New Media Technologies: Online Media, Blogs, Podcasts

COM 300

Kathy E. Gill2 May 2006

Agenda

Recap: Open Source Online News, Blogs, Podcasts Discussion Leaders & Small Group

Discussion Thursday, Continued discussion +

blogosphere exercise

Recap: GNU Project (1/3)

Start of open source philosophy (1985) “The word `free’ in `free software’ pertains to

freedom, not price” … think free speech, not free beer!

Four principles … Freedom to: Use the program as you wish Adapt the program Distribute copies to help your neighbor Improve the program and share it with the public

to benefit the entire community

Recap: GNU Project (2/3)

Technologists developing social networks to develop new software … by using communication (technology) networks

Subsequently … Linux, Apache, TCP/IP

Recap: Cluetrain (3/3)

Markets are networks composed of people … and people like to talk (communicate)

Companies can impose barriers to this communication (or not)

Reducing barriers means a community of like-minded people has better chance of forming

Online News : Overview

Repurposing electrons from print to new media is a business decision

Few papers have adopted blogs Social system disconnect? Not enough time?

Syndication is an integral part of social system

Online News Social System

1994: San Jose Mercury News goes online

1998: Charlotte Observer uses blog-like format, Hurricane Bonnie

2000: WSJ launches blog-like feature, Best of the Web

Online News RSS Adoption

Apr 2002 New York Times (limited to Userland)

RSS 0.91

Oct 2002 Christian Science Monitor

25, RSS 1.0

Mar 2004 Washington Post 125, RSS 2.0

Apr 2006 Washington Post 150, RSS 2.0

Apr 2006 Seattle Times 47, RSS 2.0

Daily Newspaper Study

18 papers in top 15 urbanized areas of US (covers 65% of US population)

Leader: RSS 2.0 All implemented since late 2003

Only four had no official RSS feed LA Times, Chicago Tribune Miami Herald Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Editorial Decision

Not technological decision > in 3 of 15 markets, papers are co-managed Philadelphia Inquirer (16); Daily News (2) Detroit News (35); Free Press (1) Seattle Times (45); P-I (27)

Why Rapid Adoption?

Syndication in line with culture Business model is evolving

How to reverse loss in readers? How to generate online revenue?

Recognition of growth of blogosphere, driving readers “Pay to read” barriers (WSJ v CSM)

Blogging and Online News

Blog characteristics Effect on mass media and politics Measuring influence within the

blogosphere How have online news sites adopted

RSS technology

Blog Characteristics (1/2)

Reverse chronological journaling (format)

Regular, date-stamped entries (timeliness)

Links to related news articles, documents, blog entries within each entry (attribution)

Blog Characteristics (2/2)

Archived entries (old content accessible)

Links to related blogs (blogrolling) Explain, illustrate again

RSS or XML feed (ease of syndication) Passion (voice)

History 1999: Poynter starts “MediaNews” blog 1999: Dan Gillmor starts blogging at SJMN 2004: Blog universe estimated at 5 million 2004: Pew Internet & American Life:

11% Net users have read blogs 2-7% have created blogs (2.4 - 8.4 million

bloggers)

Effect on Mass Media and Politics

Mass Media Capital and labor-intensive Geographically distinct

Blogging Not capital-intensive Influence rests on the Internet

distributed network that removes the geographic barrier

What is Journalism?

Journalism is “our day book, our collective diary, which records our common life. That which goes unrecorded goes unpreserved … The creation and preservation of collective memory…” is the practice of journalism.

- James W. Carey

Participatory Journalism

Characterized by expanded two-way communication between media and readers.

With blogging, reader becomes author and author (journalist) becomes reader, ending the one-to-many model of communication.

Examples - media Glenn Reynolds, InstaPundit.com

100,000 readers per day (equivalent to medium-sized city daily or cable news show)

Arguably today’s most influential blogger Hundreds of journalist bloggers

Salon, Slate MSNBC, FOX Christian Science Monitor, The New Republic,

Seattle Times, San Jose Mercury News, Washington Monthly, Washington Post …

We are the blogs. Journalism will be assimilated. (2002)

Examples - Politics OhMyNews.com, Korea

Credited with electing president Howard Dean: Blog for America

All candidates followed, with varying success Election of US Rep. Ben Chandler (D-KY)

$2K in ads on Daily Kos and 10 other blogs yielded $80K in contributions from around the nation

Cool/Lame

Measuring Influence

How to measure intellectual influence? Shaping the news hole Tools to help assess credibility

Shaping the News Hole Trent Lott story (2002)

Covered by only one reporter following event

Kept alive by bloggers - liberal and conservative

Microsoft “switch” campaign (2002) LA Times (2004)

Supreme Justices Scalia v Ginsburg Colbert’s monologue Saturday night?

Tools to Assess Credibility

Why should we care what the numbers say? Readers need and want credible sources Do we want to return to the days of

pamphleteers and soapboxes?

Counting for Influence

Academics count citations Counting treats all as equals Countered by weighting Comparisons are within field of study

How do you judge credibility? Is the expert the only credible source? I

would argue that our trust in credentials gives the source the ability to decide what information is credible rather than making the reader accountable for assessing the information. – student, 2005

If we are ever going to impact corporate media control, we need to change the idea that those source are the only credible sources for information. How can we change the notion of credibility to include resources such as blogs? – student, 2005

More Questions to Ponder

Which link is the more representative of influence: blogroll or post?

Are several daily short posts more reflective of influence than less frequent longer (more depth) posts?

How do we deconstruct the blogosphere to provide useful information within genres?

RSS

Rich Site Summary, Really Simple Syndication, RDF Site Summary

XML document that facilitates content syndication This “feed” contains structured data Transformed to information by RSS

reader Ease of syndication, low cost

RSS Development Timeline

March 1999 Netscape RSS 0.90

July 1999 Netscape RSS 0.91

June 2000 Userland RSS 0.91

Late 2002 RSS-Dev Working Group

RSS 1.0

January 2003 Userland RSS 2.0.1

RSS Readers

With RSS 2.0 spec, developers were no longer shooting at moving target

Example: Pluck launched in 2003, turns MSIE into a

reader Privately funded by two firms cNet editor’s choice in July 2004 Public funding of $8.5 million Oct 2004

Recap: Diffusion Rogers: an innovation is “an idea

practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption”

Winston: adoption rate slows with competing, incompatible prototypes and absence of a supervening social necessity

Recap: Rogers’ Diffusion Model A relative advantage over current practice Compatible with current practices and

values Reduces complexity (ease of use) Opportunity to test before committing

(trialability) Ability to observe results before adoption

(observability)

Improved Practice …

Audio file + RSS = Podcast Not just iPod, it’s just that iPod created a

broad audience Incredibly fast adoption

What’s In a Name?

Newspaper (product) is printed (action) on newsprint (technology)

Blog (product) is blogged (action) with blogging software (technology) No clear differentiation Also the case with RSS

Hinders communication

RSS Visibility in Online News Social System

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

2001 2002 2003 2004

Blogs

RSS

Frequency of Appearance of “Blogs” and “RSS Syndication” in Lexis-Nexis News Wire Reports

Other Adoption Hurdles

Incompatible RSS formats > burden on developers

Non-integrated software > potential consumers must find and install new software IT departments : no software

installation Everyday computer users are uneasy

Blogging Social System

Jan 2003: ~ 500,000 blogs March 2005: 8 million - 24 million blogs Pew Internet and American Life Project:

Spring 2002: 3% had created blog March 2003: 11% had read blogs Fall 2004: 8% had created blog End of 2004: 27% of 120 M US adults had read

blogs …. 5% used an RSS reader

RSS Social System

Technorati tracking 2 million blogs, March 2004 7.7 million blogs, March 2005 37.5 million blogs and 2.3 billion links,

April 2006 Syndic8.com tracking

2,500, mid-2001 286,000, January 2005

RSS Readers

Prior practice became cumbersome Development also a function of stable

specification Became easier to find and use

A necessary condition for adoption (Rogers)

Yahoo! News: “We’re trying to make this understandable for normal people.”

Summary Blogging technology is having a profound

impact on Web content Neither politics nor news will be the same Shortcomings of mathematical attempts to

measure influence: Treat all posts equally, which rewards frequency

over depth Fail to segregate and rank within genres

Summary RSS adoption has lagged adoption of

blogging technology Frequent, rapid specification changes hindered

development of easy-to-use RSS readers Growth of blogosphere is the supervening social

necessity RSS, not blogs, adopted by newspapers

Adoption decision appears to be editorial May be business (reader) driven

RSS mainstreamed with Yahoo! News

Resources Gill, KE (2004). How can we measure the

influence of the blogosphere. WWW2004, New York, NY USA. http://faculty.washington.edu/kegill/pub/www2004_blogosphere_gill.pdf

Gill, KE (2005). Blogging, RSS and the information landscape, a look at online news. WWW2006, Chiba Japan. http://faculty.washington.edu/kegill/pub/gill_www2005_rss.pdf