osf x highway africa: new forms of storytelling, distribution and revenue

Alan SoonFounder & CEO

alansoon@thesplicenewsroom.com@alansoon

@splicenewsroom

OSF x Highway Africa

Putting the audience at the centre – new forms of storytelling, distribution and revenue

Alan Soon & The Splice Newsroom.• Newsroom strategy and operations consultant • Specialist in digital transformation and change management • Career journalist • Radio, TV, newswires, magazines, online • ONA Singapore co-founder • Building Rockstart’s tech startup program in Singapore

Expand your mind, change your world. Gets you talking. Our lives, our paper. The paper for the people. The world’s greatest newspaper. All the news that’s fit to print. When The Times speaks, the World listens. Sunday isn't Sunday without the Sunday Times. Bild. Read the world's fastest newspaper. Making twice the noise. Simpler. Better. Smarter. Your right to know. It's thinking time. We are local news.Our slogans.

But why do people read/watch/listen to you?

What do people need that only you can provide?

Would people notice if you weren’t around tomorrow?

So what do you know about your audience?

"We are coming at last to the end of the Gutenberg Age." — Jeff Jarvis, Director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism

We’re in the age of personalized media,

not mass media.

How the mass media business model works

1. Create as much content as possible. 2. Sell as many as ads as possible.

Why are we so obsessed about reach?

Here’s the problem:Scarcity no longer exists in media.

1. Content is commoditized. Plenty to read. 2. Ad delivery is commoditized. Plenty to show.

Your audience is spending less time on news content.

“The scarcest resource of the 21st century is human attention.”— Les Hinton Former publisher of WSJ

The average attention span today is 8 seconds (a 33% decline since 2000)

(Btw, a goldfish has 9 seconds of attention)

17% of page views last less than 4 seconds

49% of people read less than 111 words on a web page

How far can we push this?

Source: kissmetrics.com

We’re in peak content.Journalists are forced to keep churning more stories — even though there aren’t enough eyeballs, time or ad revenues to go around.

We’re killing our users.

“8 things you should never feed to…” “You wouldn’t believe what happened when…”

“I did this… and this amazing stuff happened…”

As journalists, we got into this business to inform and educate society.

Instead, we gave them this.

The mass digital media market is starting to unwind.

It’s not about the next big thing.Tablets, watches, glasses, bots, live videos, drones, VR. None of these will save the news business.

It requires a re-invention of the way we think about journalism.Choose value over volume.

Start thinking of users as humans. Understand the people behind the numbers.

The answers aren’t going to come from the industry.So let’s learn from another.

1. Create a customer experience map: Identify customer touch points with your product/service.

2. Identify customer outcomes: Using your customer experience map, outline what the customer wants to accomplish at each touch point by customer segment.

3. Determine the current state: Conduct customer research to validate your findings and uncover unmet customer needs.

4. Prioritize: Find the areas on which to focus.

5. Test: Try your new innovations in a controlled setting.

6. Implement: Put your new innovations into practice more wide

7. Measure and adjust: Always be flexible to make adjustments.

7-step methodology of innovation

Hotels.

Why hotels?

• Creating products and services that people actually want to pay for

• Investing in behavioral analytics to understand what people want

• Obsessed about the user’s experience

Some of the things they share in common:

• Prioritizing bars and social spaces for interactions• Free, fast internet• Comfortable common spaces for work

How are you

…rewarding your users?…building loyalty?…creating new experiences?

Re-defining journalism

Media was never meant to reach the most number of people. We were meant to reach the right people and help them.

Right people, right information, right time, right place, right monetization.

We are in a golden age of media.

For the first time, we have everything you need to create content in your hands.We have data to know what people want… how to get it to them… on whatever platform they’re on.

And yet media companies are struggling.

“If you’re not an entrepreneur in journalism these days, you should get out of journalism.” — Kara Swisher Founder, Recode

It’s time we asked:

What is the role of journalism today?

Alternate business models

1. Subscription + Community 2. Reviews + e-Commerce 3. Data + APIs 4. Events 5. Newsletters

1. Subscription + Community:The Information

• Started by Jessica Lessin, ex-WSJ reporter • Covers tech news in Silicon Valley • Primary distribution: Email newsletters • Targets CEOs, analysts, investors • Community building through Slack • Conference calls on major events • International trips • Subscriber conferences

1. Subscription + Community:The Athletic

• Paid local sports site for die-hard fans • Hires journos from ESPN • No ads • $7 a month • 80% of readers view every article produced • Average time spent: 90 mins a week • Clean design focus

2. Reviews + e-Commerce:The Wirecutter

• Started by Brian Lam, ex-Gizmodo and Wired • Tech review site • Known for rigorous testing of gadgets • Makes money when people order products from Amazon via the affiliate links on the site

3. Data + APIs:Crunchbase

• Source of company, investment, and industry data • Updates delivered daily • $5,000 a month for commercial access

4. Events:The Economist

• Brings together industry leaders, newsmakers, media • Delivers insights with high-profile speakers • Standard rate US$1,800

5. Email newsletters:Quartz Daily Briefing

• Free service • Delivered every morning • Essential reading • Links back to Quartz • Runs sponsored content

5. Email newsletters:theSkimm

• 3.5 million subscribers • 20 staff • Founded by 2 former NBC producers • $8 million Series B funding with 21st Century Fox

thesplicenewsroom.com@alansoon

Alan Soonalansoon@thesplicenewsroom.com

Alan Soon is Asia's leading specialist on newsroom operations, digital transformation and the business of media. He is the Founder & CEO of The Splice Newsroom, an editorial consultancy that builds, develops and transforms newsrooms.

For more than 20 years, Alan has worked in radio, TV, news wires, magazine and online across Asia. He started out as a reporter and grew into other operational roles including producer, editor, newsroom manager and eventually a business leader.

Alan led one of the largest digital news teams in the industry as Yahoo’s Managing Editor for India and Southeast Asia. He’s also worked at CNBC and Bloomberg across Asia.

Alan is a regular speaker at international media conferences and is a co-founder of the Online News Association in Singapore.