Data + Journalism = Great Matchup

If there’s a trend in the world of journalism, it’s that quality is rapidly and powerfully asserting itself. In a growing number of cases, those who have strong, well-articulated opinions, those who can spot trends, and those who can analyze data are outgrowing the media platforms that launched them. This creates new opportunities for them, not the least of which is being able to charge money for their valuable knowledge. It’s an encouraging trend. But while developing talented trend-spotters and opinion leaders is a hit-and-miss process, journalism based on data is a much more dependable route to building quality. That’s because the data confers authority - your journalism is not only based on facts, it’s derived from facts. Data journalism is also valuable because the underlying data is often proprietary, and even if not, the analysis of the data is proprietary. Numerous studies have shown that data is often more popular than straight news, and venture capitalists are noticing this as well. In short, there’s a lot to commend the marriage of journalism and data, and that’s good news for many B2B publishers.

Yes, many B2B publishers have both data and journalism businesses. But even when they’re under the same roof, for the most part they might as well be in different worlds. The news folks and the data folks aren’t working together. In many publishing companies, they don’t even regularly talk to each other. And this is a huge missed opportunity.

Your data group knows how to collect, maintain and analyze data. These are skills sorely lacking in the journalism world today. And your news group knows what the burning issues are in the marketplace, and how to turn often mind-numbing tables of data into lively, understandable prose. It’s a great match-up of skills, but one that rarely seems to happen organically.

Using your proprietary data in news stories is the best possible kind of promotion for your paid data products because it shows clearly how valuable and useful your datasets are. And introducing proprietary data into your news content sets you apart in the marketplace as a source of evidence-based insight.

So in my view, there’s a powerful case to be made to get your data and news groups working together. Once you do, you’ve set the stage to move to the next level, what’s being called analytical journalism, where you not only present the facts, but explain their implications, which starts you down the road to being able to offer data, trend-spotting and opinion leadership. That’s an editorial package your audience will respect, and pay for.

The Future Is Not Free

In a speech at the D2 Digital Dialogue conference yesterday, a top Macy's marketing executive, in a true "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" moment, made the following statement: "Consumers are worried about our use of data, but they're pissed if I don't deliver relevance. … How am I supposed to deliver relevance and magically deliver what they want if I don't look at the data?"

This question speaks directly to the larger issues facing the publishing industry today: how to make money in a world where today’s consumer wants everything … and nothing. Consumers want their content free of charge, free of advertising and free of tracking. And what do content providers get in return for all this freedom? Well, freedom from revenue.

All this stems from the dot com mania when it became both fashionable and conventional wisdom that success online depended on free content. In the process of doing this, we’ve trained an entire generation to expect everything for free, to the extent they become indignant if any modest attempt at monetization offends their delicate sensibilities.

The content industry to a large part created this mess by enabling this unsustainable state of affairs. Ironically, those information companies that stuck to their paid subscription models are the ones in the best shape right now. And therein lies the answer to this problem: let’s move past increasingly intrusive, contorted and ultimately futile efforts to monetize our visitors, and start turning our visitors into subscribers. No, it won’t be easy or painless, but is there a real alternative?

We can look to the newspaper industry for inspiration. The entire industry, to paraphrase Churchill, is finally doing the right thing after having explored every other option. Yes, newspapers are charging for their content. That’s all the more remarkable because newspapers are burdened with a severe commoditization issue. And just this week, People magazine announced a news subscription bundle priced at $100 per year. Yes, People magazine. If that doesn’t embolden you, what will?

So if you are still mired in the dismal world of free content where consumers want to get everything for nothing and advertisers want to pay next to nothing to reach them, there is an option. And if you honestly don’t think you can make the shift, you need to take a hard look at your content. As Sharon Rowlands, former CEO of Penton once said to me, “If our content is as valuable as we say it is, why do we all spend so much money begging people to take it?” Answer that question and your business direction becomes clear.

Don’t Be Embarrassed

“If you’re not at least a little embarrassed by something you just launched, you probably waited too long to start it.” So says Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit and a number of other high profile web media products. This statement, provocative as it is, actually is little more than a smart synthesis of the current state of play in the world of online product development. You no doubt hear variants of this theme regularly, sometimes expressed as “minimum viable product,” “rapid iteration,” and even “fast fail.” They all embody the philosophy that it’s more important to launch a new product quickly than launch a really good new product. I credit Google for raising this practice to high art by teaching users that the word “beta” appended to any product name excused the product from delivering much value, or even working properly, for an often extended period of time.

I certainly agree that there is an imperative for speed in the world of online content. We’re surrounded by hordes of competitive start-ups, many of them explicitly attempting to disrupt market incumbents. But before we decide to emulate these companies, it’s important to note their typically distinctive business models.

First, most of these not-ready-for-primetime products are thrown onto the market for free. The companies behind them are betting that if they can build an audience and usage, everything will work out fine in the end, even if they don’t generate any revenue in the short-run. Further, most of these products come from start-ups, so there’s not much in the way of reputation risk. Thirdly, these companies are staffed and funded to iterate rapidly – some actually push out updates and fixes on an almost daily basis. If you’re going to play in this world, you can’t just talk a good line about evolving the product – you have to deliver, and often at a blistering pace.

That’s why I would argue that for most established data publishers with subscription businesses, applying this approach of pushing out half-baked new releases can be very dangerous. When working with an existing customer base, be clear that your subscribers don’t value speed for its own sake – they want clear product improvement. And frankly, this shouldn’t be that hard. You’ve got the advantage of a successful existing product you want to evolve, so you’re not starting from scratch. You’ve got loyal customers who will test with you and offer input. You have a deep understanding of the market you serve, so there’s no need to guess about what might be useful or compelling. Perhaps most importantly, your subscribers often need your data and your tools to conduct business. That’s a world away from a nifty new pizza delivery app. You have an implicit obligation to move prudently and get it “as right as possible” right out of the gate.

So yes, constant evolution of your product is essential. Speed is important. It’s also important to understand that nothing will be perfect the first time around, and that’s okay if you fix problems as quickly as they are identified.

What about new products from established publishers? First off, if you plan to charge for the product from the start, this comes with a much higher level of subscriber expectations. If it’s free (at least initially), expectations are lower, but be aware that those who go away unimpressed probably won’t come back. Finally, being embarrassed may well be an issue for an established publisher known for quality data and solid applications.

So before speeding up, slow down and think it through. The people advocating speed often are in a very different place from you.

IDG-Linkedin Partnership: Re-Defining Publishing?

Just yesterday, the major business publisher IDG, through its Custom Solutions group and its ComputerWorld, InfoWorld, CIO and CSO media properties, announced a partnership with LinkedIn to create “targeted marketing opportunities for b-to-b brand marketers.” So what does this partnership means? It appears that IDG will sell to its advertisers the right to sponsor an IDG owned and operated LinkedIn group on either a specific IT-related topic, or a custom LinkedIn group likely tied to things such as new product launches. In the latter case, the advertiser controls the direction of the group.

On its face, this seems like a clever sponsorship idea. But then you might ask why does IDG need to partner with LinkedIn to create a LinkedIn group? Anyone can do that. For that matter, why does the advertiser need IDG to create a LinkedIn group? The answer is partly content, and mostly audience. And here’s where it gets interesting.

LinkedIn’s role in this partnership, according to Folio, is to “be responsible for promotion, content distribution and member recruitment.” Yes, LinkedIn is going to be supplying both audience and content distribution. What IDG is bringing to the table is the advertiser, the content and management of the group.

Traditionally, the role (and much of the value) of the publisher was building an engaged, target audience and charging to deliver messages to it. Here, both the audience and the distribution platform no longer belong to the publisher.

I’m not disparaging this deal; indeed it has hints of brilliance showing through. But what intrigues me is that LinkedIn, a professional network and data content company, can now so effectively perform most traditional publishing functions.

While I admire LinkedIn for building the most important biographical database in the world (still the primary source of its revenue), it is also both a powerful network and content distribution platform. LinkedIn groups thrive for tens of thousands of specialized audiences, and LinkedIn has shown real talent in selective news distribution to users. LinkedIn has all the elements necessary to be a major publisher in its own right. To date, however, it has chosen to be a platform rather than a publisher.

It’s likely we will see a greater shifting and blurring of roles over time. Already, we have examples of companies that leverage LinkedIn groups to build publishing and events companies. And IDG shows us here an example of a successful publisher leveraging the power of the LinkedIn platform.

I don’t see LinkedIn trying to muscle itself into B2B publishing, but I think this is the first indication of a profound re-definition of the publishing business. This is not necessarily bad news, but if you thought things were settling down, you better fasten your seat belt.

Google: An Unstable Platform

Google appears to be near a settlement with European Union regulators over alleged anti-competitive practices there. A broad outline of the proposed remedy for this activity is beginning to emerge, and it’s fairly remarkable. The remedy has two parts. First, all Google services that appear in search results would appear in a separate box and be labeled as sponsored content. Even more remarkably, Google would be required to show search results for up to three of its competitors whenever it displays a result containing one of its own services.

Now before you get too excited, remember this settlement only applies to Europe. Don’t expect to see it in the United States anytime soon, if ever.

The core issues underlying this settlement are intriguing. Can a search engine be accused of anti-competitive behavior for favoring its own services in search results? The publisher in me says “yes,” because Google is rolling out more and more content, and it has a massive, unfair advantage over any publisher it competes with.

Google would probably respond to this by saying its dominance in search comes from providing really good search results, and that’s what will ultimately constrain its behavior. If Google gets too cute with users by pushing its own products too aggressively, users will desert it for another search engine. I buy this argument to some extent, but it also downplays the power of user habituation, and Google’s unique ability to promote its own products inside seemingly organic search results.

I know more than a few publishers who have woken up in the morning to find their traffic - and by extension their businesses - had dried up because Google had tweaked its search algorithms. I know why Google did this, and agree they should have the right to do this. But it leaves a trail of wreckage in its wake. And Google’s seemingly accelerating push into the content business seems likely to have the same effect.

The bottom line is that Google has evolved over the years, and consequently publishers need to evolve in their thinking towards Google. The term “frenemy” was coined to summarize our confusion about how we should best interact with Google. The emerging reality seems to be that while Google can still bring benefit to all of us, it’s a mistake for any of us to depend on Google for our business. That’s a big statement to make, but from both a strategic and operational perspective, Google is an unstable platform.