http://www.writinghurts.com Media as a contact sport Fri, 29 May 2009 19:53:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Dave Fleet has an interesting piece on social media as a commodity on Social Media Today. He's mostly concerned with marketing, but the points he makes hold true for media-types, as well. What do clients care about? Ideas - creative, strategic ideas that solve a problem and accomplish objectives Integrated solutions - approaches that ... http://www.writinghurts.com/2009/05/29/so-what-sets-you-apart/ I like (mis)quoting Edward Miller, who once said that saying "I want better writing in this section" isn't a plan, it's a prayer, and one that's unlikely to be answered. Well, the media is full of those these days, from Dean Singleton to Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch just told Rueters that people will ... http://www.writinghurts.com/2009/05/28/we-need-plans-not-prayers/ Mike Volpe from Hubspot.com took the New York Times to task yesterday for hiring a social media editor. His argument is that it's everyone's responsibility to take part in social media, SEO and inbound marketing. He's absolutely right. But he's wrong, too. Start-ups filled with people who'd be using social media ... http://www.writinghurts.com/2009/05/27/do-companies-need-a-social-media-leader/ Steve Outing has an interesting column on Editor and Publisher's site about different ways to make newspapers money. He really likes a plan from the New York Times to allow people to buy sponsorships. I wrote about the other plan from the Times last week. Sponsorship is a fascinating idea, and Outing ... http://www.writinghurts.com/2009/05/21/novel-ideas-are-what-we-need-for-the-future-of-newspapers/ I wrote last week about Dean Singleton's plan to make people pay for local content. I don't think it's a good idea, because instead of increasing revenue, it's going to shut off access to content, not just for local readers, but for search engines, as well, making the sites less ... http://www.writinghurts.com/2009/05/20/in-which-im-hard-on-dean-singleton-again/ A short Monday post for right now. TechCrunch has an interesting, detailed take down of the idea that micropayments are the future of journalism. Some salient points (I'll let you read the whole thing if you want to): Everyone NEEDS to make profit, but only strong businesses will. In other words, just because ... http://www.writinghurts.com/2009/05/18/monday-morning-roundup-two-looks-at-ways-to-make-journalism-pay/ The New York Times has a fascinating proposal to make some money off Web content: metered reading. You'd get so much for free, then to continue, you'd have to pony up. It strikes me as a quintessentially New York solution, in that it reminds me of a taxi's meter. And it ... http://www.writinghurts.com/2009/05/15/metered-web-reading-is-our-savior/ A lot has been written about the Wall Street Journal's (somewhat paternalistic) social media policy and the one being hashed out at the New York Times, as well. Smarter people than me are weighing in, but I think I might be able to add something to this conversation, since I'm training ... http://www.writinghurts.com/2009/05/14/my-two-line-social-media-policy/ (Note: I'm back, at least for a while. It's a time of even more upheaval in the newspaper industry, and I've found myself with a lot to say.) There's been a lot more talk about making people pay for online content recently. Dean Singleton made a big deal of that at ... http://www.writinghurts.com/2009/05/14/you-only-think-youre-paying-for-content/ This will be the last post here, at least for a while. My colleague, Annette Schulte, talks about struggling with the muse, and I've been engaged in a battle with mine for a while now. I'm passionate about this topic — media and technology — but I'm not getting anywhere by ... http://www.writinghurts.com/2008/11/25/where-do-we-go-from-here/