links for 2010-03-04

  • Kevin: Todd Ziegler of The Bivings Group in Washington flagged up this great video by Jess3 with a number of very interesting internet statistics.
  • Kevin: Suw and I are in a huge transition right now. I'm transitioning from having a stable job in major, world-class journalism institutions to something quite different. Dan Blank has a great post on some friends who have seized this transition. That's what Suw and I are doing. It's great to read other people's stories.
  • Kevin: A good look at how engagement metrics. The real take away which is something you'll see almost everywhere. "Very few stations define success with concrete metrics. Most examples are anecdotal. ("I just have a sense.") What they consider to be "successful" is very subjective. Those that do have an idea of what success means to them include metrics such as page views, unique users, and calls into station when online offerings fail to work."
  • Kevin: Paul Bradshaw flags up a University of Chicago study looking at bias in newspapers. "Interestingly, ownership is found to be statistically insignificant once those other factors are accounted for." What they did find was journalists probably aren't aware of the reinforcing effect on their coverage based on the similiarity in information and beliefs from their sources. "The result is social networks that don’t recognize that they have developed a groupthink that is not centered on the truth.” As Paul points out, this is the echo chamber effect in traditional news coverage.
  • Kevin: Read this post by Ty Ahmad-Taylor. "The rise of prestige as a new form of currency has ramifications for businesses facing decline like print or broadcast." News and journalism are difficult places to apply this model. "But associated verticals such as finance and sports are, by their nature, inclined to offer game dynamics around outcomes."
  • Kevin: Caroline McCarthy at CNET writes: "The demise of Streamy is one more sign of something that was already evident: Facebook–and to a lesser extent, Twitter–has completely won this game."