New business models for newspapers

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These are tough times for traditional news institutions. The world around them, technologically speaking, is changing at a frantic pace. The Web 2.0 read-write paradigm means consumers appear to want hands-on interactivity. And they want it for free.

The roll call of newspapers shutting down continues to rise, particularly in the USA. Does all of this spell gloom and doom for the journalists, editors, photographers and others involved in the craft of societal storytelling? Perhaps not. The signs are that alternative models will arise, and opportunities, hitherto unseen, will come sharply into focus. 

Here are two contrasting yet in some ways complementary views of where the news industry is and where it might end up.

Michael Rosenblum, the godfather of videojournalism, sees the move to visual communication in a multi-platform environment as one of the drivers for change. Content must cease to be static and evolve into a multi-dimensional offering.

Nicholas Carr offers a detailed review of how eventually we may end up making micro-payments for news-oriented content, however unpalatable that might seem now.

The bottom line for me is that how things were can't be the way that things will be. I look at my students, some of them as young as 11, turning out documentaries, making interactive PDF content for online delivery, recording podcasts, and see a paradigm shift in user expectations. It might be wrong to assume that future consumers will want to be active participants on a regular basis. It might be correct to suppose they will be looking for multimodal models of content delivery. 

The successful providers of advertising and sponsorship platforms will be those that understand this future reality and prepare for it now.  

Colour blind to radical change

BBC - EastEnders - Pictures - Galleries

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Somehow I missed the press coverage of the fact that on Tuesday night BBC1 played its first ever episode of the long running hit soap opera, East Enders, with an entirely black cast. 

23 years is a long time to wait for such an event, thus explaining the media news coverage.

Anyway, I watched the show, munched my dinner, and the only thought that crossed my mind was that it was another sparkling episode, with good acting, a strong narrative, and important moral issues raised. Of course, the nature of soaps means this doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, the BBC scriptwriters tend to get it just right.

The drama centred round collective history, the early race riots in Notting Hill in 1958, how that led to the creation of the now world-famous August Carnival, issues of active and passive resistance, and the need to know one's roots. Family secrets was another narrative motif that drove the storyline throughout the episode.

I found myself reflecting on the time, many years ago, when I worked as a radio reporter, and went to interview one of the early organisers of London's Notting Hill Carnival (whose name, shamefully, I cannot recall). I was honoured to be invited into the family home, accompany a range of cousins, arts, uncles, nephews and nieces, out onto the streets for the day. I got to ride on one of the famous floats, and left late in the evening with a strong sense of community spirit. 

One of the slogans of the early Carnival events was, 'A people's art is the genesis of their freedom'.  Tonight, I hope that a stand for freedom was made by the BBC, when it showed us that when it comes down to it, good acting and strong scripts are at the core of great drama. Skin colour is a powerful signifier and brings with it numerous connotations that can be deciphered, mediated and interpreted by audiences in a myriad of ways. Let us hope that in future it's the story that grabs the headlines, rather than the skin colour. It's high time channel producers ensured mainstream drama encompasses the diversity of Great Britain, so that commentaries such as this need not be repeated.

Digital tools for online learning

One of the fascinating aspects of the Web 2.0 read/write web is the speed at which solutions appear.

Here are two that have grabbed my eye over the last week.

The first is an online Learning Management System (LMS) called Studeous. There are lots of LMS options around, most of them costing thousands of pounds to instal and administer. Studeous has taken a rather different business model and is very much focused on harnessing Web 2.0 tools (like blogs, wikis, secure email) into one interface that any teacher can use, without training.

The other innovative aspect to Studeous is that it's free for teachers to use. I've set up an account and will aim to play with it ove the next few weeks. I imagine that the aim is to get individual teachers who are interested in this personalised LMS approach to become pathfinders, and then use them as the marketeers within their schools. 

Should a school wish to purchase a whole-school system it runs at an afforable $2,995 a year. So far, I like the look of its design and think it offers some useful features. Sadly, I don't think the free text to all your students facility is available in the UK yet. Nonetheless, Studeous gives us a glimpse into how radically the transfer of information and knowledge is likely to be, and how the production of multimedia based learning resources and responses might possibly evolve.

The other tool that I found fascinating is aimed more at business training users, but again, shows how learning could develop in the near future. Chalk allows multimedia learning content to be produced easily and sent to Blackberry smartphones. Again, it's a pointer to the way in which many teachers and students now carry powerful computers in their pockets, whose use for learning has barely been explored. Expect that to change dramatically over the next couple of years.

There's no doubting that the ways in which teachers and students communicate and collaborate is on the cusp of great change. The trick will be in navigating both parties to the right solutions for the most appropriate of tasks.

Digital lives captured in a myriad of pictures

I've just come across the work of Jonathan Jarvis, a Master of Fine Arts student at the Art Center College of Design in California.

His work and thoughts are insightful and powerful. Jarvis is looking and thinking deeply about what the world of the digital native is going to look like. He has a specific interest in the spaces between humans and objects, as well as human to human interactions. How can these be captured? What do they tell us that we don't already know, and how might that be put to good use?

I'll give you three quick examples of where his skill in art, design, interaction, and communication are leading him. The first is a posting about how digital natives will be able to view their lives pictorially, thanks to the power of social networks and tagging. Read all about it here. The second is his observations on the act of drawing. Jarvis decided to set himself the task of drawing a sketch, on his computer, for thirty minutes, each day. He captured this process and turned the activity itself into a meaningful text. See more here.

Finally, Jarvis has produced an exquisite visual representation of how the credit crunch was created. It's both a stunning animation, and a fine example of how complex ideas can be represented in a moving image format. Watch it below. And watch out for Jonathan Jarvis. It's a name I think we'll be seeing more of in the near future.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Social networks, sociability, and a short film about love

Media pop psychologist Aric Sigman (who got his first broadcasting break on the LBC health show my dad presented and I produced back in the 90s)  has written an excellent report about the risks of using social networks,  in Biologist, the magazine of the Institute of Biology.

Dr Sigman was interviewed by the BBC and you can hear the report, and read more about his article here.

In brief, Dr Sigman warns that the aim of social networks - to keep people in touch - could be having a negative effect, especially on younger users, for whom online interaction increasingly is replacing face-to-face conversation. 

Naturally, there are pros and cons to this argument, with respondents to the BBC article arguing for both benefits and harm caused by the use of social networking sites.

Film stars repeat YouTube success story - News - South Manchester Reporter

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As a brilliant counterpoint to Dr Sigman's assertion that too many young people are online too much, up pops a fantastic short film, made by two 20 year old Media students at Manchester Metropolitan University. 

How To Say I Love You cost £200 to make, was shot in a morning, and garnered 650,000 hits in its first 24 hours on You Tube. Since its first posting a month ago it's had more than 1.7 million hits! Its makers, Hayley Stuart and Francesca Sophia, have produced a sharply observed commentary on how the Facebook generation still wants old fashioned romance to sweep them off their feet. It's just that for teens brought up on rapid Status updates, there isn't always time to waste on small talk.

How To Say I Love You is a powerful short film, that warrants your attention. Stuart and Sophia's previous YouTube upload, Olivia - Explorer, made for £7, has received over 1.3 million hits. Expect to see more from these two in years to come. Exceptional talent.