Tag Archives: Martin Langeveld

Video: Information Valet conference and launch of CircLabs

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Yesterday’s InfoValet conference (‘From Gatekeeper to Information Valet: Work Plans for Sustaining Journalism’) at DC’s George Washington University had a great line-up of speakers debating the future of journalism in the online age, news aggregation, crowdsourcing and what’s next for the news media industry.

One particular announcement of note: the launch of Circlabs – a technology company building a new service to finance online news.

Writing for Nieman Journalism Lab, Martin Langeveld, one of the project’s founders, describes the need for a new approach:

“More Americans now say they get most of their national and international news from the Web rather than from printed newspapers. Yet news publishers, and particularly publishers of the kind of essential journalism that’s necessary to sustain a democracy, enjoy a relatively small share of total Web traffic.

“Although no clear strategies have emerged for news publishers to thrive in an online-only environment, CircLabs believes that the right technology can play a key role in improving the market share of news content and increasing the Web revenue of news publishers.”

The first stage will be a product called Circulate. Details are scant at the moment, but it’s expected to be available in beta from the end of the summer and fully launched by the end of this year.

“Circulate addresses two critical publisher needs: (1) the need to attract, both locally and nationally, a strong and loyal online readership, and (2) the need to monetize that audience, both directly through the sale of premium content and indirectly through high-value, targeted and interactive advertising.

“Circulate will meet these needs of publishers and allow journalists to thrive in their roles as gatherers and curators of news and information. At the same time, Circulate will provide consumers with a new, post-search way to discover the news and connections they need. Circulate will serve all publishers of online news, ranging from newspapers to local news blogs. Circulate requires little or no technical integration on the part of publishers.”

There are plenty of videos of the day’s discussions on the event’s UStream site – though the player below should provide most of the links:

Nieman Journalism Lab: News content is ‘a stream’

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In a digital newsroom or organisation the basic unit of news is no longer the story, but less rigidly defined, writes Martin Langeveld.

“The metaphor of content as a cascading stream means there is no unit – a stream is a stream, it has no discernible building blocks. And it means that content doesn’t sit still. It is never static, but always changing,” he explains.

The cascade can be started by journalists’ own newsgathering or from a wealth of UGC and will no longer end at publication by the newsroom, but instead flow into social networks and blogs, creating a new stage for that content.

Full article at this link…

NiemanJournalismLab: Implications of newspaper bankruptcy

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“Four major newspaper firms have now declared bankruptcy. The rest of the industry is on the ropes – sources of credit or equity funding have virtually dried up; there is basically no market into which to sell publishing assets to raise cash; the ability to maintain quality and to innovate is seriously hampered by continual cost-cutting necessary to maintain positive cash flow and meet debt service obligations,” Martin Langeveld writes on the NiemanJournalismLab.

Here, Langeveld gives a list of what will and won’t happen. What kind of changes will bankruptcies force on newspapers he asks?

Full story at this link…