21st century media. Part 4. Distribution of content in a new media environment.
This part of the article discusses the transition from the push / pull content distribution model to the three-part push / pull / pass model.
(I did not manage to find a successful translation of the term push / pull. However, the following should be understood. According to the fundamentals of communication theory, the terms push (eng. Push) and pull (eng. Pull) are used to denote the initiator of the communication. If the communication is initiated by the source, then it is push -communication. If communication is initiated by the recipient, then this is pull-communication. And regardless of who initiated it, this kind of communication is considered passive. Traditional media are all of the push media class. A vivid example of this is ordinary television. It is this, and not the TV viewers, that initiates communication - it constantly sends a signal to the air. In the new media environment we have the opportunity to switch to active (or interactive) communication, while becoming more and more pull-media. But Bradshaw says in his article not about this, but focuses attention on changing the model, on the emergence of the third type of pass action (eng. transmit). That is, it is not only that the content (message) can be “pushed” or “pulled”, but also that it can be transmitted , contribute to its spread. - approx. translator.)
In the 20th century, a commercial news distribution scheme was relatively simple. If you owned a newspaper, you printed it at a certain time, the circulation was transported to sales points (or delivered to subscribers), there people bought it. If you owned a radio or TV, you went on the air at a certain time, and people watched or listened. Very simple.
In the XXI century, the picture became more complicated. It is now widely recognized that we are all journalists now and everyone can become a publisher. But not so widely talk about the fact that each of us has become also a seller of newspapers. Probably because it is not so prestigious.
')
Nevertheless, it is a decisive factor in the production of news. No matter how you divide their production process (information gathering, writing, editing, publishing, distribution), the boundaries between these stages in the context of new media are blurred, because now we can perform all these functions. As an online journalist, I can single-handedly collect, process information, publish and distribute it. Sometimes in one click.
There are two problems:
The 21st century media should clearly define the list of distribution channels for its content, and then see how they affect the rest of the chain — journalism and publishing. This picture shows how new media take print distribution models (take a newspaper) and broadcast media (turn on the receiver) and add a third to them - transfer to another. (The illustration does not characterize the media in terms of push / pull, but shows important examples of consumer actions for distribution. - note of the translator.) Now I’ll show their strengths and weaknesses.
A regular newspaper is not the only media format that is distributed by direct consumption by the consumer. The obvious equivalent is the version of the same newspaper as a computer file in PDF format . Some went further. They began to make not just static copies, but such PDFs, which, when opened, automatically uploaded the updated data. Others began to make specialized, thematic issues and introduce multimedia into them.
PDF newspaper combines the features of the distribution of conventional print media and new media. On the one hand, it is compact and carries advertising, on the other hand, it places the cost of printing on the shoulders of the consumer and constantly updates the content. However, in most cases this format does not use other advantages. Perhaps that is why so few people use it, and some have refused. It's a pity to spend money.
On the Internet, you do not distribute the entire today's issue of your newspaper, but each article separately. And not only today's release, but all your previous releases at the same time (see the theory of the long tail ). Thus, each link within the article to your other articles is part of the distribution. And this should be the rule - to give the reader links to materials on the topic, both on their own and on others. Do not be afraid to link to other sites, your readers will return.
The success of distribution is based on the presence of your target audience in the clusters , and since almost all of them use e-mail , the e-mail distribution remains useful, despite the seemingly old-fashioned way. But keep in mind that the more specific it is, the better. And for sending to mobile phones, this requirement is even tougher, otherwise they will unsubscribe.
RSS feeds are in many ways similar to e-mail and mobile newsletters, there are even services that convert RSS feed updates to e-mail newsletters, which creates tremendous potential for the emergence of ultra-narrow thematic newsletters. But RSS cannot be considered a substitute for email. This is a great technology with its users and ways of consumption.
The more RSS feeds you offer, the better. To begin with, each section should have its own channel - sports, business, etc. Further, the reader is likely to want a specialized channel - materials from a specific football team or the weather on the name of the city. Or articles with keywords.
Every journalist should have his own personal channel, I'm not talking about podcasts , columns, blogs, videos. In addition, it is not bad to display search results on the site in RSS. As well as job ads, dating, etc. By organizing such channels, you will allow others to do all sorts of things with them, which I will discuss below.
Finally, you need to mention streaming video . If you live by selling advertising in video, then this is not the best way to distribute content. Embedded video is better suited for this. In this format, advertising can be embedded directly in the video, and add to it. Well, admit it, after all, quite often after watching a video on some website, you clicked on the advertising embedded in the player and switched to Youtube?
Internet access speed? Not the most important reason. Protecting video from theft? Flash does not allow you to easily remove the video. Is the file too big? So, probably, it is generally inconvenient to watch it on the computer. Then break it into several parts. If this is not a live broadcast, make it so that it can be downloaded or embedded on the page.
In this way of distribution, new media have brought almost nothing new. Just a couple of elements: homepage and chat.
The good old homepage is dying, but it still serves one purpose - to give a quick overview of the contents. And yet there is where to roam. Most readers will come to your site on a specific page via a link issued by a search engine, but a significant minority will search for the newspaper’s site itself, either click on the link, open it through bookmarks, or you have already installed them as your homepage.
But you can connect them to many things at once. The page can be dynamic , and not manually updated six times a day. Its content can be customized for personal preferences , like an Amazon page or a Facebook widget . It can be assembled from a million different RSS feeds (but is it worth doing if the RSS reader programs do it much better?) Or you can display on it what the editors consider the most interesting in a day, but why?
Live chats looked promising, but did not grow together. Perhaps because too much is demanded of the reader. It should be right here, right now, and the nature of the web is asynchronous. And maybe because the audience was not so agile or large enough. However, maybe Second Life will bring them back to life. It’s one thing to write letters to your idol, and another to meet him face to face in the virtual world.
If “take” and “connect” played a major role in the dissemination of news at an early stage of web development, then with the advent of web 2.0, the leading position was taken by the “transmit” method. And in the coming decades, it is the transmission that has every chance of becoming the main distribution method.
Of course, people used to share newspapers, share the news they heard on the radio, but the ease of copying digital content and networking technologies made it much easier, sped up and, most importantly, made the process more measurable. And this is exactly what advertisers want.
Some strategies are based on technological aspects . For example, if you use embedded instead of streaming video, people themselves will distribute your content by poking your player to other sites.
If you use the backlink checking mechanism on your website, then the owners of the sites to which you refer will quickly learn about your existence and be able to comment on your posts, thereby increasing the amount of useful content you have. Just keep in mind, not all comments will be positive.
To increase your brand awareness and attract a new audience, make a widget that people can install on their pages, it will broadcast your content there or somehow characterize the person who installed it.
By adding buttons like “SHARE” or “Email to a friend” to your website , you will facilitate social distribution through blogs, social bookmarking services and e-mail.
Other strategies are based on cultural (humanitarian) aspects . A new medium for dissemination requires that a journalist be included in the life of different communities - he commented on blogs, spoke out on forums. And not just to get traffic from there, but voluntarily, according to your interests. Community members should accept a journalist as their own, then his materials will be clear to them. This was achieved by the newspaper Trinity Mirror. And the Economist began to “sow” his content with the help of reputable bloggers before the publication.
One of the ways to accelerate the development of a new distribution system is to recognize it financially. Gawker Media introduced a bonus system to the zhulerist depending on the number of visits to the page with his material. This is not a way to accurately measure the distribution, not an attempt to get journalists to distribute their articles for money (which, incidentally, is not so bad), but this is an interesting approach. The next step will be accounting for the number of views and clicks when calculating the salary of a journalist.
Further, there are strategies that combine both technological and cultural (humanitarian) aspects . For example, links to external sites will be possible only if the CMS allows it, and if the journalists themselves do it. Even without a link tracking mechanism, site owners will notice that you link to them.
Search engine optimization (SEO) relies on specially trained editors and journalists who write text and headlines that are “convenient” for search engines, as well as systems that generate human-readable page addresses, headings, meta tags, backlinks and clean code. All this ensures a good position of your pages in the search results. But remember that more important in this business are not the texts, but the links leading to your site.
The use of collective intelligence and civic journalism require the support of the editor and the corresponding capabilities of the technical platform, but they have great potential in the face of volunteers and engaging editors.
Similarly, the creation of products based on data mixing (mashup) requires editorial openness and cooperation with external information consumers, as well as the availability of RSS, API, etc. At the same time, the potential benefits of creating new services and applications (and, therefore, expanding the audience) are extremely great.
We have to point out that in social distribution, journalism becomes incredibly important, and the media channel itself becomes less important . I repeat once again: you are not distributing a number, but a specific article , material, publication.
Traditional pessimists from traditional media will quickly realize that they would never gather the same audience as YouTube does. Optimists, on the other hand, will rejoice in the use of collective intelligence, audience participation, work transparency, new opportunities that facilitate journalistic investigations. As well as narrow-thematic publications, formed by a community of like-minded people and its usefulness.
In essence, we are moving from news that is pushing, to news that is moving — to news that is useful, different, special, in which we are included. For this reason, it is very important for the commercial success of the media to pay attention to the quality of presentation (materials, content), multimedia interactivity, means of customization and personalization.
If every newspaper has an article on elections, how will you draw attention to yourself? If everyone printed a match report, how are you different? In a world of endless information, what makes people talk about you?
Now for those who earn advertising. Unlike the paper newspaper, where advertising is seen by everyone who picks it up (no matter if he bought it or not), in the online world, content can and will be separated from advertising. Some of this content will have to be considered part of the marketing (obviously, meaning placing on a paid basis? - approx. Translator) . The other part will be looking for ways to embed advertising in itself, as has already happened with RSS. Well, someone will make money not at all on advertising. Therefore, the business model of the media will have to change. I will tell about it in the following part of article.
Paul Bradshaw
January 2, 2008.
From the translator:
The article was translated with the personal permission of the author. At his request, I indicate the address of the article directly in the text:
http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/01/02/a-model-for-the-21st-century-newsroom-pt4-pushpullpass-distribution/
I hope the administration of Habr will take into account the request of the author and forgive me a forced violation of the format.
Other parts of this article:
Part 1. Diamond news.
Part 2. Distributed journalism.
Part 3. Six questions after.
Part 5. How to make money on journalism? Business models for new media.
Part 6. New journalists for new information flows.
(I did not manage to find a successful translation of the term push / pull. However, the following should be understood. According to the fundamentals of communication theory, the terms push (eng. Push) and pull (eng. Pull) are used to denote the initiator of the communication. If the communication is initiated by the source, then it is push -communication. If communication is initiated by the recipient, then this is pull-communication. And regardless of who initiated it, this kind of communication is considered passive. Traditional media are all of the push media class. A vivid example of this is ordinary television. It is this, and not the TV viewers, that initiates communication - it constantly sends a signal to the air. In the new media environment we have the opportunity to switch to active (or interactive) communication, while becoming more and more pull-media. But Bradshaw says in his article not about this, but focuses attention on changing the model, on the emergence of the third type of pass action (eng. transmit). That is, it is not only that the content (message) can be “pushed” or “pulled”, but also that it can be transmitted , contribute to its spread. - approx. translator.)
In the 20th century, a commercial news distribution scheme was relatively simple. If you owned a newspaper, you printed it at a certain time, the circulation was transported to sales points (or delivered to subscribers), there people bought it. If you owned a radio or TV, you went on the air at a certain time, and people watched or listened. Very simple.
In the XXI century, the picture became more complicated. It is now widely recognized that we are all journalists now and everyone can become a publisher. But not so widely talk about the fact that each of us has become also a seller of newspapers. Probably because it is not so prestigious.
')
Nevertheless, it is a decisive factor in the production of news. No matter how you divide their production process (information gathering, writing, editing, publishing, distribution), the boundaries between these stages in the context of new media are blurred, because now we can perform all these functions. As an online journalist, I can single-handedly collect, process information, publish and distribute it. Sometimes in one click.
There are two problems:
- First, online journalists are usually not trained in distribution. So, you need to learn to understand what it is, because everything that he does as a journalist on the network is in fact an act of distribution ;
- secondly, in contrast to traditional media, the online edition does not spend on the distribution of significant resources. But even if spending, in an unobvious form. Distribution of content as part of the production chain of the media should be different from the act of distribution carried out by a journalist.
The 21st century media should clearly define the list of distribution channels for its content, and then see how they affect the rest of the chain — journalism and publishing. This picture shows how new media take print distribution models (take a newspaper) and broadcast media (turn on the receiver) and add a third to them - transfer to another. (The illustration does not characterize the media in terms of push / pull, but shows important examples of consumer actions for distribution. - note of the translator.) Now I’ll show their strengths and weaknesses.
Take (pull)
A regular newspaper is not the only media format that is distributed by direct consumption by the consumer. The obvious equivalent is the version of the same newspaper as a computer file in PDF format . Some went further. They began to make not just static copies, but such PDFs, which, when opened, automatically uploaded the updated data. Others began to make specialized, thematic issues and introduce multimedia into them.
PDF newspaper combines the features of the distribution of conventional print media and new media. On the one hand, it is compact and carries advertising, on the other hand, it places the cost of printing on the shoulders of the consumer and constantly updates the content. However, in most cases this format does not use other advantages. Perhaps that is why so few people use it, and some have refused. It's a pity to spend money.
On the Internet, you do not distribute the entire today's issue of your newspaper, but each article separately. And not only today's release, but all your previous releases at the same time (see the theory of the long tail ). Thus, each link within the article to your other articles is part of the distribution. And this should be the rule - to give the reader links to materials on the topic, both on their own and on others. Do not be afraid to link to other sites, your readers will return.
The success of distribution is based on the presence of your target audience in the clusters , and since almost all of them use e-mail , the e-mail distribution remains useful, despite the seemingly old-fashioned way. But keep in mind that the more specific it is, the better. And for sending to mobile phones, this requirement is even tougher, otherwise they will unsubscribe.
RSS feeds are in many ways similar to e-mail and mobile newsletters, there are even services that convert RSS feed updates to e-mail newsletters, which creates tremendous potential for the emergence of ultra-narrow thematic newsletters. But RSS cannot be considered a substitute for email. This is a great technology with its users and ways of consumption.
The more RSS feeds you offer, the better. To begin with, each section should have its own channel - sports, business, etc. Further, the reader is likely to want a specialized channel - materials from a specific football team or the weather on the name of the city. Or articles with keywords.
Every journalist should have his own personal channel, I'm not talking about podcasts , columns, blogs, videos. In addition, it is not bad to display search results on the site in RSS. As well as job ads, dating, etc. By organizing such channels, you will allow others to do all sorts of things with them, which I will discuss below.
Finally, you need to mention streaming video . If you live by selling advertising in video, then this is not the best way to distribute content. Embedded video is better suited for this. In this format, advertising can be embedded directly in the video, and add to it. Well, admit it, after all, quite often after watching a video on some website, you clicked on the advertising embedded in the player and switched to Youtube?
Internet access speed? Not the most important reason. Protecting video from theft? Flash does not allow you to easily remove the video. Is the file too big? So, probably, it is generally inconvenient to watch it on the computer. Then break it into several parts. If this is not a live broadcast, make it so that it can be downloaded or embedded on the page.
Connect (Push)
In this way of distribution, new media have brought almost nothing new. Just a couple of elements: homepage and chat.
The good old homepage is dying, but it still serves one purpose - to give a quick overview of the contents. And yet there is where to roam. Most readers will come to your site on a specific page via a link issued by a search engine, but a significant minority will search for the newspaper’s site itself, either click on the link, open it through bookmarks, or you have already installed them as your homepage.
But you can connect them to many things at once. The page can be dynamic , and not manually updated six times a day. Its content can be customized for personal preferences , like an Amazon page or a Facebook widget . It can be assembled from a million different RSS feeds (but is it worth doing if the RSS reader programs do it much better?) Or you can display on it what the editors consider the most interesting in a day, but why?
Live chats looked promising, but did not grow together. Perhaps because too much is demanded of the reader. It should be right here, right now, and the nature of the web is asynchronous. And maybe because the audience was not so agile or large enough. However, maybe Second Life will bring them back to life. It’s one thing to write letters to your idol, and another to meet him face to face in the virtual world.
Pass (Pass)
If “take” and “connect” played a major role in the dissemination of news at an early stage of web development, then with the advent of web 2.0, the leading position was taken by the “transmit” method. And in the coming decades, it is the transmission that has every chance of becoming the main distribution method.
Of course, people used to share newspapers, share the news they heard on the radio, but the ease of copying digital content and networking technologies made it much easier, sped up and, most importantly, made the process more measurable. And this is exactly what advertisers want.
Social Distribution Strategies
Some strategies are based on technological aspects . For example, if you use embedded instead of streaming video, people themselves will distribute your content by poking your player to other sites.
If you use the backlink checking mechanism on your website, then the owners of the sites to which you refer will quickly learn about your existence and be able to comment on your posts, thereby increasing the amount of useful content you have. Just keep in mind, not all comments will be positive.
To increase your brand awareness and attract a new audience, make a widget that people can install on their pages, it will broadcast your content there or somehow characterize the person who installed it.
By adding buttons like “SHARE” or “Email to a friend” to your website , you will facilitate social distribution through blogs, social bookmarking services and e-mail.
Other strategies are based on cultural (humanitarian) aspects . A new medium for dissemination requires that a journalist be included in the life of different communities - he commented on blogs, spoke out on forums. And not just to get traffic from there, but voluntarily, according to your interests. Community members should accept a journalist as their own, then his materials will be clear to them. This was achieved by the newspaper Trinity Mirror. And the Economist began to “sow” his content with the help of reputable bloggers before the publication.
One of the ways to accelerate the development of a new distribution system is to recognize it financially. Gawker Media introduced a bonus system to the zhulerist depending on the number of visits to the page with his material. This is not a way to accurately measure the distribution, not an attempt to get journalists to distribute their articles for money (which, incidentally, is not so bad), but this is an interesting approach. The next step will be accounting for the number of views and clicks when calculating the salary of a journalist.
Further, there are strategies that combine both technological and cultural (humanitarian) aspects . For example, links to external sites will be possible only if the CMS allows it, and if the journalists themselves do it. Even without a link tracking mechanism, site owners will notice that you link to them.
Search engine optimization (SEO) relies on specially trained editors and journalists who write text and headlines that are “convenient” for search engines, as well as systems that generate human-readable page addresses, headings, meta tags, backlinks and clean code. All this ensures a good position of your pages in the search results. But remember that more important in this business are not the texts, but the links leading to your site.
The use of collective intelligence and civic journalism require the support of the editor and the corresponding capabilities of the technical platform, but they have great potential in the face of volunteers and engaging editors.
Similarly, the creation of products based on data mixing (mashup) requires editorial openness and cooperation with external information consumers, as well as the availability of RSS, API, etc. At the same time, the potential benefits of creating new services and applications (and, therefore, expanding the audience) are extremely great.
Recommendations for journalists and publishers
We have to point out that in social distribution, journalism becomes incredibly important, and the media channel itself becomes less important . I repeat once again: you are not distributing a number, but a specific article , material, publication.
Traditional pessimists from traditional media will quickly realize that they would never gather the same audience as YouTube does. Optimists, on the other hand, will rejoice in the use of collective intelligence, audience participation, work transparency, new opportunities that facilitate journalistic investigations. As well as narrow-thematic publications, formed by a community of like-minded people and its usefulness.
In essence, we are moving from news that is pushing, to news that is moving — to news that is useful, different, special, in which we are included. For this reason, it is very important for the commercial success of the media to pay attention to the quality of presentation (materials, content), multimedia interactivity, means of customization and personalization.
If every newspaper has an article on elections, how will you draw attention to yourself? If everyone printed a match report, how are you different? In a world of endless information, what makes people talk about you?
Now for those who earn advertising. Unlike the paper newspaper, where advertising is seen by everyone who picks it up (no matter if he bought it or not), in the online world, content can and will be separated from advertising. Some of this content will have to be considered part of the marketing (obviously, meaning placing on a paid basis? - approx. Translator) . The other part will be looking for ways to embed advertising in itself, as has already happened with RSS. Well, someone will make money not at all on advertising. Therefore, the business model of the media will have to change. I will tell about it in the following part of article.
Paul Bradshaw
January 2, 2008.
From the translator:
The article was translated with the personal permission of the author. At his request, I indicate the address of the article directly in the text:
http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/01/02/a-model-for-the-21st-century-newsroom-pt4-pushpullpass-distribution/
I hope the administration of Habr will take into account the request of the author and forgive me a forced violation of the format.
Other parts of this article:
Part 1. Diamond news.
Part 2. Distributed journalism.
Part 3. Six questions after.
Part 5. How to make money on journalism? Business models for new media.
Part 6. New journalists for new information flows.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/288762/
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