I am slooooowly recovering from two days of the crud (of a digestive, not congestive, nature ... 'nuff said). On the plus side, this puts me in the perfect mood tonight to upgrade Ka's laptop from the unconditionally awful Windows Vista to the better-be-much-less-awful Windows 7.
Will advise [...]
The past several days had a way of reminding me why I wound down the types of part-time consulting I did most often as part of Small Initiatives.
My Scripps job keeps me hopping, now more than ever, as we rethink what it means to be a local news media company [...]
The adjacent image shows what can happen when weak news subject matter leads to a disjointed report, and a worse promotional link.
The headline plays up how respondents to a new poll say Wal-Mart is the institution that best symbolizes America. The text [...]
...I am slowly migrating to my new blog. The old Small Initiatives site will suffice until this is ready.
[...]Early this year Ka and I incorporated Small Initiatives. She was engaged in long-term consulting to modernize an insurance agency, and I had accepted a couple of new clients for Web development work. We wanted the structure and protection of a corporation, and felt we would need it for the [...]
Headlines and snippets popped up in blogland yesterday that seemed to say just more than half of American newspaper publishers are gunning to implement paid content strategies on the Web.
For example:
Alan Mutter: Only 51% of pubs think pay walls will fly Lost Remote: 51% of the newspaper publishers in [...]Headlines and snippets popped up in blogland yesterday that seemed to say just more than half of American newspaper publishers are gunning to implement paid content strategies on the Web.
For example:
Alan Mutter: Only 51% of pubs think pay walls will fly Lost Remote: 51% of the newspaper publishers in [...]Links with longer shelf life and less cholesterol than fried butter, as if that's hard:
Bakersfield paper may shutter community sites: Or may not, depending on which local executive you believe, and which lines you read between, in this PaidContent report. For e-book readers, the price is not right:' [...]Links with longer shelf life and less cholesterol than fried butter, as if that's hard:
Bakersfield paper may shutter community sites: Or may not, depending on which local executive you believe, and which lines you read between, in this PaidContent report. For e-book readers, the price is not right: [...]I sat in stunned amazement last week following a service call with an agency management system sales rep. The call pertained to billing, technical support, and user group experience issues for a recently converted insurance agency.
After outlining the issues, the rep shared his concerns about the inability to empower customers [...]
I sat in stunned amazement last week following a service call with an agency management system sales rep. The call pertained to billing, technical support, and user group experience issues for a recently converted insurance agency.
After outlining the issues, the rep shared his concerns about the inability to empower customers [...]
First, Tim Rutten makes the case that saving "premium" journalism means an act of Congress -- specifically, an antitrust exemption so papers can collude on paid content pricing on their Web sites. Then, the reaction.
Steve Outing, for example:
"He's joking, right? U.S. newspapers, many with a history of profit'" [...]
First, Tim Rutten makes the case that saving "premium" journalism means an act of Congress -- specifically, an antitrust exemption so papers can collude on paid content pricing on their Web sites. Then, the reaction.
Steve Outing, for example:
"He's joking, right? U.S. newspapers, many with a history of profit" [...]
I love this line of reasoning from Jeffrey Phillips. He remarks how his four-times-a-year golf game belies very low expectations of performance, then this:
"The comparison I want to make to my very part-time golf game is to the part-time efforts most firms put into innovation. If you want to" [...]
I love this line of reasoning from Jeffrey Phillips. He remarks how his four-times-a-year golf game belies very low expectations of performance, then this:
"The comparison I want to make to my very part-time golf game is to the part-time efforts most firms put into innovation. If you want to" [...]
I often say a key goal of any Web site redesign should be to make the next redesign easier. Given the rapid pace of redesign launches among newspaper.com sites in recent weeks, it appears some last-generation design work was aimed toward that goal.
The latest projects launched [...]
I often say a key goal of any Web site redesign should be to make the next redesign easier. Given the rapid pace of redesign launches among newspaper.com sites in recent weeks, it appears some last-generation design work was aimed toward that goal.
The latest projects launched on the heels of [...]
Here is my last project for my last MBA course: a video to share my experiences in the Georgia WebMBA program.
Now that I graduated, in case any of you wonder what it's like working on a master's in a virtual program, while your spouse is attending the same program, [...]
Here is my last project for my last MBA course: a video to share my experiences in the Georgia WebMBA program.
Now that I graduated, in case any of you wonder what it's like working on a master's in a virtual program, while your spouse is attending the same program, [...]
OK, if you count niche brands, naplesnews.com represents maybe site 6 or 7 in Scripps' redesign rollout. But it is our fourth newspaper market to get the new look and underpinnings, as of last evening. And the first in a market where we could legitimately ghost a palm tree' [...]
OK, if you count niche brands, naplesnews.com represents maybe site 6 or 7 in Scripps' redesign rollout. But it is our fourth newspaper market to get the new look and underpinnings, as of last evening. And the first in a market where we could legitimately ghost a palm tree' [...]
We just switched moments ago: knoxnews.com becomes the third local site in Scripps' newspaper division to take on our latest site design and architecture. Check it out!
' [...]We just switched moments ago: knoxnews.com becomes the third local site in Scripps' newspaper division to take on our latest site design and architecture. Check it out!
' [...]Don't let Steve Yelvington's excellent rebuttal (started to say "analysis," but it's more direct than that) to the American Press Institute "Newspaper Economic Action Plan" pass without due consideration.
The API plan points the newspaper industry toward paid or subsidized online content, with assumptions such as, "Consumers perceive that content'" [...]
Gordon Borrell says local online advertising outperformed his Borrell Associates forecast by a fair piece:
"We may have been far too conservative earlier this year when we projected that local online advertising would grow 8% in 2009. At the end of the first quarter, the increase looked closer to 11%." [...]
After wrapping up his 10-part series on what local newspapers should do to survive (he rolled up all the recommendations in one post), John Temple posted a wise reply to questions I asked him by e-mail last week.
My questions, in a nutshell: What about photojournalism? Can it be considered [...]
Charles Apple, one of the primo bloggers at Visual Editors, picked up the discussion about the future of design at newspapers and the troubled Society for News Design, in particular. In Apple's post, he channels Dean Lockwood of the San Antonio Express-News:
"One of the realities we are facing'" [...]
While I joined my son yesterday on a college campus visit (yes, he's that old, meaning yes, I'm that old), our gang at Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group rolled out the second site in our latest cycle of user experience upgrades: redding.com, site of the Redding Record-Searchlight in northern [...]
(Update [1:25 p.m. EDT, June 26, 2009]: Clear customer service just sent a note to members answering my questions and more. I added it in full at the bottom of this post.)
Greg Sterling noted the end of Clear, the program that let travelers pay to register with biometrics in [...]
I am reposting here, with only a few edits for style, comments I posted in a heated thread about the recent resignations of the president and executive director of the Society for News Design. As background, my own long history with SND includes several years on its board of [...]
Bloglines beta site remains down this morning, victim of an expired and apparently neglected security certificate. Meanwhile, "classic" Bloglines still exhibits the classic problems that led me to try the beta months ago:
Item refresh counts out of whack Showing thousands of old items as new Too many visits by [...]
Along with the impressively frequent "Loading..." and "There appears to be a server communication problem..." dialogs, the long-running beta of Bloglines sported a lean, mean new home page this morning.
I know installing and renewing SSL security certificates can be tedious and time-consuming; however, if you force [...]
Jeff Jarvis discusses the notion of advertising as failure:
"The ideal relationship a company should have with its customer is that it produces a great product the customer loves and talks about and thus sells; there is no need for advertising there. It’s only in the case of failing at" [...]
Links with enough dust on them to prove how far behind I became in reading and blogging:
Design and UX stuff Introducing Typekit: Taking advantage of emerging markup/style practices that allow fonts other than the overexposed "Web-safe" selections, this service appears to be the most meaningful development for better Web [...]
Watch Evansville's courierpress.com site today -- and not just for the likelihood of more severe weather in the southern Ohio Valley, though they get plenty.
No, I refer to a major site redesign; with it, a new user experience architecture. Barring unforeseen delays, it launches' [...]
I chatted up a piece of new analysis from Nielsen around the office a good bit today.
In the analysis, David Martin, vice president of primary research for Nielsen Online, described an uphill battle that Twitter, the oh-so-buzzy status network, may face growing Internet market share while its user [...]
I commend to you Steve Yelvington's detailed roundup of lessons learned and organizational advice from mergers of print-focused and online-focused content organizations. One of many key points:
"Done right, it's a big win. 'Convergence is, overall, a huge help to innovation,' said one online producer. A senior editor agreed: 'It's" [...]
Ever-industrious Tim Harrower, working on a new edition of one of his textbooks, recently asked me some questions about journalism, online and the intersection of the two. My replies follow. I know he asked others in online media, so I hope maybe some of those folks will share what [...]
I attended RevenueTwoPointZero last Saturday, spent most of my time working with the amazing ad hoc team focused on marketing solutions for small and medium businesses, wrote a hasty summary, then came back home and said nothing more about it.
That silence does not indicate lack of interest -- [...]
Quick takes from Day 1 at NAA MediaXChange in Las Vegas:
Old friends? Fewer. Attendance is down, no way to hide it -- besides, some of my closest acquaintances have fully or partly left the newspaper end of digital media. I spoke to one friend who said he was here [...]... how any company that provides expensive, business-critical software as a service via the Web (aka Web services) can refuse to offer a service level agreement to customers -- or act like no one ever asked before.
That is all.
[...]
I follow stories on ESPN.com via the site's RSS feeds. Lately I kept looking and wondering what was different about the items -- my copy editor sense was tingling like crazy.
Now I realize: Most of the headlines include full team names, when teams are mentioned, and' [...]
The marching pace of sucky economic news for American newspapers and their holding companies quickened again yesterday.
Papers' suffering began before the current economic crisis. We already occupied the front seats as the roller coaster started down this twisty slope. Sweeping global deleveraging makes quite the thrill' [...]
Just in time for me to forget (almost) that I'd done it, today ReelSEO published an interview with me from September 2008 on the subjects of video content strategy and search optimization.
I'll tease you with an excerpt:
Q: What do you believe are the major challenges/obstacles for newspapers to get [...]
Greg Sterling reminds us why we all chase advertising dollars from locally focused, small and medium businesses:
"We're in a recession; everything is down including local. And local is harder than other segments because of some of the factors mentioned above. SMBs are hard to sell to and they don’t'" [...]
Elway had this way of looking at you that made you feel like you'd kidnapped his mother.
Ka and I took yesterday off work, expecting to share a rare day of down' [...]
This week, I have either led or participated in at least 12 conference calls with online presentations, aka Webinars. Let's face it, no matter how elegant, all forms of virtual meetings pale in comparison to real face time. But given the effect of our dire economy on many companies' [...]
It appears people who still rely on wire-coiled Pringles cans for TV reception may have a few more months to pick up those Everybody Loves Raymond reruns without a digital decoder.
When I worked for a TV manufacturing conglomerate back in 2000-2001, everyone presumed the big switch to digital [...]
Troubling research findings reported by AFP: TV and video games increase teen depression risk.
Key points:
"Time spent engaging with electronic media may replace time that could be spent on social, athletic or intellectual activities that could guard against depression. ... Being exposed to media at night may also disrupt sleep" [...]
Juan Antonio Giner, friend from SND days, says the newspaper industry spends too much time "doing the same and expecting miracles."
True. His advice:
"The publisher of a $5 billion European newspaper group called me yesterday asking me about innovative U.S. newspapers to visit.
'Sorry, but no one does things different [...]
My friend Steve Outing wrote about attending the Global Individuated Newspaper Conference in Denver yesterday.
In sum, the conference title muddles the theme: personal news. (Really, isn't "Global Individuated" somewhat like "Jumbo Shrimp"? Hat tip to the late George Carlin.)
Steve saw the event as full of messages and rally cries [...]
NewTeeVee and Tilzy both give shouts to a project running in our Entrepreneur Fund at Scripps that, in my view, best fits the description of "I'd never expect this from a newspaper company."
RootClip works a lot like playing "whispers" with video. It's the brainchild of two [...]
Organizations are comprised of people, processes and technology. Finding the right mix for operational excellence is similar to what any good chef must do to produce an exquisite culinary dish. Managers must understand that communication is more than sharing a thought, idea or opinion. It is the art of interpretation [...]
There are plenty of books, experts and opinions on leaders today. I'm not going to attempt to join the fray. I would prefer to challenge your ideas and definitions of what constitutes a good leader. Will you follow along for a minute?
I believe that right and wrong is inherent to [...]
Most companies develop tag lines to differentiate themselves from the competition with a catchy phrase or word. Everyone recalls Nike's Just Do It. But I would be willing to bet that most consumers take a cynical view of tag line promises based upon the common service experience that rarely delivers [...]
Anyone else had issues getting into LinkedIn the past few days? I've received a couple of invitations I wanted to act on this week, and both times, from two separate places, with access to other sites working fine, I've been unable to get there.
That includes attempts in the [...]
A Slashdot post points to an online discussion with Khoi Vinh, design guru at NYTimes.com, in which Vinh is asked how the team there maintains visual consistency. His answer, in part:
"It's our preference to use a text editor, like HomeSite, TextPad or
TextMate, to 'hand code' everything, rather [...]
CNET reports the folks at AT&T (I was about to say "the eggheads" or "the boffins," but the spokesman quoted is from legislative affairs) claim the Internet will hit its capacity by 2010 if big bucks aren't invested in infrastructure.
Makes me think of that home broadband commercial from a [...]
Yikes. My home town, Harrisburg, Illinois, is flooded. The nearby, mighty Middle Fork Saline River jumped its banks following a two-day soaking.
Check the coverage from the local paper, The Daily Register (for which, not coincidentally, members of my family toiled through three generations).
Fortunately, all my family members living there [...]
I've said all along that debit card cash rebate programs are the way to go. During my tenure as a regional market manager for Teachers Credit Union I was part of the creative team behind its Debit Card Rebate program. Now at seven years old, [...]
I confess to high service standards and expectations for any industry. For those service managers who believe mediocrity is the best one can expect, I clearly state my position. There's something about a little process called payment for services I believe entitles me to expect something in return. This removes [...]
If video killed the radio star, I may soon have to claim responsibility for killing Internet radio.
At 2 p.m. Monday, Mel Taylor, webcasting from the Newspaper Association of America Marketing Conference and Connections in Orlando, will interview me about the conference, the world of newspaper-based interactive media and [...]
Recession? What recession?
OK, let me snap out of my Pollyanna moment there. Times are extraordinarily tough in the newspaper industry, but we at Scripps still believe we have much to gain from growing investment in Internet services and products. As such, we're hiring in the Interactive Newspapers Group.
Please follow the [...]
At their worst, I'll admit, open-source software communities can breed flame wars, ugly breakups and needlessly forked development roadmaps. But at their best, you have to admit, open-source crowds share ideas, solve practical problems and tip hats at each others' successes.
Witness the Drupal community's post [...]
Advocates of Web standards now warn that a heavily used technique for switching between standards-based browser rendering and, well, everything else -- called the DOCTYPE switch -- is broken.
OK, so that last sentence is meaningless to you if you don't work often in Web design or development. Even more meaningless [...]
Links in search of someone in a quippier mood than me, all the better to say quippy things at a rapid quip (enough already, Small!):
The Scripps Howard Foundation, affiliated with the company that gives me my day job, once again seeks entries for its National Journalism Awards. The program includes a Web Reporting category. Enter before Jan. 31 and maybe you'll get to bask in the glory. Details from the announcement:
Since 1953 the [...]
Happy New Year! Now can we put an end to all the "milestoning" already?
You know what I mean. The changing of a year provides a far-too-easy opportunity for writers -- journalists, opinion leaders, you name it -- to look back or look forward any of these tired ways:
As banks and credit unions seek alternative income sources, their focus shifts significantly to business services. Fee income sources from consumer banking appear to be limited to courtesy pay privilege or overdraft privilege fees, ATM charges and NSF charges (others may deserve mention but let's simplify for now).
Deposits are at [...]
Am I the only one creeped out by how easy it is to invite acquaintances en masse to new social networks such as Spock and Plaxo Pulse?
Both these nets use the program interfaces of existing services such as Facebook and LinkedIn to let a new user [...]
Jakob Nielsen's latest Alertbox article, Web 2.0 Can Be Dangerous, reminds us that fancy trick plays in site development don't always bring the same great benefits as good old blocking and tackling.
Nielsen calls out Ajax, rich interfaces, mashups, so-called "user generated content" and online communities -- noting they can [...]
Editor & Publisher channels a New York Times report: Morgan Stanley Reported to Drop Coverage of Newspapers.
On the one hand, the newspaper industry through Wall Street glasses must look like an airport baggage carousel an hour after the last flight: conveyor off, only a few unworthy bags gathering dust, [...]
I’ve had a few weeks to enjoy my promotion to general manager of Scripps Newspapers Interactive Group — something I didn’t make a big deal about in this space because, well, it’s not all that relevant to this space. But it’s a big deal for me, and was just starting [...]
My pals at the Santa Fe New Mexican just launched their redesigned Web site — a Small Initiatives project intended to give the newspaper/site team more tools and flexibility, and the site visitors a tidier, easier experience.
Besides the design changes, the site also [...]
Jared Spool nails it again with his case study on poor login/register user experience: The Sign-In Travesty.
The thing is, the example he cites is far from the worst you’d find on the Web. CollegeBoard.com pulls out all the usual tricks to allow people to log in, sign up [...]
Cool! Here’s a much more powerful tool than my aging (but still working) Text Style Sampler for evaluating Web-safe HTML typeface choices: Typetester – Compare fonts for the screen.
Give it a spin next time you’re designing a site.
From The AP, via Wired News: Astronomers spot a whopping big hole in the universe.
Naturally, they’re baffled. But it makes perfect sense to me, a lay observer with barely a liberal arts degree from barely a university:
You may have noticed a new wave of spam messages that mimic registration confirmation e-mail from a legitimate-sounding Web site to dupe people into clicking through. Here’s the content of one such message I received this week:
Welcome,
Welcome To Mobile Fun.
Member Number: 7645817185
Temorary Login: user9238
Password ID: yp226This Login Info [...]
Jakob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox essay, in a nutshell, validates the concept of “banner blindness”: people shown pages with graphical advertising units intermixed with non-ad content almost always focus on the non-ad content.
What elements attract attention most consistently? Plain text, faces and “private parts,” says Nielsen.
But not most ads, he [...]
The switchover is so new the pixels aren’t yet dry, but I’ll go ahead and point to Scripps’ latest newspaper site redesign: CommercialAppeal.com in Memphis.
It’s now in Ellington. It also now features our newly developed, Flash/Flex based video player, starting right on the home page with the AppealTV [...]
The folks at User Interface Engineering have ramped up their “infomarketing” leading to the User Interface 12 conference coming in November.
I call it “infomarketing” because UIE provides moderately detailed interviews with each of the conference session leaders — each well-known subject matter experts — in the weeks preceding the [...]
Two posts, slightly related, both interesting reads for the search user experience crowd:
Matthew Roche, writing at MediaPost, describes how a sizzling multimedia ad experience quickly degrades into a game of “throw me in the dumpster”:
“The ad is beautiful in its simplicity and it serves its purpose — but only to an extent. It enticed me to click through, and the splash [...]
Cory Bergman notes NBC Universal’s planned endurance run to cover the 2008 Olympics, including 2,200 hours of streamed video and 6,600 hours of coverage available in archive:
It goes without saying that such blanket online coverage raises some interesting issues/questions at the affiliate level, but kudos to NBCU for blowing [...]
From the News of the Inevitable department: Online ads to overtake U.S. newspapers (from FT.com, linked by Greenslade).
Jakob Nielsen pretty much validates application development practices from the likes of 37signals when he writes, “Most users have low commitment — especially to Web sites, which must focus on simplicity, rather than features.”
Less really is more, it seems. The usability maestro puts the dilemma into terms every [...]
Those of us with long backgrounds running content-oriented sites may think we can write copy to sell products and services online. Maybe some of us can. But we should begin by reading Shannon Watters’ tutorial over at Vitamin: Copywriting for eCommerce.
Key excerpt:
Decide who you are. Do you want to [...]
Laura Ruel and Nora Paul, writing in Online Journalism Review, neatly wrap up simple, do-it-yourself methods for Web usability tests.
The article picks up on time-tested methods I have used and liked. But its real benefit is the clear explanation for people who may never have conducted such user research, [...]
From Wired: How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life. ‘Nuff said.
Could it be that the people who might actually be in positions to respond to all those marketing messages are too busy playing casual games to notice?
I finally updated the presentations page to include PowerPoint decks from last year and this. Several recent presentations not previously linked have been added:
Last month I decreed this site would move from WordPress to Drupal.
And it may yet. Someday. Just no day soon.
I love Drupal. I’ve built several very intriguing projects on it recently, and used it as a proof-of-concept platform for rapid development with great satisfaction. Most anything new [...]
