27

Apr

By Dennis R. Mortensen
7 comments
Every news-writer has a Dashboard with Metrics determining his compensation

I recently talked about how Analytics is building the Newsroom of the Future – and posted a set of excerpts from a BusinessWeek Article, about how Aol was perhaps moving towards that promised data driven Newsroom. Ironic perhaps, but the New York Times just ran a story on Bloomberg’s acquisition of BusinessWeek, and more importantly for this debate, some of the analytics processes imposed on BusinessWeek writers.

Again, and as last time, I’ll leave the article to you, but have a look at the following Statements that are, not just, future fantasy, but very much existing data driven processes already in place.

  • Every writer has a “dashboard” where the metrics determining his compensation — any scoops, hits an article attracts — are tracked.
  • Writers’ salaries are tied, among other factors, to how many “market-moving” articles they have produced

Further to this, there is the acceptance that;

  • Any breaking items from the magazine will appear elsewhere first

The above three bullets certainly indicates a very data driven culture and strong views on news media content valuation. Unquestionably something I personally support. Whether you are to one or the other side, this is surely an exciting experiment. An experiment of converting a hundred something old-school BusinessWeek writers to data driven Bloomberg writers – obsessed by metrics.

This is super relevant, even to those news media, that doesn’t run financial news related content (distributed on terminals like Bloomberg).

-AND when you ask such questions, I suggest you ask the reverse; why shouldn’t you have a real-time and accessible writers compensation dashboard ?

Cheers :-)
/ Dennis (@dennismortensen)

  • http://collecta.com @mikegreenbk

    Dennis – definitely an interesting phenomenon.

    I think I understand about how this structure has moved from the content arb style businesses of Demand and AC to publishers like Aol to even more traditional media companies.

    However – I’m not clear on what this means for the writer of the Sunday Times feature article like “Feeling Warehoused – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/health/25warrior.html ”

    I would guess this article is disproportionately consumed in paper form vs. digital because of its length and seriousness of topic and that IN digital it is outperformed by the quick-hits of the business and style sections that dominate “most popular.” Can comp be weighted on WHO reads these big articles? Is there data saying that a certain demographic that advertisers pay more for is disproportionately reading the articles about Goldman etc.? Is that data being imputed or will it be and should it be?

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

    Hey Mike,

    I certainly share your concern about long form articles, such as the above New York Times article. Who is to write these in the future and how are we really to monetize them – while bearing in mind, that the future is now.

    BUT I am very optimistic on the “content industry” and the “news media content industry” in particular, being able to work this out. Any market with a real demand tends to be capitalized on in most societies. Do I know how? No. Do I have any ideas? Sure.

    One thing I am convinced about though, is that there is no opportunity to cross the news media monetization chasm without data.

    Your comment about valuing different visits or visitors (readers) at different levels is EXACTLY where I see us headed, I think it is fair to say we are not there. But instead of valuing an Article on Page Views (essentially a traditional CPM). We could envision something like this, based on your comment:

    TODAY:
    News Media Article Value = Total Article Page views * CPM

    TOMORROW:
    News Media Article Value = Reader Value * Time Spent

    FUTURE:
    ?

    I am still a strong believer in news media optimization not being about driving towards the lowest possible common denominator, and that better performance could as easily push relevance, as compared to the general idea of pushing everybody toward easy digestible celebrity news

    Sorry.. this got long (I am obviously passionate about the subject)

    d. :-)

  • http://techpad.co.uk TechPad

    This is really fascinating, Dennis. I run some specialist magazine websites and this could be a tremendous tool for showing the power of analytics to shape editorial content, as well as encouraging writers to produce content-driving, engaging material written in a style that works best on the web. It’s a great way of rewarding writers too.

    Now, all I need to do is set up some custom segments, use the analytics and charts APIs to make some widgets, and I’ll be able to test this out!

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

    >>Now, all I need to do is set up some custom segments, use the analytics and charts APIs to make some widgets, and I’ll be able to test this out!

    Whatever you get to setup, please do share! :-)

    Cheers
    d.

  • RenyB

    Hey Dennis,

    I’m a psychologist who specialises in online behaviour and I’m currently helping a big publisher with online strategy. While the thought of having a data driven culture being extended to what writers produce is nice, how would this really work in the many news rooms where the printed-paper is of high importance and the online edition is merely a support site where a few low key stories are dumped?

    I believe a lot of newspapers that have gone online are in the business of supporting their ‘offline business’ and would rather to not have writers publish content specifically for the net, furthermore produce articles that are determined by these free online readers. Besides the issue of cannibalism, it is going to be downright hard for many to make that transition and to maintain. However, the above makes total sense to me and I support it. I cannot help to think about what those old guys are going through operating within this new type of data driven environment.

    Hope you continue writing more on web analytics and online publishing, seems pretty interesting. Thanks.

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

    Thanks for commenting Renaldo,

    >>how would this really work in the many news rooms where the printed-paper is of high importance and the online edition is merely a support site where a few low key stories are dumped?

    It is a good question and probably one where the answer is unique for every News Media we would look at. I would however like to point out that, when I think of News Media, I have an expanded view that goes well beyond the online Edition of News Papers. So think CNN (TV), think NPR (Radio), think CNet (Online only) etc.

    >>Hope you continue writing more on web analytics and online publishing, seems pretty interesting. Thanks.

    Thanks. I really appreciate it. AND I am trying my best. :-)

    Cheers mate..
    d.

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