I’m not sure why this might come as any surprise to anyone who produces content that could end up on the Web. We have been reformatting media for different mediums for decades. A newspaper story is structured differently than a radio story – than a broadcast story – than a magazine story. Why shouldn’t we format stories specifically for the Internet?

One article by Nielsen that I think tends to often get overlooked is when he used the terms lean-forward and lean-back mediums.

The idea behind lean-forward mediums is that people are engaged when they use the Web. They are in scanning mode, actively looking for content – and their attention span is much shorter. People use the Internet with purpose. Articles should be shorter and get to the point sooner, videos should be snippets or separated into clips of only a few minutes long.

Lean-back mediums on the other hand are the times we sit down and veg out watching TV, read a book or flip through a magazine. Our attention span is much longer because these are passive mediums and we are in a consumption mode. This is why most long-form doesn’t work on the Web.

The iPad is a particularly interesting device, because it aims to bring the Web into the living room where it could become a lean-back media device. I think this is why so many magazines are excited about delivering their content to the iPad. With tablets, people might actually spend time consuming media rather than frantically searching.

At the recent Apple presentation for the next iPhone software, Steve Jobs spoke about the future of mobile advertising and introduced a new product called iAd. At one point Jobs said that the average user spends an average of 30 minutes using apps on the iPhone, and they rarely use search tools like Google. It’s not about search, but about consumption of content. This really plays into the idea that mobile devices are in fact lean-back mediums. Apple is really smart in positioning itself as a leader in advertising innovation in the mobile space, because ad dollars tend to gravitate to lean-back mediums.

On the storytelling side, the news industry should start taking these ideas of lean-forward and lean-back mediums into consideration when creating content. Unfortunately, I don’t have answers on how that can be done logistically with the state of the industry and all of the cut backs. But, it’s interesting to think about.

Is a seven inch iPod coming to market?

David Carr of the New York Times wrote an article about how journalism doesn’t need the Web, and – in so many words – he said he thought that free news found on the Web is bad news for print publications.

As prestigious and prolific as David Carr is, I can’t help but feel like he’s another “one of those.” The curmudgeon kind, that steadfastly holds on to print – not so much for practical reasons as much as nostalgic ones.

But his latest blog post really got me thinking. He suggested – in so many words – that the news industry should build its own iTunes. He compares the way the music industry struggled with Napster and free downloads to the way the news industry struggles with free information on the Web and declining subscription rates.

Now David likes this idea entirely for different reasons than I do. He wants a way people will pay subscriptions for news. I’m wholly against that frame of mind. Why pay for news when you can get it free in so many other places? The day a news organizations charges for its content is the day I go elsewhere for that content.

But, I do use iTunes, and I do pay for music. I never thought I would, but at some point I finally succumbed. I think the reason was more for convenience than anything. When I buy a 99 cent song, I don’t feel like I’m buying music, I feel like I’m buying the convenience of being able to listen to it on my own time, and having the ease of Apple’s integrated software to get it on to my iPod. I can get music for free. It’s on the radio, Pandora, or you can stream it live from many Web sites, but it’s a hassle.

This is why I think David Carr is on to something.

According to TechCrunch and several other rumor sites, Apple (or other companies) could be working on a tablet computer. It’s been described in some articles as a 7 or 9 inch iPod. This could enable some type of business model for the news industry.

I still don’t think I would pay money to read the newspaper, but I might pay nominal amounts for convenience.

So, how does this affect the journalism industry? Well I’m guessing that this phone specifically probably won’t have much impact. But more generally speaking, it’s extremely revealing news because it shows the penchant for companies to make smarter cell phones that can do more.

I figure at this point Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and all of other major players in the traditional cell phone market are scrambling to come up with versions of their own smartphones. Many already have them, but will come out with newer iterations that meet expectations. I figure in two years, every company will have a host of cell phone models that have keyboards and Internet capability.

This market of Internet-connected cellphones is such a huge opportunity for the journalism industry, it almost makes me cry. Think about it; name one object that most people in the US keep with them virtually 24 hours a day? Most folks I know use their cellphones as alarm clocks at night. They take it with them to work, to school, to the movies, on vacation – everywhere. And if it is not directly in their possession, it’s usually not more than 10 feet away.

And not only do they have it with them at all times, but cell phones have a much greater psychological characteristic: it’s deeply personal. It is a means of communication with friends and family, it holds people’s conversations via text messages, accesses private voice mails, and is a keeper of personal photographs.

All journalistic mediums have struggled with a basic fundamental challenge of delivering the news to the customer. Whether it’s through delivery of a newspaper, catching a family during prime time, or finding a moment on their daily commutes via radio. The cellphone is another emerging platform.

The problem is, the offerings for news on cellphones is pretty thin. Right now, you can get all of the major players — CNN, NYTimes, CBS, and ABC — pretty easily via mobile sites. But it’s the local content that nearly invisible. If I see a plume of smoke, how can I easily find out if that is a control burn or perhaps some greater event in my town? How can I learn about my local city government — likely the level of governance that will affect me more than all of the other levels.

People praised innovation on the Web like Chicagocrime.org or Everyblock.com for its attention to hyperlocal. Now we need to bring that to cellular technology. Mobile versions of sites has to be a standard with all news sites, and reporters should learn some of the more modern techniques to connecting with readers through services like Twitter, live blogging and social networks.

Also, not quite as obvious, the news industry needs to seriously start thinking about hiring software developers to create programs for these platforms. Software that will not only communicate the news, but help facilitate community and local networks.

I was taking photos for the campus newspaper part-time, which seemed like a whole lot more fun than programming classes. So, one afternoon I switched my major from computer science to journalism. Newspapers seemed a lot easier to do than programming, and the male-to-female ratio was a little bit better in that department. I never thought I would have to touch a lick of code again.

Fast forward a few years, then lo and behold journalism is all about multimedia and suddenly coding skills are in high demand. I guess those 10 months of intro to programming classes really paid off. But now I’m finding, maybe I should have stuck with the programming gig after all.

I had this very thought a few weeks ago when Apple announced the Software Development Kit (SDK) for the iPhone. As soon as heard the news, my first inclination was “I gotta do that.” It turns out, Apple software is based on a programming language called Objective-C. I took a peak and was utterly delighted to learn that ObjC is quite similar to another programming language called C++ that I had to make friends with once upon a time.

I actually went out and bought a book on ObjC and it has very quickly brought me back to common phrases I once cringed to hear, like polymorphism, inheritance, pointers and methods. (I can hear echos of liberal arts majors running away screaming)

OK, so all of that aside, here is the million dollar question: What should I program? So far, I’m successfully mastered the “Hello World” program (a program that displays those respective words). Apple has a ton of really great documentation and coding samples of how to do things like take advantage of location aware functionality, etc. They just released a program tool called Interface Builder, which is essentially a drag-and-drop program builder. It makes the coding part much easier for a novice such as myself. I’m ready to go, but where should I start?

Here are a couple of ideas I was throwing around:

• Location aware app that will tell you nearby services like shopping, theaters, gas stations, etc. Maybe I can connect it to http://www.everyblock.com/ ?
• A journalist toolbox, that will offer you Computer Assisted Reporting tools at your finger tips. Everything from where to get a person’s home tax records to how to file a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA). Maybe I can store it in the phone’s mysql lite database.
• RSS aggregation program that will give you headlines from a variety of sources (I’m sure this someone else already has done this. It’s pretty easy to do.

Any more ideas? What do people want out of their iPhones?

I have to admit, the service works pretty well. It’s free except for the cost of the text message your carrier charges (most carriers give an allowance of text messages). In a test I text messaged “carl’s jr. six dollar” and got back information that their Six Dollar Guacamole Bacon Burger was 1117 calories. That’s not counting the fries or the large soda. Pretty soon I was texting the name of everything I’ve eaten in the last couple of weeks. (I didn’t have the six dollar burger in case you were wondering)

This type of feature isn’t anything new. Lots of organizations are using texting services to get or return information, including Google’s new 411 service. Just text your search query to “G-O-O-G-L-E” or 466453, and it’ll return local info. (Ex. “sushi 94720″ will return sushi restaurants near UC Berkeley).

Local KITS Live 105.3 San Francisco uses text messaging to get responses from listeners to polls or song requests. The DJ will ask a question like “Text in your favorite place to vacation” and within seconds the messages come pouring in. It’s crowd-sourcing at it’s most immediate form.

It seems the only people who aren’t using a text messaging service are news Web sites. At least, I haven’t seen any. A few will provide “SMS alerts” but even then, I’m not sure I want give the power to a company to send me text messages all day about a range of topics I can’t control, dwindling down my monthly 250 text message allowance. I’d rather have the query-answer method any day.

Why is it that the San Francisco Chronicle or the New York Times can’t be the one to provide me with directions to restaurants or the latest movies playing via my cell phone? Google wins again.

The idea, once it’s fully developed, would work like this: Set your mobile phone on an area of your desk that has a special reader pad. The pad signals your computer and takes you to a site that would allow you to download RSS feeds, news stories, blog, personal notes and even directions to say a restaurant right to your phone.

The RFID part of it is more of a gimmack, the real beauty is in the software. Making it simple to, well, put the newspaper on your phone. There are a ton of programs right now that will technically do that, but none with the beauty and simplicity as this one. And one thing software developers are quickly learning these days is that User Interface is everything.

Their idea was so cool, they won the Yahoo Hack Day London 2007 competition. (I admit, I didn’t even know that was going on)

They are going to have the software ready “very soon” on their Web site ShifD.com.

Watch the video of them explaining their product far better than I could in this blog:



The iPlayer is simple enough. Stream all of the BBC content on the Web. Everyone is pretty much already doing this, except, the BBC is actually looking ahead to the future. They are trying to make their content available in as many venues as they can. Very soon everyone who owns an iPhone in Europe will know they can watch BBC content on their iPhones, and the BBC will undoubtedly see a jump in traffic. If they play their cards right, they will start offering other services to iPhone users like movie times, weather, stocks, etc. all through widgets or programs.

Now I use Apple’s iPhone as a reference, but I’m really speaking of mobile devices in general. I like to use the iPhone because I think it does serve as a rather interesting barometer given its popularity and capabilities (not to mention Google recently announced that iPhone searches on the internet are 50 times more than any other cell phone).

Pretty soon, the mobile computing platform will become ubiquitous. Some say in five years, others in two years. But no matter who you talk to, they all agree that mobile devices are the future. I’ve said it before, people today are in love with their cell phones. It’s their lifeline to the world, their method of personal communication. Now, it’ll be used as a platform for mass communication. The only question unanswered is who will be leading the charge? A Silicon Valley startup, or a news company?

One aspect of this discussion which really caught my attention was the talk about NPRs mobile Web site. I am somewhat of a mobile smartphone fanatic. I’ve owned virtually every generation of smartphone OS since they came into existence.

Windows Pocket PC 2003

Starting with the tiny Audiovox’s SMT 5600 which ran Windows Smartphone software, a gigantic Pocket PC brick phone that ran Windows Mobile 2003, the once ubiquitous Treo 650 running Palm OS software, a T-mobile DASH which also ran Windows Mobile Smartphone 6.0, then finally the Apple iPhone.

So, hopefully without sounding arrogant, let me just say I’m very familiar with the mobile Web browsing experience. I’m also familiar with the benefits and drawbacks of 3rd party mobile software (more on that in a future post), and having perused thousands of forum posts, I also have somewhat of an impression of what mobile users want in mobile web content.

I mention NPR because their mobile site is quite impressive. It’s both WAP and iPhone compatible, it delivers the news, photos AND an innovate method for delivering streaming content: a phone call.

That’s right, the Web gurus over at NPR basically thought it would be incredibly difficult to build several streaming media services to accommodate all of the different mobile platforms out there (which is somewhat true) So their website contains a linkable phone number that can be called. By “linkable” I mean you can click the phone number and on most phones the link will initiate the phone call. On the other end is a recording of the top headlines.

Kudos for the unique method of problem solving. This definitely has 100% compatibility with all mobile phones. However as a daily mobile media consumer, I have yet to use this feature more than once. I just can’t stand to waste my precious minutes listening to news headlines — even though a majority of my conversations are mundane, and in all likelihood, pointless. I feel that a good amount of people will feel the way I do.

You don’t want to place a phone call just to hear the news.