Rji-pivot-resources

RJI Pivot Point-Chicago

Draft of resource links

Email additions to densmorew@rjionline.org or use this wiki to add them yourself to the page.

'Assigned' readings/resources (to come)

• A summary of related Pew research (Densmore will do)
• The community balance wheel
• Link to http://www.papertopersona.org
• What else?

Slides and presentations

Key studies by the Pew Center on the Internet & Society

• The Pew Center on the Internet & Society has been conducting public surveys and compiling demographic and usage studies for more than a decade on Internet usage, primarily in the United States, and much of the work of Kristin Purcell and Lee Raine has focused on news usage. Here are links to some recent studies most relevant to the work of RJI-Pivot Point-Chicago:
• http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Local-news-enthusiasts.aspx
• http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Local-news.aspx
• http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Local-news-enthusiasts.aspx
• http://pewinternet.org/Presentations/2012/Apr/News-in-a-networked-world.aspx
• http://pewinternet.org/Presentations/2012/Feb/How-People-Learn-About-Their-Local-Community-in-a-Digital-Age.aspx
• http://pewinternet.org/Presentations/2012/Apr/Citizen-20.aspx
• http://pewinternet.org/Presentations/2012/Feb/By-the-numbers.aspx
• http://pewinternet.org/Presentations/2011/Oct/NASCIO.aspx (social media use) 
• http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/The-Social-Side-of-the-Internet.aspx
• http://pewinternet.org/Presentations/2011/Oct/NYU.aspx  (advertising/transactions)  (3.0 minutes) 
• http://pewinternet.org/Media-Mentions/2012/Interview-Lee-Rainie-on-Networked-Individualism.aspx
• VIDEO PODCAST:  http://networked.pewinternet.org/

REVENUE: Forrester researcher James McQuivey on paying for access not content / Feb. 9, 2010 (Densmore)

• In 10 slides, Boston-based Forrester researcher James McQuivey uses the example of his own family budget to illustrate that users pay for access to content rather than the content itself. How do we take this fact into consideration as we reinvent the form and delivery of news? Does this mean that content companies that are just selling content (without an associated curation/personalization service) are heading toward oblivion? Or can timely, highly unique content command user payment on its own?

REVENUE: What Newspaper Association of America recommended in 2008

• To learn from (and not repeat) history, take a look at this 31-page slide deck report for the Newspaper Association of America will recommended online paid strategies. How much of this is relevant today; how much would be considered irrelevant or wrong?

USABILITY: RJI's mobile-media news consumption national survey / April 2012 (Roger Fidler/Mike Jenner)

• Reynolds Journalism Institute's Roger Fidler has been championing tablet technologies, and now studying their use, for a decade at RJI. In 18 slides packed with data, Fidler profiles U.S. tablet and smart-phone usage. Fidler's deck is followed by 18 slides by J-Mizzou Prof. Mike Jenner reporting the tablet and mobile application efforts of U.S. dailies and weeklies.

General links

COLLABORATION:Scripps chief Rich Boehne hopes collaboration in news industry is possible April 15, 2012

• In an inteview with the NetNewsCheck.com website, the president/CEO of Scripps newspapers "hopes" for collaboration among newspaper groups; and explains why different platforms need different solutions (but shared content).

ENGAGEMENT: In San Diego, what is line between engagement and advocacy? / June 10, 2012 (Picht/Densmore)

• New York Times media report David Carr examines the new relationship of the San Diego daily to its community, now that its publisher is a real-estate developer who actively, publicly and without apologies, is championing issues of personal interest. How is this different from Bill Loeb and the Manchester Union Leader a generation ago? Is this the new "engagement" with the public? Or is it something different?

USABILITY: "Skeuomorphic" -- Mobile/tablet/online services should not try to recreate old forms June 10, 2012 (Langeveld)

• This post is specifically aimed at some of Apple's faux reality UI designs such as realistic-looking book pages, bookshelves as indexes to reading content, etc. (something Amazon does as well on the Kindle Fire). But there is a larger message here which is that attempting to translate traditional forms into digital spaces (or to replicate rather than recreate any design convention from an old medium to a new one) is a mistake from the get go. So, touch-tone phones don't look like dial phones, digital watches are not made with analog hands, etc. We know that the newspaper business made this mistake big time in replicating printed news reading  on the web. Newspaper paywalls, as currently structured, are attempts to translate physical home delivery to the web. Magazines are still trying to sell "issues" rather than news streams. Etc. The challenge at PivotPoint is to develop ideas that are not skeuomorphic (as defined in the post), not just in terms of UI design, but in terms of complete content delivery concepts. Things like Tapin Bay Area fit this bill. I think it's a constraint we need to put into the process for PivotPoint: let's not fall into the trap of translating stuff from one medium to another. Let's invent stuff that's native to the digital technology of the 21st C, just as physical newspapers were native to the mechanical technologies of the 19th C. Chuck Peters comments: "I liked this article, and particularly liked the last line - 'At the end of the day, there's always a temptation to go with the familiar, but the real value is going to be found elsewhere.' "

USABILITY: HTML5, other open technologies doom "issue" approach to tablet services? / June 6, 2012 (Densmore)

• Digiday writer Rahul Patel lists four things that publishers can do to deliver tablet apps that combine the elegance of print with the immediacy of Twitter-speed content -- and which do not rely on recreating a large-file, PDF-like packaged download.

ECONOMICS: The dilemma of the Washington Post -- as resources shrink, charge or not to charge? / June 10, 2012 (Wurzer-Densmore)

• Peter Preston, writing in the Sunday Observer of London (on The Guardian website) reviews the decline in print and digital ad revenue at the Washington Post, the multiple quarters of losses and poses the qeustion of whether The Post has made the right decision in have its content on line free. Buzz Wurzer describes this as a key indicator of the challenge newspapers are facing.

PERSONA: Balancing trust vs. 'creep factor' in user relationships / June 10, 2012 (Densmore)

• Former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, now an op-end columnist, asserts that the public is becoming concerned about Facebook's extensive collection of user "persona" information -- usage patterns -- raising privacy issues. "The challenge for Facebook is how to retain the trust of its wised-up users even as he commoditizes us -- that is, how to sell us on without creeping us out," he concludes.

USABILITY: Microsoft/Harvard researcher Danah Boyd on why news organizations fail to reach young people / April 13, 2012 (Poynter via Holman)

• Says Boyd: “General news is not relevant to young people because they don’t have context. It’s a lot of abstract storytelling and arguing among adults that makes no sense. So most young people end up consuming celebrity news . . . When I hear news agencies talk about wanting to get young people, they don’t want to figure out how to actually inform them — they want to hear how to monetize them. And that pisses me off.”

PRIVACY:World Wide Web founder Berners-Lee says "demand your data" from Facebook, Google and others / April 18, 2012 (Ian Katz/The Gardian)

• Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the world wide web, has urged internet users to demand their personal data from online giants such as Google and Facebook to usher in a new era of highly personalised computer services "with tremendous potential to help humanity". Is there an opportunity for news organizations to become the new "information valets" -- helping user to manage and value their usage history, demographic attributes and preferences?

CURATION:Are content curators the new 'superheros' of the web? / April 16, 2012 (Steven Rosenbaum, FastCompany)

• The author argues that human curators are the emerging key ingredient in taming information overload, acting as "curators to contexualize and organize information. It means, he says, publishers need to add context, opinion or voice as they curate other sources. He cites Maria Popova's Curators Code.

Books, long-form articles and white papers

RESEARCH: "From Paper to Persona: Sustaining Journalism in the Attention Age" / Aug. 2011 (Densmore)

• Reynolds Journalism Institute consulting researcher Bill Densmore explains why news organizations must move from a physical-product-centered business to one focused on service -- helping people find the information they need to get through their day and be more engaged citizens. He argues this means helping users with their "personas" -- the demographics and preferences presented to service providers. He cites this as a new business opportunity for news organzations and lays out a scenario for a non-profit Information Trust Association which could transparently establish protocols and business rules for a "shared-user network for trust, identity, privacy and information commerce."

ARTICLE: The Jig is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future / April 18, 2012 (Alex Madrigal at The Atlantic)

• The author argues that the elements of social networks -- ratings, photos, networks for 'friends' which ultimately yields valuable information for advertisers -- have run their course. Instead, he argues for new services supported by money from the end users. "More money has got to change hands," he writes, seeking a new wave of transformational Internet technologies.

BOOK: I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works: Why Your World, Work, and Brain Are Being Creatively Disrupted, Sept. 2010 (Nick Bilton)

• Excerpted from the Amazon summary: New York Times technology writer Nick Bilton's book explains how tech is disrupting media, creating the possibility for exciting, engaging experiences, creating the new "consumnivore," a world where immediacy trumps quality and quantity; why social networks, Internet openness and new gadgets are becoming the foundation for anchoring communities and taming information overload; why they are centered in "me" -- calling for a new approach to shaping content and why people pay for experiences not content and why great storytelling and extended relationships will prevail and enable businesses to engage with customers in new ways that go beyond merely selling information, instead creating unique and meaningful experiences.