time magazine’s Swampland blog, did with Stop Smiling magazine recently.

Cox (pictured here) was on a blogger panel at our third D: All Things Digital conference in 2005, where she talked about the changes in the media industry due to the rise of blogs.

At the time, there was a lot of controversy about the rise of bloggers.

But now, in questions No. 7 and 8 here, Cox discusses the huge differences in the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, in terms of blogs, and how the image of bloggers has shifted dramatically with mainstream media.

From Cox’s lips to traditional journalists’ ears.

Here are the excerpts:

Q7: You’ve been around long enough to see the differences between the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns. Do you have any strong feelings about how this year differs from the Kerry-Bush election, in terms of the role that blogs play?

AMC: In 2004, MTV hired me to cover the Democratic convention, and I swear I did two or three interviews just on the fact that I was a blogger covering the convention. I doubt that would happen today. In 2004, people would be highly suspicious of me, because at any moment I could break out my computer and blog about them. I went to YearlyKos in 2006, as one of my first assignments for Time, and I was hanging out with the real reporters, and there was this running joke: As soon as someone said something off-color or impolitic, you’d say, “Hey, I’m gonna blog that.” Like a taunt. In 2008, I was at a Republican debate during the primaries, and I looked around the filing center and everyone was blogging. Everyone has that force propelling them to publish whatever they can. Anything that happens to them is now fodder for a Washington Post blog.

Q8: Do you think more traditional reporters still frown on blogging as if it were not a serious form of journalism?

AMC: The whole “are bloggers journalists?” question, which was always stupid, is finally fading, especially thanks to people like Josh Marshall [of Talking Points Memo], who have shown you don’t have to have a big organization behind you to be a journalist. The defining characteristic of a journalist is what you produce. I think it’s changed the question from “are bloggers journalists?” to “what is journalism?” And that is a perfectly acceptable debate to have. There’s never going to be an answer, but it starts us at a better place than simply talking about delivery systems.”

Ana

Happy 1-Year Birthday for AllThingsD.com

Kara Swisher — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:59:36 +0000

If we were an actual baby, AllThingsD.com would be just about to walk by now.

Hopefully, we have done better than that over the past year and we hope to do even more in the year ahead, attempting to give readers the very best tech news and analysis married with the high standards The Wall Street Journal is known for.

At the same time, we have also tried to capture the excitement and energy of the blogosphere, in what has been an entrepreneurial effort within a major media company.

The site officially launched on April 26, 2007, one year and two days ago.

No presents, but your presence over the next year, as we make even more improvements to our work-in-progress site.

Thanks, of course, go first to my amazing partner, Walt Mossberg, as well as our crack staff (click here to see them in all their glory), partners, designers and all the many Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones folks involved.

To mark the past year, BoomTown could spend a lot of time deeply ruminating on how blogging is so very different than mainstream journalism (much more fun, much less sleep).

Or I could ponder the agonizing quest to improve standards and accuracy in the blogosphere (”I am I, Don Quixote, the lord of La Mancha/Destroyer of evil am I/I will march to the sound of the trumpets of glory/Forever to conquer or die.”)

Or I could discuss widgets and how they have changed my life (I don’t know what I would have done had Scramble not inspired my empty soul!).

But, no!

Instead, I will just re-post here one of the very first posts I had up on that first day, about…drum roll, please…my worries about the situation at Yahoo (YHOO).

I don’t want to say I am a psychic or anything, but in this piece, called “Terry in Turnaround,” I begin my obsessive coverage of the Internet portal, which I thought a year ago could be headed for trouble.

(Interestingly, my other post that day was about Facebook trying to become more mature.)

Here it is:

To: Terry Semel
From: Kara Swisher
Re: Some unsolicited advice on being under fire as the Chairman and CEO of Yahoo! Inc.

Terry baby,

Has it actually been six years since I last shot you a memo offering some thoughts on getting the top-dog spot at Yahoo? Back then, I wanted to be among the first to congratulate you, as I wrote:

…on getting the green light on one of Silicon Valley’s most boffo projects. Or as we say here, on deploying a major multi-platform operating system with a simplified user interface and innovative support services using a world-wide network that focuses on standards-based security, manageability and reliability.

I hope by now you know what all that means and, if not, that you sound like you do. It’s hard to live in one of those tiny cubicles at Yahoo all this time (memories of that swanky Warner Bros. office you once luxuriated in must seem like a dream) without absorbing some of the jargon that techies like to throw around to make you feel stupid. (I know you still don’t know what SOAP is, nor should you.)

But it’s not your geek learning curve I am concerned with right now. It’s these persistent rumors that you might soon be ankling your way out of Yahoo’s HQ in Sunnyvale or even get the big heave-ho from Chief Yahoo (I will bet that even on his craziest day Ted Turner never asked you to call him Chief Yahoo) Jerry Yang and the board or perhaps a passel of irritated investors.

Ingrates! When you arrived at the company, it was gasping for air after the Internet bubble it rode to the top had popped. You cleaned up that place like your good pal Clint Eastwood might take out all the baddies in a troubled Western town, except without a lot of shooting. Your Hollywood reputation as a world-class schmoozer and soother was true–all sweetness and light, but investors loved it.

It was a good plot, but, I think we can agree, not enough for today’s fickle audience. Now, you seem to be box-office poison with a lackluster stock, disgruntled employees and questions about your vision. In other words, you appear to be in “turnaround” in that bad Hollywood way (meaning a film project that has been in development for ages so that it is not likely to see the light of day, let alone a theater). But let’s change the story and make it the kind of turnaround the whole family will enjoy.

First, the big surprise: Rethink your whole approach to search. You have certainly put a lot of powder behind this new online advertising system called “Panama” and have promised big results in upcoming quarters. Maybe it will deliver, but the fact of the matter is that it is likely you will be running behind search leader Google for the foreseeable future. It’s not that they have such much-bigger brains over there (they don’t, except for that one guy they hide in the back) or that the food is better (well, it is), but that Google (GOOG) is and always will be a technology company that dabbles in media. Yahoo is almost the exact opposite, starting out as a directory and not as a technology superstar. All this wrangling with Google in a nerd version of “Highlander” is only going to get you to the reality: “There can be only one!”

While some have been suggesting you get out of search, selling off Overture and doing a big money deal with Microsoft (MSFT) or even, yes, Google, to handle the algorithmic heavy-lifting, I think a better approach might be to spin off the search part of the company, perhaps combining it with a spin-off of Microsoft’s search assets. Thus, you create a separate company that could focus only on making Larry Page and Sergey Brin sweat a little bit. Put it in the hands of a real techie star (think the Brad Pitt of servers), and I will bet top engineers will find a tech-focused outfit more attractive to work for.

Most important, it will free you up to focus Yahoo on what it does best: Media and consumer products. While Google gets all the hip glory, the fact of the matter is your email is much better, as are your mobile doodads, as are all your news and entertainment offerings (pitting scrawny Google Finance next to Yahoo’s mighty site is a fine illustration of what you do best). And when I say media, I don’t mean you have to spend all your time creating stuff–in fact, you might consider throwing in the towel on your Santa Monica satellite–but that you could be the best friend Hollywood ever had. The news business, book publishing industry and most of Hollywood (from television to movies to music) is justifiably scared out of their wits by Google and only more so after the YouTube and DoubleClick acquisitions. It is true that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, which I think is a line in some Mel Gibson flick you helmed.

Speaking of acquisitions, go back and give that Mark Zuckerberg the love and $1 billion he wants. Facebook needs to hook up with a big player and fast, because despite its hypergrowth, its advertising ambitions are still hard to reach (even though a few ex-Yahoos are running the show in that department). They need help. Unlike the messy and looks-like-the-wheels-could-come-off-anytime MySpace, it is a really useful, well-made and sticky social network and seems to have a pretty defensible and young audience. As long as you keep things hopping, of course. Even us old folks are looking for a useful and relevant way to stay in touch, and Facebook can easily handle a lot of different communities, unlike many others where it’s hard to feel like you belong without a tattoo. I know it is a lot of money, but you know hiring a star is probably the best way to produce a hit, since a series of indie hits is not going to get you there.

Closely related is a more defined approach to marketing and rewarding customer loyalty. You can’t be a catchall anymore, as it is no longer a reach game. You must try to keep your best customers engaged. Let’s practice this one word: Relevance! What do I mean by that? I mean not turning into the soulless, ad-choked, spamfest that AOL became as it grew. Yahoo has to be relevant to each and every one of its users and that means letting them pick and choose any Yahoo product, even if it is not branded that way. Think Flickr (that was a terrific move) and you have the right idea.

Speaking of Flickr, I got this one off it. One personal aside: I love the loyalty, but can you possibly stop inviting Tom Cruise to Yahoo? It seems a bit goofy, and you’d be better off having some tech legend in from time to time.

There is a lot more to say, but let’s just end with the vision of your friend, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, in the third “Terminator,” always kept to his task of protecting the leader of the resistance. Last time I wrote you, I advised you to use that old Hollywood technique of blaming the last studio boss if things went south after you arrived. Clearly, you can’t do that now, given your long tenure. So you have to stick to the course and say loudly you are doing that. After all, it’s not likely, even with the recent troubles, that the Yahoo board has the kind of guts it would take to oust you and there are no angry shareholders massing at the gates (and the last time I checked, even the obstreperous Carl Icahn couldn’t get rid of Dick Parsons at Time Warner).

And if you are going to go, then do it sooner rather than later. Unlike Burbank, Silicon Valley loves failure and even embraces it. In other words, even if you leave, you will eat lunch in this town again.

Tom Cruise/Terry Semel photo by Mitchell Aidelbaum.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

MSM Still in Trouble–Also Generalissimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead

Kara Swisher — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:47:42 +0000

The annual look at the health of journalism by the Project for Excellence in Journalism was just released and the outlook is predictable: Those darn kids love the Internet even more.

In its latest report online, called the State of the News Media 2008, the PEJ cites several continuing trends: news has shifted from being a product to a service (news you can really use!); news Web sites are no longer final destinations (widgetize!); user-generated content is maybe not so valuable (I know–shocker!); newsrooms are becoming the most innovative and experimental parts of the business (by necessity); the news media agenda continues to narrow (by 2016, fyi, it will only cover Britney Spears); and Madison Avenue still has not gotten on board the online express (yet another shocker!).

More interesting, in the online news arena, while the same percentage of people go to the Web for news (71%), the percentage of those who do it on a regular basis has risen.

That might be promising for news sites, except that more of the ad dollars, whose rate of growth is slowing a bit, will be going to–guess who?–Web aggregators, most especially, Google (GOOG).