L.A. Times' wiki editorials raise questions

In keeping with an earlier post today about participatory media and the power of groups, take a look at what the Los Angeles Times is planning for its editorial page -- a new, conversation-driven product called a wikitorial.
But before you get too excited, take a look at the questions being raised by some of the leading supporters of citizen journalism.
Jeff Jarvis notes that the Times failed to discuss its idea in the blogosphere, thereby failing to use a citizen-journalism approach to citizen journalism. Ernest Miller suggests that editorials -- which by definition have a point of view -- may not be the best product to build through the neutral-tone, collective mindset of wikipedia. Ari Soglin, however, applauds the Times for at least attempting an experiment in citizen journalism.
Here's how the L.A. Times communicated the news to its readers.

You, me, us and participatory media

So much has changed so rapidly in media and technology that it's sometimes hard to keep track of the overall theme. But in this special report, BusinessWeek reminds us that the change is being driven by the basic, human need to participate.
Peer-to-peer file sharing, collaborative game development, group production efforts such as Wikipedia, guerilla marketing techniques, offshore research and customer-service functions connected via the Web, camera phones and Flickr, open-source software and the community journalism movement are all part of what BusinessWeek refers to as the "Power of Us."
While reading the report, make note of how well Businessweek uses the online medium to tell its story. There are slideshows, links to related stories, external links, clickable functions for stock quotes and a Web tour.
There is also a comment section. So you, too, can participate in the discussion.

I told you these guys were good

The Lawrence Journal-World -- the newspaper that I think everyone in media should be watching -- has won an EPpy award for best Internet news service by a small publication.
Take a look at the full list of winners here.
Then take a look around the LJW site.

Avoiding clichés in your writing

The last time I wrote about bad writing, it generated a wee bit of anger.
If anyone gets uptight this time, they can take it up with Tim Porter. Tim has a wonderful post today about the abundance of cliché-filled headlines that appeared upon the death of Anne Bancroft.
Careful observers may wonder why I would link to a post about good writing by someone who misspelled Bancroft's name. Trust me -- it's still worth reading.
If you write for a living, please read it. Please.

Trade mags are best way to market...for now

Marketing Sherpa has an interesting piece that gives some insight into B2B media users.
The article is about marketing to engineers, but everyone in the B2B press -- advertising, editorial, circulation, etc. -- should take a look.
Here are some of the highlights:
In a survey by Penton's Machine Design magazine, 96.5% of respondents said "trade magazines were their number one source for getting information about suppliers."
Furthermore, when engineers are looking to buy, they tend to bypass Google and the other major search engines and go with niche search tools. "Specialist search engines such as GlobalSpec and ThomasNet.com have literally millions of engineer professional users, many of whom bypass the major search engines altogether when they need a very specific item."
But most interesting to me are the comments of Brian Renaud, director of engineering at Arbor Network, who doesn't use traditional media to learn about products. "Renaud bypasses trade magazines. He has his calls screened. And he throws away his direct mail. But Renaud does read blogs and forums. He mentioned a few pertaining to his industry – Slashdot was one – but he is also a frequent reader of security and software development forums, places where engineers gather to discuss problems and how to solve them."
I suspect that each day brings more customers like Renaud to the market. And the B2B publisher who doesn't respond soon, may soon be too late to respond at all.

More awards and a new blog for B2B journalists

The Newsletter & Electronic Publishers Association has announced the winners of its 26th annual awards for excellence in B2B journalism. Take a look at the list of winners here.
Unfortunately, NEPA -- which says it represents electronic publishers -- doesn't have much of a Web site. There are no links on the awards page. So you'll have to search elsewhere for information on the winning publications. (FULL DISCLOSURE: United Communications Group, or UCG, is the winner of nine awards. I work on several products for UCG's OPIS unit, which covers the petroleum business. OPIS won first place for a single-topic newsletter for a special report on oil prices.)
If you want to hear more about awards, check out this post about the American Society of Business Publication Editors Northeast regional awards. There's an interesting idea mentioned about combining internal awards with editorial training.
That post, by the way, is part of the brand new blog by the Boston chapter of ASBPE. Take a look around. Sign up for the RSS feed.

Building B2B blog networks

This should worry every "traditional" publisher in B2B.
John Battelle is planning to combine a group of "high-quality, high-authority" blogs that cover technology into an offering he calls FM Publishing. Old media types who tend to discount the blogging world would be wise to read up on Battelle. This is a guy who made his mark and his money in print publishing. He's one of the co-founders of Wired magazine, arguably the most important publication of the past 25 years.
Read about his plan here and here.
I've said before that the standalone journalist -- operating without the help or the hassles of a traditional media company -- poses a threat to B2B publishers. Now here comes someone who understands both technology and publishing with a plan to link standalone journalists into a single product.
How long will it take before someone does that in another space?
For example, look at agriculture. There's nothing to stop a few core ag journalists from heading out on their own to cover their niches. Combine them with a blog or two by ag economists, maybe something from a veterinarian, a commodities trading expert and something like this, and suddenly you have a product that poses a threat to "National Hog Farmer."

CORRECTION: EDN and feedback

Matthew Miller, executive editor of EDN Online, wrote in to offer a "clarification" to a recent post of mine. But Matthew is being kind. I need to post a correction, not a clarification.
In a recent post in which I complained about B2B media companies that don't take advantage of the Web's advantages, I said that EDN's new Web site didn't have a feedback/comment function.
I was wrong. EDN does have a feedback function on its new site.
Take a look at his comments here, and follow the links therein to get a look at what the folks at Reed have done.
Editors should make particular note of what Matthew sees as an advantage of allowing readers to send feedback on stories. "The feature provides the editors with "grist for the mill"--ideas for followup stories, a litmus test on the importance of issues, and so on."

Asking customers to be bloggers

I love this idea!
Pennsylvania is asking people to travel around the state and blog about it. The hope is that by arming "regular" folks with blogging software, the state can boost tourism.
There's potential here for a similar offering from a B2B publisher with the courage to let readers be reporters.
Why not ask a few readers to blog about a trade show?
How about a blog that follows a reader through the search for a new job in the industry you cover? Or even better -- a blog by a reader about his first year in the industry. Find a young, verbal, ambitious person among your readers and let him share what life is like "out there" where your readers live. (There's a fair number of intern-written blogs already. I'd like to see one by a more established professional.)
How about a group blog by readers on an overseas trade mission?
I'm pleased whenever a B2B media company embraces the tools of citizen journalism. I look forward to the day when some publisher decides to embrace the citizens themselves.

More on missing links in B2B media

Crain has relaunched Business Insurance magazine and its Web site. I haven't seen the hard copy. I have seen the Web site, and I'd call it a partial success.
Take a look. You'll see the Business Insurance site DOES have a comment function. I'm thrilled to see it.
On the other hand, Business Insurance is NOT using hyperlinks in the copy. I remain completely perplexed by journalists who don't use links online. Journalism is a service industry. Our job is to provide information and access to information. Failing to use links isn't just bad business, it's bad journalism.
I've complained a lot about B2B's seeming inability to comprehend online journalism's advantages. The Poynter Institute's Steve Outing weighs in today. Take a look.
Also worth noting today is a story in Wired magazine about a new film that looks at that early form of online conversation -- the BBS. The guys in the film were apparently playing online before I was. My earliest memory of conversations through computers involved a friend trying to explain Kermit to me.

Why not take advantage of online's advantages?

Lately I've grown more frustrated by one of my pet peeves -- when B2B journalists working on the Web fail to take advantage of the medium.
Today I posted something to the ABM blog, noting my disappointment with a recent article about how traditional publishers can take back the Web. The article, published in Folio, failed to use any Web-journalism techniques (linking, "bite-size" copy, feedback functions, etc.)
Yesterday I complained about a bunch of B2B publications that publish on the Web, but fail to use hyperlinks in their copy.
Now comes word that Reed Business is revamping EDN magazine and the EDN.com Website.
Reed has some good ideas, including providing "greater coverage of global trends" and adding a "Research Update' section to the magazine.
Reed also has a nice new tagline -- "Voice of the Engineer." And Reed promises "more quotations and perspectives directly from designers, as well as a greater platform for engineers to share ideas and opinions with peers."
That's fantastic. But a look at EDN.com shows that Reed has NOT added a feedback/comments section that would allow users to post comments directly on the site. (NOTE: EDN also publishes two blogs, which DO have comment functions.)
I know there is the potential for trouble in letting users post to a site. I've struggled with the issue myself. I've gone from allowing comments, to banning them, to allowing them again and removing the rare post that offends me.
Reed is one of my favorite B2B media companies. I'm often pleased and impressed by the work of Reed's journalists and publishers. So let me be frank with my friends there:
The days in which a B2B publisher can claim to be the voice of an industry are rapidly disappearing. The industries we cover have found their own voices. They no longer need a magazine in order to converse. That's what citizen journalism is all about -- journalism's consumers speaking to journalism's producers. The best that we can do now is to facilitate conversation.
For an interesting look at the power of feedback functions, read this.
CORRECTION: 6/8/05 This post contains incorrect information about EDN.com. Please read the full correction here.

The potential of the lone, new-media journalist

There's a nice piece today in American Journalism Review about the growth of the standalone journalism movement -- in which talented reporters use new-media technology such as blogging, RSS feeds, podcasts, etc. to market their work directly to users.
I've written about the subject before and said the potential for the lone journalist in B2B is enormous. I've urged journalists to consider heading out on their own; I've urged publishers to be aware of the competitive threat now posed by their staff and their readers.
The piece in AJR focuses on the growth of the standalone movement in community journalism. But if you're at all interested in editorial or competitive issues (and who wouldn't be?), you should take a look.
If you still have doubts about the power of a lone journalist armed with new media tools, take a look at this. The About.com network had 22.6 million unique users in April, making About the 10th largest Web site in the United States, according to Nielsen. I've argued before that the citizen journalism movement began at About. There's a nice essay on About's history at Howard Sherman's blog. Take a look. (FULL DISCLOSURE: I was an executive producer at About, where I worked with Howard. After Primedia bought About, Howard moved up the ranks, while I moved to Primedia Business. Today Howard runs the editorial operations at SmartBrief, where I do some work on e-mail newsletters.)

Jay Rosen on journalism education

A few days ago I expressed disappointment in a new effort to revamp journalism education. In brief, a handful of elitist institutions said they were going to spend a lot of money to look at how reporters are trained.
I made a suggestion that some truly innovative schools be included rather than just the tradition-bound Ivy League universities. In particular, I mentioned NYU and Jay Rosen.
Now Jay has weighed in on the journalism education issue.
I'd urge all my friends at College Media Advisers to read what he said.
It's brilliant.

Disposable video cameras at CVS

If you've been thinking about video blogging, but didn't want to spend a few hundred dollars on a camera, you have run out of excuses.
Drugstore chain CVS says it will sell a disposable digital-video camera for less than $30.
Go get one. Then take a look at vlog.com.

If it's online, link to it

If you worked at a radio station, wouldn't you use audio recordings? Wouldn't you use interviews and sound bites and sound effects?
If you worked at a television station, wouldn't you use video? Wouldn't you use clips and blue screens and Chyron graphics?
If you worked at a newspaper, wouldn't you use print? Wouldn't you use photographs and illustrations and words?
So why would you work online and not use links?
Take a look at this article on BtoB online. It's a fairly interesting piece about a new search tool at Forbes.com. But god help you if you want to actually take a look at what the article is discussing -- because the writer hasn't included links in the copy.
That's not unusual at BtoB online, which seems not to understand its medium. It's not unusual anywhere at Crain. Take a look at TVweek.com, which also seems not to have noticed that it's published on the Web.
Failing to understand the advantages of Web publishing is fairly common among B2B companies. For example, Lebhar-Friedman's Drug Store News (free registration required) is generally a fairly Web-savvy site. The design is crisp, there's a feedback function on stories to send a letter to the editor, and you can email stories easily to friends. But there are no hyperlinks in the stories themselves.
Compare those dump-the-text-on-the-Webpage abominations with this very simple use of the Web by Farm Progress. Take a look a look at this article about a court document. You'll see that the writer had the good sense to link to the document in question.
Or take a look at CFO, which I've said before is one of the best publications in our industry. CFO seems to understand Web journalism...sometimes. It links externally in its blog, but tends not to use links in its online articles.
I've heard the arguments against linking. They range from the cowardly (we don't want our readers to leave our site because they may not come back) to the stupid (our content management system doesn't allow for links) to the lazy (I don't have time to add links).
Let me say this as clearly as I can -- none of those arguments are valid.
And let me ask you this -- how would you react to an editor who said he didn't use photos in his magazine because photography was too complicated to learn, distracted from the text and was time-consuming?
Wouldn't you fire him?

Blog helps search for missing B2B publisher

David Koch, associate publisher of Sourcemedia's DM Review, disappeared during a hike near Vancouver on May 25.
His family has published a blog to publicize the search.
Say a prayer for David and his family.

B2B media in the global economy

"Do you speak any other languages?"
That's one of the first questions I ask journalism students and newcomers to our industry. Just as our industry is being changed by new media, our customers' businesses are being changed by a global economy. The B2B publisher who understands that will prosper. The journalist who is prepared to report from Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa, etc. is worth three English-only staffers.
It's always fun to track developments in international B2B. And in recent days I've come across some new sources of information.
Check out Colin Crawford's blog. Colin works for IDG, a big player in overseas markets, which just increased its investments in Vietnam.
Then take a look at Paul Woodward's site. Paul tracks B2B media in Asia. Among the things I learned from his blog is that CMP is closing some Singapore-based print publications (while keeping a tech-centered Web site.)
And don't forget Hugo Martin, who follows B2B developments across the globe from Berlin.
And make sure you bookmark the website of Trade, Association and Business Publications International, the group that works "to bring together editors working for English-language publications worldwide, and encourage a common dedication to editorial ethics and excellence."

Standalone journalists and salaries

There's a piece in Folio magazine about the multi-skilled, multi-talented, multimedia types that do the work of many at small magazines. The writer of the Folio article concentrates on the role of such people in production. I tend to think of the true value of the standalone journalist as his ability to produce news for different media -- video, print, audio and electronic.
Either way...both of us agree that this is the future.
I've said before that the traditional journalist -- tied to one set of skills in one medium -- is becoming obsolete. I wouldn't hire someone who can only write or only operate a camera or only design for the Web.
And there are indications that the marketplace agrees. Take a look at this salary survey from Mediabistro. Click on the section about the Northeast. You'll see that jobs in online/new media, where the software-based skills of multimedia are the norm, are paying considerably more than one-medium gigs in trade newsletters, local newspapers, local TV news, professional journals or the wire services.

You can't control a revolution

An attempt by a Colorado newspaper to organize local bloggers isn't working, according to Poynter's Steve Outing.
Terry Heaton isn't surprised.
Heaton is a blogger and a former television executive. Among his insights: "...giving people access to tools under a canopy isn't the blogosphere, and I'm not surprised people aren't breaking down the doors to get at it" and "Citizens media isn't something you can manufacture. It's already there, and the wise mainstream players will find ways to support — rather than try to own — what's going on."
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know my mantra by now. Bloggers aren't the enemy. They are your readers. And they want to talk.
Perhaps it's time for an addendum: They want to talk when and where they please about whatever interests them. That may be a particularly tough lesson for B2B companies, which often present themselves to readers as the "voice of the industry" they cover. But in the new media world, there are many voices. No one publication or group has a monopoly on discourse.
Don't seek to censor the conversation, decide the topics or select the voices.

Write less, spend less in editorial

There's an interesting piece in Folio magazine about how to save money in editorial.
In brief, the idea is to be brief.
"Readers, however passionate, rarely have time to wade through long features and lengthy special reports—the stuff that magazines used to be made of. Today they want less, not more, from magazines," according to John Brady, a magazine consultant.
I agree with Brady's concept, but wish he'd said a little more (no pun intended.)
Look -- if there's one thing I know it's that B2B writers tend to write too much. I can't remember -- or perhaps prefer not to remember -- how many times I've suffered through wordy lead graphs that don't pertain to the story. I'd be hard-pressed to name 10 B2B publications that aren't littered with strained metaphors, unneeded transitional sentences and multiple, ill-chosen adjectives. Yet I'd also be hard-pressed to name a single publisher who wouldn't prefer larger numbers of short stories to fewer numbers of long ones.
So why are things such a mess?
B2B writers are often stuck in a trade-magazine style of insipid, wordy prose. The reasons for this are multiple: lack of training, a perceived need to fill a news hole, self-identifying as a writer instead of as a reporter, ego and pretension, etc.
The way to get an editorial staff to write fewer words is to teach them to write better words.
For more about concise writing, click here.