From a JOA where your paper is inserted in the “winning” newspaper’s edition to a multi-award winning newspaper website and a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service back to laying off most of your staff. The Las Vegas CityLife has interesting look at the roller coaster ride of Greenspun Media’s Las Vegas Sun. They examine how the newspaper reinvented the print newsroom to focus on long-form journalism, the free reign they gave new media wonder boy Rob Curley, the tension between the interactive newsroom and the print newsroom and how the collapse of the Las Vegas real estate market cause the newspaper to lose most of interactive staff and half of it’s newsroom.



In the United States one out of every four pageviews is from Facebook. Amazing! Google only accounts for one in eight page views (15 percent).

What metrics do you use to measure the success of a newspaper web site switching to a paid content model? Specifically, I’m thinking about how will Stephens Media know if their switch to a paid content model for the Pine Bluff Commercial? Here’s the metrics I think a site switching to a paid content model would have to use.

• Paid Subscribers both online and in print – To justify paid content model you must show an increase in print newspaper subscriptions because the reason you switched to a paid model was to stop the cannibalization of your print subscribers by your free online site. Of course most studies show that the revenue generated from paid online subscribers will barely cover the cost of running the website.
• Web Site Visitors – Nope. You can keep measuring your web site visitors if you want to, but the dropoff from when it was free will be so discouraging you might change your mind and open it up again.
• Web Display Ad Revenue – Strike Two. Won’t work. You just killed your audience with the paid wall. Any advertiser who runs on your site behind the pay wall doesn’t know what they’re doing.
• Online Classified Revenue – Strike Three. This isn’t working for many newspapers anymore, but if you’ve killed your audience then who will pay to get their classifieds seen online by nobody.

So, the only real workable metric is an increase in paid print subscribers. That’s right a continual increase. If you only slow your decrease, then you’ve just slowed the print newspaper death spiral and given yourself another year or two until the presses stop running.

I spent all morning banging my head against my computer and several search engines trying to remember the name of visual timeline tool that I found that was pretty cool– Vuvox. Vuvox is a web tool that alllows to create a collage of photos, video, audio and text to tell a story.  Here’s a good example of one (be sure to hit the full screen button to get the full experience).

Some other timeline tools I found while I was trying to remember Vuvox include

• TimeRime
• Dipity
• TimeToast

Scripps closed the Rocky Mountain News today– it was a great newspaper, a great website, a model of how a news operation can change. Unfortunately, the JOA in Denver didn’t give Scripps enough flexibility to stop the losses it had seen this past year ($16 million).

Here’s a long video on the end of the RMN (21 minutes, but it’s worth it.).  If you can watch it in full screen in HD.

This must be the day of lists. Newsweek has a great list of the Seven Lies We Tell Ourselves About Facebook. I’ve listed the Newsweek “lie” and my response to it.

1. I only friend people I really know- I actually only friend people who I am willing to go out to dinner with so my standard is actually higher than this. There are several people who I’ve not friended because I don’t want to eat dinner with.
2. Facebook made me do it- I refuse to do something on facebook just because everyone else has done it. I won’t play the name game or 25 random things (that’s probably more because I’m lazy than anything).
3. Wall to wall flirting isn’t cheating – It’s horrible the way some people flirt and friend so outlandishly on facebook where they would be embarassed to be caught flirting in the same manner in real life.
4. I use facebook to keep in touch with people – I have to agree with Newsweek– I use facebook because I’m nosy (yes, I said it, now you can admit to it, too).
5. I’m so over facebook- I really am moving in that direction. More now than last week and more next week than now. When your grandma chats with you on facebook and asks you to post a link and then your 6 month old nephew friends you, it’s time to find another place to hang out.
6. I’m not so competitive- I hate most games- board games or computer games so I don’t care if you beat me. I don’t really know why I hate games. Just playing them really tires me.
7. Facebook is my friend- Ok. I know facebook isn’t my friend (just look how they flip flopped on their terms of service this week), but I can’t say it’s a business either or at least a successful one. On the other hand, I sure wish that I had come up with the idea and launched facebook or at least something similar where I could sue facebook for stealing my idea.

Here’s a great article from Smashing Magazine on 10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Web Design.  I’ve worked online in some form or fashion for about 10 years and this article really gets to the heart of a lot that I’ve experienced.  My favorite truths are

• You need a separate web division
• Periodic redesign is not enough
• Your website cannot appeal to everyone
• Design by committee brings death

I think I like these so much because I can related to them– I have lived them.

The Arkansas legislature convened yesterday and it’s apparent the digital revolution is chasing them down at full speed.  Last time around you could tune into the Arkansas Times Arkansas Blog for an overview or Steve Harrellson’s Under the Dome for the details, but you only got their distinct opinion on things.

This year we have my brother-in-law’s Tolbert Report with his ubiquitous flip camera and house speaker Robbie Will’s new blog also keeping us informed on what is going down at the Capitol. I can promise you the Tolbert Report will have a slightly different take on the legislature’s actions than the rest of the pack, but I am wondering if Robbie Will’s will have the stamina to keep up with all the duties of being Speaker and keeping the blog up to date and responding to comments and questions from the blog (it’s fun reading about his struggles with technology).

It’s also interesting to see how the Arkansas legislature agenda compares to other states. The National Conference of State Legislatures has released their  top nine issues of 2009.

When it comes to web video length , I’ve always said the shorter the better with a sweet spot being around 60 to 90 seconds. Video 2 Zero has taken an interesting look at  how long people will watch web video analyzing audience attention span coming to the conclusion that ideal run-time for web video 2.5 – 4 minutes. I know that will be a relief to any video producers out there, because it is rare to find a producer (and I used to be one pre-web) who can say anything in less than 90 seconds.

For their analysis six top video sites (excluding YouTube) let Video 2 Zero  have access to their statistics for two weeks giving them 188,055 videos, totaling 22,724,606 streams to break down.

The New York Times ran a couple of articles at the first of December illustrating the need for doctors to behave appropriately and listing the six habits of highly respectful physicians. Although neither of these articles mention online communications, I believe some paralells can be drawn as to how doctors should communicate with patients online.

First, I think it’s important to acknowledge the role that electronic health records and secure messaging between physicians and patients can have to improve the doctor patient relationship and the patients overall health.  In the next five years we are going to see more and more doctor-patient communication move online and hopefully see more health care team communication move online (think of a facebook like social network all about your health where your nurses, primary care docs, pharmacists, specialists and you can all keep each other up to date about your health).

In this new era it will be important for your doctor and your health care team to exercise appropriate online etiquette to maximize their relationships with you and each other.  Here are some online etiquette tips that a doctor should follow:

1. Respond quickly  to patients online questions. Tell your patient you or a member of your team will respond within XX hours (24 or less hopefully) and have a work flow set-up to ensure that you meet that goal.
2. Respond fully to patients online. Take the time to write in complete sentences in language that your patients will understand. In my day to day work i communicate with some doctors over email who reply to me over email in cryptic short bursts of information which if I didn’t know better would leave me thinking they were upset, not just overworked.
3. Check off and share health care alerts with your patients. Have an automated system for sharing troubling health care issues with your patients and information on solving their health care problems.
4. Prescribe information online.  Just like patients need prescriptions, links to online information can be a great way to inform the patient and let them make informed decisions about their health care.
5. Confer with other health team members online. Find a way to create a social health care network where specialists, pharmacists and therapists can all communicate online with each other about the patient.

Eventually a form of online etiquette may need to be taught in Continuing Medical Education and in Medical School to help standardize the appropriate way to communicate with your patients online.