Posted by Mark Levy | Posted in News | Posted on 15-01-2010
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Image by Getty Images via Daylife
2009 saw a few newspapers change their business model to an online focus or shut down completely. 2010 will most likely see the same struggle and, perhaps, new business models emerge for these media entities. One thing is clear, the era of Americans reading a daily newspaper each and every day is coming to an end. Just two in five U.S. adults (43%) say they read a daily newspaper, either online or in print almost every day. Just over seven in ten Americans (72%) say they read one at least once a week while 81% read a daily newspaper at least once a month. One in ten adults (10%) say they never read a daily newspaper, according to a new Harris Poll survey.
One reason for the dying of the daily newspaper is the graying of the daily readership. Almost two-thirds of those aged 55 and older (64%) say they still read a daily newspaper almost every day. The younger one is, however, the less often they read newspapers. Just over two in five of those aged 45-54 (44%) read a paper almost every day as do 36% of those aged 35-44. But less than one quarter of those aged 18-34 (23%) say they read a newspaper almost every day while 17% in this age group say they never read a daily newspaper.
Sky News — a 24-hour UK news site owned by News Corp. — is changing up their entire newsroom to focus more on Twitter.
The organization is installing Tweetdeck on staff computers to stimulate news gathering via social media, according to reports from a UK blog.
The Tweetdeck rollout to staff is scheduled to be completed within the month. While journalists using Twitter is pretty commonplace, an organization-wide rollout is significant. The decision signals a change in ideology around conventional news gathering, and points to the need for journalists to use Twitter to keep pace with the flow of news.
Julian March, executive producer of Sky News Online, made the following statement to Journalism.co.um on the Tweetdeck rollout:
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
70% of publishers are paying more attention to the mobile market this year than last. And 20% are giving it their same attention. Print publishers are focusing on the market as a prime opportunity to expand their brands, reach new audiences and generate additional revenue while offering advertisers the chance to reach locally targeted, engaged audiences. Publishers recognize the growing importance of mobile devices in consumers' daily lives and are actively embracing mobile, according to a study by Audit Bureau of Circulations.
There are a number of different services blooming as location-based mobile technology finally hits its stride, from Foursquare check-ins to augmented reality-enhanced surroundings courtesy of Layar and others. Flook (warning: iTunes link), a new entrant to the iPhone app store, takes a different, more whimsical approach to social location information.
Users are prompted to create “cards” at interesting locations by snapping a photo and adding a title and caption. You can find cards nearby you or around the world, “collect” them, comment on them, and follow the cards of people posting interesting locations. Plus, email a card or get directions to the location depicted from your current location, and track your total “Flook score” based on your activity within the app.
The interface is playful and fun to match the type of content Flook is hoping to capture: interesting, beautiful or otherwise curious tidbits in the world around you. Upon launching the app, “a colorful landscape of robots guides the user to browse or create,” which is just as unusual as it sounds (see thumbnail above right). Finding and creating cards are both easy processes, with the former handled by a simple finger swipe mechanism. Cards are automatically ordered by both “nearest and “best” so you’re more likely to stumble upon something good.
