Marketing
The Kindle: A Viable Platform for Local News Organizations? Not Likely.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 09/01/2009 - 10:58Since the advent of electronic paper, analysts have written about the potential of this technology to save local newspapers. Amazon’s introduction of the Kindle added to these discussions. However, it is worth taking a closer look.
Back in May, Engadget reported that “Amazon takes 70 percent of Kindle newspaper revenues”. Yet still, you can find the larger papers, like the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe on Kindle. The question is, even with the excessive cut that Amazon takes, can it be a viable platform for smaller local papers. A quick search for Connecticut papers did not turn up any.
Yet Amazon has introduced a new product that has potential to bring smaller news sites online. Kindle Publishing for Blogs is currently available in beta. Just about any blogger can go to the website and get their blog listed. Amazon will charge 99 cents for a monthly subscription to the blog and like with newspapers, keep 70%. I know quite a few bloggers that have set their blog up on Kindle this way, but know of none that have received any revenues yet.
I discussed this with a group of journalists focusing on emerging trends in journalism. The group is made up of professors, journalists at online sites as well as journalists working for traditional organizations. None had used Kindle publishing. One editor who runs a very successful online news site published in blog format expressed a concern about using Kindle Publisher for Blogs. She did not want her site “to be sequestered off in ‘blogland’”. She asked if there was some way to get the folks at Amazon to consider sites like hers for the Kindle.
I sent a request to Kindle Blog Publishing Team, which was one of the few addresses I could find for people working with the Kindle at Amazon asking about this. The response I received was that there was “a different team who work for news content on Kindle”. This was no surprise, and I had hoped that I would be given the contact information for that team, or had my request forwarded to that team.
Instead, they asked for a specific query from the editor which they would then forward to the news content team. I sent a follow-up asking if they could send me the contact information since I am dealing with several online news sites. They responded that they are not able to share contact information for the news team. I sent yet another follow-up urging them to reconsider their request and perhaps forward my response onward. I have not yet heard back from them.
Today, the Examiner has an article stating Ereader sales set to explode, but the Kindle may not reign supreme. It notes research by iSuppli claiming that currently Kindle has 45% market share and Sony has 30% of the market.
As the market grows people will look closely at what is available for their ereaders. Amazon, as an online bookstore, is well positioned to provide content. However, their approach towards news organizations may drive more and more content providers to other platforms, which in turn will drive ereader buyers to other platforms.
Ereaders may yet provide a viable platform for local news organizations, however, unless Amazon changes its tune, those ereaders are likely to be provided by someone else.
(Originally published at Digiday:Daily.)
Progressive Blogs and Citizen Journalists on Kindle
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 08/30/2009 - 11:50Recently, I've been getting into some discussions about monetizing blogs and specifically about Kindle Publishing. Kindle Publishing allows a blogger to publish their blog on Kindle. It costs 99 cents a month to subscribe to a blog on Kindle, and Amazon returns 30% of that to the blogger.
I've set up Orient Lodge on Kindle but don't have any Kindle subscribers yet. So far, I've found a few other good progressive blogs on Kindle. They include Burnt Orange Nation and Capitol Annex.
In addition, the Center for Independent Media has a strong presence on Kindle, including the Colorado Independent, the Iowa Independent, the Minnesota Independent, the Michigan Messenger, the New Mexico Independent, and the Washington Independent.
So, are you on Kindle? If so, let me know where.
Follow Friday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 17:13@MaureenCole @shelisrael @lizstrauss @jdlasica @kdpaine @scottmonty @MissRogue @veronica @gapingvoid @sreenet @gartenberg @briansolis @stevecla @sncr @scobleizer @thornley @tobydiva
Well, it has been a busy Friday and I'm only now getting a chance to write my Follow Friday post. I actually started planning this post a few days ago, when I received a review copy of TwitterVille by Shel Israel.
I receive my share of books for review, and have noted that books that I receive about Twitter do not have the Twitter handle of the publicists or people being quoted. Twitterville is different.
@MaureenCole works is a "Publicist at Portfolio, the business book imprint of Penguin Group". The letter accompanying Shel's book provided her contact information, including her id on Twitter. Kudos to Maureen for including it. Then, of course, there is the author, @shelisrael. I've followed Shel on Twitter and in his other writings, so I already knew his Twitter id, even though I'm not finding it in the book.
The cover letter included 'Advance Praise for TWITTERVILLE' which had various quotes found in the book or on the cover. All of the quotes had the twitter ids of the people being quoted.
Inside the book are quotes from @lizstrauss @jdlasica @kdpaine and someone identified as a 'social media consultant' that didn't list a Twitter id.
On the back cover were quotes from @scottmonty @MissRogue @veronica @gapingvoid @sreenet @gartenberg @briansolis @stevecla @sncr @scobleizer @thornley @tobydiva. All of these people have important things to say about social media, besides simply praising Shel's book. Most of them I had already been following and are well enough known not to require any sort of introduction. For those that you don't know, check out their Twitter page. You can find more than enough information about the people there.
As I read through the book, there are frequent references to people in Twitter, and so perhaps I'll have another Twitterville related Follow Friday next week or in some subsequent week.
Let me end by saying that if you're new to twitter, these are great people to follow, to get a sense of what is going on with Twitter. With that, I'm off to my weekend. More later.
Liveblogging a Conversation about Reading Twitterville
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 12:34Yesterday, I receive a review copy of Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods by Shel Israel. I started to read it beside the Country Club of Woodbridge swimming pool and thinking about how best to review the book. I'm only thirty pages into it so far, so I'm not ready to write a more traditional review.
However, one of the key points, at least in the beginning of the book is about how we are moving from an era of broadcast to an era of conversation. Twitter is a great tool to join into a conversation that may apply to your brand, your life, or anything else you want to talk about. With this in mind, I thought that it might be interesting to write a different sort of blog post, sort of like carrying on a conversation about the book and perhaps even like live blogging it.
So, I may have assorted posts up on Twitter about reading Twitterville. I'll also take time to share random thoughts about the book as I read through it.
This isn't a completely new idea for me. A while ago, I was rereading Blue Highways: A Journey into America
Meanwhile, back in Twitterville, the first thing that I noticed is that so many people are referenced by their twitter handles. If only to get a good list of interesting people to follow on Twitter, this book is worth it. I'll mention some of them in subsequent posts.
Arrested
Shel starts off the introduction to his book by talking about when James Buck was arrested and posted that single word in Twitter. Arrested. It can mean to be taken into custody by the authorities. Yet there is another meaning to the word arrested. It can mean to stop. The moment that James' tweet reached Shel, through a serious of re-tweets, it seems to have stopped Shel in his tracks and caused him to rethink his views about Twitter. That is a great thing about Twitter. Through your network of friends you are likely, if you are open to it, to stumble across tweets that stop you in your tracks and make you think. To me, this is a good thing.
Joining the Conversation
As I noted above, an important focus about this book is on the conversations that take place within Twitter. Mr. Israel is a journalist who understands the responsibility of putting information into context, into a story that people can understand. I look forward to some of the stories that he will be telling. He also puts the nature of conversations into context as he talks about The Cluetrain Manifesto
Twitterville examines the inefficiency of traditional marketing. It argues the case for using social media instead of ads. It argues that from a business perspective, Twitter is the most effective tool yet delivered into the growing arsenal of social media tools.
As I read this, I thought about the various Digiday events. I would love to hear Shel speak there.
The History of Twitter
One thing that always causes me to pause is when I stumble across comments about how Twitter Inc was formed in October, 2006. My first tweet was in October 2006 and I have to go back and double check, did I in fact tweet the first month they were incorporated? Yup.
Shel also does a good job of talking about how Twitter started, where the team came from and capturing some of the development ethos.
So far, I'm enjoying the book. Anyone else have a review copy and want to join the discussion? Do you have thoughts about what you've read about the book, either here or other places? Let me know.
Blog Advertising - EntreCard, Adgitize, and Beyond
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 09:23There are several sites that bloggers use to try and drive traffic to their own sites, and Entrecard, one of the most discussed sites has recently announce yet another change in service. It seems like every few months, EntreCard announces yet another major change which further alienates their users. There former scheme was that when you 'drop' and EntreCard, you receive one credit, as does the blog that you drop your card on. Credits are removed from the system by the large cut that EntreCard takes on advertisements.
The problem, according to EntreCard is that there continues to be more credits generated than removed from the system and this is generating advertising inflation, they claim. To address this, they are looking at changing the scheme to pay credits only if someone drops on a blog, and not to the blog that will be dropped on.
They have not provided any detailed numbers about the number of credits in circulation, nor have I seen an inflationary impact of such credits. Indeed, based on my experience, there was a major deflation of advertising costs when they introduced paid advertisements, which they have removed due to user backlash. There was inflation in advertising costs after they removed the paid advertising. It briefly reached back to the level prior to the paid advertising fiasco but has now fallen back a bit. I should note that this is based on the ratio of advertising price to popularity which is a loose proxy to cost per impressions.
How much of an effect will this have? It is hard to say. For people that advertise solely for the purpose of getting people to visit their blog, it shouldn't have a substantial effect. However, many people advertise, in part, to get credits from people clicking on their ads. This incentive is being removed, and could end up reducing the demand for advertisements.
For me, I'm careful not to flood the market with too many advertisements. Too many ads are infective since people are likely to only visit your site once a day, no matter how many times they see your ad. So, a decrease in demand for advertisements is likely to cause larger advertisers to curtail some of their advertising.
In the bigger picture, EntreCard needs to do something to address their declining market share. I have move a bit of my advertising over to Adgitize. They have a different model. You have to buy advertisements with real currency. They cost $14/month. However, based on the traffic you get, you can easily earn back more than the cost of your advertisement. For me, Adgitize is generating cash for me, as well as nearly twice as much traffic as EntreCard.
Another blog advertising site is CMF Ads. Adgitize and EntreCard both have been generating much more traffic for me than CMF Ads. CMF Ads doesn't have incentives for people to click on the ads, but I've found the bounce rate and time on site from people visiting from CMF Ads to not be substantially different for people visiting from Adgitize or EntreCard. They have been fairly effective in generating revenue, but like EntreCard and unlike Adgitize, I have not 'cashed out' any revenue from them. Adgitize sends me a monthly credit on Paypal.
Another site that generates a lot of traffic for me is BlogExplosion. They are similar to EntreCard and the others in that you get traffic directed to your site based on which other sites you visit. In there case, it is much more direct. You get credits for visiting a site, and those credits get used to send people to our site. They've been around for a long time and have driven a lot of traffic to my site. On the other hand, they've had problems with tech support and their future also remains dubious.
All of this said, blog advertising can be a great way of reaching new readers. What is much more important, however, is having content that people want to read. Getting discussions going about your content on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Friend Feed, and comment systems like Disqus can be even more significant.
So, what are your thoughts about EntreCard today? How are you driving traffic to your site? What are you doing to keep people coming back?
