BLOG MATCHMAKER: CREATING SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN INFORMATION COMPANIES AND WRITERS

One of the best newspaper industry analysts and practitioners, Ken Doctor, has just published a book, “Newsonomics,” and created a companion website. He asked me to answer some questions about bloggers, the news industry, and how I help bring the two together. Here’s a link to the piece.

In a nutshell, he asked if I was a “blog wrangler.” I told him “blog wranglers” just grab as many bloggers as possible and dump them into blog ghettos on newspaper websites with little regard to organization or quality.

By contrast, as a “blog matchmaker,” I deeply search, carefully analyze, thoroughly vet, and then personally invite only the very best bloggers in a niche to partner with a news or information website to the benefit of both parties.

Read the entire piece on Ken’s new Newsonomics site. And let me know what you think.

WHY CAN’T NEWSPAPERS FIGURE OUT HOW TO INCORPORATE QUALITY LOCAL BLOGGERS?

Le Monde's website integrates high-quality non-staff blogs like this one.

In my last post, I looked at the failures of newspapers who are trying to do the right thing (incorporate high-quality local bloggers) but failing because they are either opening the doors to everyone (it’s fun but mostly nonsense), they are putting the bloggers in a blogger “ghetto” all by themselves (as if readers were interested in reading any blog), or they are turning their blogger aggregation operations over to an outside company — for example, in the case of the Des Moines paper, to Pluck (note: Chris Snider pointed out in his comments that the Register is doing good work elsewhere on their site; more on that soon).

It’s not like there aren’t great examples of successful blog aggregation staring newspapers right in the face.

The Huffington Post came into Chicago and stole great local bloggers who otherwise might have appeared in the Tribune and driven traffic to the paper's website instead of the interloping HuffPo.

By embarrassingly stark contrast to clueless newspapers, the Huffington Post came into Chicago and stole the very best local bloggers from under the Chicago Tribune’s nose. HuffPo gave those bloggers an enviably simple and attractive HuffPo URL on one of the most popular sites in the world (e.g.,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-jones
, and
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-cusack
).

CAN HIGH-QUALITY BLOGGERS HELP RESCUE NEWSPAPERS?

(The INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS 2009 World Report is out and I have a piece in it called, “Can Top-Quality Local Bloggers Help Rescue Newspapers.” I republish it here for those who have not seen the report. It can be ordered here. This is the first of two parts.)

No one knows what the Dodo bird sounded like. But it might have sounded a lot like the bleating of today’s newspaper editors: “Never change, never change, never change!”

The Dodo bird was fatally fearless of its predators and could not evolve fast enough to survive in a changing environment. By the late 1600s, it was gone.

Wake-up call to newspapers: Don’t be dodos! It’s not too late to evolve. But time is running out. And here’s a tip: When it comes to information, people want great content.

They do not really care if the content has been created by the newspaper’s own reporters. Readers simply want the BEST content available.

GlobalPost launches with hundreds of global blogs

With the recent launch of GlobalPost, high-quality bloggers are being given positions of prominence for the first time on a major news media website, starting with promotion on the home page. Hundreds of top-notch bloggers from 41 countries around the world also appear on the region pages (e.g., Europe), the country pages (e.g., South Africa), and pages of their very own (e.g., Iraq Pundit, South Africa Rocks, Mexico Woods, The Soul of Japan, etc.).

"An Indian Muslim's Blog" on GlobalPost.com

GlobalPost, where I am the Global Blog Coordinator on a consulting basis, recognized that there is a lot of terrific content being created around the world by excellent writers who are experts in their field or who are simply well-informed or passionate about a subject or country. That on-the-ground, grassroots-level reporting adds to the professional work of our correspondents in each country, giving GlobalPost readers a complete picture of life, events, trends, and peculiarities in each of dozens of countries worldwide.

NERVOUS EDITORS, PART 3: HOW LONG WILL BLOGGERS TRADE CONTENT FOR EXPOSURE?

Over my last two posts, I have answered five of the most common questions I get from editors curious or nervous about incorporating bloggers in their newspapers and websites. Three posts ago, I answered questions about risking hard-won credibility. Two posts ago, I addressed fears of losing control of content, and the differences between professional journalists and reporters. And in my last post, I talked about the limits to reader involvement, and the fear of bloggers enabling publishers to cut staff.

The sixth and last question, about bloggers’ willingness to trade content for exposure, is one I get from editors and bloggers alike. Here are my thoughts on that subject:

6. Are you sure that community bloggers will be willing to produce their content for free in the future, as they mostly do now? How will it affect newspaper economics if these bloggers ask for a payment?

REASSURANCE FOR EDITORS NERVOUS ABOUT USING BLOGS IN THEIR PAPERS & WEBSITES

Editors are worried about publishing local bloggers in their web pages. I answer their concerns below. (Photo by Tom Carmony, on Flickr/CC)

I just returned from Vienna, Austria where I spoke to the International Newsmedia Marketing Association’s Europe Outlook 2009 Conference about using local bloggers to enhance their reach, relevance and revenue.

Olivier Bonsart, Director Délégué of Ouest-France, leads a song at INMA 2008 Europe conference in Vienna. (Photo by Knallgrau; courtesy INMA)

(By the way: Those folks know how to drink! Unlike too many of my American editorial friends who drink to get morose — not a long trip — and stupid, these people drank to have fun. We started with a traditional “Heuriger Dinner” at 8 and were still going strong at 2, taking turns singing drinking songs from each country. With more than 20 countries in attendance, we provided quite a musical buffet at the restaurant, on the bus back to the hotel and in the hotel bar! I’m looking for good American, especially Boston, drinking songs if anyone has suggestions!)

The audience — publishers, editors and marketing directors from more than 20 countries — were very interested in adding local bloggers to their content mix. I have already heard from newspapers in Hungary, England, India, France, Sweden, Belgium, and Poland about how to go about integrating user-generated content in their publications’ websites and print products.

The questions and concerns were the same that I hear when I speak to American editors: What about our hard-earned credibility? How can I trust writers I don’t know? Isn’t there a difference between professional journalists and bloggers? Is there a limit to reader involvement? Couldn’t this just be a publisher trick to cut staff? And, how long will bloggers be willing to do this for free?

BRINGING BLOGGERS INTO YOUR NEWSPAPER MAKES YOUR PAPER “OUR PAPER” FOR READERS

How many newspaper readers feel a personal connection with their metro daily newspaper? How many think of the paper as “our newspaper” or “my newspaper”?

Nobody I know.

Readers see their metro paper as “their” newspaper, a publication reflecting the interests, opinions, and work of other people not remotely connected to the them and their lives.

Not BostonNOW.

When BostonNOW was up and running (I was the editor-in-chief), we had 3,900 local bloggers posting to their blogs on our site (which, sadly, closed after a year in business when the investors ran out of money in April).

Our bloggers, and their friends, families and business connections, considered BostonNOW “our paper.” And it truly was. The website AND the paper carried their work, and the work of people like them.

The Worst “Blind Pews” of U.S. Newspapers, PT II

You might think that as you move down the list of large American newspapers, away from the tradition-laden (tradition-handicapped?) major metros of the east and west coasts (and, OK, Chicago), that you might find a greater connection between a newspaper and its community (e.g., more local bloggers and vloggers on the papers’ websites).

After all, among the 19 largest circulation metro dailies, we only found seven papers that welcomed bloggers — Denver, Dallas, Houston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and Cleveland (hmmm, no east or west coast papers among that group….). It HAD to get better, right?

Wrong.

Sad to say, local bloggers are no more likely to be integrated into daily newspaper websites as you move down to papers below 400,000 circulation.

Of the next 15 largest metro newspapers (numbers 20-34), only five integrate local bloggers (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Portland Oregonian, Indianapolis Star, Orlando Sentinel and San Antonio Express-News).

So, as editors wave goodbye to more and more laid-off, right-sized, bought-out staffers, those editors remain as incapable as “Blind Pew” of seeing the rich content being created all around them. As the old proverb goes, “God protects fools, children and drunkards,” but probably not purblind editors and the newspapers they work for.

THE SECOND TEN “BLIND PEWS” OF AMERICAN NEWSPAPERING
Of the top circulation newspapers in the U.S., these are numbers 11-20 that have chosen to ignore the existence of top-quality bloggers in their midst. (See my Top Ten list here.)

THE BLIND PEWS: The Top 10 Most Purblind Papers

It’s time to be name names.

Too many big, ordinarily smart newspapers still refuse to involve high-quality local bloggers and vloggers on their websites and in the pages of their paper in any significant way beyond a lame, well-hidden, token local blogger index page (if that).

Now the thieves are at the door, about to make off with the family jewels (audience and advertising) and newspapers are leaving the doors unlocked and the valuables in plain sight.

Arianna Huffington’s announcement last week that she will be launching 12 local Huffington Posts with aggregated news and local bloggers is only the tip of the iceberg, the flashiest fox in the henhouse. The chairman of the board of one of the top U.S. dailies told me last week that he is seeing a lot of other crafty characters coming into his market looking to steal market share in exactly the same way, and he’s finally ready to act.

It’s time for editors to drop their tired excuses: “Bloggers aren’t journalists,” and “they’re just loonies in jammies,” and “my paper’s reputation will be sullied” (hey, guys, YOU choose which ones to publish!).

Pull in the best local bloggers and vloggers now or lose them and the thousands of folks who follow them, going where they can find the best local content and communities of shared interests.

So, in the spirit of your mom’s classic “I’m only going to tell you once more” warning, here’s a whack upside the head for what I’m calling:

THE BLIND PEWS: AMERICA’S TOP 10 MOST PURBLIND PAPERS

Why are there no user video blogs in newspapers?

We’re blind.

Or stupid.

Great local content is staring newspapers in the face … and we can’t see it. Or we choose not to see it.

Hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded daily on YouTube. Every MINUTE of every day, ten HOURS of new video is uploaded, YouTube says.

In one month alone (January 2008), nearly 79 million viewers, or a third of all online viewers in the U.S., watched more than three billion user-posted videos on YouTube, according to Fortune.cnn.com.

That’s a ton of content.

And you’d be surprised how much of it is local.

Yes, there is lots of garbage and stuff we can’t touch due to copyright violations or good taste, but take a look at the results (chart on the left) of my one-day survey of local videos posted on YouTube today, this week, and this month:

Even if a measly 10 percent of the videos are terrific, that’s still dozens or hundreds of pieces of local content newspapers are not publishing today.

Houston Chronicle is local blogger heaven

Talk about doing it right.

The Houston Chronicle gets it.

They have local bloggers EVERYWHERE on their site, even on their specialty sites: MomHouston.com and HoustonBelief.com (left).

Most importantly, the citizen bloggers are not buried on a “blogs” page. They are incorporated on the theme-appropriate Web page: citizen sports bloggers are on the Sports home page; local political bloggers are on the Politics home page; ditto, Health, Tech, Gardening, Entertainment, even Real Estate!

Not only that, chron.com promotes the most recent local blogger posts prominently on the chron.com home page, right below the main news stories.

Solving the blogger payment problem

The old dust-up over newspapers (and other media) paying non-staff bloggers for their contributions is being debated on the Center for Citizen Media Blog and only Tish Grier got it right in her comments (“…what’s wrong with just aggregating this content and sharing traffic with local bloggers?”).

I think that’s the answer for newspapers: Aggregate and point off.

It’s a win-win.

Newspapers get great local content (but not all of it), and bloggers get traffic most of them couldn’t get on their own.

If the bloggers optimize their sites and the traffic amounts to even modest numbers, they can make more money than the newspaper would be willing to pay.

From the newspaper’s perspective, it’s not essential to own ALL of the content, only to be able to point readers to it.

The newspaper’s new role is to give readers the opportunity to find the best information in their areas of interest, either geographic (neighborhood) or thematic (sports, movies, news, politics, etc.).

Huffington sticks it to the NYT

How many bloggers would brag that their standards surpass the New York Times?

Arianna Huffington would, and she did.

When asked about the HuffPost’s accuracy standards Thursday, she outlined her 24-hour correct-it-or-lose-your-rights deadline. Then, without skipping a beat, she compared her one-day correction turn-around requirement to the NYT which “took years to issue a mea culpa” for the “lies and distortions” about the lead-up to the Iraq war that it printed on the front page.

Ouch. (Watch below.)

Introduction

It’s about time….

I’ve been promoting newspaper collaboration with bloggers (and vloggers, podcasters and readers in general) for more than a year now, but I never found (took) the time to write my own.

No more.

It was embarrassing.

In 2007, I launched the first metro daily newspaper (the recently shuttered BostonNOW) that included bloggers not only on the newspaper’s website but also in the pages of the paper.

But I didn’t have a blog.

I worked with the LA Times over the winter and identified hundreds of local neighborhood and LA-themed bloggers to populate their new local site when they re-launch it.

But I didn’t have my own blog. Bad boy!

So, here I am.

I’ll be looking at newspapers’ use of bloggers/vloggers/podcasters and community building. Who’s trying what? What’s working? What isn’t? Can anyone monetize it? What can we learn from everyone’s efforts?

I’ll be hunting around myself. But if you know of any cutting-edge newspaper blogger initiatives, let me know and we can take a look together and spread the word.

And if you just have ideas about what might work, let me know and perhaps we can convince a newspaper to give it a try!

Coming next: Reporting from the Interactive Media Conference this week (May 14-15) in Las Vegas.