Archive for December 14th, 2007
For the month of November, here are the top newspaper sites ranked by total (not average) time spent:
1. NYTimes.com (550,035 minutes)
2. USAToday.com (136,603)
3. WashingtonPost.com (145,083)
4. Boston.com (79,712)
5. WSJ.com (72,110)
And there are some big surprises with the rest of the list of the top 30. For example, Chron.com (Houston Chronicle) beats LATimes.com handily. So does AZCentral.com. But the debate continues: is total time spent better than unique users when ranking top news sites? Or is it a combination of both? And, of course, there’s the whole issue of accuracy and standardization in metrics, which is the subject of this story today.
December 14th, 2007
Yes, it’s true, an analyst with Credit Suisse released an upbeat report about the future of newspapers. John Klim focused most of his praise on New York Times and Gannett, but he was upbeat about the industry as a whole. Klim says revenue troubles appear to be cyclical, and he believes newspapers will adjust their cost structures to succeed in a new digital world. “Newspapers’ reach remains impressive and the content remains relevant, even in this on-demand, highly fragmented media environment,” he wrote. But he said a recovery will likely not begin until late 2008. (You can bet this report is getting forwarded around a lot today.)
Meanwhile, a survey of hundreds of newspaper execs reveals that “more survey respondents project decreases rather than increases in 5 out of 8 ad revenue categories” for 2008. But online, “large increases are expected.”
December 14th, 2007
Mark Glaser has done a great job compiling various approaches to the hyperlocal news puzzle, along with links to a bunch of example sites.
December 14th, 2007
MSNBC.com unleashed its new video player to the masses today, and it offers a raft of features. The video quality is top-notch, and it uses Flash. The player screen itself is nice and roomy, measuring about 600 pixels wide. While a clip is playing, related links display along the bottom of the player, and the video clip pauses if you decide to take a look.
When you select a clip, a playlist comes along with it, putting several related clips in the queue. Also, three pre-programmed playlists are available in the upper left-hand side of the player window — including Top Videos, Most Viewed, and Weird News. Other navigation mirros MSNBC.com’s text-side navigation, with US News, Politics, Business etc. Embeddable video clips and search will be available “soon.”
When a pre-roll plays, a medium rectangle replaces the left navigation. It appears the new player is following the same approach as MSN Video, which is one pre-roll for every three minutes of use.
In full-screen mode, you can mouse-over the left screen to surface the nav.
Here’s the Alpha Channel blog entry on the player with the title, “Don’t kill your television (we’re still in beta).”
December 14th, 2007
