22

Feb

By Dennis R. Mortensen
10 comments
Analytics is building the Newsroom of the Future

aol-armstrongBusinessWeek has a truly exciting front page story today (February 21, 2010). Especially for somebody like me who repeatedly and openly declared an obsession with the state of News Media and in particular how Data and Analytics, in that regard, can help publishers increase their current performance.

BusinessWeek: AOL Moves to Build Tech `Newsroom of the Future’

I’ll leave the article to you, but have a look at the following comments (some of them, perhaps a tad naïve, but so aggressively data driven, that you have to love them):

  • The [web analytics] numbers tell the growing number of journalists who work there how well their articles are performing
  • Judicious use of Web-analytics software is a hallmark of what AOL Senior Vice-President Marty Moe calls the “newsroom of the future”
  • We really want to enhance journalism with technology
  • [Provide] journalists up-to-the-minute data on how much traffic those articles generate
  • News editors’ computers come equipped with software—created internally by combining data from AOL’s own analytic tools with [other resources]
  • Audience growth and audience engagement have to be the things that we judge the most off of our journalist investments
  • AOL [is] considering sharing a portion of quarterly profits with staffers whose work fetches the most page views

That’s hardcore language, when you think about how data is shunned upon in other news organizations. I for one think that the newsroom of the future is data driven! Optimization is not about driving towards the lowest possible common denominator, and better performance could as easily push relevance, as compared to the general idea of pushing everybody toward easy digestible celebrity news.

Is Tim too aggressive for you ?

Cheers :-)
/ Dennis (@dennismortensen)

  • Jen

    I love data as much as the next analytics nerd, but I am confused how this approach doesn’t push to the lowest common denominator over providing meaningful news. What about “thought leadership”? (do they call it that in journalism, or is that a modern business term?) What about educating the readership? What about the niche? I feel strongly that a successful modern news organization is going to be able to speak to ME (MEMEMEMEMEME ;) ) and about the things I care about. There is a really good chance that I don’t care about stuff that gets ample traffic.

    PLUS I don’t care about the stuff I don’t know about yet. How am I going to find out about the things I don’t already know about? I guess I don’t go to the internet looking for that? Because I go to a search engine and I darn well better know what term I’m going to type in that box? Hmm. I don’t know. (I am totally with you on being interested in the future of publishing – can you tell? ;) )

    Another thing – right now, I am relying on this guy Dennis Mortensen to point me to things that I should read. But there has to be a way for me to get information that is curated by someone not in my social network, right? Maybe? And that doesn’t require me to have 1200 feeds in my RSS reader and follow 500 people on Twitter? Maybe I am asking too much? Is that not the role of news as well?

    Oh, full disclosure – I don’t read the news, nor do I watch television news. Because separating the wheat from the chaff from the sensationalist drivel is just far too much for me. At least in my social networks I have only wheat and chaff.

    Wow, that was maybe too ranty – sorry! I really am passionate about this stuff. Thanks for the post! No more Turkish coffee at lunch for me! ;)

    -Jen

  • http://visualrevenue.com/blog Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hi Jen,

    There is nothing better than a rant, I see it as input from people who actually give a damn! I certainly agree that there is a dilemma in presenting current news and optimize for a better business output. But I find it inconceivable that a set human driven decisions should drive the most relevant educated niche content that Jen likes – at all times. There MUST be room in that previous statement for optimization. :-)

    I don’t think Tim (and BusinessWeek) necessarily articulated the data driven news room the best possible way, as you are absolutely right about optimization on traffic influx without constraints is suboptimal, to the point of being damaging. I still applaud them for coming out the closet and say DATA (because to most journalist’s that translates to boogieman)

    AND as I really care about this subject as well, we should probably upgrade that Turkish coffee to a Mojito at nearest Emetrics, and talk about how wonderful a life we have without Cable.

    Great input Jen. Thanks!!

    Cheers
    d. :-)

  • Jen

    Indisputably I applaud the careful and appropriate use of data. They should be proud to say “Hey, we make informed decisions!”

    And I will have to remember to take you up on that mojito idea ;)

    -Jen

  • Pingback: WebMetricsGuru » What I read last week -Pt 2 – Feb 18th- today

  • Bertwin

    What wonders me: Businessweek considers this article “news”. To me news-article is an article about something that has happened and / or started in the recent past (a minute ago, an hour ago, a day ago, maybe even a week ago). This suggests that AOL never looked at data until about now when it comes to the articles they publish.. Considering the data being available for a couple of years now, I do get the feeling the people at AOL have been living in some sort of concrete building without any windows. Which can’t be the truth, since AOL is short for “American Online”, right?

    I think any organisation should be datadriven, but that does not mean you should drive business just on what the system tells you. In the end it should be the customer you want to please. Webanalytics is an excellent way to discover something about the needs of your customer, but definitely not the only way.

  • http://visualrevenue.com/blog Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hi Bertwin,

    It’s fun you bring that up (the definition of ‘News’), as I’ve had a ton of constructive discussion about this lately. I do agree that the most common understanding of ‘News’ (especially for a publication called BusinessWeek) is a report of recent events. We can then debate the interpretation of ‘recent’, but for a lot of publications that might actually be e.g. 24 hours. Correspondingly, I believe it is fair to think of ‘News’ as a presentation of previously unknown events or even an event which impact or influence the status quo. So I am actually ‘OK’ with the article in BW.

    However; I think you indirectly bring up a valid question, which is, whether Aol is a News or Content creation organization and whether those two differ today?

    I most certainly agree that you CANT run a news organization on Web Analytics alone! I do think though, that it could be a tad more data driven.

    This is an exciting debate – and I really appreciate you expert input. Thanks.

    Cheers
    d. :-)

  • http://www.contentmetrics.de nic

    Hi Dennis,

    I appreciate their attitude (although they _have_ used WA before to do some of the things on their list – at least in my part of the world).
    But they fail on creating KPIs and a consistent incentives system (see the last two points of their list).

    so long
    nic

  • http://visualrevenue.com/blog Dennis R. Mortensen

    Thanks for sharing Nic! – And creating GOOD kpi’s and really well working incentives is, well, needed (as you say), but also quite difficult for a lot of organizations.

    For some absurd reason, I’ve come to root for them lately.. I actually think they might make it.

    cheers
    d. :-)

  • Pingback: Visual Revenue | Every news-writer has a Dashboard with Metrics determining his compensation

  • Pingback: Visual Revenue | Data Driven Online News Media Examples