AR&D Reinventing Local Media

For years, Icann, the overseer of all things .com, .biz, .org, etc., has held a tight grip on top level domains – those letters that can appear after the dot. This has led to some very awkward URLs, with people and companies trying to squeeze variations on their name into the most common .com category.

 Now it looks like any dot goes.

Icann has changed its stripes – er, dots – and is going to permit virtually any word to follow the dot. As in Coca Cola will be able to get .coke if it wants. Your station will be able to purchase .wxxx if you so desire. Icann will still review the applicants, with first preference going to the trademark and copyright owners. It's the control over the URLs companies would have wanted in the first place. A dot landrush.

But what about more generic TLDs? Who gets .hotel, .restaurant or .airline? Those will be settled by auctions – and some are predicting the numbers will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And if your mind is going where the Internet inevitably goes – to the dot dirty word, Icann has a plan for that, too. Sort of. From the New York Times:

Icann officials said any applications for the new domains would have to
go through an independent review process. Third parties will be able to
challenge applications on the grounds that a particular suffix could
threaten “morality and public order.”

So what could possibly go wrong there? An international body deciding what's moral and what constitutes public order? Good luck.

I don't see that Icann had any other choice, lawsuits or not. It's a crowded place, this Internet of ours. And, as you know, we've already run out of the good URLs (ask anyone who has one of those tortured "mylocalABC6site.com" deals). 

Keep an eye on this. I'm not saying you should spend $100 grand on an address. But let's see where this goes.

I made my usual rounds this morning, checking my email, social nets and Twitter. It was on Twitter that I first found out about the death of George Carlin. In fact, others had posted that they, too, found out about Carlin's death via Twitter or Facebook or other social nets.

Local media outlets need to pay attention to this phenomenon. The old saying was "news is what I say it is." Then it was "news is when I say it is." Neither fly anymore. Instead, we have to be a part of the river of news.

Have a Twitter account for your station.Break the news wherever the audience is.

Recently an employee of a station asked me what I thought about how her channel wanted to promote how their website had a local story before anyone else. Should they promote that?

"Just on the site?" I asked. So? What if I didn't visit their site?

How do we shake this broadcast braggery? It's not about beating the other two or three guys in town. It doesn't work that way anymore. It's about being consistent and being ubiquitous. It's about breaking barriers.

Just like George did.

Now that we've had the site lauched for a couple of months, we're in the process of fine tuning. We want ar-d.com to be a place where people return to every day for news and information about our industry. We have imported feeds from sites we respect, and we are building out more blogs from our own staff.

Recently, this would have been unthinkable – at any company. But we preach how "sending people away" is the surest sign they will come back. Be the place where people start looking for information and they will always return. This is Google's entire business model.

We'll also hear "You're just saying that, you're consultants." I can't argue with the former, but really – have you ever received so much free advice from people who were only in it for the money? Yes – this is my job. But I haven't strayed so far from my believe that journalism can be made better by bringing it online, either.I wrote about convergence media for six years before being paid a penny to help anyone about it.

Consultants tell. We listen. So please, share with us your success stories. One thing we do very well is share great stories. Leave out your station name, if you wish. However, keep in mind that the better you look and the better your station looks, the more likely it is you will be hailed as industry leaders.

Share your name and your story, right here. We're in the MediaReinvention together. I'm listening right along with the rest of you. If you're not inclined to post, email me at ssafran (at) ar-d (dot) com.

I'll even share my thoughts on the idea right back.

I recently gave a talk at Promax, the gathering of media creative folks in New York City. The presentation went well, judging by the response. I'll be the first to admit when the room is "dead." This was pretty lively. 

TV Newsday wrote a good, accurate piece on the session.

A MediaPost blog mischaracterized it.

I realize that, when a news subject doesn't like how he comes across, he immediately goes on the defensive. But hear me out.

Reporter Jean Grillo at TV Newsday  wrote "Rethinking TV Station News Sites." She introduced herself to me, so I know she was there.

Writes Grillo:

The solution, he said, is for stations to create their own separate
online company, building a separate site that doesn't even have the
station brand on all its sub-sites but is always searchable and
sharable.

"The goal is not to use this Web site to drive visitors to watch
your local TV newscast," Safran explained. "TV websites are now their
own business, with their own sales staff."

In this new world, local online newscasts must take blog-style
formats, allowing sales to be made by daypart, with news staffs filing
stories constantly, and with the lead story always the most recent
story (not always the most serious news story of the day.)

"And don't load up those news sites with promos for your broadcast news."

To summarize: have the news brand extension sites, and turn them into continuous news-style presentations. Build out lots of sites that aren't slaves to the call-letter brands as well. What works as a brand for news may be of little value (or worse) for a niche vertical. Yes – you may be the trusted source for news. But have you ever found a station that thought "nobody trusts us?"

Contrast that to what Wayne Friedman wrote at the TVWatch blog for MediaPost:

HuluPeoria? Local TV Sites Should Abandon Station Brands, Find New Monikers

New media executive Steve Safran said at Promax that the best way for local TV stations to grow in the Internet space is to establish brand names that are not affiliated with their own local TV stations.

True.

"But the road will be a lot longer to success. The last thing they should do is completely abandon the lone advantage they may have left in the Internet space–that of their brand name."

Whoa. First, show me the evidence that the TV brand name is the lone advantage. I see plenty of empirical evidence it is not. What is an advantage is having great local content that is easily accessable and shareable. See: Boston.com. Your TV audience is older than the Web audience. It's also limiting.

(I don't know if Friedman attended the presentation or if he was playing off the TV Newsday article.)

"If a local TV station calls its Web site WahooTulsaNewsie.com, perhaps this might say something to someone. I'm not sure what. But then more marketing dollars and time will have to go into describing what that is, and why I would need to go there as a trusted news source."

TOTAL Whoa.

This plays into the fallacy that we need to spend tons of marketing bucks every time we launch a Website. We do not. Standalone Websites don't. Think of all the great successful sites from the past five years. What do they have in common? No marketing money.

The Web is not TV.

This wouldn't bother me so much if Wayne Friedman would have acknowledged my attempt to set the record straight. I commented on his blog that A) The headline was dead wrong and B) He mischaracterized my presentation. 

When you have a blog with comments, the expectation is that it's a conversation with your audience. You don't have to make any corrections – you can think that the commenter is full of it. I don't tell reporters what to do.

But I do expect a response. And here, Friedman is left wanting. I got no response. And apparently I'm not alone.

Friedman has chosen to respond to commenters three times in the last six months. This, despite an active community of commenters who create threads sometimes 10 comments deep.

If it's a community you want, you need to be a part of it. Blogging is more than writing something and then going away. It's participating in the conversation. It's going to other blogs and having a great debate. My friend Kirk Varner picked up on the thread and added his thoughts. So I added mine on his site. That's how it works.

A quote (and I wish I could give proper credit): "It's not enough to be on the Web: you need to be Of The Web."

We have to rethink what we call sections and segments. The titles we give are dated and decided by tradition. Not good enough. This can get you into trouble. Doesn't it seem odd that that TV and Web programming news is listed in the New York Times under 'Arts'?

It makes sense that there is an "Arts" section in the New York Times. New York City has a marvelous and constantly changing art world. And there was a time when "Arts" was the right word: Which museum shall we attend today? What exhibit is opening? Is Fred Astaire in that new Broadway show? Who is the conductor at the Philharmonic? And so on.

But as new forms of entertainment came along, they all got crammed in, under a masthead that doesn't quite capture their meaning, nor describe their medium (or quality, for that matter).

I'm not going to go down the path of "What is art?" But surely articles about celebrities, reviews for DVDs and video games, and a whole lot of television don't meet the conventional meaning of art. And they certainly aren't the things that spring to mind for the Web audience when they hear the word "art."

Want a simple focus group: Find a 25-year-old. (Although I bet this works on nearly anyone.) Simply ask: Name five things that you associate with "art." I bet you'll mostly hear about things find in a museum – paintings and sculptures – and then music and maybe theater. (So many musicians and "serious actors" prattling on and on about their art and all…)

So if we're heading our section with the wrong word, what's the point? Tradition? Even cop-out words like "Living," "Life," and that ilk don't cut it. Hey, 25-year-old, what do you associate with "Living?"  

So what's wrong with "Entertainment?"

Too pedestrian? Too dumbed-down? How about "accurate?" How about a word people hear and are immediately interested? Everyone likes to be entertained. People know what they're getting with "entertainment." It will pass the 25-year-old test immediately. More importantly, "entertainment" is a heck of a lot better keyword for search online than "arts." You're in a new city. You're looking for something to do with your family. Are you going to search "Cityname Arts" or "Cityname Entertainment?"

The same holds true for "Business." Old. Staid. Boring. So much of the business section isn't about business. It's about personal finance or items that are in the financial realm and are therefore placed in a business section. But USA Today has this right: you're in the "Money" section. "Business" is a dull word. But what better eyecatching word is there in the English language than "money?"

"Health" is a good choice. That's probably because it's a fairly recent addition to the lineup. Recent by journalism standards, anyway. I bet if it dated to 1920 or so, we'd still be reading the "Medicine" section. 

Sports gets to be "Sports." No confusion there. We don't call it "Athletic Endeavours" or some such 18th century anachronism. "Travel" is great – it's a call to action, for crying out loud. It might as well have an exclamation point on the end. This is our Travel! section. Hey, 25-year-old, Travel! (Actually, I kind of like that. Steal the idea. All yours.)

Update the titles and tell the audience what they're getting. They're searching online now. The more precise you can be, the better. The good news is that you can meta-tag your stories with lots and lots of keywords. This entry will have several meta-tags so people searching for different terms will see this among their options.

As we reinvent, think about every term. How did we come to use it? If we were to start our company today, is it the term we would use?

"Because it's tradition" isn't a good enough answer. "Because it's what the audience wants" is the only answer. 

I remember the early days of the user-generated content debate. It was like proposing heresy. The basic arguments were:

• Nobody can shoot like our pros
• We can't vet the pictures to know if they're "real"
• What if someone sues over them?
• How will we be sure we have permission?

Most sites now accept user submissions. What's really interesting about this is that none of the above concerns have gone away. Pros still shoot like pros. You still can't vet a picture. Someone may still sue. You can't be sure if you have permission – someone could upload someone else's picture. 

But the acceptance of user content has gone from "Forbidden to Compulsory" in most newsrooms, as the reinvention takes hold. So what changed?

It's probably that The Other Guy Did It First. We looked at the landscape and saw our competitors accepting user content and saw that A) Nobody was getting sued and B) The stuff could be pretty darn good. Then we saw the very important C) It can help us tell a story, followed by the critical D) "Hey – we can really make money off photo galleries with user content!"

Now it's commonplace in all but a few holdout sites that we not only accept user content – we invite it. Heck, we even expect it.

But there are holdouts. And to you I point to the amazing work of The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. First things first – the journalists who work there are doing the impossible – reporting on a 500-year flood while keeping their wits about them. Like the New Orleans reporters during Hurricane Katrina, these journalists make the sacrifice of tending to their personal affairs so they can tell the important story.

And right there, beside their work, is that of the community. People – in the middle of a flood! – are contributing pictures of their neighborhood. I suppose they could be faking pictures if they're really good at Photoshop. But I doubt it. This is a case of simply wanting to show the world what is happening to them.

When the China earthquake hit, people who were on Twitter found out about it more than an hour before the news reported it. In this disaster, the community is right there with the newspaper, reporting.

Should we or should we not accept user-submitted content? The argument is over. We're all in this together.

There is little I can add to the tribute to Tim Russert, who died today at age 58. But I will try. Tim was a pro's pro. He was a journalist who wanted nothing so much as to train other journalists. He made "Meet The Press" an absolute must- watch, not just because of the politicians and newsmakers, but because it was such good television.

Russert transcended the role of TV anchor – his personality is irreplaceable. While I'm writing this, I'm watching MSNBC, and they have noted that this weekend is Fathers Day. You know how Russert felt about his father, Big Russ. He loved his son, and he exhorted the rest of us to be better dads. Be a good journalist and an even better father.

What better legacy than that?

Thank you, Mr. Russert.

We're taking the kids to Disney World at the end of the month. Should be fun, if a little hot, right? Well, in an effort to make things easy for us, they have made things utterly, utterly baffling.

First, there's the reservations process. If, like me, you're traveling with an odd number (there are five of us) you're already in trouble. Travel was made for even numbers – especially families of five. If you don't want to get stuck with a second room (and our kids are really too young for that) your choices are limited. Booking online with Disney is an event. At first, it seems like an Expedia process. Not too bad. But you see that they conveniently tack on some higher prices – like the rooms with the better view, the highest priced ticket packages, and a new meal package that I still can't figure out – three days into the process.

When I checked out the prices at the Contemporary for a week, the first quote was – prepare yourself – $9,000. I was ready to stay home. Then I noticed that I could "save" about $4,000 by opting out of the suite they had chosen for me. You really have to navigate around their choices to find the prices you wanted to pay in the first place.

We finally found a resort within our price range that one screen said accepted five people. Only the checkout screen said "maximum 2-4 people." So I called. The helpful woman said "there are rooms with a trundle bed, so you need to request those." Only there is no place online to indicate you want the rooms with the trundle bed. Further, she couldn't help me. I was calling "after hours." 

So here you have me, a customer who wants to purchase something. And I am being turned away at every step by the confusing process. I am being upsold without my approval. When I finally figure out my choices – I can't even make them. I go to one screen that says my choice is available, only to find a second screen that says it is not.

Back to that dining plan.

And I defy you to figure it out without a degree in advanced calculus. Apparently you pay a lot of money up front, and if you do it right, you save about 30% on food.

You get:

1 table service meal

1 quick service meal

1 snack

If I've added that correctly, that means no lunch.

This for $38 for adults and $10 for kids, per day. I've consulted a number of friends, and they recommend the plan. It does seem to require a lot of planning (it's recommended you make dinner reservations), which goes against the spirit of vacationing. But it is Disney, after all – and relaxing is pretty much out of the question. The meal plan is probably Disney's attempt at making your vacation like an "all-inclusive" resort trip. Except that tips aren't included. What's the tip on an apple?

The meal plan goes by points, and reminds me about the old days of "E" tickets. There are tickets good for one point worth of a "sit down" meal. Other tickets are good for "snacks." Some meals require two points. Or something like that. How many points for cotton candy? Or those ice creams shaped like Mickey, but in a really eerie way?

(If any of you have any experience with this inscrutible plan, please let me know. It's above my pay grade. I'll throw in a copy of Terry's book. email: ssafran@ar-d.com.)

This is a classic, classic example of confusing your audience. When I go to your website, I have a specific task in mind (in this case, booking a vacation). I don't care about your goal (upselling me). I want a damn trip. I am willing to spend. But think of how many people must simply give up rather than do business with sites like this.

It's a small world, after all. There are plenty of nice, relaxing beaches.