Exclamation blog: Stories, Ideas and loud noises
Big Chance for Big Media: AP Tries to Jump on the iPhone Craze
The Associated Press, that symbol of all that is old media, has made a surprisingly tech-savvy move. As Forbes’ Brian Caulfield reported May 7, the global news service is hoping to gain a prime spot on a screen that is viewed regularly by some of the most plugged in folks on the planet – the Apple iPhone home page.
The AP is hardly the only news organization that wants to be in on the mega iCraze, but with its new “Mobile News Network” the AP has a shot at being placed as the first “News” button on the home screen of that ubiquitous toy of techno-yuppies known as the iPhone. At this point, only a handful of widgets are on that often used screen, and most are provided by new media giants like Google and Yahoo, or by Apple itself – such as weather, maps and stock quotes. (All this will soon change, but that’s another story.)
Caulfield describes old media companies’ desire to get on these phones their “best shot at digital relevance,” and I couldn’t have put it better myself. (Full disclosure, Brian was my editor at one time, and he still ranks among my favorite biz tech journalists.)
Like so many other news services, the AP chose not to carve out its own online destination, instead choosing to let Google, Yahoo and various news outlets aggregate and distribute its content. Now, with old media looking down the barrel of a gun, this kind of move could be too little too late. But it’s at least a sign that someone over there is thinking outside the box.
Caulfield reports that so far at least, Apple hasn’t announced that it’s taking up the AP’s offer. Could this be a case of closing ranks? For my part, I hope Apple decides to play ball on this one. To me, the AP is a little bit like the older aunt you invite to your party, knowing that even though she might not understand any of the talk about Twitter tweets or whether Robert Scoble’s going to show up, she’s intelligent and reliable – and she’s been around long enough to bring some experience to her observations of the world.
Mobile TV, Are You Watching?
The range of tools and technological innovations that at first glance seemed completely obsolete (Twitter, anyone?) and now play a significant role in many peoples’ lives is staggering. If you get down to it, humanity is a great collection of skeptics—why watch moving pictures when you’ve got the radio?
In an age when online advertisers are increasingly claiming that TV is dead and online video is the new way of consuming entertainment, mobile devices are emerging from the backseat and trying to make their claim for the new age of entertainment. The New York Times recently had an article in its Media & Advertising section about an up and coming European sensation for watching TV on the phone that seems to be coming to the U.S. (as most great things do!).
According to the article, consumers in Italy, Switzerland and Japan are already hooked on watching a bevy of channels available for streaming on mobile devices and U.S. mobile providers seem to be eager to follow. Naturally, not everyone is sold on the idea of watching long-form content on a small screen, but the future remains to be seen. AT&T Wireless just announced AT&T Mobile TV in the United States, offering a 10-channel service which will sell for $15 per month and, according to the article, includes a Sony Pictures movie channel called Pix.
To watch? Consumers will have to purchase a cellphone made by LG Electronics and Samsung that streams the broadcasts. All of this innovation begs the question—are you willing to pay and watch? Yankee Group analyst Linda Barrabee suggests that adoption is likely to be slow. But, the rise of devices like the iPhone and increased mobility among consumers seem to suggest that watching TV on your phone may not be in the distant future. Perhaps one day, fifty years down the road, generations of mobile TV watchers will be asking: Why do I need to sit on my couch to watch something?
You Down With IDG? Yeah You Know Me
Steve Lohr of The New York Times writes today about publisher IDG and the state of its business. Like many magazine and newspaper publishers these days, IDG has been one that seemingly was struggling. Infoworld went online-only and Computerworld is now a fraction of its size and thickness from a few years ago.
But don’t let these print issues fool you, the Times reports that all is well with IDG who is raking in more revenue from online advertising (52%) than print advertising (48%) and is growing its revenue by 10% per year (70% of their revenue is from publications). Layoffs and killing print issues seem to just have been smart business decisions and not acts of desperation.
This article puts some debates to rest — whether online ads can replace lost print revenue, or, if there’s any hope for struggling companies publishing print publications. IDG is a niche publisher, which helps since they do have a loyal tech audience, and PC World and MacWorld are mainstays that will always do well, but it’s nice to see that there is hope for an online transition for many of the traditional tech publications we love here at LaunchSquad.
What’s become clear is that it’s not an online-offline thing — just because a publisher was never in print doesn’t mean it’s immune to the issues facing the publishing industry (see, CNET). And, on the flipside, there is hope and opportunity for formerly traditional print publishers like IDG.
I guess it’s easy to confuse struggle with change.
One Stop Shop for Docs
There is a new start-up in Southern California that I have been excited about for almost a year now. Docstoc is the latest brainchild of one of my former business school classmates, Jason Nazar and his partner, Alon Schwartz. It’s a user generated community where you can find and share professional documents, ranging from legal to technology to business and beyond. Docstoc announced this week that it has raised $3.25M in its series B round of funding from Rustic Canyon Partners.
Docstoc is a great example of the increasingly transparent world that we live in, a vast database of useful information that is part blog, part social community and part encyclopedia of free information. An interesting attribute and arguably the most compelling reason that this start-up attracted the attention (read: money) of such an esteemed, media-savvy venture firm is that it has popularized the ability to embed documents into any blog or website, a feature that we know very well in the PR world is popular in the blogoshpere and on news sites.
I like Docstoc for many reasons; the site has become my go-to resource for information that I might have had trouble tracking down previously, but I also think that it is leading the charge in changing the way that people use, store and share information. The site is still in beta, the company is brand new, so for me, I will be watching to see what it does with its $3.25M and whether Jason can get another winner off the ground…
Comcast + Twitter = Creepy?
So, there’s been an overload of Twitter posts here lately, but this warrants another. My friend Nathan Halverson is a tech reporter at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and Tweeted earlier about how he was doing a story on Comcast plopping ugly green boxes down in the middle of people’s lawns – unannounced. Anyway, I responded to him:
@paperwords Comcast is so horrible. Why is their DVR still stuck in 2003? It sucks!
An hour later, this floated into Twhirl:
comcastcares @CeeLew An update is coming soon for the Motorola boxes that will help
Yikes. Savvy move, Comcast, but is this a bit creepy? Maybe it’s because Twitter is such a closed community at this point, you expect to be talking into an echo chamber. Well, that’s not always the case.
At least I know my DVR is going to get better, because it really does suck. Bad.
