Idea 005: the digital magazine
In Ideas for the Future of News I’m collecting positive, tangible, practicle examples of business models, products and content which could pave the future.
To catch up on previous ideas, head to the Ideas for the Future of News page.
Idea 005: Mag+ concept
By: Berg London and Bonnier R&D
Magazines have a value above newspapers: people don’t just read the words, they buy them for the amazing photographs, lifestyle statements, and sometimes just because it looks great on the coffee table.
Magazines will be revolutionised by technology – but in a really positive way. For proof, see the work of Berg London and Bonnier R&D.
They’ve had a really good think about how future e-readers (like the much mooted Apple Tablet) could work with magazines – and crucially they have started with the benefits of magazines and worked from there. As the creaters explain:
“The concept aims to capture the essence of magazine reading which people have been enjoying for decades: an engaging and unique reader experience in which high quality writing and stunning imagery build up immersive stories.”
They’ve looked not at the e-readers themselves, but how magazine layouts should adapt to them. They have created, I think, a very enjoyable reading experience, which will add huge value to magazines.
“We don’t want to interrupt the core reading experience,” says Jack Shulze from Berg, “we’re very keen to make sure the UI doesn’t get in the way of the experience – it’s not covered in buttons.”
It’s 8 minutes long, but I highly recommend you watch this video, a demo of Mag+ in action.
A business model?
Could the e-reader provide a financial saviour for magazines? In short, yes. For two reasons: firstly, as I mentioned they add extra value to the magazine itself. The experience of scrolling through pages on a touch screen is so enjoyable, people may buy mags just for that.
And more importantly people will pay to download an electronic magazine and experience it on these e-readers. They won’t pay to view the content on a website.
Berg London and Bonnier R&D’s ideas are very new, but magazine owners should waste no time in chasing this concept and making it a reality. Newspapers too need to wake up to the possibilities and ask how the Mag+ concept could help them.
Their success though depends on the readers themselves. Who will make them and how much will they cost? Magazines will need to think about subscription models again, but that shouldn’t be too hard as that’s how many magazines make money anyway. And how will you download the content? Will it take long?
But these creases will no doubt be ironed out over the next two to three years.
As well as keeping current magazines afloat, they could also inspire a new generation of magazines, and most importantly keep journalists in business doing what they do best: writing great content and presenting it with great designs and pictures.
10 trends in journalism in 2010
It’s that time of year again…
After a turbulent year in the industry, I’ve had a good think and put together my top 10 trends for journalism for 2010, wrapped in a big shiny positive outlook. But rather than roll out another list, I thought I’d be a bit different and crack out some video. Enjoy!
And is there anything I’ve missed? Add it in the comments box!
Talking the future of news
This week we held the first Future Of News Meetup in London.
A small but interesting mix of people turned up: journalism students, academics, publishers, photojournalists, news producers and seasoned hacks: a small fraction of the 140 people who have joined the group so far.
Although it was a casual first meeting, conversation soon turned to the crisis in journalism and the digital revolution, with paywalls and citizen journalism being thrashed out by the bar.
I set the group up in November, with the idea of bringing together journalists, academics, students and entrepreneurs to a free, regular forum to talk about new ideas which will define the future of news.
You can read more about it here, and if you’d like to join and come to more formal meetings in 2010 sign up here.
Photographs: Megumi Waters
Idea 004: the rise of the blogazine
In this series I’m compiling a list of creative, tangible, practical ideas for journalism which will emerge from the digital revolution. If you have any suggestions for future features, contact me. Previous entries include:
002: students as investigators
Idea: Powering a Green Planet
By: Mark Z Jacobson, Mark A Delluci & Scientific American
An apt subject as the COP15 meeting gets underway in Copenhagen this week. Powering A Green Planet, featured in the Scientific American in November, explains a radical idea on how to stop global warming, put forward by two scientists.
They reckon if we embraced renewable energy head on, we could power the planet on 100% clean energy, in just 20 years. That’s a bit better than the current targets, right?
It’s an enjoyable, interesting and convincing read. But let’s get down to the future of journalism nitty-gritty.
The Scientific American utilised multimedia platform Flyp to produce the piece. It is arranged and designed as an attractive magazine, so you can literally turn the page, with lots of video, graphics and text moving on the screen.
It is beautifully designed, with lots of space on the page. Crucially, this piece never feels too cluttered: it always feels like there’s just enough information on the page…but not too much.
It’s interactive too, with lots of buttons to click on, video to watch and audio to hear. The complicated science bit is explained in colourful graphics.
This is challenging scientific information made digestible and accessible. And there is value for the consumer in this too, perhaps one they’d pay for.
The blogazine
The idea of the interactive magazine is still in the embryonic stages. It has a blog counterpart too, the blog-azine, a small but growing trend of bloggers who chose to make every single blog entry a unique design masterpiece, tailored to the particular subject of the blog.
For example, British web designer Gregory Wood designs each blog post individually, creating stunning pages like this:
In a recent feature, Smashing Magazine said blogazines were great because they stopped you:
“Slipping into the habit of typing up your thoughts and clicking “Post,” without thinking about the layout of each article… By taking a little extra time for the art of blogging, your creativity will increase with your efforts”
but also admitted:
“…building a custom layout requires some experience with CSS and HTML…style borrows many elements from print design, anyone who has worked only in Web design may find it difficult to change their way of thinking. Rules of typography and white space, for example, may throw you off. But practice makes perfect, and an endless supply of inspiration can be found in creative magazines.”
A business model?
This is a surprisingly new way of delivering content. It’s amazing isn’t it, that this far into the web 2.0 world, this far since the development of flash, CSS, J-Query and easy to deliver multimedia, 98% of online news is delivered just like this blog: there’s a title, some text, if you’re lucky- a picture or some video embedded. Which leads us to the big question: can making your content stand out make any money?
This has yet to be proved, but I really think it has potential….but its future lies in mobile. In the advent of the Kindle and other OLED readers these interactive experiences could really kick off, because they gain so much value from a touch screen. Imagine being able to sit on the subway with a newly downloaded copy of your favourite magazine, in exciting interactive form! You can flip the pages, click to watch video, audio and drag graphics around.
And if they’re produced as well as the Scientific American, your sleepy commuter eyes won’t skip over long drawn out paragraphs of text, because it would have been made so accessible.
In the meantime there could be room for an ambitious start-up willing to combine magazine design with innovative content. Again if it looks like nothing else on the internet it could soon grow an audience.
This technical sublime I firmly believe the consumer will pay for. But it relies on a visual sublime too – it has to look good. Style over substance? Maybe.
The sooner designers and journalists start talking to each other, the better.
What every J-entrepreneur can learn from a single mum
Meet Lauren Luke, a 27 year old single mum from South Shields near Newcastle, UK.
She dropped out of school at 16 and became a teen mum.
In 2007 she started video blogging from her home, when her son was asleep upstairs. Little more than two years later she is an in-demand fashion expert on TV and in print, and has launched her own make-up range. Hell, she’s even been featured in Time Magazine.
All pretty amazing, but not unique.
Lauren’s success story stands out because she is the perfect example of how to turn demand into money: and journalists thinking of start-ups should get their pens out.
The elusive niche…
“I hope what I do makes people more confident to experiment.”
There’s loads of talk about this right now. ‘Journalism’s future is in niche and hyper-local’ we’re told. And that’s probably true.
But simply having a niche isn’t enough. As with all business, your niche must be in demand.
And Lauren’s niche is certainly that. Unwittingly, she tapped into a massive market of women who wanted practical, accessible help with their make-up. Her videos did just that. Her Youtube channel, Panacea81, has been viewed more than 8,600,000 thousand times, and has nearly 400,000 subscribers.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said recently “build something people want” and Lauren’s a true example of that.
So, if you’re planning a news start-up (and you don’t want it to rely on grants or donations) you need to ask yourself “is there a demand for this?”
…a position of authority…
“I just think there is a standard that is set by the beauty industry that is unobtainable by the vast majority of us normal people who pay for it. We are all entitled to have products that work and bring out the best in us and create looks that we can actually wear”
Lauren can teach us a thing or two about building a position of authority. Does Lauren have a qualification in make-up? No. Has she done make-up for the stars? Nope. Does she even work in a salon? Nope. In fact, when she started the videos, she was working for a taxi firm.
But this hasn’t stopped her becoming an expert, a person of authority on the subject. It’s one of the great things about the internet age. Career guru Jonathan Fields says that’s tough for some but great for everyone else:
“…for an increasing number of career paths, demonstrable mastery and/or expert positioning regardless of pedigree are the keys to success. That may scare and anger a whole generation of people who came up under a different set of rules, but…this phenomenon spells opportunity.”
So: it’s possible to build yourself into a respected expert, by publishing high quality content.
…extra products…
“The book will feature a range of celebrity looks, everyday looks for the office, as well as casual and bridal looks.”
8 million hits does not necessarily mean money. But Lauren’s business sense shines through again: recognising demand she has turned her knowledge (which she gives away for free) into tangible products. She has published a book, and launched a new make-up line.
For journalism this produces a host of opportunities. You might not sell your content, but can you sell the platform? Release iPhone apps? Run courses? Sell guides? Don’t just think of making money from your words (because you won’t!)
…and ambition.
“I want to make a huge change to the beauty industry”
The final key Lauren clearly possesses is ambition. She was not content with just becoming a youtube star. She wanted to release a make up brand & publish a book. And now she’s got the big players in her sights.
From make-up, to Yoga, to music…it is possible to make a good living doing what you love. Why should journalism be any different?
Your chance to get involved in the future of news
There’s lots and lots of talk about the future of journalism at the moment.
You can read it on blogs like this one, this one and this one.
You can occasionally read something new in one of the papers, like this one.
You can even pay some money and go to conferences.
And while they are all fantastic hotbeds for debate, they’re not really regular enough to be good forums for that most crucial currency of all: new ideas.
That’s why I’ve set up a new meet-up group to get things moving.
It’s called the UK Future of News Group. If you are in the UK, or even better, in London then please think about joining and coming along to an informal meet up. It’s free, and you don’t even need to be a journalist- just interested about the future of journalism.
It’s perfect for bloggers, J-students, young journalists, J-entrepreneurs, hyper-locallers, lecturers not to mention seasoned old hacks. You could be working online, in print, on radio or with a camera.
The first meet-ups going to be in a bar near Waterloo, on the 7th December.
(hopefully avoiding any early Christmas parties)
What it isn’t, is an arena to repeatedly lament the death of print, or the end of quality journalism, or to go around saying “paywalls must be the answer, journalists have got to eat!”
What it is, is a place where people can think positively, about tangible new ideas to determine the future of journalism. I hope someone will pitch a few ideas which we can all thrash out and stew over.
And maybe one of them will come up with the next big thing.
But most of all, I want it to be a forum where we can all have a say on the future of our craft, without having to pay hundreds in conference fees.
Interested? Sign up now!
The future of journalism is out there (what’s stopping you?)
Journalism has a lot of hurdles to overcome if it’s to not only survive, but thrive for the next 100 years.
Money is a big one. So is citizen journalism. And yes, the decline of audience and the death of print are pretty massive too.
But the biggest hurdle, the one we must all overcome; the one which will guarantee a great future for news, has nothing to do with ink and paper.
I’m talking about attitude. Journalism is not going anywhere because hardly anyone’s got the right attitude.
And what attitude is that, I hear you cry?
It hasn’t got a name, but we know Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page have it. And Evan Williams has it to. Jonathan Fields and Jonathan Mead definitely have it. By the looks of things journalists like David Dunkley-Gyimah, Michael Rosenblum and Jeff Jarvis possess it too.
There are some bloggers, like Lisa Williams, Hannah Waldram and Hermione Way who got some.
It’s obvious William Kamkwamba from Malawi is bursting with it.
Important people at the Times, Independent, New York Times, Telegraph, ITN, Sky and the Boston Globe don’t have it, which is why they’ll eventually fail. And across the West, in Britain, the US, Canada and Australia, not enough journalists have it. It’s why we’re getting busy going nowhere.
It can be summed up in truisms like these:
And pretty much boils down to:
It’s the attitude which gets inventors, artists…and yes, even entrepreneurs out of bed in the morning.
And it is the attitude which delivers the key to the future of journalism.
If we’re not careful the future of news, belongs to them, and not the journalists...no wait, hang on. If we ARE careful, it belongs to them. The whole point is we have to stop being careful! Take some risks, get your hands dirty!
Ideas 001: the news aggregator
I’ve opened up a new category on the blog today. It’s called Ideas for the future of news and here I’m going to start collating good, tangible, positive, innovative ideas on how journalism can move forward. With ‘entrepreneurial’ the hot-word of the week in #futureofnews circles, more people are starting to put some great ideas out there.
I’ll report on as many as I can. And here is number 001:
Idea: Climate Pulse, the news aggregator
By: Headshift & evectors
I was very excited earlier to read about a new venture, currently in alpha-testing, which promises to put theories on the clash between journalism, social media and user generated content into practice.
London based developers Headshift have teamed up with Italian company Evectors, and produced a new form of content management.
It’s best left to Headshift’s Robin Hamman to explain more:
…[it] basically monitors and aggregates blog posts, news websites, twitter tweets and a wide range of other sources we’ve configured in the backend. An editor can then curate this content and display it as they wish – for example letting the flow appear as a raw feed, tagging or geo-tagging content, featuring the best stuff, etc.
In other words, content is aggregated around a single topic – but then edited by a professional. They decide what is quality and what isn’t.
They’ve created a test site, called Climate Pulse, to try this out ahead of the COP Copenhagen meeting. Check out this diagram:
What’s particularly fantastic, is their method of sharing content, through 3rd party widgets:
we can easily build widgets of the flow from the page, and enable site owners interested in a particular issue, for example deforestation, to create a widget that displays, on their own site, that content. Social features could then be made available, meaning that the audience on third party sites could participate on the sites they choose to visit, rather than visiting Climate Pulse itself…
They see it as a move away from the journalist as moderator of UGC, to a curator.
Pros:
- it uses the power of crowd sourcing around a topic
- it shares the results through a widget
- potential for multimedia, mashups, interactives
- has potential to satisfy niche groups
Cons:
- is it fulfilling for the ‘curating’ journalist?
- if paywalls go up, mainstream news content may be limited
- revenue generation not mentioned
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