Three Innovative Journalism Business Models
We all know that print media is suffering. Magazines and, in particular, newspapers are cutting jobs and shutting up shop due to declining ad revenues and the increasing importance of the web.
Needless to say this is making a lot of journalists more than a little worried. But it should also be worrying anyone (this site included) that sees unbiased, fact-based journalism as a vital part of a healthy society.
Journalism Needs New Business Models
In short, we need to start finding new ways to pay for journalism. And although many of the ‘traditional’ media’s woes can be traced back to the web, the web may also be part of the solution.
Not only are established media organisations investing more heavily in online media (both web-native content and online versions of print publications) and finding new ways to generate revenues from them, but new business models are also starting to emerge that may change the way journalism works.
We’ve picked out three new business models (some primarily online, some off) which we feel bring something interesting to the table:
- new startup True/Slant,
- philanthropy-funded Propublica
- and the community-funded model of Spot.us.
True/Slant: Journalists as Micro Publishers
Run by a former news editor from America Online, the site has launched with 65 journalists reporting on everything from business to politics to culture and sports.
Although it relies primarily on a traditional advertising-funded model, True/Slant has introduced two interesting elements which help set it apart. Firstly, each contributing journalist is paid only a modest salary – their real earnings potential comes from a share of the advertising sold within their own dedicated section of the website.
The better the journos get at attracting and fostering a community around their content, the more they will earn. Although this revenue share model is fairly common online, it is more usually applied to user generated content rather than professional contributors.
Perhaps more contentiously, True/Slant is also offering advertisers the opportunity to maintain their own blog-based sections within the site in a cross between advertorial and custom publishing. For some, this may cross a few journalistic boundaries but with the growing interest in custom publishing it will likely appeal to progressive advertisers.
Propublica: Investigative Journalism for the Public Good
Investigative journalism is time consuming, costly and often speculative. As such, it’s no wonder that many news organisations see it as a luxury. Indeed, Propublica quotes the following study on their website:
“a 2005 survey by Arizona State University of the 100 largest U.S. daily newspapers showed that 37% had no full-time investigative reporters, a majority had two or fewer such reporters, and only 10% had four or more.”
Unfortunately, it is exactly this kind of investigative journalism that is arguably the most beneficial to society. By creating an independent newsroom – employing over 30 full-time investigative journalists – Propublica addresses this issue head on. What’s more, it’s fully-funded through philanthropic contributions.
The fruits of their labors are made available, for free, for publication by existing media organisations and for public consumption via their website.
(See also an interesting – if undeveloped – take on the idea from a dozen UK journalists under the less catchy title The Foundation for Investigative Reporting)
Spot.us: Investigative Journalism for Hire
Spot.us takes perhaps, the most direct approach. The site describes itself as an open source project, to pioneer “community funded reporting.”
In practice that means that the public can contribute ‘tips’ for stories that they’d like to see covered. Journalists then pitch their story ideas to the Spot.us community who can then choose to fund these stories directly. The final piece is either bought by an existing news organisation (at which point any donations are returned) or published under a Creative Commons license.
What’s the Answer?
Ultimately the future of journalism (both on and offline) will probably blend bits and pieces of numerous business models – with every publisher utilising it’s own unique combination of advertising, sponsorship, paid for content, ‘freemium’ content, micropayments, joint venture deals and even ecommerce.
Whether or not this will be sufficient to maintain the news business in its current format is unclear (but unlikely).
Affiliate Marketing
If you have ever thought about starting a legitimate home-based business, this is probably the best time to start one. With heaps of opportunities available online, making money with internet marketing has become easier than it ever was. Take affiliate marketing for example, you can start building your online business through affiliate marketing with an investment as low as $50. If you have no idea how to start a small business online, the article below would help you setting up a plan for your online business.
The best thing about affiliate marketing is that it requires almost zero capital. You can literally start from $50 and make a hundred thousand or even more just within a year. All you need to start off is a website and a small business web hosting account. In this article I am going to discuss 5 essential steps to tell you how to make a lot of money by affiliate marketing.
1- Research
Before you start looking for a product to promote, you need to do an extensive research. You do not want to dive into a niche where there might be a lot of traffic but no money because people are just looking for some free information, or a niche where there is way too much competition for a newcomer to attract any audience. Use tools like Google trends and Twitter search to look for hot trends and then visit sites like Yahoo Answers to find out what kind of solutions people are looking for in your niche. Make sure you pick a niche where there is audience that is willing to spend money for quality products.
2- Select a product
You need to find a product in your niche that has moderate popularity and lesser affiliate competition. It is always good to first try the product before you start promoting it. Go through the sales page and make sure it is good enough to capture visitors and turn them into customers. A strong sales page can make all the difference.
3- Promote
Now that you have done your initial research and selected a great product, it is time to promote it. This is going to be the key to your success. You need to have a strong presell page. Do not send your visitors directly to your affiliate link. Later I’ll explain to you why you don’t want to do this. Drive traffic — targeted traffic to your presell page, there are lots of methods that you can use for this purpose, but first - here you need to do another research and find out your targeted keywords with low competition and comparatively higher monthly search volume, this can be done using a good keyword research tool and then drive traffic using Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing, article marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) for your selected keywords. Remember it’s not about getting lots and lots of visitors but few very targeted visitors.
4- Build a list
Now here is why you do not want to send your visitors directly to your affiliate link. Force your visitors to opt-in if they want to see your offer. Yes! Force them, if they can’t even give you their name and email, there’s not much chance they would buy the product. Using this method, not only will you be able to filter out the visitors that are not interested but you’ll also be building a list at the same time. It’s important to build a good relationship with your subscribers, don’t pitch them a new product every day. Instead provide them free information and build credibility so they can trust you and leverage your list when you find a product worth promoting. After completing these four steps, you’ll be able to actually see how to make a lot of money of money by affiliate marketing.
5- Rinse and repeat
That’s right, now that you know how to make a lot of money by affiliate marketing all you have to do is repeat the process because once you have setup a successful campaign it won’t need more than a couple of hours a week to maintain it.
Crowdsourced Innovation for the Common Good
For better or worse, much of the buzz around leveraging the wisdom of the crowds has been around open source efforts like Linux, customer-driven sites like MyStarbucksIdea, and incentivized commercial innovation efforts like InnoCentive, Idea Connection, and the Cisco iPrize.
Less noise has been made around crowdsourcing efforts for the greater good that seek to change our world for the better.
People may be well aware of efforts such as these:
- The Xprize Foundation, which has already awarded a $10 million prize to the first private team to launch a rocket into space. The first Xprize ignited a $1 Billion private space industry and the minds of millions of children in the process. The foundation now has four new public challenges – the Google Lunar Xprize, the Progressive Automotive Xprize (100 mpg cars), the Archon Xprize for Genomics (fast genome sequencing), and the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.
- The Freedom Prize Foundation will be awarding over $4 Million in Freedom Prizes to inspire Industry, Schools, Government, Military, and Communities to significantly reduce their use of oil, thereby promoting America’s national security, economic prosperity and health. The foundation is focused on inspiring what can be done today to start getting the United States off oil.
But there are also lesser-known organizations like these:
- Ashoka’s Changemakers is a community of action where people can collaborate on solutions to world problems. The community provides the platform for people to attack projects one idea at a time as they attempt to solve the world’s most pressing social problems.
- philOptima is a site focused on connecting researchers with grant makers. They work primarily in education, health, public safety, governmental oversight, and the environment.
- my health innovation is a newcomer similar to MyStarbucksIdea, but focused on collecting innovative health care ideas and getting hospitals, caregivers and patients to use them. They want to make the experience of health care as close to perfect as possible.
Does ‘For Good’ Crowdsourced Innovation Work?
Proof that it does has just arrived in the form of the renewal of a partnership between the Rockefeller Foundation and InnoCentive to link non-profit organizations to more than 175,000 world-class scientific thinkers to help develop solutions for their work on behalf of the world’s most poor and vulnerable populations. The partnership was launched in 2006, and so far the two organizations have run ten challenges, resulting in an astonishing 80 percent success rate.
Non-profits can apply, through the Rockefeller Foundation, to place their organization’s scientific or technological Challenges on InnoCentive’s Website. The Rockefeller Foundation will choose the proposal that best fits its needs and fund the award given to the Solver using a grant.
Will this proven success inspire more scientists, non-profits, and companies to participate in open innovation for the greater good?
One can only hope.
About the Author: Braden Kelley, Founder of Business Strategy Innovation and author of Blogging Innovation, has been advising companies on how to increase their revenue and cut their costs since 1996. He has maximized profits for companies in Japan, Germany, England, and the United States.
AgencyNil: The Pay-What-You-Like Ad Agency
Describe the business model of a typical ad agency, and you’d be hard-pushed to use the words ‘meritocratic’ and ‘pioneering’ in the same sentence. Well, one agency has bucked the status quo for fat fees and retainers, and (shock, horror!) has decided to let its customers pay-what-they-like.
Much in the same vein as name-your-price holidays and restaurants, AgencyNil have taken the brave step of letting their talents determine their worth, and let their clients decide what to pay.
The logic behind it is straight-forward enough. At the same time as clients are cutting advertising expenditure, there are also plenty of talented ad folk being made redundant and new grads making their way onto the market.
Here’s the founder’s take (via BBH Labs):
“ENTER: the young, hungry, talented, not-afraid-to-take-a-risk individuals coming out of portfolio schools, graduate programs, and those from agencies – recently laid off but not yet spoiled by a big paycheck.
We can do the work, have the confidence and skills to do it well, we’re complete digital natives, and we don’t mind taking the risk of saying “don’t pay anything up front, then. We’ll do the work and if you like it, then pay us whatever you think is fair.” We’ll prove it.
It works out nicely for both parties. The agencies can feel like they’re shaving big percentages off of their expenditures and we the workers wind up doing better in the long run than getting sporadic freelance at a high rate. And we’re learning as we go . . .”
How AgencyNil Works
Potential clients submit a request via email, and AgencyNil pull a team together from their bank of between-jobber advertising professionals and smart graduates. They complete the brief in the time specified, and the client then decides what it’s worth. Any further tweaks or revisions are agreed once the first tranche of work has been paid for.
Cheaper than using freelancers, and better than relying on interns to crack a creative challenge, AgencyNil have explicitly outlined their belief that; “Advertising has evolved..there is no more advertising.. it’s a conversation that changes every hour” , and are self-declared digital natives.
Is this a visionary model for struggling agencies in a floundering economic climate?
Although they’ve been nimble enough to see beyond the linear model most agencies use – and realise that freelancers aren’t in consistent enough demand – will the businesses they’re targeting be willing to adopt this way of working?
It’ll be an interesting sell, but if they can prove their worth …
Site: www.agencynil.com
‘Mommy Blogging’ – the New Superpower of the Digital World
Don’t let the cutesy name fool you – there’s a movement of parent bloggers out there, with savvy marketing acumen and powerful influencing muscle, who are cultivating some pretty big networks.
Advertising Age’s recent report, ‘Inside the Mommy Blogger Business’ , uncovers how Mommy Blogging is increasingly becoming a powerful digital force revolutionising the marketing practices of the world’s largest companies.
Case in point: companies like Wal-Mart are embracing mommy bloggers as key influencers. The retail giant is now sponsoring 12 official mommy bloggers in a professional capacity to review products and publish feedback.
Elevenmoms is a subsidiary of the WalMart website, and there is a direct link from these mommy blogs to the WalMart shopping page. The site describes the genesis of the idea:
“For many months, we’ve been engaged in social media platforms that generate discussion about money saving products and services. Sites and services such as Walmart’s Checkout blog, Customer Ratings and Reviews, and MakeYourDollarStretch.com have given our customers a forum to learn about products and share ideas for saving money.
The question was, how do we support and build upon existing money saving communities? Soon it became clear that we should reach out to the many great writers who are already blogging about great money saving ideas.” (www.instoresnow.walmart.com)
Nobody has yet been able to tangibly measure the business impact these parents have created through their online efforts. What we can track is that a huge percentage of moms go online – to use social networking sites, visit shopping sites, and engage as both readers and creators of blogs.
Mums make up 40% of all females going online, according to a report from BlogHer, a community for women who blog. It also showed that 8m women publish blogs, and 27m women read blogs.
On an individual level these blogs provide a differentiated and trusting voice, enabling women to connect with someone like them on a personal basis. And indeed, this is how most Mommy Blogs are intended – as a way to communicate and share ideas with an extended network of friends and acquaintances.
Some Mommy Bloggers do go on to become high-profile bloggers in their niches – and become equally high-profile targets for brands to connect with. Others will never reach more than a few hundred people in their own personal network. Either way, from the corporate perspective Mommy Bloggers – individually or collectively – represent the voices of hundreds of thousands of mums providing invaluable feedback and influencing others in the market.
Advertisers have always struggled to connect effectively with the half of the market that controls the majority of household expenditure. The exciting thing about this movement is that Mommy Bloggers are not just talking about themselves – they’re also spending on behalf for their families – so are plugged into multiple product categories. In fact, it’s been such a force, marketing & PR agencies are even adding mommy blogging to their list of services.
So, should this approach inform every company’s social media strategy – engaging with specific influential individuals to get the word out about their products?
Booking the Cooks
Food is big business online. From video sites like Look and Taste and iFood.tv, to ubiquitous recipe sites and restaurant guides, to marketplaces like Foodzie - everyone wants a slice of the proverbial cake.
BookofCooks.com is the latest entry into the market and is described as:
“an online resource connecting culinary professionals and foodies in the world’s first prepared foods marketplace. Incorporating the latest social networking technology, the Web site serves as an online community to help people locally find professional chefs, caterers, specialty foods and more within a particular region …”
In practice the site acts like a directory of food professionals – primarily caterers – who can use the site to showcase their menus and images / videos of themselves in action. For existing catering professionals, it’s a simple way to attract some new business.
For gifted amateurs (or professionals looking to start out on their own) the site offers a simple, and free, opportunity to set up a ‘virtual’ bakery, home delivery restaurant or catering business. Presumably, even someone with just one ‘great dish’ could earn a few dollars sharing their food with people in their area.
Visitors can use the site to find cooks in their area to deliver prepared food, cater an event, cook for you in your home or even work with you to create a great meal. Users and listed cooks connect directly via the phone number or email address the cook lists in their profiles, so the actual agreement might be anything that the two parties come up with.
It’s a great idea. In particular, the chance for amateurs or part-time foodies to earn via the site could be a huge attraction.
That said, the challenge for Bookof Cooks is the same as for any directory or social network – scale. And, as usual, it’s a chicken and egg dilemma: you need chefs and caterers to create detailed profiles to encourage users to use the site, but you need users on the site to encourage chefs and caterers to create those profiles.
What’s more, as the site is free to join and use, the founders will need to find innovative revenues streams beyond simple advertising. A BookofCooks iPhone app could be one option, as could partnerships with cookery schools and corporate caterers.
It’ll be interesting to see how the site grows and responds to these challenges.
Professional Psychic Reading
Life is an intricate process, each constituent requires its fair share of balance but sometimes rushing our way through it we forget to tip the balance and uncertainties start populating and stealing our peace of mind. At times like these we turn to our friends and dearest to tell the story of our woes, seeking help and a fresh perspective. It doesn’t take long to realize that the friends and family sure provide you a comfort zone to tap into and relax for a while but the problems are still there and you have to tackle them yourself. Does it mean that you have to learn to live with your misery! No, it means that you need to seek the help of someone who has the ability to see and feel your problem just as your mind does. A psychic is exactly the person who can do that.
Professional psychic reading can give you a great insight of your life, most certainly you will find out things about yourself that you were never consciously aware of. If you have a specific problem that other people just don’t seem to understand and you feel the desire for an urgent solution because the problem is stressing you out, a professional psychic reading can help you relax by giving you a perspective that will make your problem much easier than it first felt.
When you meet a psychic or call a psychic on a psychic line and as the discussion builds up, you will find all sorts of questions popping one after another in your head. The best solution to this is to prioritize your questions based on your concerns. You do not want to regret forgetting the most important question later. Online psychic reading eliminates this problem, because when you are seeking help of a psychic through email psychic readings you do not have to worry about forgetting an important question.
It is also very important to know that what to expect from a professional psychic reading. Although there are lots of great psychic out there but you must do your own due diligence in order to make certain that the advices and insights you are going to receive are coming through to you from a clean channel. In my opinion it is probably easier to look for a psychic on the internet because you can search for reviews and suggestions from people at forums and discussion board and you can decide what’s best for you based on people’s opinion and your instinct.
Professional psychic reading is a rare expertise but a very important one that has brought peace to many people’s lives and gave them hope when there wasn’t any. If you have heard success stories of people who were helped by a psychic when things weren’t making any sense and almost everything and everyone failed to help them, you would agree that professional psychic reading is something that has helped people with all kinds of problems, whether they are related to career, relationships or a very unique problem of its own kind, medium psychics have been bringing peace to people’s lives with the help of their extra sensory perception abilities. So whether it is a problem that doesn’t seem to make any sense or a common problem that we all experience through our lives, professional psychic reading can provide you find solutions that can make things a lot easier.
KickAss Onsite Search Drives More Sales
Sometimes the answer isn’t inventing the coolest new idea but rather drastically improving and reimagining an existing technology or business.
Robert Scoble posted a recent interview with UK-based search technology company, PrismaStar – discussing their new offering AnswerOil. In simple terms, AnswerOil makes searching for products within an ecommerce environment MUCH easier – and has led to 30-40% increases in conversion (i.e. the percentage of website visitors who go on to buy) as a result.
It’s also pretty slick looking too.
The video above (via Building 43) does a much better job of explaining it but in short, AnswerOil allows users to define – and prioritise – multiple variables in their search criteria – criteria which extend well beyond simple categorisation.
In the example shown in the video, a user can search for the cheapest, thinnest, red or pink camera from a list of over 500 models. If then for example, price is most important to you, you can make that the priority by adjusting a simple slider.
If customers can find what they want more accurately – and faster – then they have less incentive to go elsewhere to look for it. That’s not only great for online retailers but should also be an ideal fit for comparison sites (where for example, you could define and prioritise the criteria of your credit card or airline ticket).
Perhaps most intriguingly, AnswerOil can also provide site owners with information not only about what people search for and bought, but also why they did and what features / factors were important to them.
If the improved metrics of their initial rollout continue to standup, expect to see this technology become the industry standard in ecommerce and potentially beyond. In fact, for more universal search services (i.e. Google or Bing), the ability for users to create priorities – and for site owners and advertisers to understand their actions – could be a game changer.
Site: www.prismastar.com
Coke Freestyle Machines Mix New Secret Recipe
There’s more to Coca-Cola than just brown fizzy drinks. The company owns hundreds of brands and variations covering everything from juices to bottled waters.
Unfortunately, putting all those options on display in your local fast food outlet would be a little impractical – and so most dispensers stick to a few favourites. Although these options can be localised based on regional preferences, there are still a lot of people who walk away dissappointed with the (lack of) choice.
Enter ‘Freestyle’, Coke’s new RFID-based drinks dispenser that’s being trialled in selected US states this summer. The dispenser uses a touchscreen interface to allow customers to choose from over 100 different options, mixed to order from 30 different flavour cartridges.
Most interestingly, each cartridge is fitted with an RFID tag which feeds data on consumption to a reader built into the machine. The reader, in turn, sends the data via private network to Coke’s head office.
This real time data can then be used to help trial new products, track regional trends and preferences and potentially (I’d guess) even test market messages as displayed on Freestyle screens.
The restaurants leasing the machines from Coke benefit too. They’ll be able to access data on beverage preferences via a proprietary e-business portal, helping with inventory control.
Freestyle dispensers provide Coke with hugely valuable data – potentially reducing the number of new product failures – and give consumers more choice than ever before – likely leading to an increase in sales.
Not bad for a drinks machine.
Exotic Moroccan Furniture
In this time when mass produced furniture is usually what we see stuffed in all rooms of all houses and other places, there is an increasing demand for high quality hand crafted furniture because the elegant and personal look and feel that it brings to your home is irreplaceable. When you are looking for opulently elegant and simplistic piece of hand crafted furniture, believe me, there’s no option better than Moroccan furniture. Moroccan furniture is widely available on the web but it’s not all same. How? You would ask, let me tell you something, the substitute for quality does not exist and a replica of genuine hand crafted furniture is just not quality.
Have you ever noticed how long you search for the right furniture or how much time you spend in a furniture shop when you are planning to decorate your house? Yes! You go around looking at whatever is available out there till your heart sets on something and that usually does not happen unless you have seen all kind of furniture a few times over and over again, you do this because when you are decorating your house, you do not want it to look like it was built in an assembly line with thousands of other houses that all look alike with same dry and dull mass produced furniture.
Moroccan furniture brings that exact magnificent style to your house that you are looking for. It’s not just Moroccan furniture but the complete Moroccan décor theme that makes it stand out, for instance, the rich and colourful Moroccan tiles, Moroccan sofa and Moroccan bedding give your house a serene feel while keeping it simple and elegant. So, where should you look for the best quality Moroccan furniture? Well, I am going to let you benefit from my experience, CasbahDecor.com is the only website you need to visit if you are looking for genuine and high quality Moroccan furniture. The diversified variety they provide is breath taking and the quality and service is simply the best I could find out there. So, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, you should contact CasbahDecor.com and I am sure they will be able to help you with your specific requirements.
