Web Weekend Canada

User-generated content has broken down the barriers between journalism's producers, consumers and subjects

2008-03-31T16:19:00.004-04:00

Here's a recent Forbes article worth reading

...it discusses the sea change in journalism and how traditional news and magazine media is engaging in social media and new content formats such as audio, video.

Ellies Noms Broaden To Include Web-Only Titles

2008-03-24T08:25:00.001-04:00

—Lucia Moses lmoses@mediaweek.com

MARCH 24, 2008 - The meaning of "magazine," as defined by the National Magazine Awards, continues to expand. A handful of online-only publications—including Babble and Chow—received Ellie nominations this year, while eight other print categories were opened to Web-only submissions.

Other first-time nominees, announced last week by the American Society of Magazine Editors, were The New York Times Magazine and its style and sports spinoffs, which benefited from this year's inclusion of newspaper-produced magazines. The old-school print industry still dominated the nominations, with Condé Nast taking the most of any publishing company (36).

Twelve of those, including General Excellence, went to The New Yorker, giving the weekly the chance to come back big this year after being shut out in 2007. Meanwhile, startup Condé Nast Portfolio also got one, in the Magazine Section category.

After The New Yorker, Adam Moss-edited New York got the next greatest number of nods (nine), also including General Excellence. (NY was the big winner last year, taking home five Ellies after being nominated for seven.) Time Inc. (including Time and People) and Hearst Magazines (including Esquire and O, The Oprah Magazine) each got seven nominations. National Geographic Society scored six and Rodale four.

The winners will be announced at a May 1 event at New York's Jazz at Lincoln Center.

The Law and the Internet: What You Can and Cannot Do

2008-02-25T10:51:00.003-05:00

MICHEAL GEIST: E-PUBLISHING & THE LAW

The Canadian Journalism Foundation Hosts March 6 Event Toronto, ON – February 22 –
On March 6, Dr. Michael Geist will discuss the legal issues that are impacting everyone from the seasoned blogger to the average internet user, followed by a Q&A moderated by Sally Armstrong.

What: Anyone who blogs, comments, sends e-mail or otherwise publishes electronically is subject to the laws of defamation and libel, according to University of Ottawa Law School professor and internationally renowned expert on law and the Internet, Dr. Michael Geist. The Internet and new technologies have ushered in a seemingly unlimited array of possibilities for access to knowledge, creativity, and public participation. Dr. Geist will highlight the role that the Internet is playing for new creativity and knowledge sharing, while identifying the business and policy challenges that this creates for journalists and journalism.

Who: Dr. Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, has written numerous academic articles and government reports on the Internet and law and was a member of Canada’s National Task Force on Spam. He is an internationally syndicated columnist on technology law issues with his regular column appearing in the Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, and the BBC. Dr. Geist serves on the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s Expert Advisory Board and on the Canadian Digital Information Strategy’s Review Panel. Moderator Sally Armstrong is a veteran journalist and author of Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan.

When: Thursday, March 6, 2008 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Where: MaRS Discovery District, CR-3 101 College St at the SE corner of College & University.
Join The Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF) on Thursday, March 6, for this event, which is free of charge and open to the media and the public. Seating is limited. If you plan to attend, please register at info@cjf-fjc.ca or visit our website www.cjf-fjc.ca/programs.htm to register online.

About the Canadian Journalism Foundation
Established in 1990, The Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF) is a not-for-profit organization that exists to contribute to the achievement of excellence in Canadian journalism. Better journalism means a better-informed citizenry and an improved democratic process. Through
leadership seminars, panel discussions and other activities the Foundation builds bridges and fosters open, informed dialogue between leading public and private organizations and the media.

Contact:
Heather McCall
Program Manager
The Canadian Journalism Foundation
Phone: 416-955-0630 * Email: hmccall@cjf-fjc.ca
www.cjf-fjc.ca

Web Weekend: Vancouver & Edmonton

2008-01-25T15:08:00.000-05:00

Web Weekend is a groundbreaking, intensive learning event created specifically for magazine publishers. Through seminars and lab work, the expert Web Weekend faculty will deliver practical advice, tools and templates to help make your publishing business more successful.

Discuss online sales and bundling options. Take your marketing to the next level. Develop strategies for monetizing content. Analyze magazine brands online. Connect with new ideas and new contacts. Understand Web 2.0.

Whare and When
Vancouver
When: Saturday, Mar. 1 and Sunday, Mar. 2, 2008
Where: Simon Fraser University Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street

Edmonton
When: Saturday, Mar. 29 and Sunday, Mar. 30, 2008
Where: Grant MacEwan College Centre for the Arts, 10045-156 Street

Who Should Attend:
Print and online editors, web development and I.T. staff, publishers, designers, circulators and advertising sales managers.

How much:
Magazines Canada members and students: $495, others: $750. Tuition includes all materials, coffee and snacks, and access to a dedicated after-care program.

For more information, please contact
Edra Sefton, Professional Development Manager, 416.504.0274 x224
Gwen Dunant, Program Manager, 416.504.0274 x225

Online newspaper readership rises 6% in U.S.

2008-01-25T15:04:00.000-05:00

Last Updated: Friday, January 25, 2008 10:21 AM ET
The Associated Press
http://www.cbc.ca

U.S. newspapers' online audiences grew about six per cent last year, an industry group reported Thursday, a rare bit of good news for an industry struggling to adapt as readers and advertising dollars continue to migrate online.

Websites run by newspapers had an average of 60 million unique U.S. visitors per month in 2007, up from 56.4 million the year before, according to data released by the Newspaper Association of America and compiled by Nielsen Online, a web audience measurement agency owned by The Nielsen Co.

Because of the growth in the total online audience, however, the online reach of newspapers grew somewhat less, with 38 per cent of all active online users visiting newspaper websites last year, up from 36 per cent in 2006.

Many newspapers have been adding online features such as video, blogs, jazzier graphics, online community features and links to other websites in an effort to lure in more readers and compete with other outlets of information online, including blogs and portals like Yahoo Inc.

Continue Article

Halifax Web Weekend Photo Gallery

2008-01-10T17:01:00.000-05:00

Click here for photos from the Halifax web weekend.

How to Harness the Power of Web 2.0

2008-01-10T16:31:00.000-05:00

By Robert Hof

Business Week

Web 2.0 services can be perplexing to the casual Web surfer who hasn't yet strayed much beyond AOL and Amazon.com. Even those executives who have plumbed the Web's depths further still might wonder what photo-sharing on Flickr or the eclectic Weblog BoingBoing has to do with their business. Here's a guide to get started:

Watch the kids: Children lead the way with new Web services such as the social network MySpace, the video sharing service YouTube, and personal blogs. It won't be long before they're in the workforce, bringing their networks with them.

Watch the kids—in your company, too. You may be surprised to find that young folks in a department are using the Internet phone service Skype or a group-editable wiki Web site. Find out what's working and what isn't.

Try it yourself: Create a MySpace page. Open a Flickr account and upload a few photos. Write a Wikipedia entry. Program a Web mashup at Ning.com. The only way to understand this stuff is to use it. And it's easy.

Join the feed frenzy: Read some popular blogs to get a feel for how the online party line works. You can find them at Technorati.com and Techmeme.com, or better yet, subscribe to them with a so-called RSS feed reader, the most popular of which are listed on each BusinessWeek blog.

Write your own blog: Or if that feels too forced, at least encourage other people in the company who want to. Strive for authenticity, even at the risk of self-criticism, because blog readers will quickly jump on spin.

Elicit customer input: Many people love to offer their own expertise, and often it's pretty darn useful. Mars asked people to vote on a new M&M candy color, drawing 10 million votes—and a lot of attention.

DON'T

Assume Web 2.0 is just for consumers: The online customer-management service Salesforce.com just did $105 million in sales, up 63%. Even the college social network Facebook recently allowed companies to create profiles.

Put up walls: Resist strict limits on employees' on-the-job Web use. The more they can connect the innovation in Web 2.0 with their own jobs, the better off your company will be.

Take it personally: Opening up blogs to comments from customers inevitably will attract complaints and criticism. That's OK. Consider it market research. Respond honestly, and watch your company's credibility soar.

Sweat the details. You can't personally keep up on every new Web 2.0 startup on TechCrunch.com, unless you don't need much sleep. You're running a company, remember? But make sure someone else is paying attention to these guys.

The Launch Dilemma: Print or Digital First?

2007-12-20T14:56:00.000-05:00

By Jason Fell 11/27/2007
Folio Magazine

As magazines continue to expand their Web sites to include original editorial content, video, podcasts, Webinars and more, the roadmap for aspiring magazine publishers and editors has become a little less clear. Should a magazine launch first in print or online? What are the benefits? What are the risks?

In April 2007, seven months before launching the print version of the Avenue Report-a fashion and business magazine for African-American men-editor and publisher Toyin Awesu launched the magazine's Web site, www.avenuereport.com. "My main reason for launching the Web site first was to serve as a means for introducing Avenue Report," Awesu explains. "I understood that despite the fact that I did not have an actual print copy I could still begin to build a brand and even get subscribers. We were able to use our Web site as a marketing tool. Our Web site still enables readers who have not seen a print copy the opportunity to see what Avenue Report is all about."

Eric Easter, chief of digital strategy at Johnson Publishing Company, helped launch www.ebonyjet.com, the Web site for Ebony and Jet magazines. There are a number of factors, he says, that publishers need to consider before launching in either print or online; the initial investment, the cost of paper and also the magazine's potential audience and reach. "If you're launching locally, I'd say there's still a lucrative market for niche print publications," says Easter. "There's still a large body of local advertisers, small and medium businesses, for which the Web can be one strategy for reaching consumers, but whom still rely on print. Nationally, however, unless you have deep pockets or a very tightly focused niche, I'd say go digital."
Don't Undervalue the Print Launch

Print still rules at Dallas-based D magazine. Online editorial director Adam McGill says that if he were to launch a magazine today he'd start in print first. "I'm biased. I still enjoy the tactile nature of magazines," says McGill. "But discounting the dwindling numbers of old-school readers like me, I still think magazines create communities of like-minded people much easier in the real world versus the virtual one."

For McGill, online distractions like e-mail, instant messaging and other Web sites would make him wary of launching a magazine online first. "Having a start-up with a print version is like meeting the reader on a blind date-intense and one-on-one. The online version would be more like meeting someone at a very loud party with many others looking to interrupt your conversation and introduce themselves."

The Best of Both
Unless a new magazine's customer base is focused on the digital medium or its concept is specifically web centric, the magazine should start with both a print and online presence, according to David Renard, analyst and co-creator of magazine consulting group MediaIdeas. Renard spoke at an American Society of Business Publication Editors panel this month called Dare to be Digital, about how b-to-b publishers are digitizing their print publications.
"It can cost next to nothing to output a magazine in a digital format when the same one for print has already been created, using PDF for example," Renard says. "And, though the functionality is not what you would get with a DME [digital magazine enablers] vendor, it will be, for some, a way to get into the game. And, better to start from the beginning by incorporating the digital edition output into the workflow, training employees to create for the new medium, and steering advertisers towards the benefits of digital editions."

Right Tools for the Trade
For aspiring magazine publishers who are ready to launch online first, Johnson Publishing's Easter says that in addition to having quality editorial content, utilizing the right technology will drive the opportunity to make money online. "Most key is choosing a content management system that will allow you to expand to do some of the Web 2.0 things that users expect," he says. "Just as important is an ad server or third party agency that can make sure you're delivering on your advertiser's expectations."

Toronto Life moves its “little red books” online

2007-12-20T14:26:00.000-05:00

TORONTO- Toronto Life will no longer send its popular CityGuides to subscribers as outserts. Instead, what used to appear in “little red books” will now appear in the magazine and on the Web. Toronto Life group publisher Sharon McAuley says the change allows the country’s biggest and oldest city magazine to “match the medium to the content” and to expand the reach of the guides to newsstand buyers.

Toronto Life subscribers didn't get the Good Stuff Cheap red book with the January 2008 issue. Instead, the guide was featured in the magazine and on Torontolife.com.
TL’s January 2008 issue carries a colourful four-page “Good Stuff Cheap” spread in the service-y City Survivor section, while an expanded version of the guide (with listings) is available online. Toronto Life, which is owned by St. Joseph Media, will use the same format for all future guides except the Restaurant Guide, which will continue to be published in its traditional outsert format. “It has universal appeal to our readership,” McAuley says.

Toronto Life publishes a total of ten CityGuides, which cover everything from golf to getaways. They were created by outgoing Toronto Life editor John Macfarlane in 1999 and provided a big boost to ad revenue. McAuley says the magazine is saving on printing costs by moving away from the outsert format, though extra pages added to the magazine will offset some of those savings.

Toronto Life is also adding a third book to its roster of annual publications. A real estate guide will join Eating and Drinking and Shopping on the newsstands in 2008.There have also been some recent hires and promotions at the magazine over the last month. Matthew Fox, a former fiction and associate editor at Maisonneuve has been brought in as Online Editor, while editorial assistant Courtney Shea has also been bumped up to editor of the This City section. Graham Silnicki, a former Canadian Business intern, has been hired to fill Shea’s old position.

IAB Canada Guideline for Publishers Serving Online Ads

2007-12-06T09:28:00.000-05:00

The following white paper from the IAB website is the result of a team effort. Those involved include Cece Scott, Sarah Glinski, Peter Vaz, Andrew Stephenson, John Finklestein, Judy Watson, Liam Ross, Marcie Sayner, Renee Hill, Darren Hardeman and Tracy Muxlow.

The term “ad serving” is the process whereby advertisements are delivered to web pages. The ability to ‘serve’ ads is facilitated by the use of software called ad serving software. These ad serving software packages cover a variety of programs and services from the very basic with few features, to complex systems with elaborate ad delivery, reporting and tracking capabilities. Usually the more complex the software is the more it will cost, and in some cases the software
could cost many thousands of dollars.

For advertisers, ad-serving software means greater control of when and where the ads are shown. For the website publisher, ad serving software helps address advertiser needs and manage saleable advertising inventory.

How ad serving works

With ad serving software, a special piece of code is added to each web page within the web site called a ‘tag’. The software is activated when a visitor views a web page featuring this code. The software selects an advertisement from a pool of ads within a database using predefined criteria. The software then selects appropriate ads according to the chosen criteria and inserts the ad into the web page where it can be viewed by the visitor. It then records the number of
times the ad is displayed, as well as tracking all clicks on the ad.

Most ad serving systems function as follows:

Serve one advertisement to a specific web page every time a page is requested by a web site visitor.
Manage the inventory of available space for the ads within the web site and make sure appropriate ads are served to appropriate pages within the website, based on the client approved advertising media plan.
Report on the number of impressions and clicks for each advertising format that is served.

Other features can include the following:

Geographic targeting – Ads are delivered only to web site viewers who are where the advertiser wants the ad to be seen.
Content based targeting – Ads are served to areas of content appropriate to the message being sent, including keywords.
Session specific targeting – Ads are targeted by domain, browser type and operating system.
Frequency capping – “Capping” or limiting the number of times an ad appears, ensures the ad is only viewed a selected number of times.
Sequential serving – A sequence of advertising creative executions are served to viewers as they travel through various web pages within the web site.

How Third Party Ad serving works:

Third party ad servers manage the delivery, reporting and analysis of ads across a number of websites. Third party ad serving primarily serves the needs of advertisers and agencies. It can be very useful for an advertiser who is running an ad campaign across many websites, with many creative changes, to have one server managing the entire process.

Results are provided in one unified format, as opposed to many different reports from many different sources. In addition, advertising creative can be changed frequently and, in some cases, the results of the third party ad server can be used to compare the results reported by the website.

The process usually follows these 5 steps:

The third party ad serving company contracts directly with the advertiser or agency to serve the clients ads online.
The advertiser uses the third party server to upload and traffic all its ads to the publishers on the media plan.
The publisher inserts the third party ad “tag” into its own ad serving software and then serves the tag onto the page. The user’s browser requests the ad, which is delivered via the third party ad server.
The advertiser has real time access to the third party server and in most case can view a report at any time to see the results across all web sites. Since reports are generated by only one source, they are unified and similarly formatted.
If the advertiser wants to change an ad during the life of a campaign, this can be done in one central location for all publishers.

For more from the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada go to http://www.iabcanada.com/

Can Time Inc.'s Maghound Concept Work?

2007-12-06T09:20:00.000-05:00

By Kristina Joukhadar
http://www.circman.com/viewmedia.asp?prmMID=3624

Several stories have been written about Time Inc.'s upcoming Maghound offering, but so far, no one has really explained how it will work.

Will publishers be leery of working with Maghound?

"I hope not!" says Dave Ventresca, president of Maghound, which is spearheaded by Time Consumer Marketing.

"It will help in terms of efficiencies to have the Synapse technology residing in CT, having the resources and the publisher relations'there will definitely be some cooperation and a supportive role, along with support from other Time Inc. divisions, but Maghound will be led by Time Consumer Marketing.

While some publishers may be hesitant to join a program that might pirate some of their regular subscriptions, Ventresca says that in a live market test, the majority of consumers selected new brands, not the titles of their existing subscriptions. In the MAGHOUND environment, we feel that more people will be reading more magazines longer than with the traditional subscription model.

What about the concept?

Maghound is not selling traditional subs, but rather, a membership in a service, says Ventresca. "We're offering a better way to order and manage magazines that come into your house [single copy]. You get a set number of titles for a monthly fee with no term.

"You are charged month to month, and are not linked to just one brand. So in month one, you can get magazines A, B and C; and in month 4, you can switch to magazines D and E."

What are the practical concerns?

"We're pretty confident we can do this," says Ventresca. Time Customer Service and CDS and Palm Coast/Kable--all the major fulfillment systems--have said they can work with this. We've painted it all in broad strokes and some operational definitions remain, but we have the fulfillment solution figured out."

The current delivery system and consumer pricing levels will make it impossible to get issues out any faster than with a traditional subscription, Ventresca says. "You're still dealing with the same fulfillment calendars, the same printers, so it¹s hard to shrink. And the database selection dates are done in advance.

"It's not faster, but it will be an improvement in the expectations of the consumers, because with the account screen online, they will know approximately when they will receive all of their issues.

"For example, it will tell them 'The first issue of magazine A will be the January issue, due to arrive the third week of December.' We have postal experts working on this and they know good delivery times. All copies will qualify for the periodicals rate, presorted in with the regular run.

"Each magazine's fulfillment calendar will be known," he says, "so if the consumer selects the magazine in January, February, etc., we'll know when they send the order to the database. You need to build the fulfillment system to be scalable, reliable, cost effective, and we're doing that."

Will consumers buy their copies online?

Ventresca says the beauty of the Maghound system will be its ease of use for the consumer. "There is no term and full flexibility. Consumers will manage online in one screen. The switching is easy when there's no term. They are charged a monthly fee, by credit card and Pay Pal."

Will it meet the auditing requirements?

The Audit Bureau of Circulations reporting has been gone over multiple times, Ventresca says. "It's good circulation, paid for by real consumers with real dollars, and the orders are placed in a magazine centric environment. For the time being, at least, it will temporarily count toward single copy sales.

"When there's more volume in the future, it might evolve into its own classification on the ABC audit report. As far as the value to advertisers, it's great circulation. For a flat fee, you can choose from hundreds of magazines, which demonstrates 'wantedness.'"

What data will publishers receive?

The Maghound database will be separate and contain only the magazines and members in the program. Because of the nature of its financial relationship with its members' services, and the fact that these are not subscribers, Maghound will own the customer data and will not be able to share it with other publishers (including Time Inc.) for promotional purposes. You can¹t release the names, as members wouldn't want their data shared.

How will the finances work?

There will be full reporting for publishers, issue by issue, with how many copies were sold, particularly for new members. For example, the report will include: "Publisher, Magazine, cover date, no. of copies distributed, no. paid and no. sent to new members as part of the free trial or bad credit card debt," says Ventresca.

"Publishers will receive a fixed dollar amount per issue sold per title with a certain amount for every copy--the amounts will differ by class of title. A lot of magazines have experienced unproductive circulation on their files, and this circ will have positive payments. It could be used to replace less attractive or more expensive circ."

ASME's Best Practices for Digital Media

2007-11-27T13:03:00.000-05:00

Editorial Guidelines from the ASME website...

Credibility is key to the success of all digital-media businesses with an editorial component. Users must trust the advice and information given, just as they do that of offline brands. While linking and other technologies can greatly enhance the user experience, the distinction between independent editorial content and paid promotional information should remain clear.

Thus we recommend the following standards (subject to change as the medium evolves):

The home page and all subsequent pages of a publication's Web site should display the publication's name and logo prominently, in order to clarify who controls the content of the site.
All online pages should clearly distinguish between editorial and advertising or sponsored content. If any content comes from a source other than the editors, it should be clearly labeled. A magazine's name or logo should not be used in a way that suggests editorial endorsement of an advertiser. The site's sponsorship policies should be clearly noted, either in text accompanying the article or on a disclosure page (see item 8), to clarify that the sponsor had no input regarding the content.
Hypertext links that appear within the editorial content of a site, including those within graphics, should be at the discretion of the editors. If links are paid for by advertisers, that should be disclosed to users.
Special advertising or "advertorial" features should be labelled as such.
To protect the brand, editors/producers should not permit their content to be used on an advertiser's site without an explanation of the relationship (e.g. "Reprinted with permission").
E-commerce commissions and other affiliate fees should be reported on a disclosure page, so users can see that the content is credible and free of commercial influence. Exact fees need not be mentioned, of course, but users who are concerned about underlying business relationships can be thus reassured. (See Conde Nast's statement at the bottom of the Epicurious home page regarding its relationship with its featured merchants.)
Advertisers or e-commerce partners should not receive preferential treatment in search engines, price comparisons and other applications presented under the content provider's brand. An editorial site should not try to vouch for others' tools that it may offer.
A website should respect the privacy of its users. If a site intends to collect information about its visitors—whether the data will be disseminated to third parties or not—it must offer users a chance to decline if they choose, through an "opt-out" option. As part of its privacy policy, the site should explain its use of cookies and other data collection methods and tell what it intends to do with the information it gleans. Potential benefits to the user—broader site access, better personalization features, etc.—should be presented as well.

More resources from 5 easy ways to grow your online revenue

2007-11-27T09:11:00.000-05:00

Hi folks,

Just wanted to provide you with the (much anticipated!) resource sheet from the "5 easy ways to grow your online revenue (and other get rich quick schemes" presentation that I delivered on Saturday afternoon. You can download the full PDF here: http://tinyurl.com/2sphp4

Barbara's been good enough to paste the first page in the previous post. Here's page two for you:

Learning more about user behavior on your site
Robot Replay http://robotreplay.com
Tape Failure: http://www.tapefailure.com/
Click Tale: http://www.clicktale.com/
Crazy Egg: http://www.crazyegg.com/
Click Density: http://clickdensity.com/
Fold Spy: http://www.foldspy.com/

Demographics
Quantcast: http://www.quantcast.com/

Find out what people are saying about you
Google’s Alerts (free): http://www.google.com/alerts
Google Alert (paid & much better): http://www.googlealert.com/

Paid search advertising
Google Adwords: http://adwords.google.com/
Yahoo! Search: http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/

Improving your landing pages
Google Website optimizer: http://services.google.com/websiteoptimizer/

Ad networks
Google Adsense: https://www.google.com/adsense/
The Rubicon Project: http://www.rubiconproject.com/
Text Ad Links: http://www.text-link-ads.com
Blog Ads: http://www.blogads.com/

E-mail collection and broadcasting tools

Low volume... ( less than 10,000 e-news subscribers)
Campaign Monitor: http://campaignmonitor.com/
Mail Build: http://mailbuild.com/
Mail Chimp: http://www.mailchimp.com/
Better Mail: http://www.bettermail.ca/

High volume... ( more than 10,000 e-news subscribers)
WhatCounts: http://whatcounts.com
ThinData EMS: http://www.thindata.com/

Auto-response loops for special offers
Better Mail: http://www.bettermail.ca/
Gossamer AutoRespond: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/scripts/autores/

Web Weekend resource sheet

2007-11-26T13:49:00.000-05:00

Web Analytics (low / no cost options)
Google Analytics (Javascript): http://www.google.com/analytics/
Clicktracks Appetizer (Javascript): http://www.clicktracks.com/products/appetizer/
Mint (Real-time stats): http://www.haveamint.com
AWstats (Log analysis): http://awstats.sourceforge.net/
Analog (Log analysis): http://www.analog.cx/
Webaliser (Log analysis): http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/
Report Magic (Log file reports): http://www.reportmagic.org/

Web Analytics (paid options)
Sawmill (Log analysis): http://www.sawmill.net/
Clicktracks: http://www.clicktracks.com/
Fireclick: http://www.fireclick.com/
Web Site Story: http://www.websidestory.com/
Omniture: http://www.omniture.com/
Visual Sciences: http://www.visualsciences.com/
Web Trends: http://www.webtrends.com/
Index Tools: http://www.indextools.com/
Deep Metrix: http://www.deepmetrix.com/

Web site auditing tools
Site Scan: http://sitescanga.com/
Google Webmaster tools: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

Other metrics tools:
Technorati: http://technorati.com/
Feedburner: http://www.feedburner.com/

Understanding Web site metrics
Google’s Conversion University: http://www.google.com/analytics/conversionuniversity.html

The Big Book of Key Performance Indicators: http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/about_kpi_book.asp

Web Analytics Demystified
http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/about_wad.asp

Web Site Measurement Hacks (very technical):
http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/about_wsmh.asp

Please post your favourite resource links too!

In the continuing debate of 'free vs. paid'...free wins again!

2007-11-26T08:15:00.000-05:00

..excerpt from 'Online Publishers Association Intelligence Report' email

Murdoch expects to make WSJ.com free

Slowly, but surely, News Corp. honcho Rupert Murdoch is readying the world for a free Wall Street Journal site online. In public comments, he has hinted about lifting the pay wall, and his latest comments to shareholders in Australia were the strongest yet: "We are studying it and we expect to make [WSJ.com] free, and instead of having one million [subscribers], having at least 10 million to 15 million [readers] in every corner of the earth." Current execs at Dow Jones, which won't be taken over by News Corp. until later this year, were taken aback by Murdoch's sentiments. "It is jumping the gun, people are jumping to conclusions here very quickly. We haven't even closed the deal yet," Dow's Michael Rooney told E&P. "Mr. Murdoch would like to have the largest, most robust site in business. Free is a way to look at that. But there is a lot of detail behind that. You have to work that out. You don't just flip the switch."

Perhaps, but if Rupert wants to flip a switch, he usually gets his way. Observers quickly tried to decipher what a free WSJ.com would mean for Dow Jones. Not only would the company have to make up the $50 million to $60 million in annual online subscriptions; it would also have to deal with a loss of income for archival services such as Factiva as well as possible erosion from print subscriptions. "The exclusivity of Journal content provides value beyond the website," Dow's Christine Mohan told Reuters. But an analyst calculation showed that Murdoch could make up subscription losses with a 130% increase in web traffic. Hollywood Reporter noted that NYTimes.com traffic was up 34% in the two months since the TimesSelect wall was torn down, and the Washington Post said Murdoch's move follows the opening of pay walls at the Economist, FT.com and failed subscription tries by LATimes.com, Salon and Slate.

Web Weekend Day One!

2007-11-24T16:54:00.000-05:00

What a great pleasure it was to attend day one of Magazine Canada's first-ever web weekend! My participation as a faculty member enabled me to meet a great many people in a continuing plight to see Canadian magazine brands succeed in the digital space.

The quest for knowledge was palpable. Magazines from small to large, from consumer-driven to business-to-business titles, and from paid circ models to controlled distribution gathered at Centennial College to network and discuss the challenges and opportunities that collectively face our changing industry.

My takeway from this day's event is that although we have so much information literally at our fingertips...it becomes more and more challenging to decipher it and determine what the right strategies are for our own unique magazine brands. A "one size fits all model" simply doesn't exist in the online space because this medium is in it's truest form - customizable.

I look forward to continuing discussions in this forum - and will do what I can to share the knowledge and experiences that I've encountered in the digital space. I encourage all of you to 'test the waters and openly participate' - for the more you employ a 'new technology' or learn about a particular subject - the more knowledge (and comfort!) you will gain.

Philip Smith said it best today in his presentation - "You must train to succeed...this isn't a race...it's a marathon." With that - it's time to put on your running shoes (insert Nike ad here).

Enjoy day two and all of it's offerings...and congratulations to all at Magazines Canada for putting on a great (and much-needed) web weekend!

Ex-Print Editors Urge Mags to Create Web IDs

2007-11-23T12:03:00.000-05:00

By Lucia Moses http://www.mediaweek.com/

NOVEMBER 19, 2007 - Mark Golin, editor of People.com, looks back with some humor on the early days of his Web career in the late ’90s. He had proudly created some new features for Rodale’s Prevention.com, only to discover people weren’t clicking on them. “They were just beautiful looking,” he recalled. “God help anyone trying to figure out how to use it.”

For Golin, who spent much of his career in magazines including stints as editor of Maxim and Details before making the jump to the digital space seven years ago, the episode made him realize the complexity of building a successful site, with all the visual cues that are needed to keep users engaged and entertained.

“One of the immediate things that hit me is how much more complex production online can be,” Golin said. “Content packages are planned months in advance. You almost start to think about a game of three-dimensional chess.”

And while most magazine publishers now realize they have a bright future online, he and other former print editors agree that many of them have fallen short in adapting their magazines to one of the biggest threats —if not the biggest threat—to their existence.

To make their brands succeed online, magazine editors need to rethink practices and assumptions that are suited to print, these former print editors say.

“I think they need to think about the Web as a completely different animal,” said Michael Caruso, a former editor of Men’s Journal and Details who founded The Daily Tube, a site that trolls the Web for the best new videos.

Traditions that have made print magazines strong can be a liability online, former print editors said.

Given the interactive nature of the Web, magazines, with their “experts telling a large audience what to think and what’s new,” have a diminishing role to play, Caruso said.

Keith Blanchard, onetime editor of Maxim who worked on the sites of Wenner Media’s Rolling Stone, Us Weekly and Men’s Journal, sees print brands struggling to be responsible and authentic at the same time. “Perez Hilton was able to come up out of nowhere because he didn’t care about the legality of what he was doing,” pointed out Blanchard, now vp, director of programming at videogame maker Kuma Games.

Online, it’s content that matters, not the source, he continued. “Newsweek, Time, don’t mean anything, but Justin Fox does,” he said, referring to Time’s business and economics columnist. “I don’t think people are very brand-loyal online.”

Blanchard and others say too often magazine sites offer no unique value, have loads of information that’s poorly organized and too closely mimic their print counterparts. They urged magazines to carve out stronger identities online.

One way is to recognize that sites don’t have to mirror print editions, Golin said, noting that People.com is more celebrity-oriented than its print counterpart.“I think the main thing is for them to have a very clear mission statement,” he said. “What is the need on the part of the user that you’re fulfilling? I see a lot of magazine Web sites where I don’t know why I’ve come here, I don’t know why I’d come here regularly.”

Given the Web’s user-directed nature, Blanchard suggested magazines’ sites do more to let visitors customize their experience, by geography or other factors.

Since making the jump to online, these digital denizens said they’ve had to adjust to a culture of heightened speed, intensity and technological change.

“The culture is a lot more casual, the hierarchy is a lot more fluid,” said Jimmy Jellinek, who was replaced as editor of Maxim after its recent ownership change and is now consulting at Heavy.com, an entertainment site geared to young men. “There’s not the sense of power derived from a masthead. But at the same time, there’s pressure to grow profit. There is a constant intensity because the Web is constantly changing. Here, you’re working on a day-to-day basis. You constantly have to be plugged in.”

While digital defectors don’t seem eager to return to print, they still see strong value in the service, long reads and escapism it provides. Said Jellinek, “The one thing the Internet doesn’t do is provide context. You get instant information, but it’s not analysis.”

Stretch Your Online Edit Budget

2007-11-23T11:23:00.000-05:00

Get smart about repackaging your magazine content for maximum online impact-and get smarter about tapping into the expertise of your readers to generate new online content cost-effectively.

Join Kim Pittaway, former editor of Chatelaine and editorial consultant to such magazines as Toronto Life, Up Here, Wedding Bells, Fashion and others, as she takes you through the process of finding the online content you didn't know you had. Worried that your magazine's budget is too small for you to benefit? Pittaway has also worked with small magazine clients, and will share strategies that will help magazines of all sizes and budgets.

This one-day intensive seminar is designed for people responsible for determining what content should appear on your magazine's website and those looking to determine what role their reader can play in online content generation.

Registration: Members (Magazines Canada and AMPA) $110; Non-Member $190 (plus GST)
Your registration fee includes handouts, coffee breaks and lunch.

November 27, 2007

Delta Bow Valley, 209-4th Avenue SE, Calgary, AB

Media & Money Conf.: Print Must Do More Online

2007-11-23T11:09:00.000-05:00

By Lucia Moses http://www.mediaweek.com/

Ink-on-paper newspapers and magazines still have plenty of life left in them, but they may need to make radical changes to their model to stay relevant in today's multimedia world, panelists said today at a media conference.

Newspapers have plenty of ways to improve their profitability, noted Jill Greenthal, senior managing director, The Blackstone Group, pointing out examples of same-city competing papers that have been exploring ways of sharing distribution and production functions.

"All elements of how they think about the product have to be reinvented, turned over," said Greenthal, speaking on a panel at Media and Money, a two-day conference hosted by Dow Jones & Co. and the Nielsen Co., parent of Mediaweek.

There was little disagreement on the challenges facing print.

Newspapers haven't fully figured out how to leverage their Web sites with advertisers, even if they've come around to seeing the Web as complementary rather than a threat to their print editions, the panelists said. As Gordon Crovitz, publisher of Dow Jones' The Wall Street Journal, quipped, while the Journal's news staff has fully embraced the concept of blogs, "I've yet to see a business case for any of them."

Despite newspapers' efforts to create editions specifically with young people in mind, connecting with younger and other digitally-oriented readers was another worry.

"The industry has not figured out what is the magic bullet for that," Greenthal said. "It really is an issue. People who work for me who are 25, 30 years old do not read the newspaper."

Another panelist, Kent Brownridge, CEO of Alpha Media Group, is particularly aware of that challenge as the publisher of Maxim and Blender, whose sweet spot is men in their 20s. Brownridge acknowledged that his company's biggest growth prospects lie online, not in print.

"We'll get our 4, 5, 10 percent growth by just working like demons in traditional ways," he said. "But the biggest opportunity is to appeal to them through Web properties."

Still, Brownridge also said that the magazine industry is due for a course correction, pointed to inflated magazine circulation and a failure by some to focus on readers' wants.

"There probably are 20 percent too many magazines," he said, "and I think the current market is going to eliminate some of those."

Web Style Guide

2007-11-23T10:07:00.000-05:00

So you've completed the Web Weekend Course and are ready to overhaul your website -- here's a wonderful resource for the do's and don'ts of interface, site and page design as well as tips on editorial style, typography, graphics and multimedia use.

WEB STYLE GUIDE, 2nd edition
By Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton

More research-based Web Design and Usability Guidelines may be found at http://usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html

Making Use of RSS

2007-11-23T09:50:00.000-05:00

By Mason Wright, Online Editor of This magazine, 2007

With RSS feeds, readers get the information they want from all over the Internet, à la carte. Small magazines can use RSS to instantly distribute their content to readers.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. For small magazines, harnessing the power of RSS can expose your content to new audiences. And it’s simple...really simple. RSS tools are so easy to use that one study from 2005 reports more people use RSS than know what it is (http://www.clickz.com/3555441).

RSS files, known as feeds or channels, can contain the full text, multimedia or headlines of a Web page. These files are found and compiled by feed readers (sometimes called news aggregators), which can be Web-based tools or separate standalone computer programs. Many Web browsers
also feature built-in aggregators. Popular aggregators include NetNewsWire, News-Gator, Bloglines, Google Reader, My Yahoo, Firefox’s Live Bookmarks, and iTunes (for podcasts). Once users set up an account with one of these services—and in some cases install a piece of software—they can add feeds from all over the Internet based on their particular interests.

Users can also create custom headline filters that automatically search for information based on keywords. Some aggregators also allow users to group feeds by category, sort the order in which feeds are viewed or share feeds between computers. The RSS method of information gathering has taken off because it gives users control over access to content and goes beyond the mainstream media. It lets users customize their Web reading experience and find content they wouldn’t know existed otherwise.

More and more publishers are syndicating their content using RSS, but readers subscribing to feeds may not realize they’re using RSS technology. Publishers use a variety of names and labels for their syndicated content. ”If you look at how we’ve integrated RSS into Yahoo News, we’re not actually using those three letters very much,” Scott Gatz of Yahoo News told the USC
Annenberg’s Online Journalism Review (http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050331glaser/). “[Yahoo News] says, ‘what would you like to add to your political news, here are some political blogs. Would you like to add CNN or MSNBC onto your news page?’ The fact that it happens
in XML or RSS isn’t the important thing. Most of the users don’t want to have to figure that out.”

Several versions of the RSS technology have been developed in recent years that allow independent publishers to offer RSS to their audiences. All your magazine needs to publish RSS feeds is knowledge and some basic software. For an excellent tutorial on how to create an RSS file, go to http://www.xul.fr/en-xml-rss.html#building-feed. (A basic knowledge of HTML is an asset when reading this guide.) In order to build a wide audience for your RSS feeds, you can “burn” them using FeedBurner (www.feedburner.com), a service that publicizes, manages and tracks subscriptions to RSS feeds, and optimizes your feeds so all kinds of aggregators can read them properly. As you’re exploring the potential of RSS for your small magazine, follow these tips:

Label your content with RSS in mind. People scan RSS headlines; give yours somepunch, but also make them clear. The headlines you put on your stories, blog posts and podcastsare the most important part of your feeds
Choose what feeds you offer based on the activity of your website. You can create RSS feeds for just your homepage, for every page on your site, or a selected number of pages and content categories. It’s a good idea to have a feed for every frequently updated page you have.
Keep an eye on developments in RSS. This technology is still fairly new, and has great potential. One example of the near future of RSS is Yahoo Pipes, a new application that allows users to “mashup” feeds for a truly customized and specific RSS experience.

Further Reading:
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/02/pipes_and_filte.html/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU (Learn RSS in plain English)
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1003936 (Millions spent on blog, RSS and podcast advertising)