Who wants tomorrow’s papers?

Tuesday 20 February 2007

Business Lounge, Bush House, Strand (entrance in Aldwych), London WC2B 4PH    Multimap

2007 is the year of the online newspaper in the UK. The Times Online, Telegraph and Mirror have all re-launched, the Daily Mail has created a new platform, and the Guardian and the FT are being re-developed. The scale and scope of the impact represented by the Internet have been felt across newspapers: in reporting and editing; debate and reader created material; the rise of meta publications and story syndication; alienated young audiences and general distrust; increasing costs and decreasing revenues. The newspaper industry is looking like a victim of its self-reported fears about the impact of the Internet. What can we learn from best practice in research, design, technology, journalism, editorial and business strategy about how to address these major developments and deliver the best on- and offline newspapers for real people.

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Key points

• In newspaper organisations, online is gaining parity with print, and professional barriers being overcome.
• Newspapers are still where cinema was in the 1890s.
• Study people in context. People’s lives are messy. Avoid hypothesising about users. Danger of self-referential design. Danger of doing ‘executive testing’. Get out from offices, into people’s lives!
• Context of use under-rated. Support moving access between platforms. Mobile phones as a possible interface to the Web from paper.
• Appreciate different models of using the Web. People scan text/links/first paragraph. Need to move from users searching to publishers sending information. Publishers’ articles are now read in the context of other information.
• There is still a need for trust. Can publishers be a kite mark for good content? Do we need a Daily Blogosphere? Is content key differentiator? Do people want considered opinion online?
• The news experience today is more of a conversation. Try and be an online news source, not a newspaper online. From a platform for news to offering the best possible news experience. News rating tools are just a pyramid, not creating news.
• Too much information, not enough ways to navigate, lack of media literacy. Complexity shouldn’t lead to dumbing down.
• Need to address writing for online, such as summaries.
• ‘Agile’ development model preferable to waterfall model. The ‘back end’ is always under-estimated.
• Should writers and editors defer to readers, or create their own audience? On the Web, we should focus more on the international than the local.
• Publishers are becoming retail intermediaries. What about payment for news downloads? Technology will provides solutions for future of newspapers.
• Understanding of advertising industry insufficient at present, but remember advertising pays many of the bills.
• Newspapers “are actually doing OK”.

Introductions

These notes are not to be cited as the opinion of the panellists, or as quotations. While we believe them to be accurate, they should only be read as a general discussion around the subject of the Forum.

Tom Savigar, Trends Director, The Future Laboratory

Focus on solid human traits. We are seeing disaggregation but avoid jumping on the bandwagon. We still need the Metro newspaper in some contexts of use. Consider people’s ‘dead time’. Ask: ‘how do we consume news?’. With the re-aggregation of news look at the role of community. [Discusses the Polycentricity (check) appliance and the idea of roaming in the home.] Trend towards splintering and dividing attention. Increasing importance of word of mouth: after the London bombings (7/7) word got out more slowly via the traditional news media. Importance of navigating news. Tell me something honest. Comes down to content.

Mike Altendorf, Joint Managing Director, Conchango

Most publishers are still not happy with what they are doing. People want good content. Can publishers be a kite mark for good content? Which is the master: print or online? Instead think about linking print to Web. For instance, move data to someone’s phone so they can read on the move. See Associated Newspapers’s eReader [i]: more than an adjunct to the paper. Delivers better quality of experience. Ad models are moving towards tailored and contextual ads. Publishers are becoming retail intermediaries, with affiliate deals. See the Bild.de site of the German newspaper Bild, which has a prominent shopping basket, is an example of best practice in this area. Need to move from users searching to publishers sending information. See the example of The Filter in Bath, which aim to learning from what you are listening to. The ‘agile’ development model is preferable to the waterfall model: focuses less specification and more on improving delivery with frequent product rollouts, and clear leadership. One element is the ‘product backlog’ workshops. Have used this model with the Financial Times, which has developed interactive search [see FT Search demo], which includes sliders for setting date ranges.

Paul Adams, User experience consultant, Flow Interactive

Avoid hypothesising about users. Context not content is key: no one uses Internet for everything. They move domains. Their lives are messy. Get out from offices, into people’s lives! Go into their environment. Move to find vs pushing content atpeople. Different models of using the Web: shallow and broad vs narrow and deep (eg: football stats vs researching holidays): in the first model, often find content getting in the way. People scan text/links/first paragraph, they don’t read: flowery text doesn”t work. Copy and paste of text loses context of use, trigger words [clarify]. Web 2.0? People jut care about the basics. People want facts first then opinion: if they get opinion first they don’t trust it. Serendipity needs to be delivered at the right point. Will digital paper work on the Tube? Have to go out and see what people are doing. [Paul’s presentation is included in a post on his site.]

Victor Keegan, Leader writer and columnist, the Guardian

Changes are taking place in the nature of paper and news. There is still a need for trust. Huge changes for journalists: once were hostile to Web, now see it as an attractive option as competition for space in the paper increases. However, danger of over-whelming them with work. Quality of news higher, as passes by sub-editors and lawyers, and, in the case of the Guardian, a Readers’ Editor. People talk about payment for music downloads. What about payment for news downloads? Difficulty of predicting the future: SMS not predicted, while fibre to the home predicted for decades. Value of e-paper, such as the Sony Reader. The Blogosphere needs an editor. How about a Daily Blogosphere publication? Consider mobile phones as a possible interface to the Web from paper. The Guardian has placed an each way bet on print (where trust is key), and on the Web. [See recent opinion piece by Victor Keegan on these themes in Guardian Technology (linked via Ma.gnolia).]

Khoi Vinh, Design Director, NYTimes.com

The NYTimes.com no longer refers to itself as the New York Times ‘on the Web’ – significant change. Adding functionality. Credit to the folks on the paper side: no longer see the Web as giving away content. News experience today is more of a conversation. We are always testing designs, though could do more contextual enquiry. We want to make NYTimes.com a community destination. Tom Bodkin [design director and an assistant managing editor] runs 120 person art department. We have lunch every three weeks. Discuss how to handle editors: Bodkin comes from a world where you can debate with business folks about advertising placement, etc. and believes that the Web lacked early design input, so we have interaction models today that don’t contribute to the long-term relationships between editors and readers.

Panel discussion

Chair: what have you learned from experience?

Paul: move from being reactive to pro-active. Danger of self-referential design. If you have great content and you need to present it in right place.

Khoi: we have followed user-centred to the letter, but need to adhere more closely to the spirit. There is a danger of doing ‘executive testing’ with people who sign your pay cheques and have agendas at odds with users’.

Mike: editorial vs ergonomic design. The design and development of the back end is always under-estimated as the focus is on front end. For instance, tagging not well supported by content management systems.

Tom: our clients are 35+ and tasked with launching something online, and the young are seen as savvy. Try and be an online news source, not a newspaper online. Takes Web 2.0 discussion to wake people up.

Victor: being too geeky when Guardian Online editor. Don’t take your readers’ knowledge too much for granted, eg: Wall Street Journal spells out that the PSBR is whenever it mentions it. Problem of comment spam, lead to a sadness about people.

Audience discussion

Surprised to learn that quality of content is key differentiator. Delivery, manipulation, response more important.

Chair: Is quality less important, or the other aspects more important?

Do people want considered opinion online? Or pleasure of Ain’t It Cool News, which is poorly presented?

Wary of deference to users. As a writer, I want to create my own audience. Importance of asserting editorial perspective.

The discussion of user focus is aimed at the designers

Victor: [Recounts story of Wired co-founder Louis Rosetto: if someone can handle reading the whole of Wired on the Web they can have it for free!] Writers want to hear from readers. Inability to classify content. Sentiment classification.

Paul: more about tools than content. People do scan online.

Tom: ability to pursue things further. Covenant of trust. People will be reviewing other articles related to yours. Doesn’t necessarily affect the content but allows you to dive in.

Victor: see NowPublic and ‘mojos’ [mobile journalists]

Tom: 8-70 year olds becoming sophisticated readers of content. [Unrelated] Challenge of summarising a story for an RSS feed.

Khoi: A 2005 survey cited that each online reader represents considerably less revenue than traditional print readers. We cannot just be a platform for news: need to offer the best possible news experience, and ancillary tools.

Chair: what are the most significant failures in online news, and how would you fix their cause?

I am an ex-journalist. I have given up RSS [as not manageable].

How much information is too much? Many online newspapers trying to present too much. It is overwhelming.

We are actually doing OK. How to identify with groups of people. Pay for [better] information? [On moving between media] How hard is it to Google something!

Not information overload but poor media literacy. Onus on media literacy. Still at the stage of cinema where people would run out of a cinema when a train came towards them. Or the 1890s Mercedes Benz stage where cars had a horse bar at the front [just in case].

I don’t like newspaper home pages covered with ads. Or newspaper sites where there is an immediate logon screen, eg: NYT

We should value journalists’ opinions. Local news tends to be inward looking when with the Web we could be global.

No mention of Slashdot and Digg. I use other people [as filters] for my news, eg: John Gruber. What about serendipitous discovery?

Tom: Digg is just a pyramid, not creating news.

Final comments

Victor: I never go further with sites that require logins.

Chair: Guardian Unlimited has privileged position of being owned by a not-for-profit trust, and has been able to follow a strategy of maximising online presence in anticipation of future advertising moving online.

Tom: people more intelligent, not more sophisticated. Complexity shouldn’t lead to dumbing down.

Mike: pay per use? Logins. Business model: Financial Times believes one reader offline = 100 online. Technology will provides solutions for future of newspapers, as will sophistication and greater business savvy.

Khoi: we love Digg. Have a link to ‘seed’ it. Added ‘permalinks’ to stories that allow links from blogs to be accessible for longer [than stories accessed directly from the site]. We won’t be like Digg, eg: thumbs up/down. But may have ‘most blogged’ and ‘most Dugg’ stories.

Paul: getting people to more pages. But be careful how you use these things. [Clarify] Serving related ads. But understanding advertising industry insufficient at present.

Khoi: no [total] advertising model, other than making it look like the content [i.e.: advertorial]. We need to remember that advertising sales pay the bills.

Notes

[i] See the discussion and images at blogs.conchango.com. Uses Windows Presentation Foundation, part of Microsoft Windows Vista. See the related Microsoft Times Reader, developed in conjunction with the New York Times [Microsoft press release]. Includes ability to annotate and clip documents