Monkey Mag UK, Insulting and Innovative!

         I checked out this UK based website of an online magazine called Monkey Mag UK.  I though it to be very interesting. Forgetting the content, which is mostly comprised of T and A (T*ts and A**), the concept of the online magaizne is actually intriguing.
           It is a virtual magazine, where you can click to turn the pages and all the content on the page is interactive. This means if an article is discussing some sort of celebrity gossip, you are able to click on the celebrity’s name to find out more information.
           I think this is a very fun and interactive way for consumers to read magazines online. I do hope I will see this type of layout on more websites.

The International Paradox

            I recently read a very interesting article in the New York Times that truly showed to me the flaws of the current business model. It also reflected the cold, business side of the internet, the side only concerned with profits. And not the social, philanthropic side of the internet, the side whose goal is to connect people and communties around the world.
                The article is entitled In Developing Countries, Web Grows Without Profit by Brad Stone and Miguel Helft. The article discusses that very popular social web sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Myspace, although their popularity is skyrocketing in developing countries, they are struggling to earn a profit.
                As these major web companies global audiences expand, their profits are dwindling because based on the current business model, they primarliy rely on advertising to produce their profits.
                 These web companies are growing in popularity exponentially in areas such as Asia and the Middle East but it is also more expensive to operate in these areas due to their limited bandwidth. These Web Companies need more servers in order to make the content available to places with the limited bandwidth. In addiditon to these countries being moore expensive to operate in, online advertisments to these countries are least likely to translate into results because the people more than likely cannot afford the products.
                      This creates an obvious dilemma. Although poplularity is booming in global audiences, they are eating up the bandwidth and its very difficult to derive revenue from it. Also, even though there are millions of people in the world wtih internet access, fewer than half of them have incomes high enough to interest major advertisers and they are not translating the advertisemnts into profits or results.
So what are these Web companies to do?
                 Well, in the article it discussed that the next step would be to limit or even stop their services to these parts of the countries. For instance, the article siad that last year, Veoh, a video-sharing site operated from San Diego, decided to block its services from users in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, citing the dim prospects of making money and the high cost of delivering video there.
                          Michealangelo Volpi, chief executive of Joost, a video site with half its audience outside the United States said that if Web companies really want to make money, they would shut off services to all those countries.
               I personally dont think this is fair. The purpose of a socail netowrk is to connect people from around the world. Web companies are forgetting their original purpose.
                 YouTube, which is getting hit the hardest, with an estimated loss of $470 million in 2009, still tries to uphold thier standards and original purpose. Tom Pickett, the director of online sales and operations at YouTube said the company still hews to its vision of bringing online video to the entire globe.
                    However, Mr. Pickett did say that YouTube has made their services slower and a more lower-quality viewing experience in the developing countries in an attempt to lower costs.
                      This shows to me that their definatley is a need for a better business model, not just in the news industry but in the media world as well. Developing countries will have the misfortune of not being able to access these popular sites and I think that will be a set back for the Internet, because connecting global audiences is one of the founding principles the internet has been built upon.

FETNews.com; The New Face of News

                   We are living in an age of immediacy and convenience. The average consumer now would probably like to text on their phone, drink their latte and listen to the weather as they are getting dressed in the morning. It seems less and less consumers actively sought out their news, but would rather passively absorb their news as they are busily living life.  So what does this new age news consumer need? An easy way to receive the information they want as fast as they need it. This is only feasible through one source; The Internet. That is why I am proposing to have an online newspaper site be the primary source of information.

            Currently, most news organizations, such as the New York Times, have a print newspaper that is supplemented by an online paper. I believe the online paper will be the primary source for news and the print paper will soon disappear. We have to be one step ahead, if money is to be made. Fact is, the younger generation is highly internet savvy and primarily use the internet for everything. Whether it is for news, music or the weather, the internet is the “go-to” source for the younger generation. Therefore, if news outlets want to survive and be successful, they will have to adapt to changing times and follow suit.

            My news website will be called FETnews.com. FET is an acronym for Facts, Explanation and Truth. It will be a form of a news aggregation site. But, what the consumer will be able to do is customize the site, so they can receive news and blogs about what interests them. For instance, a consumer would have to sign up and fill out a questionnaire about their demographics and interests. They will also be asked what topics or beats they would like to have on their site and those beats will be featured on their page.  This means if a consumer is into fashion, they would get blogs and news articles about fashion from various different news outlets and it will appear on their page. It will be very similar to a news aggregation site, but there are three primary differences. One will be that a consumer will be able to interact with others via the website. Secondly, the content of my site is guaranteed for excellence and third, the business model will be different from most news aggregation sites.

             FETNews.com will be an international website. Because of customization, consumers are able to find what interests them therefore this site will be able to be utilized by millions world wide. The problem that arises from this method is bandwidth and affordability. But because we do not have to incur the costs associated with a print newspaper, this plan may be plausible.

                 The business model for my online paper will be based primarily on subscription. Consumers will pay a small fee of $19.99 a year to be apart of this exclusive and trust worthy news site. Consumers will be willing to pay to join this site, because my site offers guaranteed excellence. My site filters the information the consumer is receiving so the consumer is guaranteed credible and valuable news sources. This guarantee of excellence is not something most aggregation sites can offer. Sometimes it is a gamble, whether the information you receive from a sites like GOOGLE or YAHOO is reliable. My site can guarantee excellence because although it is a news aggregation site, my employees preselect hundreds of news sources that pass our “credible” test., that are then featured and available as sources of information to our consumers on our website. This way, although hundreds of different articles may appear from various different sources, my consumers are assured all the new sites are fair, knowledgeable, reliable and credible.

                 Being that FETNews is exclusive, I am predicting online news sites will be willing to pay in order to be selected as an available source on my site, which will be another source of income. I know one must be thinking, how does a consumer know the sites available are reliable and it’s not just based on who paid the most? Well, as I mentioned before, all the websites will have to pass a credibility test. So regardless or not, if the website does not pass the standards and criteria we have laid out, they will not be featured on FETNews.com.

            Another source of income would be through advertisements. Because all my consumers had to fill out a demographic report and their individual news site is customized to fit them, advertisers can be very unique and direct in their advertisements to the consumer. Plus, because my site is subscription base that is a guaranteed audience advertisers can market to.

               The reason I did not make advertisements my primary source of income is because I envision my business being a global company and it will be difficult to support advertisements in countries such as Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. In an article I read recently in the New York Times, written by Brad Stone and Miguel Helft, because of their limited bandwidth capacity it is extremely expensive for web companies to operate in those areas. On top of that in most of these developing countries the consumers have very low incomes that would not be able to support major advertisers. This means most of the online advertisements are not going to translate into results.

            This site as I mentioned before will be interactive. Meaning consumers will be able to make profiles and interact with each other. They will also be capable of blogging and commenting on each others pages and their sites as well. FETNews.com will also be able available on PDA and smart phones, which will encourage the younger generation even more to utilize it.

            Also, because FETNews.com is solely online, this will encourage the Going Green efforts that are largely becoming popular. This can only help to motivate users to sign up and take advantage of “no paper” news.

            Although this site will be primarily a news aggregation site I do believe it is imperative to include some stories that are original and of the websites own. That is why for consumers solely in the Long Island area, along with the news article and blogs from other news sources they will get articles from the site itself. My field staff, which will be composed of 5 reporters on every beat, will cover the news in the metropolitan area. These reporters must be advanced in using the internet, video, graphics and photography. Also there will be a blog for each beat and the reporter must update it daily, making sure to respond to readers within two days. My online staff will be composed of 50 employees whose responsibilities include filtering the news sites, maintenance of the website and its content and commenting and providing explanations and further analysis on “hot topics” that are current in the news.

            My target audience will be the younger generation, age 19-35. I believe the news aggregation type of site will work best for my younger consumers. People rarely visit only one site to access or learn about news. A smart news consumer reads articles from several different sources of information. Therefore, my consumers will be sure to get a broad range of sources they can trust.

            My website will revolutionize the news industry similar to “60 minutes” in the late 1960’s.  People will see that online news sites can be a source of revenue for the news industry. My site will be a place where consumers can get the facts, the explanations and the truth. Consumers will be willing to pay for the services because they are assured that the content of my site is reliable and trustworthy, which is the key to success for any news outlet.

I know however, it will be difficult to initially get started. But through grants, loans, blood and sweat, I believe my dream of having a reliable online news site that can produce profits is more than probable but will be seen in the near future.

Omegle? The New Facebook…I think NOT

On one of my previouse blogs I discussed the fact that maybe Facebook.com is in its pinncale right now, with only a a slow, sad downturn ahead. Twitter may be the next facebook I said, but how about Omegle?
I read an article on the newyorktimes.com site titled “Tired of Old Web Friends? A New Site Promises Strangers “, that was discussing a new site called Omegle. “It connects its users with random, anonymous strangers for a private, real-time chat,” the article written by Douglas Quenqua explained.
Much like most of the social websites, Omegle was created by a young student named Leif K-Brooks. In the article Mr. K-Brooks said that you can’t learn anything from someone exactly like you so his goal was to create a new kind of association: anonymous interaction with a stranger that complements existing social sites and helps people broaden their horizons.
I decided to try it out, before I blogged about it. First of all it is insanely easy. (Even all the “outdated”, anti-media, 40-and-above old journalists will be able to handle it.) You go to the website then click “start a new chat” and immediately you are connected with a random person and you can start chatting away.
I think this site has potential and I think it will definately have its own followers, but I do not think it will reach the level of popularity that Facebook and Myspace has reached.
When I tried it out, I had better luck than Jason Tanz, a senior editor at Wired, who said in the article that, “The first person I connected with said, ‘let’s have cyber right now’,the second was a 14-year-old kid from London.”
I was able to speak to a 20-year-old-male, from London, who seemed normal, but you never know with sites like these. But it is a unique concept, different to the mainstream social networks we are a custom to, so perhaps it may start to gain popularity and become a huge hit soon. But for kicks you should try it out!

Net Neutrality

Net neutrality is a very important issue that is being debated right now. Based on Savetheinternet.com, net neutrality is “means no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from blocking, speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.”
I wanted to learn more about this issue and stumbled upon a few good infomational sites, that I wanted to share.
Above is a “net neutrality video for dummies”, I thought this video was explained very well and easy to understand.

I also found a very funny and educational website that discussed the issue of net neutrality. It is called Wearetheweb.org
The website is comprised mostly of videos that explain net neutrality and why we should be aware of net neutrality. It also contains links to other resources and articles about net neutrality. Check it out!

Facebook. Too Cool For its Own Good?

I read an interesting blog about Facebook the other day. Facebook as we all know has infiltrated main stream media and is one of the leading social networks currently. It recently “catched up” with Myspace.com in terms of site traffic. I was also listening to CNN yesterday and they mentioned that Facebook now has about 200 million members and the anchors were discussing how everybody is on Facebook. A sure sign that a social network is doing something right, right? Well according to this blog by Clarke Levidiotis, a blogger who writes about online culture for RFI studios, Facebook is losing its “coolness” because of the fact that everyone is a member. “There is a short life expectancy for cool things on the Internet, and one could argue Facebooks’s demise began when it began allowing Baby-Boomer-age parents and middle schoolers to sign up.”
I must agree with this statement. Although I love my parents to death, they too now have a Facebook. And to make matters worse my mother’s profile picture is a picture of ME and my brother and sister, so there is no hiding that one. And apparently she is well knowledge with the internet, because she recently put an album up of the family and actually tagged me to some pictures. I thought it a bit peculiar to be friends with my mom on Facebook and I am sure there are hundreds of young people out there that may feel this way, so perhaps this might be the beginning of the end.
But also as with MySpace, when Facebook emerged people began to shy away from MySpace and Facebook became a very big competitor. And as we see now one of the leading social networks. I think the same might happen between Facebook and Twitter. Twitter is becoming insanely popular and as Levidiotis mentioned “There is a short life expectancy for cool things on the internet.” So perhaps we are now witnessing the slow decline and maybe much needed death of Facebook.

Chain Ownership; The good, the bad and the ugly.

Because of the rapid decline of newspapers and the rise of multi media, there has been a shift in the ownership of the newspapers. There are very few privately owned newpspaers left, but the majority has turned to chain ownership in order to survive. With this new shift of ownership, some sacrafices have been made in regards to, I think, the quality and objectivity of the paper.

The growth in popularity of television news caused a change in the structure of ownership in newspapers. According to “The News About The News” by Leonard Downie Jr. and Robert Kaiser, in the early 1960’s a national opinion poll was conducted by the Roper Survey and the majority of Americans said they predominantly got their news from television. Newspaper readership began to decline since then and many newspapers were forced to close because of declining revenue and profit. It seemed Americans would rather watch brief news segments on television as oppose to in-depth coverage and facts that a newspaper story could provide. Only a few newspapers in metropolitan cities were able to survive and remain profitable, but because of increasing pressure many of those newspapers were collected into large chains.
This shift in ownership ultimately modified the nature of the newspapers. Towns and cities form where the newspapers were located no longer had control. Good, contextual local news began to decline because the power shifted to distant corporate headquarters led by corporate executives, whose main goal was profits rather than content. Downie and Kaiser explained that family owned newspapers took pride in their papers and often sacrificed profits for public service, as oppose to the chained owned newspapers who sacrificed content for profits.
“The first owners of the three television networks were also willing to sacrifice some profit for public service. Today’s new patterns of corporate ownership have fundamentally altered the nature of news organizations by changing the incentives and rewards that guide their proprietors. When a sharp downturn in the American economy caused newspaper advertising revenues to plummet in 2001, for example, newspapers’ corporate owners ordered deep cuts in news staffs and space in the papers for news to maintain large profit margins.” (Downie, Kaiser pg.26).
Another drawback of chain ownership is censorship and suppression of the journalists themselves. Many times these major industries are more conventional and prefer a more conservative view of news and politics. This view can trickle down to its journalists, oppressing their thoughts in order to secure their position in the paper. Ben H. Bagdikian author of “Media Monopoly” said,
“Now that these industries own the country’s daily printed and broadcast news, it is not surprising that their newly acquired staffs have to come to understand that they remain in their employers’ good graces by downplaying or keeping unwanted ideas out of the printed and broadcast news. With time, this shrunken social-political range becomes the accepted definition of what is news.” This is a huge problem because the journalists may unnoticeably censor themselves in order to maintain their position and in return the paper will not be fully informing its readers. Worse yet, the newspaper might unobtrusively become partisan or favored to a specific group or idea and the original purpose of the newspaper will be eradicated.

Establishing your brand

Becoming a journalist seems to be getting increasingly difficult. Tammi Marcouiller from publish2.com discussed how as journalists we have to create our own brand online. Since there is a shift from print to media, specifically online media, journalists are compelled to create their own unique brand in order to stay competitive. I guess it’s almost like having your own beat in a newspaper, but now because its online it’s your “persona”.
I havn’t figured out what “brand” I should have as of yet. Maybe I might figure it out before the class is over.
I also was thinking, even though as young, upcoming journalists we have to deal with becoming more marketable and competitive since our jobs are becoming limited, it may be easier to become “discovered” in this age, as oppose to previous years. There are so many online social networks that an aspiring journalist can be apart of that you can really “get out there” and get discovered. But with that we also have to be aware because we have to be concious of everything we post online. I fear there is no such thing as a personal site online. Whatever information you put on the web is free game. So if one is serious about becoming a professional journalist, please be weary of all the drunken pictures you have posted on facebook and myspace. It will come back to haunt you.

Commentary on class discussions

I think  facebook having the right to anything we post is ridiculous and I am glad that it was changed back.

It so funny how we agree to all these “terms” over the internet but yet we truly have no idea what we are agreeing to. We literally could be signing our rights away but we would never know.
http://www.journalism.co.uk/5/articles/533534.php

Jrn class

This is my first blog ever! So hopefuly this class will motivate me to start blogging on my own, because I do think blogging is a good idea. It’s almost like a virtual diary.
But anyway, the material we are learning in class is very interesting. Before this class I was clueless about bandwidth, bits, bites , binary codes, broadband, etc., now I feel I am a bit more informed. I think it is crucial for all of us to be knowledgable about these topics becuase as journalists, the media and especially the internet plays an integral part in our lives. We all need to be informed and know these about topics such as these so it can develop us a journalsits, make us more marketable and further help our careers.