America’s Top Twit: Biz Stone & Twitter’s Business Model

In light of my recent post about Biz Stone’s remarks about Rupert Murdoch’s displeasure over his News Corp titles being linked to by Google News, I decided to do some more research on Twitter. I’ve never really gotten the gist of it – I tried to get into it about a half a year ago, but couldn’t. I’ve always understood and appreciated the importance it has played in citizen journalism and political life – protests in Iran and updates on the Mumbai terror situation. Twitter has undoubtedly enhanced social media and revolutionized citizen media. We no longer receive day-old news. Updates are instantaneous and we can find out what is happening around the globe with the click of a button. I found this video on ComedyCentral.com – it’s pretty funny and made me realize aspects of Twitter that I did not know of before.

What really interested me about Stephen Colbert’s interview with Biz Stone was the co-founder’s plans for a business model. Many think that because Twitter does not generate any revenue, they lack a business model, which is untrue. Stone has sort of a delayed business plan, which he admits is a slow process. People can really learn something from Stone – not to rush into anything and let things unfold as they may.

We have studied different types of business models for online and independent newspapers/magazines in my Independent Media class. Most organizations subscribe to a consumer-supported business model, or an advertiser-supported business model. They either receive money from subscriptions or advertising. For the past two years Twitter has tested out alternative methods to rack in some revenue. Whether it’s partnering with businesses to get products more notoriety or enhancing features on their search bar, Stone is doing what he can to prevent his site from either accepting money from advertisers or charging users for subscriptions. Business Week blogger David L. Smith does a good job of outlining the test models.

Whether these models actually work are in question. But it would be interesting to see if any of them do work. They could fundamentally change the way independent businesses receive funding for their projects.

kayBEE.

Free Tweets For All: Biz Stone vs. Rupert Murdoch

Twitter founder Biz Stone challenged media owner mogul Rupert Murdoch’s accusations that websites like Google are stealing content from his News Corp congolomerate and reposting it on the Internet. Murdoch has plans to set up a paywall next spring in order to block stories from being linked by sites like Google.

Stone suggested that Murdoch take a deeper look into linking his content with Google and “find out how to make a ton of money out of being radically open rather than some money by being ridiculously closed.”

In a time of radical change, Murdoch seems to be holding on to traditional volumes of news and communication. It’s obvious that he is not on board with the current media revolution. Charging users to see his content seems to be counterproductive–he’s closing out his audience and making the Internet, which for now is free from any barriers, an exclusive space limited to those who are willing to pay the fee.

Stone says he’d “love to see what happens“ if Murdoch begins to charge users to read the news. He also was interviewed by the BBC and told them that the”future is openness, not closed.”

Wow. That really really sounds familiar. Arianna Huffington anyone? Rich Lowry possibly? Matt Taibbi, Kate Sheppard, Josh Marshall, Glenn Greenwald? You think that men like Murdoch would learn from people who have seen success while doing things differently. This brings us back to the issue of net neutrality. If it doesn’t harm other people and doesn’t have an affect on internet providers or other people’s services, what is the big deal? Is it because there is a big bad scary world out there with a ton of ideas that are different from the norm?

Rupert Murdoch’s Tweet from 11.20: I want to control the world.

kayBEE

p.s.- I used Google News to look up the articles for this post. HAHA!

Huffington Post’s Top Ten Game Changers

Phew!

The game is changing. No doubt. Though we don’t normally put a face to things like Netflix or web videos, there are people behind these large media innovations and Arianna Huffington is showing us just who they are and what they’re actually doing.

Huffington Post’s Top 10 Game Changers. Take a look.

kayBEE

Paid Freedom: The Battle for Net Neutrality

It’s hard to even imagine corporate-controlled Internet.

Our television sets display colorful commercials from corporate advertisers. Radio waves contain hidden messages from “your local sponsors.” Every aspect of our lives are monitored by a handful of CEO’s that sit comfortably atop their corporations, controlling what we see and hear on a daily basis. With the expection of the Internet.

YouTube videos of magical unicorns and Harry Potter puppets. Shows on Hulu that we don’t have to pay for. Endless amounts of blogs that give us an opportunity to speak our own thoughts while raising a little bit of hell. This is all thanks to an unbridled wasteland of information, videos and text. Ah, the Internet.

But what happened if one day it all stopped? Suddenly we couldn’t look at our favorite YouTube videos for free. We couldn’t type up blogs complaining about a greedy corporate system or even simple events in the community. No longer would we be linked together as one, connected world. We would have to pay to the space we use and the content we download.

Nicholas Carr, reporter for the New York Times Magazine, questions the future freedom of our Internet in his article The Price of Free. Carr tackles the hot topic of net neutrality and vocalizes his concerns of a day when we may have to begin paying for the amount of bandwidth we use while surfing online. Because the way we receive information is rapidly changing, mostly due to innovations in social media, cable television giants such as Comcast are holding on to every ounce of power they still have to try and stop the online revolution. “Television is escaping the TV set and the cable box,” said Carr. “We no longer watch the tube. We watch, to borrow ex-Senator Ted Stevens’s memorable conceit, a series of tubes.”

Much of what we watch on television can be found online, and typically for free. Apple offers shows for a tiny fee, which then can be uploaded to an iPod, iPhone, computer and even a TV. Desperate to prevent people from using the Internet to watch previously-aired television shows, corporations like Comcast are trying to slur the amount people download by imposing fees for bandwidth use. The company is in the process of appealing a suit by the F.C.C. that found Comcast impinging on net neutrality. The cable company was caught trying to “throttle back” their customers’ links to BitTorrent, a file-sharing software that allows people to download music, movies and television shows.

Though the current administration is more sympathetic to net neutrality, whose to say that Verizon and AT&T, companies that provide both cable and Internet services, won’t prevent us from seeing not just YouTube and Hulu, but other sites that question corporate control and speak out against large media monopolies. “By blocking or slowing certain Net transmissions, they could shunt us toward their own programming and prevent us from viewing alternatives, particularly free ones.”

Though paying for bandwidth doesn’t seem like it’s in our immediate future, net neutrality is an issue that is being threatened by those unwilling to jump on the social media train. Television conglomerates are in the same boat as newspapers, both clinging onto the aged-system of how people watch TV.

Become part of the fight to save the Internet. Click here.

Old School

In my Nov. 4 post “The Huffington Mystique,” I briefly talked about Huffington’s stance on the future of journalism and where we as students stand in a time of little stability and increasing change. In that post I talk about how Huffington agreed with media superstar Malcolm Gladwell–rather than put so much emphasis on teaching journalism in high school and college, we should be putting more effort into becoming an expert on something and writing to death about it. Whoa.

It seems like a long time since Arianna Huffington visited my school, and I’ve done a lot of thinking about myself as a journalist and where exactly my future lies. And then I came across this article that was in a staff letter that I receive every week from The Ithacan. I seriously was considering dropping out of college and becoming an expert on Madonna’s footwear or 2012, but after reading what Michael Schudson and Leonard Downie Jr. had to say I became a little more invested… into all that money that I’ve invested these past few years.

Schudson and Downie Jr. both write for the Chronicle of Higher Education and recently published an article about university-based reporting. The authors take more of a “hands-on” approach to teaching journalism– the chance for journalism students to actively participate in the news world. Schools like the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Missouri let their students publish their work and distribute it to the public. They get to cover real news stories that people outside of the college will get to read.

Students at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism began a course called City Newsroom where students get assigned to cover either the Bronx, Brooklyn or Queens. They are supervised by journalists with years of experience and make posts to their website 5 times a week.

This is the type of learning that journalism students need. It’s hard for us to afford graduate school these days and if we got more informal training we would definitely be more prepared to take on the real world.

So whether it’s becoming an expert on something or getting out of the classroom a little bit more, it’s safe to say that journalism school is in need of a face lift.

kayBEE

Making The Transition

At the beginning of the year I was assigned to read an article by Glenn Greenwald about beat writing and sourcing. It came up again when I was assigned to do a project on an ethical dilemma in the area of sports journalism. I’m a beat writer myself and I never really thought about the pressures of writing for a professional sports team until I got a chance to read the article. Greenwald focuses on the idea of becoming too close to your sources in order to get insider access to both players and coaches. How far are people willing to go to get that one good story?

Greenwald uses former Portland Trail Blazer beat writer Dwight Jaynes as an example. Jaynes, who was one of Oregon’s leading Trail Blazer beat writers, found it difficult to maintain a healthy distance from the team in order to get important information and access to games and practices. One thing that Jaynes prided himself on was the ability to get close to sources while writing critically if they had an ugly game the night before;

“And my core values included being there the day after I wrote something negative about someone I covered — so they’d have their shot at me, their fair chance to confront me.”

Soon enough, however, Jaynes began to feel more and more heat if he wrote an article that did not praise the team. He had become too close to his sources and his dependency on them lead him to write fluffy, sensitized articles. “…if you’re critical, you risk your access. Forget about the friendships — you often lose your sources if you offend them.” The consequences to writing a negative article became overwhelming, so Jaynes decided to cut ties with his sources. Though he no longer had infinite access to the Trail Blazers, he was again able to write about the team the way he wanted it written–with a voice, and with a passion for the truth.

Jaynes eventually left the newspaper business after 35 years of dedicated work. Rather than be under constant pressure from his news organization and beloved basketball team, he decided to go the independent route. Jaynes started his own blog under the title of “Dwight Jaynes: Just watching the world float by.” It’s in that blog that Jaynes is able to write the way he wants to write without restriction and concern that he will offend somebody. “After 35 years in the newspaper business, it was time to step away for a while,” Jaynes wrote. “Not sure how long–maybe forever.”

It’s difficult to find people in the news business that you can look up to. Rarely can you find people who have the courage to write against the system–and step away from a career that you built for yourself your entire life. Jaynes is definitely someone to look up to as an aspiring independent journalist. He reminds us that their is room for those who want to write with a powerful voice and an appreciation for the truth.

This is the first time I’ve ever been able to relate independent media to sports. GO ME! & GO BOMBERS! (It’s Cortaca weekend, biggest little game in the country!.. Wait… Am I being too bias? HELL YEA!)

KAYbee.

The Huffington Mystique

Today Arianna Huffington visited Ithaca College and did a closed Q & A session with a few communication classes specially dedicated to independent media.

I’ve always had my reservations about Arianna. Over the past few months, I was unsure whether or not to consider HuffingtonPost.com true news–a site dedicated to not only voicing the opinion of the people, but having a solid understanding and appreciation for facts. A lot of my mistrust came from the lack of original reporting and how the site frequently links to other organization, using them as a source for their news.

As I sat down in Emerson Suites I began to get more anxious to see the esteemed Arianna Huffington. She was running a bit late thanks to some New York traffic. We were going to be doing a private Q & A session so not a lot of people where there. But it certainly didn’t take away any of the excitement in the air. Huffington was probably the most famous and successful lecturer that the Park School has ever gotten to visit Ithaca College.

When she finally arrived I couldn’t help but notice how fabulous Arianna’s hair looked. I’ve always noticed how great it was on her website and television appearances, but the shine was captivating. I took out a piece of loose-leaf and decided it was time to take some notes.

Huffington was not only inspiring when she spoke, but had the attention of everyone in that room. Even the technicians who were helping to run the event where listening intently to her words of advice and experience. She proved that she was not only an educated, independent woman, but that she could indeed live up to all the hype, as well.

“Stop looking for leaders,” Huffington said in her powerful Greek accent. “Look at the leader in the mirror.” At a crucial point in our nation’s history, Huffington asked us not wait for change, but rather to take matters into our own hands. A year after Obama’s election, we are standing still in time, awaiting for the next moves and measures. This is a beautiful opportunity for us a nation to create our own change and push our government to act as a resource and not just a representation of what life could be like.

Moving away from political talk, Huffington focused on the future of journalism and deemed this certain place in time as “The Golden Age.” Newspapers may fold and television broadcasts may turn off, but the future of journalism and the evolution of news has been moving away from the old, traditional system. “People must know the difference between newspapers and journalism, despite the obituaries that have been written for newspapers,” Huffington said. As a new generation of journalists we must not accept this comparison and it is imperative that we adapt to the news environment around us. As a nation we must except the new notion of “social media”–Twittering, cell phone uploads, networking sites and Youtube. Just because these are not prestigious mediums of communication does not mean that we can dismiss them as unimportant vehicles of information flow.

Huffington also connected with our group as journalists. She observes and truly understands the world around her and knows that it won’t necessarily be easy for us to enter the professional world in a just few short years. But like Malcolm Gladwell, Arianna suggested that we should become an expert on a particular topic. Knowing and living something eases words from out of a pen. It enables letters on a keyboard. Most importantly, you can write with a passionate conviction for something you know like the back of your hand. This form of niche reporting has really taken off in the independent media world–it reminded me of when Mother Jones reporter Kate Sheppard visited our class the other day. Once she graduated from college, Sheppard began to live and breathe environmental policy. It helped her land a job at Grist and at Mother Jones, her most current home.

I grew a lot as a journalist today. But Arianna’s visit to Ithaca College also gave me a new perspective on life. “Failure is not the opposite of success,” Huffington said. “It’s just a stepping stone to success.” Though my fellow juniors and I may be facing a cold professional world with a very unsure feeling at the pit of our stomachs, we should not accept that as a sign of defeat. Instead of dying with the newspapers who mislead our country anyway, we should stand up and encourage the “Golden Age” of journalism. The pen is our sword, and the world is our notebook.

And to think. I gave Arianna a benefit of a doubt with that wonderful shining head of hers.

kayBEE