Author Archives: Alice Vincent

Nieman: ‘The real tablet revolution seems to be upon us’

Ken Doctor, Newsonomics author and regular news business writer for Nieman Journalism Lab, suggests that news reading may be on the rise thanks to predicted high sales of tablets over the next two years.

Ready to trade up? That’s the new question now moving to the forefront of news publishers’ longer-range strategic planning, as the real tablet revolution seems to be upon us …

With tablet sales projected to reach 70 million in the U.S. in 2011 and 2012 (50 million of them iPads), and with early survey results, such as the Reynolds Journalism Institute’s study, showing longer news session times, more-than-snippets-reading, and a renewal of lean-back, pleasurable longer-form reading, publishers have been edging into an age of news reading renewal.

Maybe, people do want to read news and watch news after all, and maybe branded news can find its mojo once again.

Although Doctor shows that digital consumption of news may increase with more people buying iPads and similar tablet technology, he stresses that this could impact dramatically on print sales.

The full post can be read here.

In a feature for Journalism.co.uk published today, Norwegian media blogger Kristine Lowe looks at the reasons behind declining magazine sales figures for tablets, and whether so-called ‘tablet journalism’ for magazines needs to be done differently.

Read the full feature at this link: Tablet journalism: does our newest format need a new approach?

MediaGuardian: What do the new phone-hacking developments mean for News Corp’s Sky bid?

Dan Sabbagh added a new angle to the News of The World phone-hacking scandal this morning, connecting the scandal to News Corp’s takeover bid for BSkyB. Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is due to make a decision over the controversial bid this month.

Hunt, whose verdict is due this month, would have to argue that there is no danger of about the media power of an enlarged News Corp/Sky at a time when the tactics of its senior reporters are in the spotlight again.

He may yet do so, but the political risks of him letting the Murdoch deal go through at the first time of asking just multiplied – when he has the easier alternative of asking for the Competition Commission to look at the implications of the deal in more detail.

Sabbagh’s full comment piece can be found here.

Related content:

News of the World executive suspended over ‘serious allegation’ of phone-hacking

#followjourn: @lucymanning – ITV News Political Correspondent

Who? Lucy Manning, ITV News political correspondent

Where? Manning reports from the House of Commons and covered the 2010 election, following Gordon Brown and the Labour Campaign. She blogs on current affairs for ITV here.

Twitter? @lucymanning

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

Adam Vincenzini’s year without newspapers is over, but what did he learn?

Last January, Journalism.co.uk blogged about Adam Vincenzini and his bid to survive a year without newspapers. Vincenzini was just 19 days into his experiment at that point. The PR consultant has come to the end of his experiment now and told Journalism.co.uk today that he sees printed news in a new light.

After a year of relying on Twitter, RSS feeds and mobile phone apps, Vincenzini says newspapers “still have such an important role to play”.

There’s the enjoyment part of print journalism, the personality, the humour and the opinion; I stopped enjoying reading news when I only read it online. But also the newspaper is the one thing that can give you a snapshot that you can take away for the day … Newspapers are still the easiest way to get your news.

Which may be why Vincenzini’s main celebration on New Year’s Eve was to hold his first newspaper in over 9000 hours.

I went and bought the Sun and a bottle of Baileys just after the clocks struck 12! I had the biggest smile on my face and the best thing was is that nothing had changed – it was just like picking up a copy 12 months ago. I felt very warm and fuzzy inside.

Vincenzini’s blog tracks his experiment and now includes his conclusions.

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Giving up newspapers for a year – a PR’s experiment

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Joanna Geary: Microsharing – a future we’re ignoring?

Joanna Geary raises a new angle on the paid content debate on her blog. The concept is Microsharing: where purchased online content or data is licensed to be shared with selected others. Is it a payment model which could change not only the way we view paying for content, but sharing it as well?

In real life humans are perfectly capable, and generous enough, to purchase something of value to them and then to loan or give it to someone they care about, trust, or share an interest with.

However, with the social web this doesn’t happen.

Why the difference, if paying for stuff doesn’t stop us sharing it in real life? Perhaps the social web hasn’t yet evolved to a point where we can share like this as easily as we do in real life?

Full post on joannageary.com at this link

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