Save the Media

Seems like it’s a good time for some short takes from my jaunts around the blogosphere. Here are some posts that I found interesting. Hope you will, too.

Is news like bottled water? Tim Windsor has a thought-provoking post at Nieman Journalism Lab today, noting that bottled-water producers know something newspapers do not: How to sell something people can often get for free. In much of the developed world, tap water is free and clean, yet people will shell out $6 or more for a bottle of water.  Windsor asks: Is online news content like gasoline, a “necessary commodity that people will begrudgingly pay for, because they have to” or bottled water, ”a necessary commodity that’s packaged in a way that finds a happy and willing customer base?”

A colleague and I tossed the idea around a bit this afternoon. How are water and news content different? The same? Are we buying bottled water because the product has been marketed to us as necessary. Or is there something else we’re buying? 

After some thought, here’s what we hit upon: We’re buying bottled water (and by we, I mean other people. I’m strictly anti-bottled water for environmental reasons) in part because of marketing. When I was growing up, we ran the tap. The only bottled water was pricey and snooty Perrier. So part is marketing; the consumer was persuaded that he or she “needed” bottled water, perhaps because it is perceived as  cleaner or healthier.

Some are buying it because their tap water stinks (literally, like sulphur or other minerals.) The water may be safe to drink , but it may not taste good.

We decided convenience, which Windsor mentions, is the main reason people buy bottled water. It’s a seemingly small convenience. But in today’s frantic world it looms larger. Consider me as I make the hurried dash from work to after-school program pickup to home to get my son ready for his Little League game. As a non-bottled-water drinker, I waste, say, a good three or four minutes hunting for a sports drink bottle that is clean and has a cap that fits and then filling it with ice and water for my son to tote to his game. It would be easier to grab an already-filled, chilled bottled from the fridge.

So could readers could be marketed to want to pay for news content on the Web? Perhaps, but I doubt it. The problem still comes back to why pay for what you’ve been getting for free. Imagine if bottled water were handed out free for years, and then someone decided to charge. It wouldn’t fly. (And that doesn’t mean news organizations should have charged for online content from the beginning. Some tried; it didn’t work.)

Back to the water analogy. If people are paying for convenience when they buy bottled water, charging for news content will only work if readers feel they are getting something else — not just news. Something they want desperately. Something that makes their lives easier the way grabbing a bottled water from the fridge does. But what that is, I don’t know. I wish I did.

Social media editor: So The New York Times has appointed a social media editor, Jennifer Preston. She jumped in with both feet, tweeting:  “How Should @nytimes be using Twitter?” Old Media New Tricks offers some smart strategies for Preston, including “Interact with your followers, and follow them. The Times account only follows Times employees right now and does not respond to followers.” Bravo.

How to use Twitter: Found a frank post today that spells out in “How to Use Twitter and Not be a Douchebag.” Good advice for journalists or anyone on Twitter. Best takeaway from blogger Adam Darowski:  ”It’s not all about you.If you’re going to get anything out of Twitter at all, you need to immediately check your ego at the door, listen to people, and build relationships. Talking about the things your or your company are doing will only get you anywhere once you’ve already joined the conversation.” One quibble, which I noted in a comment on Darowski’s blog: He’s not a fan of retweeting; I am.

Why to use social media: Kyle Lacy isn’t writing for newspapers with his dripping-with-sarcasm list of 10 reasons your business should not be on social media. But he could be. He makes the point that only a business that purchased a dial-up modem to “save money” would want to skip the benefits of social media. His best reason not to be on social media: “You find that building ‘trust’ in a marketplace is a waste of time.”