Free Access Points Towards Upward Growth

Ever since I've entered the world of journalism and PR, dating back to 2000 when I was an undergraduate at USC, the question has always been how publications can make money while offering content online. I've always believed that newspapers should give subscriptions away for free but instead they turned in the opposite direction and started charging for any content online more than a week old. The New York Times learned its lesson and has decided to offer free access to its online content. Smart move. If you want to expand the subscription base, offering free newspapers will grow the advertiser base and more than make up for any charges a publication collects through subscribers.

If you have to charge for subscriptions, then offer exclusive content that the paid readership can see such as photos, videos or exclusive interviews. However, not only does this limit the readership but it won't be successful because many readers are frustrated with slow connections despite the growing base of (slow) high bandwidth Internet connections. That's a different problem.

Even requiring a login can be a pain in the butt. I forget my login so many times that I end up just not reading the story. And with dynamic Web 2.0 features, now I can't even visit a site without being forced to view an ad before I can look at content. Trust me, frustrating users is not now to grow readership.

I do like the ability to post comments but it only becomes an interactive community forum if the reporter responds to some of the reader comments, not just post the 500 comments that no body will read. Reporters will be surprised by what they learn from its readers.

Journalism Ethics Line Challenged

The New York Times acknowledged Tuesday that in June 2005, former staff writer Kurt Eichenwald provided a $2,000 check to Justin Berry, who at the time was an 18-year-old star in a seedy network of child-porn sites. Used to gain the trust of Berry, it led to the teenager stopping his drug use and quitting his involvement in online porn.

It later turned into an article in the Times about Web sex sites run by teenagers and debate ensued regarding whether Eichenwald had crossed an ethical line by getting too close to his subject and paying the boy. Eichenwald explained that he and his wife decided to try to get help for Berry.

Even on Tuesday when Eichenwald was reached, he was in Detroit, waiting to testify in the criminal trial of a man accused of molesting Berry.

Having been on the journalism side, I consider it a competitive disadvantage for other journalists to pay a source. However, this has almost a Patch Adams feel to it. I commend Eichenwald, despite his failure to disclose the check to his editors and readers. He acknowledged that was a mistake. Hell, sometimes I don't know how some journalist can write a story and not step in. Where's the ethics in that?

There are plenty more contentious journalism ethics horror stories in the world like Sarah Lacy’s cover story in BusinessWeek on Digg founder Kevin Rose.

HP 2.0 - Walmart Employee Exposed

The US Attorney's office and the FBI are investigating the actions of a Walmart employee after he intercepted pager, text messages and taped phone conversations between the company's media relations staff and New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro. The technician and his supervisor was fired while another man was disciplined. Walmart's CEO also apologized to the NY Times CEO and reporter Barbaro. The reasons for the tapping are yet not fully known.

Is Walmart hiding something or is employee just looking for gossip? I guess only a few may know. At least this time, it isn't a corporate scandal and just a dumb employee acting a fool.

When Tom's Not Enough

The New York Times reported yesterday that FakeYourSpace.com was forced offline while it found new models as iStockPhoto.com asked the company to stop using their photos for the purpose of leading people to think that models who pose for iStockPhoto.com endorses a product, Web site or person.

If you haven't heard, FakeYourSpace.com enables users to have model-type females post pictures and comments on your MySpace page for a few bucks.

I'm not a big fan of MySpace, FaceBook, Friendster or any other social networking site. I haven't bought into the hype that my friends say I will cave into sooner or later. I also haven't checked out too many of my friend's MySpace pages but I wonder if they are paying for "make-believe" friends that are actually pictures of real girls but probably comments from dudes somewhere sitting in an office getting paid. And here I thought, people were getting online to stay in touch with friends. Even the quote on the front page of FakeYourSpace.com sounds fake.
Who's laughing now suckas?

Higher Standards? Compared to What?

On Tuesday, the New York Time’s Eric Dash reported that Bank of America’s use of the tagline “Higher Standards” would be eliminated and a new branding effort would be rolled out on Sunday night during the Academy Awards. In Eric’s words, “whose standards are Bank of America’s higher than anyway?” No more higher standards? They never had any.

Forget the tagline. It’s cool to have a good tagline but unless you have great customer service, you won’t win customers. I’m a Bank of America customer because the checking is free with direct deposit and they have the most ATM locations but if they were to charge me money, I’d be sure to go elsewhere. I’ve pressed more buttons on my phone and listened to more hold music than I care for. On top of that, I’ve gone to several branch locations and was told that I couldn’t come inside to see a teller, even though the ATM read temporarily unable to dispense cash. But they did stick a guy on me to offer me a home loan. Higher than what?

I won’t shop at Best Buy either. I went in looking for a digital camera and I asked blueshirt where the section was. He pointed in the direction of the camera and kept talking to another blueshirt. I came back and asked him a question and he only knew what he could see on the printed description and specs. Honestly, what does Best Buy pay these guys for? They should just have more cashiers if there’s going to be no customer service.

I do have to give major kudos to Dell. When I received my laptop a few months back, I called them and the first question they asked me was not what’s your mother’s maiden name or what is your address or what is the last four digits of your social security number but “in case we get disconnected, what is the best number to reach you at?” I was in a state of shock. Usually, for any customer service, you’re guaranteed to be pressing a few numbers, some hold music and then being asked to hold while they look up some information.

Customer service goes a long way. I believe some research a few years back said that if you have a satisfied customer, they will go tell a few people about it and if a customer doesn’t like you, they will go tell 7-10 people.

One enterprise technology executive I recently spoke with when I requested customer references for the media said that sales guys won’t cooperate. He told me that sales guys sell and that’s it. They won’t go back to the customer to make sure they are satisfied but will pop up right around the time of renewal. Not shocking but isn’t it the sales guys who want us to generate coverage so they have collateral for when they are selling?

Voicemail 2.0

The New York Times' David Pogue discussed that technology is now available to convert voicemail that can be sent to you via text messages. My question to vendors, what took you so long? There are still some challenges as voice recogniation software has to become better and you might be charged double for airtime, fowarding and text messages...and unfortunately for me, I have Sprint. As a result I will probably stay away initially but SpinVox and SimulScribe are worth a look if you hate checking your voicemail like me.

I like Sprint because my night minutes start at 7 p.m. but they don't have very good service and all the hidden charges really bug me. But Cingular and T-Mobile are worse. I think I'll try Verizon next but this is a totally different story...

Publications Taking Blows On and Offline

BullDog Reporter on Friday noted a study by Challenger, Gray & Christmas that saw an 88 % surge in media job cuts this year. In 2005, 9,453 jobs were cut and in 2006, more than 17,809 eliminations were announced. The study also revealed that more than 2,000 jobs cuts were already announced during the first 15 days of 2007 and predicts many more jobs to be eliminated this year. This is almost as scary as the murder rate in Richmond and Oakland.

During the last few years, you've seen reporters coming into public relations, joining sales departments and major shifts at analysts firms. Most recently, we saw long time technology editor of eWeek, Peter Coffee land with Salesforce.com. We also saw Line56.com go down for the count and Intelligent Enterprise move to a online only site. Most notably, we saw media giants including Time Inc. and New York Times announcing recent shrinkage.

While publications are struggling to find revenue streams from online content that has stolen the audience from getting their "fingers dirty," PR somehow is enjoying a period of steady growth. However, it will be interesting how this one plays out. Clearly, charging for archives isn't the answer and neither is ad relevancy.

Time Inc Lay Offs

New York Times reported that Time Inc. let go 289 employees and also asked for voluntary resignations. This effected Time, People and Sports Illustrated. Will new online content really be the answer for hardcopy publications to generate new readers? Personally, I still like to get my thumbs dirty and read the hardcopy. I'm one of few new school people in public relations that still like some of the old school way of doing things.

Content like ESPN Insider doesn't really encourage me to go its site because I wouldn't I pay for rumormill stories. I could just wait a few hours for anything that is inevitable and also read blogs that report what was said on ESPN. Isn't that why we have blogs?

Online content should focus on video clips, reader reactions and indepth analysis that compliments the news in the print edition, not just online version of the print story. But I'm glad I don't have to pay when I'm researching reporters I plan on pitching. Ultimately, I don't know how newspapers will survive but while I'm riding BART, I'm glad I can read the paper.