Another newspaper post (with bad statistics!)
I thought this would make a good follow-up to my last newspaper post.
An interesting entry on the Nieman Jornalism Lab blog suggests that online newspaper readership is less significant than most people assume. Martin Langveld runs some back-of-the-envelope numbers to suggest that only 3% of reading occurs online.
Color me skeptical. First, I question some of his assumptions. He uses data suggesting that there are 116.8 million readers Monday-Saturday, and 134.1 million on Sunday. This assumes 2.1 readers per paper on weekdays, and almost 2.5 readers per paper on Sunday. I don’t know if I buy it. I’d like to know if that figure includes only home subscribers, or if it includes higher-volume subscribers like universities and hotels. I expect the number of readers/paper is lower in these settings, but that’s just my gut feeling.
Even if we accept these figures, Langveld makes an “educated guess” that each reader views 24 pages per day, which seems quite high. As far as I can tell, he has no basis for this guess. He also assumes that readers spend an average of 25 minutes with their papers Monday-Saturday, and 35 minutes on Sunday. Again, I’m guessing this figure is too high.
He goes on to argue that online advertising is overvalued, and that it’s not surprising that online revenue is less than 10% of total newspaper revenue.
His post was prompted by another writer who suggested that online metrics overstate the number of internet readers. This is probably true. A precursory glance at page views and unique visitors would likely indicate an inaccurately high rate of online readership. That doesn’t make Langveld’s statistics any more believable, however. When pressed, he states that halving the number of pages read or the amount of time spent would give online readership 7% of the page views, and 6% of the total viewing time. Langveld seems to assume this is an insignificant difference, but I disagree.
Surprisingly, I agree with one of his final points:
The fact remains, of course, that not only is online revenue alone insufficient to sustain news operations, but the print operations of our larger newspapers, having lost most monopoly pricing power, are not sustainable either, recession or no recession.
Neither online ad revenue nor print circulation will cover the cost of a traditional newsroom. As newspapers cut back on the “expensive” reporting in favor of cheaper content, I expect they’ll continue to lose readers. I don’t have data on the demographics of newspaper readers, but I’m certain that younger readers favor online content. I expect they’re more apt to use non-traditional news sources as well, rather than the big names in the newspaper business. It’s no surprise that the big picture is an ugly one for newspaper companies.
The question remains: How will journalism be funded in the 21st century? Maybe the traditional approach of ad revenue and subscriptions isn’t totally broken, but newsrooms would have to get a lot cheaper. Perhaps jettisoning the overhead of the print operations would help, but I don’t really know. I’m certainly no expert on the intricacies of the newspaper business. Anyone have any thoughts?
Bad news for the newspaper business (but don’t look so worried)
Newspapers are in serious trouble. This shouldn’t be a shocker to anyone, and the bad news just keeps coming. On Monday, March 16, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer announced that it was done publishing paper editions, shifting to internet-only content delievery. The New York Times covered the story here. In addition to shutting down the printing presses, the P-I news staff is being cut from 165 to 20. The site will consist of “mostly commentary, advice and links to other news sites, along with some original reporting.”
On March 23, the NYTimes reported that four newspapers in Michigan were ending daily publications. In Flint, Saginaw and Bay City, papers would be printed only three days per week. In Ann Arbor, publication will be cut to two days per week. The Ann Arbor News is laying off its entire staff of 272, and will re-form as two companies. One will release printed papers, while AnnArbor.com will provide web-based news. The site will provide “some original reporting, and an emphasis on reader input and community forums.” No word on how many people will be re-hired, but it will certainly be less than 272. (See the story here for more information.) The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press are cutting home delivery to three days per week. Newspapers in Philadelphia and Minneapolis have declared bankruptcy.
If you’re a newspaper junkie, this sounds pretty crappy, but one person’s crappy is another’s revolution. Clay Shirky has written a fantastic essay on the problems facing the newspaper business. He writes that the digital revolution parallels another revolution, brought on by the printing press.
The Bible was translated into local languages; was this an educational boon or the work of the devil? Erotic novels appeared, prompting the same set of questions. Copies of Aristotle and Galen circulated widely, but direct encounter with the relevant texts revealed that the two sources clashed, tarnishing faith in the Ancients. As novelty spread, old institutions seemed exhausted while new ones seemed untrustworthy; as a result, people almost literally didn’t know what to think. If you can’t trust Aristotle, who can you trust?
and:
That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place.
That’s the real kicker. The newspaper business is broken, and we don’t have a replacement for it. Digital media has challenged every form of print, recorded or broadcast media, but newspapers are really getting the worst of it. At the very least, they’re getting it first. File-sharing has put serious pressure on the movie and music industries. Stop-gap measures like prosecution and digital sales aren’t really picking up the slack, but people still want recorded albums. They still want to watch movies. The physical medium and distribution method have changed, but the idea of an album or a movie has been (fairly) resilient. The same is true of books. The Amazon Kindle is making in-roads, but digital books haven’t really caught on. For most people, even the best e-readers don’t match the appeal of a “real” book.
Newspapers are a different story. Shirky says that the newspaper industry was fairly forward-thinking. They recognized the potential of computers and networks and attempted to plan for the future. The extent of the revolution wasn’t clear, however.
The curious thing about the various plans hatched in the ’90s is that they were, at base, all the same plan: “Here’s how we’re going to preserve the old forms of organization in a world of cheap perfect copies!” The details differed, but the core assumption behind all imagined outcomes (save the unthinkable one) was that the organizational form of the newspaper, as a general-purpose vehicle for publishing a variety of news and opinion, was basically sound, and only needed a digital facelift.
This isn’t panning out. Advertisements and circulation aren’t generating enough revenue to cover the costs of maintaining a newsroom and printing papers. And when a staff is cut from 165 to 20, it’s pretty clear that the end product won’t be the same. “Mostly commentary, advice and links to other news sites, along with some original reporting” is not a newspaper.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Shirky argues that journalism has become so entwined with the print media that we consider them one. But here’s the bottom line:
Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism.
This is an essential point to remember. We’ve come to think of the newspaper as a social institution. The newspaper isn’t the institution; the news is. We’re going through a chaotic time. New outlets are springing up, old outlets are appearing less relevant or less sustainable, and it’s impossible to predict how things will settle out. I’ll attempt one impossible prediction, however. The newspaper (as we know it) isn’t long for this world, and that’s not a bad thing.
As the venerable old mediums struggle, technology has drastically lowered the cost of media production, creating millions of new competitors. Again, this is an old story. Between YouTube videos, self-produced music, self-published books, blogs, podcasts, there is no shortage of diversions available to consumers. Did I mention it’s cheap? This blog is hosted for $5 per month, plus a few bucks to register the domain. I might not be as trustworthy as the New York Times, but I am certain that a new order will emerge. People still need journalism, and someone will provide it. There may just be a few (million) more contributors.
I don’t have any answers. As Shirkey says, this stuff is brand-new. Nobody can predict how this will shake out. People are quick to point out how technology threatens social institions. I don’t buy it. Art, music, literature, journalism…these things are institions, and they aren’t in any danger. The medium almost certainly will change, but the the medium is secondary to the true purpose. Just relax, and remember that you’re living in a revolution. It’s bound to be unnerving.
Pictures from Thailand
So here are a bunch of photos from Thailand. In order, these are from Bangkok, Koh Lanta, Sukhothai, and Ayutthaya. The pictures look OK for the most part. I think the colors look a bit washed out, but I’m certainly no photographer and it’s just a point-and-shoot camera.
Again, these images are resized and watermarked. If you want a clean file, just let me know.
Enjoy!
A surprising source of collective intelligence
I’m a bit late in writing about this, but it’s too cool to pass up. Last week, Google launched a new service, Google Flu Trends, that really demonstrates the power of new sources of information in the digital age. Flu Trends attempts to warn users of regional outbreaks of the flu. This enables hospitals, medical practitioners, and individuals to prepare. It’s not exactly a new idea. The C.D.C. publishes reports on outbreaks of influenza, based on data compiled from heath care providers. Another web service, whoissick.org, combines user-reported illnesses with Google maps to show you the various bugs circulating in your area. But Google Flu Trends may identify outbreaks more quickly because of the unique data source that it uses.
A Google team noticed that certain search terms, like “flu symptoms”, are much more common during flu season. Only logical, right? Google employees created a list of these types of searches, and compared the date/location of past searches with C.D.C. data on influenza trends. It turns out that the number of people with the flu and the number of these types of searches are closely related. This means that analyzing the numbers of influenza-related searches on Google should provide an estimate of the number of flu cases. By looking at IP addresses, specific regions can be isolated. This is a very nifty sort of collective intelligence based on data that is simply a by-product of Google’s primary function.
The sheer number of Google searches makes them an excellent source of collective intelligence. Nielson Online estimated that 4.8 billion searches were made using Google in September 2008 in the US alone. That’s roughly 160 million U.S. searches per day. In addition to the volume of data, search engine results are fascinating sources of information because of their timeliness. As the New York Times wrote:
[...] the data collected by search engines is particularly powerful, because the keywords and phrases that people type into them represent their most immediate intentions. People may search for “Kauai hotel” when they are planning a vacation and for “foreclosure” when they have trouble with their mortgage. Those queries express the world’s collective desires and needs, its wants and likes.
To me, this is a cool usage of data that most people don’t even realize they are generating. However, the implications for privacy are a little bit frightening. If you don’t believe me (and you have a Google account), check your web history. Google saves every search you make, along with any web pages you visit from the search results. A year’s worth of search data can create a surprisingly complete picture of a person’s life. Imagine having access to that data for every single user. I don’t want to be pessimistic about this. For the most part, I think the possibility of exciting and useful projects like Flu Trends greatly outweighs the potential hazards of this data. What do you think?
You can read the New York Times report on Google Flu Trends here. The official Google Blogs also covered it here. Statistics on the number of U.S. Google searches were pulled from the Nielson Online news release available here.
Robotic Monkey Arms
Man I love the title of this post. A couple days ago, the journal Nature published a report about monkeys that have learned to control a robotic arm with their thoughts, via a sensor implanted in their brains. Let me write that again. The monkeys can control robots with their brains. This is seriously cool stuff.
This is not entirely groundbreaking. Scientists have been working with this stuff for a while, and have been able to use brain waves to control simple things, like a cursor on a screen. I could be mistaken, but I think some of the technology started with the Air Force, which was researching thought-controlled computers for aircraft.
It sounds like this experiment was a serious step forward, however. You can read the NY Times article here, but I’ll summarize things quickly. The monkeys first learned to control the mechanical arm with a joystick, to get a feel for its movements. Then a chip was implanted on their their motor cortices , a portion of the brain that controls hand and arm movements. At first, the scientists used the computer to help the monkeys move the arm, but after a couple days, the animals could do it themselves.
Here’s a mental image: The monkey sits with its arms restrained. Using its thoughts, it causes the mechanical arm to reach out and grab food, which it moves to its mouth and eats. The researchers said that the animals even learned to adjust movements to compensate for sticky food.
This has obvious implications for prosthetics, but the long-term implications are so much bigger. Nearly everything humans do depends on our body’s ability to manipulate the world around us. Brain-technology interfaces could change the way we use computers, the way we drive, the way we work. More abstractly, they will change what it means to be human.
My friends will tell you that this is one of my favorite topics of discussion. After a few beers, I just won’t shut up about this stuff. The story of humanity is really the story of technology. From the club to the iPhone, we better ourselves by bettering our technology. A kid with a computer has access to information that people would have killed for only decades earlier.
Things are changing, however. Faster computers, nano- and bio-technology, brain-computer interfaces, better understanding of our our own biology…These things make new technology fundamentally different, in my opinion. We’re approaching a time when our technological potential outweighs our biological potential. When technology really makes us superhuman. Maybe this is the so-called Singularity…I don’t know. What I do know is that the future will bring closer integration between technology and our bodies and minds.
Sign me up for robotic monkey arms of my very own.
Harry Potter leaks, and I’m super-pissed.
Well, that didn’t take long. The hot story yesterday was the possible leak of the seventh and final Harry Potter book. See this Time Magazine story about the leak. Photos of each page were leaked online in the typical places (torrent tracking sites, usenet, and the like).
This photo was included in the Time article.
Shortly after this leak, some jackass on digg submitted a comment in the form of “character x dies. character y dies. character z lives happily ever after.” Such comments are generally buried/deleted in seconds, but I happened to see it.
I suppose it might be false, and since I don’t know any details, it isn’t really ruined. But I’m still mad.
After this occured, I grabbed a torrent of the leaked images and downloaded a few, just to see how they looked. I was careful not to read anything, but I have to say that they look legit.
I suppose that with all of the thousands of people involved in the production and distribution of these books, it’s damn near impossible to keep things off the internet. I’m not one of those crazy people who avoid the internet for 2 weeks before a book comes out, so I should have expected this. Still, I’ve gotta say: what pricks.
A glimpse into the excitement, and the simplicity, of war
This is an article that I stumbled upon (quite literally — see stumbleupon.com) today. It’s a piece written about by an Iraq war veteran about missing the intensity and clarity of combat.
I don’t really feel qualified to comment on it too much. It was powerful, and gave a lot of insight into a situation that few of us will ever see, but most have imagined. Like most kids these days, I have friends in the military who have seen, or will see combat.
Read it, if you’ve got the time. It’s worth it.
[edit -- I neglected to include the author's name, Brian Mockenhaupt. The article is on msn.com, but it looks like it was written for Esquire]
Hometown Baghdad
This is a site that I’ve seen a few places, including digg. For me, this really represents the power that computers and the internet bring to communication. Hometown Baghdad is a film project started by a New York-based company (Chat The Planet), following the lives of young, 20-something Iraqis. When the city became too dangerous for the Americans, the Iraqis began filming themselves.
If you haven’t seen it, please check it out. The result is often very compelling. In an instant, with the click of a mouse, I can have a glimpse into another person’s life — across thousands of miles and inside of a combat zone. Not only that, but the technology required to do so becomes cheaper and easier to use every day. The result is the rise of user-created content, which may not adhere to the same journalistic standards as the New York Times, but can provide a truly unique perspective. The stories on this site are intensely personal, which might be their real strength. Technology gives individuals, kids even, the opportunity to help create the discourse surrounding current events, as the news is breaking. Today, Ann Frank would have kept a blog.
Every now and then, something on the internet really fills me with hope. It is so easy to look at computers as gadgets, but they have augmented our communication abilities like nothing else. In less time than it takes to walk to the fridge I can experience life thousands of miles away. It’s an amazing time to be alive.
I’ll end my optimistic rant, but I’ll re-post a couple videos from Hometown Baghdad.
