Times-Picayune cuts print runs, focuses on digital

Beginning in the autumn, New Orleans will become the largest city in the United States without a daily newspaper.


The Times-Picayune will end its 175-year run as a daily and switch to printing only Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, and at the same time ramp up its digital offerings, the Pulitzer Prize-winning paper stated in an announcement last week.

“For us, this isn't about print versus digital, this is about creating a very successful multi-platform media company that addresses the ever-changing needs of our readers, our online users and our advertisers," Randy Siegel, president of local digital strategy for Advance Publications, which owns the paper, told The Associated Press. “This change is not easy, but it's essential for us to remain relevant.”

“The loss of a daily newspaper is a great blow to any city.” a Forbes article noted. “Print is not only valuable for sentimental reasons and its ability to turn out more thoughtful journalism, but also its ability to reach citizens without internet access.”

Newsonomics analyst Ken Doctor stated he believes Advance Publications' move will put the newspaper at a disadvantage.


“For longtime print readers, this is going to be really jarring, because many readers don’t use the paper’s website on a regular basis,” Doctor wrote. “This is a publisher pulling the plug on the seven-day habit. It’s a huge unknown how many readers will stick around.”

Despite the Times Picayune's drastic circulation decline since Hurricane Katrina (261,000 in 2005 vs. 132,000 in March 2012) Forbes contributor Micheline Maynard pointed out that the newspaper is still very popular, with a 75.5 percent penetration rate in New Orleans.


"Obviously, that figure doesn’t translate directly to sales, and high penetration rates haven’t saved other newspapers, but it would seem to denote just how important the Times-Pic is to this community, and that it was still successful," she stated. And, although times may be tough, the paper was able to pay employee bonuses in 2010 and 2011.

However, Advance Publications’ strategy doesn't include eliminating some print runs. It also includes staff reductions, centralising operations and merging print and digital into a single operation, according to Wall Street Journal’s interview with Steven Newhouse, chairman of Advance.net, the corporate digital arm of Advance Publications.

The Times Picayune isn't the first newspaper to forego printing some days. The Christian Science Monitor now reports only online, while the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, published in a partnership by Gannett Co. and Media News Group Inc., pulled back home delivery of those papers to three days a week, Wall Street Journal reported.

Image: Poynter

UK magazine publisher's digital earnings grow with tablets' popularity

UK magazine publisher Future announced its digital revenues are up almost 40 percent in the six month period ending March 31, despite a £700,000 pre-tax loss due mainly to troubles in its U.S. branch, MediaGuardian reported. 

The group unveiled e-editions of many of its titles for the iPad last October. Future’s overall UK revenues grew by 1 percent over last year as the company balanced its growth with digital revenues to the decline in print.

Future, which publishes titles such as Fast Car and Metal Hammer, said its digital revenues rose to £9.6 million year-on-year, an increase of 37 percent. They now account for 44 percent of advertising and 16 perent of total revenues, according to MediaGuardian. Its total UK digital revenues, which include both advertising and e-edition sales, were up 48 percent over the previous year.

“If journalism is going to survive, it has to deliver information to readers and viewers or listeners in a much more effective way,” Bill Grueskin, dean of academic affairs at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, told Columbia Journalism Review when commenting on the future of digital media.

Digital measurement firm comScore noted in a recent report that increased Wifi availability, popularisation of smartphones and tablets, especially iPads, are leading to the reform of digital media. 

Today, half of the U.S. mobile population uses mobile media. The mobile media population who browse the mobile Web, access applications, or download content grew by 19 percent in the past year.  iPads dominate among tablets in driving digital traffic. In August 2011, iPads delivered 97.2 percent of all tablet traffic in the U.S., according to the report, “Digital Omnivores: How Tablets, Smartphones and Connected Devices are Changing U.S. Digital Media Consumption Habits.”

According to a survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 19 percent of U.S. adults owned a tablet computer as of January of this year. 

Only 14 percent of tablet users had paid directly to access news and the majority preferred free or low-cost access to news, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism released in October 2011.

A Nielsen report for the fourth quarter of 2011 found that 62 percent of U.S. tablet owners have paid for downloaded music, 58 percent for books and 51 percent for movies, but only 19 percent have done so for news.

Image: DigitalTrends

 

UTV Media revenues to see upswing in summer

UTV Media plc expects revenues to increase 20 percent for its radio unit in May and June, following advertising campaigns launched around the Euro 2012 football tournament and the London Olympics, MediaGuardian reported.

The UK and Ireland media company has announced an overall increase of 2 percent for the first four months of 2012, compared to the same period last year, the company said in a statement. Radio Great Britain revenues were up 8 percent, while 

"Continuing economic uncertainty, however, means airtime bookings remain short term and forward visibility is limited," the company stated. "We therefore remain cautious about the remainder of the year but believe we will continue to deliver on market expectations."

UTV showed mixed results across the divisions of radio, television and New Media business. 

Radio GB, home to 16 stations, experienced an increase of 8 percent, outpacing the general UK radio market. UTV expects a growth of 20 percent in May and June. Within that division, TalkSPORT revenue was 16 percent higher over the same period. The leading commercial speech radio station in the UK has been awarded the rights to broadcast commentary on all matches at the Euro 2012.

Radio Ireland revenue rose by 1 percent and is expected to increase by 3 percent in May and June. However, the impact of foreign exchange movements turned that gain into a decline of 2 percent and is expected to decrease 5 percent for the same reason, the Irish Times reported.

Meanwhile, UTV's television operations reported a decline of 6 percent in National Advertising Revenue. The company forecast NAR growth of 2 percent in May and June.

UTV expects New Media revenue to go up by 15 percent in May and June, following the acquisition of the Irish social media agency Simply Zesty in March. New Media revenue went up by 3 percent in the first four months, Business&Leadership reported.

Image: utvmedia.com

Twitter to use Do Not Track function

Twitter has announced it supports “Do Not Track,” a privacy preference users can set in their Web browsers that informs Web services they don't want certain information collected about their visits across websites. 

DNT "will not require the government to compile a list, unlike the 'Do Not Call Registry,' which allows consumers to opt out of receiving telemarketing calls," CNN reported last week. 

The new feature "is good news for Twitter users and a meaningful step toward broader adoption of a strong 'Do Not Track' system that will give consumers simple, comprehensive control over online tracking," FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz told CNN. "Hopefully other companies will follow suit."

DNT is an important step in the area of online consumer privacy protections, Danny Weitzner, the Obama administration's deputy chief technology officer for Internet policy, wrote in the White House Blog. It "shows that collaboration amongst business, privacy advocates, technical experts, academics, standards organizations and government can lead to development of technologies that make the Internet more responsive to privacy needs."

Although Twitter will honour requests from users who do not want online behaviour recorded, Google and Facebook, whose business models rely heavily on collecting user data, have no intention to adopt DNT, according to CNN.

Google was under criticism from users and policy makers earlier this year when the search giant announced that it would share user data across its services under a unified privacy policy, The Washington Post reported. 

Facebook’s business model relies on advertising revenue generated when users run games and other apps on the site. Facebook will track users’ activities to pick targeted advertisers, CNN noted.

Image: Guardian

What does Facebook's IPO mean for journalists?

Facebook’s IPO has drawn extensive media coverage, with Journalism.org even listing the variety of news reports on major newspapers, both in print and online.

“Even if Facebook’s not making journalists rich, it’s certainly helping to keep them employed by talking about it!” Andrew Beaujon wrote for Poynter.

But amid all the frenzy of media reports, a less discussed topic is looking at the issue from the opposite side: how will the IPO impact journalists?


CNN's Kristie Lu Stout discussed this topic in her blog, asking: “Is Facebook a must-buy for journalism?”

Concluding that “Facebook is a social tool for engagement and not journalism,” she explained that Facebook is about consumer engagement, which attracts advertisers.

Journalists have been flocking to Facebook to create content and connections on a platform that the company can use for all time," Stout wrote. "Not only that, we're feeding an advertising rival that's only going to get bigger after Friday's IPO.

"I'm not quite convinced that Facebook is a must-buy for journalism. After the IPO, I may be holding on to my account, but I'll be holding off on any extra contributions to the site.”

For Stout and many other journalists, social media is used to generate story ideas and interact with audiences. “As for Facebook, I believe its strength can be summed up in the marketing jargon that makes me squirm: ‘personal branding’,” she explained.

Echoing Stout, data journalist and Web developer Dino Beslagic responded to Beaujon's Poynter blog, stating that Facebook is “a form of ultra-cheap marketing” which helps get “intimate exposure and visibility for your brand.” He added that there was no need for journalists to worry, as Facebook does not take traffic away from news sites; rather, it adds to them.

But as an "advertising rival,” Facebook might not perform as well as expected, GigaOm's Matthew Ingram pointed out. This is because Facebook's business model is advertising-based, just like most media companies. And Facebook ads have worse results and "clutter the experience," Beaujon noted.

The recent action of General Motor’s retreat from Facebook, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, is considered to be an example. Though opponents are arguing that GM’s social media marketing failure was caused by itself rather than Facebook, as reported by Nieman Journalism Lab, there are concerns regarding Facebook’s business model.

“Facebook actually has an even bigger mountain to climb than newspapers or other media entities do when it comes to advertising, since the social nature of the network could actually interfere with the effectiveness of traditional ads,” Ingram wrote.

Image: Gigaom

Flipboard integrates audio content into reading app

Reading will no longer be a quiet activity, thanks to social news magazine Flipboard. The iPad and iPhone reading app is now integrating audio content from Soundcloud, National Public Radio and Public Radio International, the BBC reported.

After updating the app (version 1.9.1.), users can enjoy "flipping" through content while listening to audio in the background. Radio programs, music and podcasts are found under the new Audio category in the Content guide. Readers can play and pause the audio track at any time by tapping the music note icon on the bottom left corner of every page.

Those who already have a profile on SoundCloud can login on Flipboard with that account and start browsing through the social audio platform. This enables users to see what their contacts listen to or comment, like, or share sounds via Twitter, Facebook or e-mail.

“With this latest addition, weʼre giving our readers a personal soundtrack to their Flipboard," Mike McCue, CEO of Flipboard, stated in a press release.

Flipboard has also added VoiceOver features that let visually impaired readers listen to articles. Once the VoiceOver is activated in the settings, users can tap once on a section and a voice will read the title of the article; if twice, the voice will read the article.

In comparison to other social reading apps such as Google Currents, Pulse and Zite that have random audio elements, (mainly YouTube links), or The Daily, with spoken audio versions of news stories, Flipboard is the first to have sound omnipresent, as tracks are played automatically.

Also of note, Flipboard has launched its localised edition for readers in Japan, following its previous launches in China and France, according to TechCrunch.

Image: Tabtimes

Investment genius? Why Warren Buffett bought 63 local newspapers

As most print publications build their digital strategies while their print businesses struggle, why would anyone, much less an American business tycoon and legendary investor, buy a bunch of newspapers?


"In towns and cities where there is a strong sense of community, there is no more important institution than the local paper," said Warren Buffett, commenting on his buy of 63 newspapers from U.S. media company.

Berkshire Hathaway, of which Buffett is chairman, is also extending its loan to Media General and buying a 19.9 percent share in the company and taking a seat on the board, the Washington Post reported last week. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is paying US$142 million on the local newspapers, and its loan to Media General totals $445 million, which will help it solve its debt. Berkshire Hathaway now owns all of Media General's Newspapers, except for the Tampa Tribune in Florida and other smaller papers in that market. However, those titles will likely be sold to other buyers.

Buffett was a paper boy in his youth and used $5,000 from his savings to establish Berkshire Hathaway. His experience in newspaper industry drove him to invest in newspapers. Berkshire Hathaway already owns The Buffalo News, The Omaha World Herald and a stake in The Washington Post, according to paidContent.

“The many locales served by the newspapers we are acquiring fall firmly in this mold and we are delighted they have found a permanent home with Berkshire Hathaway,” Buffett said in a statement Thursday. 

However, in 2009, Buffett was pessimistic about the local newspaper industry. He told shareholders that “for most newspapers in the United States, we would not buy them at any price. They have the possibility of going to just unending losses," MediaGuardian reported.

Buffett shifted his opinions when he discovered the power of local newspapers.

The experience of small towns and counties has been different in terms of the newspaper industry, paidContent pointed out. Lacking print and online competition, local newspapers can still hold onto some of their monopolies. Moreover, comparing to metropolitan newspapers, they have more time to make the transition to digital with more refined approaches.

“In these communities, the local paper is the sole source of everyday news — from high school sports, local events or obituaries,” Gordon Crovitz, former publisher of the Wall Street Journal and founder of digital subscription service, Press+, told paidContent.

While Erik Wemple, the Washington Post blogger, asked whether Buffett is "nuts" to buy newspapers, Jeremy Harris Lipschultz, a professor and director of the University of Nebraska at Omaha's School of Communication, wrote that “Buffett says he is like a baseball batter with no need to swing until there is a fat pitch. Clearly, his passion and interest in journalism had him looking in the direction of acquisitions at the right price.”

Owning newspapers seems to be a trend among billionaires. For example, Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms billionaire, is a major shareholder in The New York Times, MediaGuardian pointed out. Earlier this year Gina Rinehart, billionaire daughter of mining magnate Lang Hancock, became one of the largest shareholders in Australia's Fairfax Media, publisher of The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and other titles.

Image: Reuters via the Guardian

Facebook tests its pay-to-post strategy

Facebook is testing a new posting function, called Highlight, in which users will pay to make sure everyone sees their status update, The Next Web reported.

Facebook chose New Zealand as the first country in which to test the paid-for spotlight. According to Stuff.co.nz, Users recently found that when they went to update their statuses, a small window popped up, asking them if they wanted to pay NZ$1.80 (US$1.42) to highlight important posts to make sure their friends would see it.

The users in New Zealand first thought the whole thing was a prank, but through a Facebook spokesperson’s confirmation to BBC, they soon discovered it was true. “We’re constantly testing new features across the site," the spokesperson stated. "This particular test is simply to gauge people’s interest in this method of sharing with their friends.”

Highlight is a way for Facebook to test the waters to see whether people would pay for special features, CNET reported. Aiming to attract IPO investors, Facebook has tried different ways to show its potential to boost its revenue.

Although Facebook might like to make money off users' updates, it is a controversial move that may not go over well with users.

“Facebook is playing with fire here,” Josh Constine wrote for TechCrunch, “The service has always been free for users, and a pay-for-popularity feature could be a huge turn off, especially to its younger and less financially equipped users who couldn’t afford such narcissism.”

In addition, John Koetsier, of Venture Beat, listed three main reasons that may be problematic in asking users for money to make their status messages more conspicuous: noise, conflict of interest and counter to the company’s social philosophy.

“Facebook was built to connect friends, help them share updates, and enable them to build and extend meaningful relationships. Making people pay for the privilege now seems to fly in the face of that mission,” he wrote. 

“On Facebook, what’s supposed to matter is how interesting your posts are, not how deep your wallet is,” Constine underscored.

Image: Digital Trends

New chart launches for streaming music

Music charts, based on album sales, are seeing a big change in the United Kingdom today.


The Official Streaming Chart, which lists the top 100 digitally streamed songs, launched today. It compiles information on streamed songs from digital outlets like Spotify, We7, Napster, Deezer, Zune and ChartsNow, MediaGuardian reported last week.

The chart will include the 100 top songs and rank audio streams from a mix of free (ad-funded) and subscription services.

According to the report, the most streamed artist of 2012 to date is Ed Sheeran. Lana Del Ray is ranked in second place, with David Guetta, Rihanna, and Coldplay filling the third, fourth, and fifth positions.

Spotify’s head of content, Steve Savoca, praised the Chart as “a defining moment in the evolution of digital music as it shows music consumption as a whole,” according to the RadioTimes.

The "legitimate" streaming market, which is ad-funded, makes up just 4.5 percent of the music industry’s overall revenues, according to the Independent. Nevertheless, it "is seen as the potential saviour of an industry decimated by piracy."

Different from its competitor Pandora, which is only available in United States, Spotify claims 10 million active users in 13 countries, with three million paying subscribers, according to Reuters.

The increasing popularity of Spotify is in tandem with the expansion of Facebook, through which users music with their friends on the site.

Comparing the business models of Pandora and Spotify, Seeking Alpha explained that Pandora was faced with huge royalty expenses and a troubled advertising-supported model. Spotify has established a subscription model with free advertising supported service, which might eat into Pandora’s share in the advertising market.

What’s more, by making music available on demand, Spotify must conclude licensing arrangements with each artist it offers, the Reuters reported.

“With Spotify now offering a free Pandora-like model in addition to true musical ‘On-Demand’ they could begin to woo away consumers from services like Sirius XM and Pandora,” Seeking Alpha noted.

Image: Official Charts Company

Mobile adspend booming in financial vertical

Finance has long been a success story in digital, and is now seeing growth on mobile platforms, up 314 percent worldwide from 2010 to 2011, Millennial Media data shows.


Banking (28 percent), financial services (16 percent), credit cards and services (20 percent) and insurance (42 percent) became the top ad vertical on the Millennial Media platform in the fourth quarter of 2011, jumping ahead of retail, restaurants, entertainment, telecom and automotive, MediaPost reported yesterday.


The study from Millennial Media suggests that “finance brands are putting more dollars into mobile because people who engage with financial content and ads via mobile devices tend to be young (between the ages of 18 and 34) and affluent, with 48 percent having an income of $75,000 or better. Of these users, 55 percent are male,” according to Click Z.


The increasing use of financial services like banking, commerce and payments via mobile devices will likely “make mobile an indispensable channel for marketers,” MediaPost pointed out. Traditionally, digital ad dollars are funneled to where users pay attention, but “on interactive platforms, where direct marketing still overwhelms brand plays, money really follows where consumers actually spend. When consumer spending begins to occur on devices in the same way it did online within the last decade, advertisers ignore it at their peril.” 


Lead generation/registration was finance advertisers’ most popular campaign goal, making up about 70 percent of all ad campaigns, according to Mobile Marketing Watch.


Image: Click Z

Amazon asks for users to help create TV series

Amazon has established its place as a power player in the digital books arena, and is now looking to get into television.


The content seller announced last week it is looking for submissions of scripts for comedy and children's TV series, CBS News reported. "Series can be live action, animated, stop motion or mixed media. Comedies must be 22 minutes long, while children’s series can be 11 or 22 minutes", the Amazon site stated.

Anyone is invited to upload series proposals to the website, and can do so in one of two ways: privately for review by Amazon Studios, or publicly to get community feedback. Then, within 45 days of evaluation, Amazon will either extend an option for US$10,000 or invite the creator to put the project on the Amazon site. If a show gets produced, the series creator will receive $55,000 plus other royalties and bonuses.

Amazon "wants to discover great talent and produce programming that audiences will love," said Roy Price, director of Amazon Studios, the division overseeing the programming effort. "There's an important difference between a focus group of 10 people and having 100,000 people watch your pilot and give feedback."

This new TV series project is led by Joe Lewis, previously of 20th Century Fox and Comedy Central, and Tara Sorensen, from National Geographic Kids, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Amazon Studios, which was launched in late 2010, has a similar venture with film production. Since then, more than 700 movie pilots were presented and 7,000 scripts, and currently 15 movies are under development.

Image: scoop.it

Facebook IPO price likely to surge despite concerns

Facebook is gearing up for its much discussed initial public offering at US$28 to $35 a share, targeting a valuation of as much as $96 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

The social media giant’s share price is likely to surge on the day of its IPO, many experts believe, Financial Times reported. The price would likely be driven up due to a relatively small number of shares being put on sale, combined with Facebook's popularity.

However, one tough job the site faces is convincing investors that it will continue to grow, one IPO adviser explained to the FT. Another concern is Facebooks’s ad business, which accounted for 85 percent of its total revenue last year. “It has been tricky as the social network has struggled to balance the needs of advertisers, who want more room for display ads on the site, while trying to maintain the quality of the experience for users, who dislike ads,” the WSJ analysed.

Another concern is Facebook’s limited ways to make money off its mobile app, despite more than half of its 900 million users accessing the site through the app, the WSJ pointed out.

Responding to that, Facebook is using acquisitions to fuel growth in services aimed at mobile users, Bloomberg reported. Last month the company bought Instagram, a mobile photo-sharing service for $1 billion, and its latest move is acquiring Glancee, a mobile service helping users find and connect with people based on their locations.

Facebook’s IPO is likely to be the largest ever for an Internet company, dwarfing the $23 billion debut of Google in 2004, according to the Guardian.


The social network announced it had 500 million users in July 2010. Today, with 901 million monthly active users, the company is on track to hit the billion mark by the end of the year, the Guardian added.

The site has even become a major force in this year's U.S. presidential election, as both the Obama re-election campaign and the Mitt Romney campaign put Facebook at the centre of their strategic plans, the Guardian pointed out.

Image: Scott Beale/Laughing Squid

CPJ releases list of most censored countries

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) , revealed in a report Wednesday, the day before World Press Freedom Day, the 10 most censored countries in the world.

The New York-based CPJ used 15 benchmarks to evaluate countries’ press freedom levels, including the blocking of websites, restrictions on electronic recording, absence of privately owned or independent media and restrictions on journalists' movements.

In the CPJ’s report, the most censored place goes to Eritrea. North Korea and Syria followed closely. Eritrea, a nation in the Horn of Africa, is governed by an iron hand by President Isaias Afewerki. There, “no foreign reporters are granted access ... and all domestic media are controlled by the government,” the report stated. The government expelled the last foreign correspondent in 2007.

Eritrea’s ambassador to the African Union, Girma Asmerson, pointed out that Eritrea banned private media in 2001 because they had become “propaganda mouthpieces for external foreign influences,” he said, according to Bloomberg. The country’s media is now focused on “development agenda and poverty alleviation.” 

“Every time [a journalist] had to write a story, they arrange for interview subjects and tell you specific angles you have to write on. We usually wrote lots about the president so that he's always in the limelight," an exiled Eritrean journalist told the CPJ.

 

Harsh press environments in North Korea, Syria and Iran are almost the same. Governments put restrictions on information that have huge influence on geopolitical and nuclear stability, the report explained. “North Korea has tested nuclear weapons, Iran is believed to be working to develop them and Syria reportedly has had nuclear ambitions,” The Associated Pres reported.

“Journalists are seen as a threat and often pay a high price for their reporting,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said in a statement accompanying the report. “But because the Internet and trade have made information global, domestic censorship affects people everywhere.”

Other nations on the list are: Equatorial Guinea, Uzbekistan, Burma, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Belarus.

China was close to being included in the list, as it “plays a particularly harmful role worldwide” because it exports censorship techniques, the report stated. 

Press freedom is impeded by an increase in online censorship, particularly in those countries where CPJ has seen Arab uprisings and particularly Syria and in Iran, Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the CPJ, told Journalism.co.uk.

Image: paperblog

YouTube Australia makes movies available across platforms

YouTube Australia last week launched movie rentals, making thousands of films available to users anywhere they can access their Google accounts, The Australian reported.

"On the web, you can rent and watch movies from Google Play and on YouTube. On Android phones and tablets, you can rent films from the Google Play store app and start watching them instantly on the Google Play Movies app. Movies can also be downloaded to the device so they’re available for viewing during the rental period without an internet connection. And if you are signed in using your Google Account, you can watch the same movies across both Google Play and YouTube," Google Australia's Content Partnerships manager Felicity Mcvay explained in a blog post.

For most movies, viewers will have 30 days to begin watching their rental and, once started, 48 hours to finish. Recent releases are available at AU$5.99 for standard definition and $6.99 for high definition, while back-catalogue titles cost $3.99 for SD and $4.99 for HD.

The rental service was has been available in the United States since May last year. To make it available in Australia, Google Australia signed deals with The Walt Disney company, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, NBCUniversal, Village Roadshow Pictures and Lionsgate, as well as local distributors such as Roadshow Films, Icon Film Distribution, Madman Entertainment, Hopscotch and Transmission Films, The Age reported.

Image: CNET Australia

The value of anonymous commenting systems

At a time when newsmedia outlets around the world are moving to commenting systems that don't allow for pseudonyms or anonymity, the U.S.-based Gawker is going in the opposite direction, recently introducing a new comment system, called Burner.

In the new system, users can submit information or add commentary without disclosing their identities. 

"Gawker Media is flying in the face of conventional media wisdom. While other outlets are doing away with anonymity, we've built anonymous accounts into our new comment system. We'll accept some disorder if that's the price of freedom in one's personal life, in politics and the press," wrote Gawker Media founder Nick Denton.

Nowadays, media organisations' resisting anonymity is one of the reasons many newspapers and other sites have outsourced comment systems to Facebook, GigaOM noted.

In its new system, Gawker continues its tradition of anonymity and further fortifies it; Gawker says no username, e-mail address or password could compromise a user’s identity even if it was hacked.

In 2010, Bill Reader, a professor at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, wrote that “banning unsigned online comments undermines the media’s role as a forum for debate” in the  American Journalism Review. Though some anonymous users might abuse their power, the there are two historical merits of anonymous comments, he stated:

"On a philosophical level, anonymity allowed opinions to be considered on their own merits, without regard for who was stating them; on a practical level, it gave people a way to disagree with leaders without getting beaten and/or thrown in jail."

However, online security is of concern to Gawker users. Gawker encountered hacking problems in online security two years ago. The Guardian reported at the time that hackers breached Gawker’s system, which exposed e-mail addresses and passwords of 1.3 million registered users, as well as Gawker’s publishing system and source code.

Photo: The Washington Post

Hulu's media owners expected to take over 10% stake

Providence Equity Partners is expected to sell its 10 percent stake in Hulu for about US$200 million. Potential buyers are media giants Disney, News Corp. and Comcast Corp., Bloomberg reported.


The $200 million sale gives Hulu a $2 billion valuation, Mashable noted last week.

The second largest online video website behind YouTube, Hulu launched five years ago, offering users TV shows and episodes from networks like NBC Universal and Fox, among others.

Hulu’s ownership structure will drastically change due to Providence Equity Partners’ sale. Currently, Disney, News Corp. and NBC Universal each owns a 27 percent and employees own 10 percent. Providence Equity Partners bought its 10 percent for $100 million in 2007, helping News Corp. and NBC Universal launch the site.


NBC Universal’s owner, Comcast, which relinquished its Hulu board seat and oversight as part of federal approval of its acquisition by the cable company, gave up the right to hold more stakes in Hulu, the Los Angeles Times explained.


Hulu’s business strategy will be more consistent without Providence, the Wall Street Journal noted in an analysis. Providence has had a goal of expanding Hulu, which has conflicted with media companies trying to safeguard their traditional TV businesses, the WSJ explained. For example, Hulu recently irritated media company executives by producing original programmes for the show, “Battleground,” decreasing media companies’ profits for selling traditional TV content.


David Bank, an analyst at RBC Capital Market in New York, told Bloomberg that Providence’s selling would be the “optimal outcome,” because “the real value of Hulu will be discovered on a longer time frame than what’s likely optimal for Providence.”


Hulu spokeswoman Elisa Schreiber declined to verify the selling, as did Andrew Cole, an outside spokesman for Providence, according to Bloomberg.


The WSJ, meanwhile, noted that Providence hasn’t even determined if it wants to sell.

Image: CBS money watch