Digital rights bill introduced

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) today introduced the Consumers, Schools, and Libraries Digital Rights Management (DRM) Awareness Act of 2003. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) supports the bill as an important step toward balancing the rights of the public and the interests of entertainment industries in the age of digital commerce.

A panel on online journalism

For Bay Area residents, the Online News Association is putting together an evening with past winners of the Online Journalism Awards. Among those on hand will be cartoonist Mark Fiore; Angela Morgenstern, a Web producer for KQED Frontline; Jonathan Dube of MSNBC.com; and Jeff Pelline, editor, CNet news.com. Panel moderator will be Neil Chase, managing editor of CBS Marketwatch, and MC will be Bruce Koon, ONA President and Executive News Editor, Knight Ridder Digital.

It'll be Sept. 30 from 6 until 8:30 p.m. at CNet headquarters, 235 Second St., San Francisco. Reception from 6 to 7; panel will start at
approximately 7:10. Admission is free, but RSVP to Michael Fitzgerald so they can figure out refreshments.

A soup-to-nuts online publishing system

Barbara in Mass. writes about a new blogging/RSS venture:

I follow your writing with interest, and this may be a concept for mainstreaming blogging and RSS which you might find of interest. I have been working with some friends who have put together a system which could make email irrelevant for anything but personal ommunications. We have launched this week ...

The system is called Quikonnex. It is a turnkey, soup-to-nuts online publishing service. Their idea is to handle the technology so that folks with good writing skills and something important to say can just get it out there. Quikonnex channels are media-rich and they use a channel viewer which does not strip tags, so publishers can deliver text, audio or video, right in their channels. Items can be published immediately, or set on a timer for later publication.

Each channel comes with both an open chat and a private messaging system, plus links to the most popular Instant Messaging services, so there are several options for publisher/subscriber interaction. Quikonnex can also provide statistics on how many discrete visitors look at each channel, either in an open browser, or using the channel viewer, how many have subscribed to each channel, and item-by-item click-thru rates. It is completely spam-proof, and publishers no longer have to worry about email newsletters getting caught by tightly constrained email/ISP filters.

It is based on blog and RSS/XML technologies, but the interface has been made simple so as to facilitate publishing good content and relieving
the writers/publishers of the burden of having to be programmers as well as good writers. Quikonnex has also developed a simple way to assist subscribers with downloading and installing a channel viewer, and subscribing to the channels which interest them, so they don't have to be rocket scientists, either.

If you are interested, please take a look at this subscriber page for my friend's channel. This page will give you all the information about how the service works, as well as a chance to see a sample channel.

The main page for Quikonnex is still being tweaked.

I have a number of projects I'm juggling right now so I don't have time to dive it and check out whether their execution works, but it sounds very interesting.

'We Media' report finished

New Directions for News earlier this week posted the final chapters in our seven-part report called We Media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information. It's the most thorough analysis I've seen of the trends, often discussed on this list, relating to participatory journalism. Writers Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis did a terrific job in surveying the field and pulling together disparate bits of information to build a case for a new relationship between media companies and their audiences. (Disclaimer: I served as editor.)

The final chapter (pdf) explores ways for media companies to integrate participatory journalism into their existing operations. Some key points, which the report probes in depth:

• Make your newsroom responsive to change

• Give your staff some level of autonomy

• Embrace the audience as a valued partner

• Embrace customers as innovators

• Donít own the story. Share the story.

IBM prepares lockbox for home networks

News.com: IBM is readying a digital rights management strategy for securing content everywhere from Hollywood to Wall Street.

This is potentially significant, though it may be too early to say whether the DRM involved will be flexible enough to appeal to customers. I wish the article mentioned similar initiatives at other companies and quoted someone with a more skeptical eye.

Gitlin's advice to David Brooks

Todd Gitlin in the American Prospect has some questions for David Brooks, the newest addition to the NY Times' op-ed pages. And some observations.

Government lies and self-hypnosis do not seem to interest Brooks when done by Republican chiefs. In fact, to date, he has shown himself to be substantially innocent of the ways of American power. At his best, he is a close student of something he often confuses with power: prestige. The foundation executive, professor, journalist, banker, broker and CEO are, to him, brothers and sisters under the skin. Together they rule, and deserve to rule, for they do a good job for the yokels. "Unlike Washington activists or academic polemicists, most Americans live in the world of corporate America."

Thanks to Sheila for the pointer.

'Secrets for Avoiding RIAA Lawsuits'

According to Wired News, an earlier version of this article on TechTV.com had the headline, Secrets for Avoiding RIAA Lawsuits. But now it's about granting users access in WinXP Home. Not sure what happened here. Perhaps someone realized that WinXP doesn't have much to do with how one configures a p2p network setup on a home computer. Or not.

Meantime, here's another bit of strangeness. Ken Layne says this: "Marc Brazeau sent a link to his excellent recap of the file-sharing/record industry mess. Full of quotes from artists ..."

But the page is down, and all of Blogspot appears to be down.

Ethics, magazines and advertorials

Just came across this interesting New York Times piece on Ethics, magazines and advertorials, which is already behind a pay firewall on the main nytimes.com site, though available through the College Times run by the paper's circulation dept. Excerpt:

Pick up a magazine on the newsstand, and chances are it will contain at least one advertorial. In September, issues of nine CondÈ Nast Publications magazines, including Vogue and Vanity Fair, carry a nine-page advertorial for Mercedes-Benz. At Hearst, Esquire, Town & Country and O, The Oprah Magazine, will carry a special section for Tourneau watches in October. ...

In its April issue, Men's Journal, owned by Wenner Media, produced an article called "Conquering the Highlands." It looked, in typography and design, very much like the magazine's editorial content save for a logo that combined the magazine's name with Dewar's Scotch. A tiny bit of type at the top of the page indicated to the reader that the package was an advertisement, but many readers probably thought the men's adventure magazine simply favored toasting a day of rock climbing with "a few rounds of Dewar's choicest Scotch whisky."

The guidelines of the American Society of Magazine Editors specifically prohibit the use of a magazine's logo and prohibit special sections from mimicking the design of the publication.

Here's the complete article ...

To Sell the Ads, Eager Magazines Write the Copy

By DAVID CARR

Hen MGM Mirage earlier this year sought to reposition its family-friendly Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas as a destination more suitable for adults in search of decadence, its media-buying agency pitted three men's magazines against one another in a winner-take-all contest.

To compete, the magazines ó FHM, Maxim, and Playboy ó would have to come up with full-blown marketing programs, complete with regular advertising, Internet and party components, to lure Treasure Island's advertising dollars.

FHM won the face-off ó and $750,000 in revenue ó with its pitch. A key to its victory was the creation of a four-part, 24-page advertising section to run in consecutive issues beginning in October. These special sections, known as advertorials, are as glossy as any editorial spread, with high-level photography, writing and design.

While special advertising sections are nothing new, the heightened production values are. Magazine companies are investing more time and money ó and sometimes their editorial staffs ó to see that special sections like these leave advertisers feeling a little special as well.

"Special sections have always been around, but now they have gone on steroids," said Michael A. Clinton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Hearst Magazines. "They have become much more complex and sophisticated."

They are also less lucrative than regular advertising, leaving some in the industry wondering whether advertisers are being taught that an elaborate, custom editorial package is a better environment for their marketing messages than the magazine.

Sometimes, in an effort to meet the increasing demands of clients, publishers have engaged in tactics that leave some in the industry wagging a finger and readers scratching their heads over what separates editorial content from advertising. Editorial executives say they are seeing more blurring of that line than ever.

The shrinking fortunes of magazines in the overall media landscape offer a partial explanation. To the dismay of jealous magazine publishers, even network television ó whose ratings are at an all-time low ó continues to entrance advertisers, who this spring committed a record number of advertising dollars to the 2003-4 season. Magazines, by contrast, continue to experience a drop in market share relative to other media outlets.

To get reluctant advertisers in their magazines, publishers are resorting more than ever to advertorials. While overall advertising page totals fell by about half a percent between 1997 and 2002, special-section pages jumped by 22.7 percent, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMR and the Publishers Information Bureau.

Pick up a magazine on the newsstand, and chances are it will contain at least one advertorial. In September, issues of nine CondÈ Nast Publications magazines, including Vogue and Vanity Fair, carry a nine-page advertorial for Mercedes-Benz. At Hearst, Esquire, Town & Country and O, The Oprah Magazine, will carry a special section for Tourneau watches in October.

"Marketers are demanding more from magazines," said Dana Fields, executive publisher and president at FHM, which is owned by the British company Emap. "They are coming to us for solutions beyond just selling them an ad."

Susan B. Fleitz, senior vice president for advertising at MGM Mirage, said: "FHM was a great fit for us, they came up with an Internet campaign, they hosted a party for us and then gave us an insert that was about these three guys and their quest to have fun. And they covered the party in their editorial pages. We were looking to make a splash and we did."

FHM's reward, however, was not as lucrative as if it had sold Treasure Island 24 pages of regular advertising at the listed rate, for a $1.5 million total. (An agency commission could have taken out as much as 15 percent of that amount.) Nonetheless, if the alternative was no dollars, FHM was willing to pull out all the stops, including using its fashion editor to put together the section, a no-no according to advertorial guidelines promulgated by the American Society of Magazine Editors.

"We do not have an `advertorial department,' " Ms. Fields said. "We used Antony Wright, our fashion editor, because he is familiar with going out on photo shoots. Fashion shoots tell a story, and that's what we wanted to do for Treasure Island."

FHM has plenty of company. In its July issue, Maxim, a men's magazine owned by Dennis Publishing and known for its passion for jokes, beer and scantily clad women, combined all three in a special advertising section called "Bite the Big Apple" about a boring business trip that became something else once the subjects of the story opened a few bottles of Miller Lite. The section was produced by Maxim's editors. (The section also ran in the company's Blender magazine.)

Lance Ford, executive vice president at Dennis, is not shy about the fact that Dennis is selling its style and attitude to land special sections.

"It had our tone and style," he said. "We used our editors to find that Dennis spirit. In a small, entrepreneurial company, we don't think of `church and state' in the traditional sense. We try to pull everybody in to bake that pie."

Other publishers say they do not use members of their editorial staff, but may run afoul of the guidelines just the same.

In its April issue, Men's Journal, owned by Wenner Media, produced an article called "Conquering the Highlands." It looked, in typography and design, very much like the magazine's editorial content save for a logo that combined the magazine's name with Dewar's Scotch. A tiny bit of type at the top of the page indicated to the reader that the package was an advertisement, but many readers probably thought the men's adventure magazine simply favored toasting a day of rock climbing with "a few rounds of Dewar's choicest Scotch whisky."

The guidelines of the American Society of Magazine Editors specifically prohibit the use of a magazine's logo and prohibit special sections from mimicking the design of the publication. Gary Armstrong, chief marketing officer of Wenner Media, said that the section where the Highlands article appeared, "The Men's Journal Adventure Team," was part of a continuing program that includes a television show and that the use of the logo is permitted. "We respect the editorial integrity of our magazines," Mr. Armstrong said.

Officials at A.S.M.E. would not comment about the section.

The editors' society rarely sanctions publishers who do not adhere to its guidelines. A rare instance occurred in 1997 when it stripped Time Inc.'s This Old House of its National Magazine Award nominations because it allowed an editorial insert to be labeled "brought to you by Ace Hardware," giving the impression, the organization said, that the magazine's editors were endorsing a product.

"I think there is only a danger if something is portrayed as something that it is not," said Marlene Kahan, executive director of A.S.M.E. "We try to leave wiggle room rather than being the special-section advertising police and try to be realistic about the business. We put the guidelines out there and hope that the publishers police themselves."

One publishing executive said that the current arms race over building elaborate special sections was hurting the industry.

"The past two years have been thick with them, in part because it was a quick way to fill the page gap created by the tech implosion," this executive said. "But I can't think of a time when people have been pushing the rules like they are now. Publishers are desperate to get pages in their magazine and they will do just about anything to get them. It's not a great thing for a business that is always bragging about readership trust."

It's hard to expect self-policing when advertisers are constantly pushing magazines to put their editorial imprimatur on a product. Behind the four walls of many publishers, especially in the women's magazine category, there are frequent trades of editorial coverage for advertising, but it is nothing explicit ó beauty and fashion producers who do not advertise will soon notice that their products are almost never featured.

The special advertising section is a more overt and transparent trade. And the sections have been used and abused over the years to push up the number of reported advertising pages in a magazine ó the Publishers Information Bureau, known as P.I.B., counts special advertising sections the same as regular advertising pages ó to give the impression of a competitive lead in a specific category.

The New Yorker, which was reported to have posted a profit last year after years of losses, has made vigorous use of special sections, including some adorned by its fabled cartoonists.

"When used right, advertorial pages can help you grow in new categories and do smart business," said David Carey, publisher of The New Yorker, part of CondÈ Nast unit of Advance Publications. "When used wrongly, they can inflate your P.I.B. count and hurt your P & L," or profits and losses. Mr. Carey said special section advertising will be down by a third this year, but that profits will be up.

Mr. Carey, who said he was somewhat fatigued by the criticism that The New Yorker has been clogged with special sections, pointed out that other media companies just have more flexibility.

"When The New York Times wants to get more weekend travel business, they create a section called Escapes," he said. "No readers were crying out for that section."

Catherine J. Mathis, a spokeswoman for The Times, said, "Escapes has been a tremendous success from the perspective of both readers and advertisers."

Ellen Oppenheim, chief marketing officer of the Magazine Publishers of America, said that elaborate special advertising sections have become an increasingly important tool for publishers.

"They have been re-invigorated because advertisers want richer programs with many components," Ms. Oppenheim said. "But it is very important that readers trust and believe the magazine. It's important that the trust not be violated."

Radio tag set to debut

Wired News: Radio Tag Debut Set for This Week. Interesting story about RFID tags and the Electronic Code Product Network, which will allow retailers and suppliers to track not only product codes -- something bar codes already do -- but serial numbers for each individual item. Some of the tags can also send out signals when perishables reach their expiration dates.

For anyone who has ever worked in supply chain (for retail or ecommerce), this is akin to a gift from the heavens. But the EFF and others are right to address the privacy issues involved. "The activists say new laws may be needed to prevent organizations from tracking individuals through the radio signals emanating from the things they purchase."

Something to keep an eye on.

The allergy epidemic

For anyone with kids, this is interesting reading, from the Sept. 22 issue of Newsweek: The Allergy Epidemic. Weve conquered most childhood infections, but extreme reactions to everyday substances pose a new threat.

Howard Dean, Larry Lessig and the DMCA

The Village Voice on Howard Dean, Larry Lessig and the DMCA.

On the surface, at least, Dean's campaign is operating very much in sync with the idea of the creative commons. His campaign manager, Joe Trippi, a software industry insider and a self-described avid reader of blogs, extols the virtues of Dean's "bottom-up" strategy over "broadcast politics."

Gallup bypasses the media

Paul Grabowicz in E-Media Tidbits points to polling organizations such as Gallup circumventing the news media to get their message out directly to researchers, academics and others.

James Clifton, CEO of the Gallup Organization, said in a Q&A with MediaBistro last week: "We used to just do our polls and then hand the data over to media. ... And the media do a terrible, terrible, terrible job with polls." Absolutely true.

(Side note: Media Bistro calls him "Jim Clifton" in the headline. At one of my first jobs in newspapers, the executive editor decreed that we should never use nicknames for officials or executives because journalists shouldn't be chummy with the people we interview.)

I knew about Gallup's move into subscription services, but I didn't know about The Gallup Brain, described as "a searchable, living record of more than 60 years of public opinion. Inside, you'll find answers to more than 125,000 questions, and responses from more than 3.5 million people interviewed by The Gallup Poll since 1935."

MSNBC.com takes innovative storytelling prize

MSNBC.com's dynamic Big Picture series on Monday won the first $10,000 Grand Prize in the Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism for cutting-edge storytelling that connected users to journalism with an array of new media tools.

Top honors also went to the Chicago Tribune and Minnesota Public Radio, each awarded $2,500 as runners-up. The awards were presented at the National Press Club.

Two community media efforts, at the San Francisco Chronicle and Maine's VillageSoup.com, were rewarded with Honorable Mentions. Both engaged their audiences in new ways and celebrated local news using groundbreaking techniques.

A list of nominees is available at J-Lab.org, with more information on the prizes here and here.

Send Dave to Israel

Here's an interesting new site -- SendDavetoIsrael.com -- and another intriguing example of participatory journalism. Dave says by email:

I really enjoyed your series on participatory journalism. I have been interested in the subject since 1996 when I tried to predict the consequences of the internet for China in a dissertation. I did not realize at the time that great change was in store for the west as well. Your series really helped me to clarify some thoughts I have had on technology, empowerment, economics, and society. I have finally (it has been six years since my dissertation) taken the plunge first hand to see if technology really can enable people to do new and exciting things.

The goal of his site is to raise money to "embed" Dave in Israel for a few weeks. He says, "It's time that someone besides government officials and 'professional' journalists interpret what is happening in Israel and walk the roads that make up the Road Map." Dave explains the genesis of his proposed trip here.

It's a hefty sum, but I wish him luck.

Beyond Google as an Internet archive

Register UK: The politics of archiving, or why Google is not the only archive we'll ever need.

Is it live or is it digital?

When is a bugle not a bugle? When it's digital.

Republicans for Dean

In his NY Times column today, David Brooks asked eight Republican pollsters if they thought Howard Dean could beat President Bush. (Thus the ironic headline, Republicans for Dean.) All eight dismissed Dean's chances. Naturally, the piece speaks only to what Brooks calls Dean's "partisan style" and doesn't probe why independents and even some Republicans actually do support Dean for his John McCain-style straight talk.

David, if you would take a few days to ditch the narrow clique of Beltway insiders and the GOP punditocracy along the East Coast corridor, you'll find something amazing happening in the grassroots of this country.

The LA Times, meantime, has a telling look at President Bush's slipping popularity: In a Bush Stronghold, Some Are Losing Heart. In Xenia, Ohio, the war and the economy are eroding people's faith in the president.

As for me, while I'm backing Dean at this point, I haven't closed the door to Gen. Wesley Clark if he makes a compelling stand on the campaign trail.

Senate votes to repeal new media ownership rules

Breaking news from the NY Times: The Republican-controlled Senate dealt a blow to the Bush Administration today, voting to rescind new Federal Communications Commission rules that would allow large media companies to get even bigger.

By a vote of 55 to 40, the Senate approved a resolution that would roll back the F.C.C. regulations allowing television networks to own more local stations and that would have permitted conglomerates to own newspaper, television and radio stations in a single metropolitan market.

The resolution faces a tougher battle in the House and a possible veto by President Bush.