European Journalism Centre - Finnish news publisher Sanoma Digital has launched a user-generated news website that also uses an open-source journalism platform to gather material for a series of weekly freesheet newspapers. Launched last month, Vartti.fi is a fledgling project that allows users to break news by uploading multimedia content direct to the site.
Vartti editors also publish story threads on the website and ask for multimedia submissions from the readers - setting them deadlines for their contributions. The stories are then published in a series of ultra-local weekly papers distributed in and around the Helsinki area.
‘With the Jokela High School shooting we had one of the first pictures in Finland [from the scene] which was taken on a mobile phone, we then sold it on to publications in Norway and Sweden,’ Janne Kaijarvi, editor-in-chief of Vartti, told Journalism.co.uk.
The site also broke news about a train fire in Helsinki, Kaijarvi added, with reporters first finding out about the incident when a passenger uploaded a picture to the site from inside the train. Contributors are paid for pictures that make it into the print edition, usually in the region of 50 euros, for which Sanoma then takes the copyright.
Sanoma publishes seven local editions of Vartti in Helsinki and a further seven in other areas. Vartti.fi is just one of five news site start-ups which have been launched by Sanoma Digital, one of the largest Nordic publishers, since the start of the year.
Finish publisher fuels newspapers with user content
Sample rates for freelance writing
Useful info for me from writers.ca :)
"What should I charge for my work"
or "How much do I pay a writer?"
For both freelance writers and those that hire them, that frequently asked question lacks a simple answer. Fees charged by professional writers vary according to the work involved. Many factors affect payment including:
* the type of assignment (e.g., magazine article, speech, marketing report)
* the writer's skill, background and experience
* rights licensed to the client
* the number of words and/or time the project requires
* the number of interviews and research needed
* the types of rights being purchased
PWAC's rate guidelines are based on fee information we have collected from PWAC members across Canada and from various industries that regularly hire writers on a freelance/contract basis.
PWAC's information reveals large pay variations between markets and locations. For instance, writers tend to earn more in large cities than in other areas of the country. There are also large variations between writers: a very experienced, established writer can charge more for her work than someone just starting out. Therefore, the rates below are general guidelines only. You'll need to negotiate the exact fee depending on the particulars of the assignment.
Advertising Material
Copy/Scripts/News Releases
$350 to $500 per page
$750 to $1,000 per project for brochures
$75 to $150 per hour
Advertorials
(articles commissioned by advertisers)
$0.40 to $2 per word
$100 to $3,000 per article
$40 to $100 per hour
Corporate/Business Writing
Reports/ Marketing Plans/ Technical Writing
$1 to $2 per word
$300 to $12,000 per project
$50 to $125 per hour
Editing
Varies according to publication/project
$30 to $60 per hour
$500 to $20,000 per project
Ghost Writing
Articles
Generally 2-3 times the usual rate
Books
$10,000 to $50,000 flat fee
Entire advance + 50% of royalties
Government Writing
News Releases/Studies/Reports
$1 to $3 per word
$500 to $100,000 per project
$50 to $125 per hour
Newsletters
Writing only; layout extra
$0.30 to $1.50 per word
$400 to $6,000 per issue
$50 to $80 per hour
Newspaper Writing
Large Daily Newspapers
$0.30 to $1.00 per word
$250 to $2,500 per article
$330 to $1,250 per column
Smaller Community Newspapers
$0.10 to $0.50 per word
$75 to $1,000 per article
$75 to $500 per column
Online/Web Site Writing
Varies widely; "business" sites pay higher
$1 to $3 per word
$60 to $100 per hour
Periodical Writing
General Interest/Consumer Magazines
$1.00 to $2 per word
$500 to $10,000 per article
$400 to $1,500 per column
Trade/Special Interest Magazines
$0.30 to $2 per word
$500 to $4,000 per article
$300 to $1,000 per column
Scripts
Radio (highly variable)
$40 to $80 per minute of script
Television (highly variable)
$60 to $130 per minute of script
Speech Writing
$500 to $8,000 per speech
$60 to $130 per hour
Teaching/Instruction
$25 to $80 per hour
$200 to $800 per day
Translation/Adaptation
Literary
$0.10 to $0.20 per word
Other
$0.25 to $0.60 per word
$40 to $80 per hour
User-gen news complement MSM, not replacing it: study
The Latest News Headlines—Your Vote Counts
September 12, 2007
Journalism.org - If someday we have a world without journalists, or at least without editors, what would the news agenda look like? How would citizens make up a front page differently than professional news people?
If a new crop of user-news sites—and measures of user activity on mainstream news sites—are any indication, the news agenda will be more diverse, more transitory, and often draw on a very different and perhaps controversial list of sources, according to a new study.
The report, released by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), compared the news agenda of the mainstream media for one week with the news agenda found on a host of user-news sites for the same period.
In a week when the mainstream press was focused on Iraq and the debate over immigration, the three leading user-news sites—Reddit, Digg and Del.icio.us—were more focused on stories like the release of Apple’s new iphone and that Nintendo had surpassed Sony in net worth, according to the study.
The report also found subtle differences in three other forms of user-driven content within one site: Yahoo News’ Most Recommended, Most Viewed, and Most Emailed.
The question of whether citizens define the news differently than professionals is becoming increasingly relevant. It started with offering visitors a sense of what others found interesting: what news stories were most emailed and most viewed?
Soon, establishment news sites like CBSNews.com allowed users to make their own newscasts. Then, names like Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us emerged as virtual town squares that became a way to measure the pulse of what the web community finds most newsworthy, most captivating, or just amusing. The trend continues, as even Myspace, the social networking site popular among 20-somethings, has launched a news page (http://news.myspace.com).
Indeed, these user-driven sites have entered the news business, or perhaps more accurately, they have entered the news dissemination business. Reporting is not a part of their charge. Instead, they turn to others for content and then they bestow users with the task of deciding what makes it on the page.
What do individuals do with that power? What kind of events or issues do they choose to highlight? And how does it differ from the news the mainstream press offers?
To find out, PEJ took a snapshot of coverage from the week of June 24 to June 29, 2007, on three sites that offer user-driven news agendas: Digg, Del.icio.us and Reddit. In addition, the Project studied Yahoo News, an outlet that offers an editor-based news page and three different lists of user-ranked news: Most Recommended, Most Viewed, and Most Emailed. These sites were then compared with the news agenda found in the 48 mainstream news outlets contained in PEJ’s News Coverage Index.
A total of 644 stories from the three user-driven sites and Yahoo News’s three most popular pages were coded for the study and then compared to 1,395 stories from the same time period in PEJ’s News Coverage Index. The report first compared the content of the user-sites to that of the mainstream press. Next, it compared the three user-sites to each other. Finally, the study looked at the three user-oriented pages on Yahoo News, comparing them to Yahoo’s editor-selected news page, to the other user-sites, and to each other.
Some key findings include:
* The news agenda of the three user-sites that week was markedly different from that of the mainstream press. Many of the stories users selected did not appear anywhere among the top stories in the mainstream media coverage studied. And there was often little in the way of follow-up. Most stories on the user-news sites appeared only once, never to be repeated again in the week we studied.
* The sources user news sites draw on are strikingly different from the mainstream media. Seven in ten stories on the user sites come either from blogs or Web sites such as YouTube and WebMd that do not focus mostly on news.
* The three user news sites differed from one another in subtle ways. Reddit was the most likely to focus on political events from Washington, such as coverage of Vice President Cheney; Digg was particularly focused on the release of Apple’s new iPhone; Del.icio.us had the most fragmented mix of stories and the least overlap with the News Index.
* On Yahoo News—even when picking from a limited list of stories Yahoo editors had already pared down—users’ top stories only rarely matched those of the news professionals.
* There were mostly similarities in what people are most likely to email each other versus what they recommend or view on Yahoo News. But there were some differences. Most Recommended stories focused more on “news you can use” such as advice from the World Health Organization to exercise one’s legs during long flights; the Most Viewed stories were often breaking news, more sensational in nature, with a heavy dose of crime and celebrity; and the Most Emailed stories were more diverse, with a mix of the practical and the oddball.
* Despite claims that the Web would internationalize consumers’ news diets, coverage across the three user-news sites focused more on domestic events and less on news from abroad than the mainstream media that week. Yahoo News, both on its main news page and three most popular pages, meanwhile, stood out for being decidedly more international that week.
In short, the user-news agenda, at least in this one-week snapshot, was more diverse, yet also more fragmented and transitory than that of the mainstream news media. This does not mean necessarily that users disapprove or reject the mainstream news agenda. These user sites may be supplemental for audiences. They may gravitate to them in addition to, rather than instead of, traditional venues. But the agenda they set is nonetheless quite different. This initial report is based on a limited sample—a one week snapshot—to get a first sense of differences and similarities in user-driven and mainstream media. PEJ intends in a future study to delve further into this area of research.
The Big Picture
Past research by PEJ has found that week-to-week mainstream media tend to focus on a handful of major events that they monitor continuously over the course of a week or a month. Whether it be floods in the Midwest, the death of Anna Nicole Smith or debate over the President’s “surge” policy in Iraq, a sizable amount of airtime or space is often spent on just a handful of “big” stories of the week.
The week of June 24 was no different. There were no major breaking events demanding special media attention, but a handful of stories emphasizing political events in Washington and conflicts abroad dominated.
During that week, the immigration debate led the coverage, accounting for 10% of all news stories in the News Coverage Index. That was followed by coverage of a major fire near Lake Tahoe (6%), the failed bombings in the United Kingdom (6%), events on the ground in Iraq (6%), Supreme Court decisions (5%), the 2008 presidential election (4%), flooding in Texas (4%), the policy debate in the capitol over the war in Iraq (4%), U.S. domestic terrorism (3%), and the missing pregnant woman in Ohio (3%). In all, the top ten stories that week accounted for 51% of all the stories in the Index.
In the user-generated sites, these stories were barely visible. Overall, just 5% of the stories captured on these three sites overlapped with the ten most widely-covered stories in the Index (13% for Reddit, 4% for Digg, and 0% for Del.icio.us).
The immigration debate in Congress, the biggest single story of the week in the mainstream media, appeared just once as a top-ten story on Reddit, and not at all on Digg and Del.icio.us. Similarly, the war in Iraq accounted for 10% of all stories in the Index and seven percent in the Yahoo-user material. Across the three user-news sites, it amounted to about 1%.
What were the favorite stories on the user-driven sites? For the most part, there were no dominant ones. The only story with any real traction was the release of the Apple iPhone, and that was just on one site (it accounted for 16% of the stories on Digg that week). Otherwise, users put forth a mix of diverse and unconnected news events from day to day. On the morning of June 26 on Digg, for example, a story about intelligent design topped the list followed by a story about a woman suing record labels for malicious prosecution. But by 5pm that day, both had vanished from the top ten.
Rank better on Yahoo with dynamic URL rewriting
Search Engine Journal - Big news from the Yahoo Site Explorer team as they have announced a new dynamic URL rewriting service for sites which use multiple variables in their URL strings which may damage their ranking potential within Yahoo Search, even if the site is full of good relevant content and has lots of natural incoming links.
Site owners can now alert Yahoo about the dynamic parameters used within their URL strings. Yahoo Search can then ignore the variables and automatically rewrite the URL to make it more search friendly.
How does this help site owners? Yahoo says the rewriting of dynamic URLs effects everything from the crawling of a site to the distribution of link juice:
* A more efficient crawl of your site, with fewer duplicate URLs being crawled.
* Better and deeper site coverage, as we’ll be able to use our crawler capacity to find and index more new content on your site.
* More unique content discovered, as we’ll handle more dynamic parameters in your URLs (if you remove the content-neutral dynamic parameters).
* Fewer chances of crawler traps.
* Cleaner and easier-to-read URLs displayed in the search results.
* Better aggregation of link juice to your sites, which can help your pages rank better.
More on Dynamic URL Rewriting via the Yahoo Search Blog.
cannibalistic URLs
Search Engine Journal - When you build a web site, you create paths to certain pages. Most web developers will put those pages in specific folders like: www.example.com/press-releases/ or www.example.com/store/ to give the site a logical structure. Unfortunately, depending on a slew of technical stuff like servers, file extensions, redirects and internal site links, that pretty path can end up looking like a number of unique paths to both users and search engines even though they’re really the same:
www.example.com/press-releases/
example.com/press-releases/
www.example.com/press-releases/default.aspx
example.com/press-releases/default.aspx
www.example.com/press-releases/?id=1
example.com/press-releases/?id=1
Why is this a problem?
Isn’t this just ugly code to some standards-compliant web freaks?
It’s a problem because when a link goes to that page (either from your site or another site) and it uses different paths (through a mistake or technical error), that path is seen by the search engines as unique pages. And when Google determines page rank from links to your page, if they find multiple pages, you could be splitting your best possible ranking.
Let’s use Play-Doh to demonstrate the principle.
If you have three page paths:
example.com/default.aspx
example.com/default.aspx?id=1
WWW.Example.com/Default.aspx
The first one might have just one or two links to it and a PR of 1. The second might have a few more links and a PR of 2. And let’s pretend the third has even more links with a PR of 3.
Unfortunately, page rank isn’t simple arithmetic, but for the sake of this discussion, if you could make all of those links go to the “same” page, you would be channeling greater link equity to one central location. This could potentially result in a PR of a big, beautiful 6, which should mean increased rankings.
How do you find out if you’re cannibalizing your page rankFirst things first… open your website in a browser and type in the domain as www.example.com. Then type in example.com without the “www.” If the domains stay the same when you type either one, you need to designate one version over the other. For detailed instructions on how to do this, read Chris Hooley’s article, Canonicalize with .htacces. Your goal is to make one version redirect to the other.
Now that, that biggie is out of the way, you need to choose how you want your pages to look. I recommend removing extensions entirely if you are using folders (e.g. www.example.com/example/ versus www.example.com/example/index.htm). This is for a maintenance reason, but I am also partial to keeping pages in the root directory as much as possible, which means you have to show an extension like www.example.com/example.htm.
Whatever you choose to do, make sure you stay consistent in how you code your internal links. What I mean is that if you create a path on your site to www.example.com/example/, do not make the page www.example/example in another area of your site. This is one of the few times in life when it’s okay to play favorites!
You should also control the amount of variables appended to your path. Often, for tracking or programming reasons, variables are appended to URLs that can make your paths appear different. Try to limit them and again, be consistent.
To test for variables and path mistakes, create a Google Webmaster Central account and navigate to Webmaster Tools. Then go to the Links tab (after you have verified the site) and scroll through both the internal and external links. You should be able to easily eye serious issues. I also like to use Xenu Link Sleuth, which detects broken links, but also displays a list of paths on your site.
And, that’s about it, though there’s probably a lot I did not cover either from my own misunderstanding or tiredness. Either way, I got to play with Play-Doh and talk about page rank. It doesn’t get much better than that!
Online ads taking over
“US advertising revenue at 4 big online media companies–Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), AOL (TWX), and MSN (MSFT)–grew by $1.3 billion in Q2, or 42%.
US advertising revenue at 15 big television, newspaper, magazine, radio, and outdoor companies (Time Warner, Viacom, CBS, etc.) shrank by $280 million in Q2, or 3%.”
42% online vs -3% traditional
Read the bottom line on this spreadsheet analysis. Google is growing hand over fist at 96% while NYT has a decrease by 6%.
Online video will dominate: forecast
eMarketer - Television networks, film studios, independent content owners, Web portals, social media sites, technology providers, online stores, brand marketers and consumers are all joining the Internet video revolution. They are changing the way digital content is created, distributed, consumed and monetized. The Online Video report analyzes and compares the online video delivery channels that are creating both uncertainty and a sense of opportunity among media professionals. Some players are fearful that the widespread availability of video content on the Internet will threaten the TV and film industries. Others see the potential to increase revenues through a variety of business models, including ad-supported streaming, pay-to-own downloads, subscription services and online rentals as a boon. eMarketer projects that by 2011, 86.6% of the US Internet population will consume online video, up from 62.8% in 2006. In raw numbers, that means the number of viewers will rise from 114 million in 2006 to 183 million in 2011. Key questions the "Online Video" report answers: eMarketer Reports—On-Target and Up-to-Date The Online Video report aggregates the latest data from marketing and communications researchers with eMarketer numbers, projections and analysis to provide the information you need to make the right business decisions—right now.
Online Advertising to Surpass Newspaper Advertising by 2011
Forecast: Internet Expected To Exceed All Other Ad Media By 2011
Private equity and investment firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) put out a new ad spending forecast, covered in MediaPost and the Financial Times. Driven by audience migration, the US Internet is anticipated to capture $61.98 billion and become the top ad medium in 2011. Traditional media will show slow, low single-digit growth while alternative media will grow at a compound annual rate of 17.4 percent during the forecast period.
According to the MediaPost write-up of the VSS findings, consumers are spending less time with media overall and less time with "push" vs. "pull" media in particular:
At the same time, the consumer migration to digital media--which require less time investment than traditional media counterparts (think 3-minute YouTube clips versus 30-minute TV shows)--has spawned a year-over-year decline in the amount of time consumers spent with media, VSS researchers say. The tally came in at 3,530 hours in 2006, a per-capita decrease of 0.5%. It's the first time since 1997, researchers say, that such a behavior has occurred.While forecasts are often inflated and make assumptions that don't come to pass as quickly as expected, VSS claims its forecasts are historically very accurate:
Consumers are also migrating away from ad-supported media and spending more time with media they support, according to the VSS Forecast. Consumers spent an average of 1,631 hours in 2006 with consumer-supported media, such as the Internet and video games--a gain of 19.8% compared to 2001. Time spent with ad-supported media, such as broadcast television and newspapers, has fallen 6.3% since 2001 to 1,899 hours per person.
The VSS Forecast also features the industry’s most accurate spending forecasts, producing a margin of error of +/- 2% for 9 of the last 10 years. The margin of error for the 2006 forecasts was + 0.4%.VSS projects paid search will reach roughly $8.7 billion by year end and $16.7 billion in 2011. The report also projects roughly $6 billion in local search and online yellow pages spending by 2011. All locally targeted online ad spending is expected to reach just over $19 billion by 2011.
Local Search Booms - Driving Offline Sales
Need Hits - If you thought that local search is not affecting the way consumers shop offline then you would be mistaken! TMP Directional Marketing has released the results of a comScore study, revealing that 61% of local online searchers proceeded to purchase from a local business. Just under half made a phone call or visited the store offline, whilst only 6% made a purchase online!
While 33% of searchers still look to Yellow Pages for the majority of their local information, and 90% believe that print directories are "still a valuable source for shopping information." the majority (over 60%) of consumers use the internet to find local and business information. Half this number utilizes popular search engines like Google and Yahoo!, 17% choose to search Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs) and 13% use local search sites such as Citysearch, InsiderPages or Merchant Circle.
Despite the strong evidence, highlighting the benefits of investing in local search, Stuart McKelvey, CEO, TMP Directional Marketing, said that advertisers have been slow to embrace local search marketing efforts due to the lack of perceived value in driving purchases, and the cost of moving dollars from offline to online local directories. With only 6% of the 61% of local searchers actually purchasing online, and no tracking to link offline purchases to online searches, advertisers just aren't seeing the proven benefits of local search marketing.
"Online local search is a $9 billion market and growing. The consumer is there, and the opportunities for marketers to capture a share of this growth are huge," states McKelvey. Now is the time to invest in clever local search marketing to drive your offline sales!
Start your local search marketing with Local Search Listing. You provide us with your details. We submit your business to 46 major search engines and local directories, and create an optimized local webpage, displaying all your business information! Simple and smart local search marketing!
Toronto Star facing tough road but online taking on important role, CEO says
CP - Despite its successful redesign, Canada's largest daily newspaper continues to face revenue challenges amid ongoing slippage in advertising, while online media has taken on a modest but increasingly important revenue-generating role, the head of Torstar Corp. said Wednesday.
The comments from a concerned Rob Prichard came even as Torstar (TSX:TS.B), owner of the Toronto Star and other media properties, released "solid" second quarter financial results showing overall profits climbing 15 per cent to $30.1 million or 38 cents a share.
"Our growth slowed in the second quarter despite year over year favourable cost comparisons," Prichard said in a conference call with analysts. "The second quarter was tougher than the first."
Three-month revenues rose 1.7 per cent to $397 million, with modest growth seen in newspapers, digital and at the Harlequin book publishing unit.
Prichard stressed the difficulties facing the Star, the country's biggest circulation paper, a trend he predicted would continue. Advertising linage fell 5.6 per cent for the quarter with ad rates barely eking out gains.
The "tough" revenue trends at the paper were offset by the discontinuance of the weekly Scoop, which cost the Star $3.1 million in 2006, and lower pension and newsprint costs, CFO David Holland said.
The redesign of the Toronto Star, which Prichard said has been "greeted with acclaim," will further yield significant savings in the order of $3 million a year because it will be printed on smaller pages.
Overall revenues for Torstar's newspaper and digital division climbed a scant 1.9 per cent to $281 million in the quarter compared with the year-before period.
At the same time, the newspaper's website torontostar.com is enjoying increased traffic and revenues as the company invests heavily in online media.
"Digital revenue for our newspaper and digital segment grew by about 50 per cent year over year, albeit on a modest base," Prichard said.
Although digital revenues accounted for just 4.3 per cent of the total in the quarter, that was still significantly ahead of the 2.8 per cent in 2006.
"This is an important achievement for securing our future," Prichard said.
Besides the Star, Torstar also owns the Hamilton Spectator and other papers in southern Ontario, including the Metroland community newspaper chain around the Toronto area.
The company's Harlequin division, publisher of popular romance novels, continued to perform well, especially in the North American series market.
"For the year as a whole, we expect Harlequin will deliver stable earnings despite the rising strength of the Canadian dollar as business growth offsets the foreign exchange headwinds," Prichard said.
In all, book publishing revenue was $116 million in the second quarter, up $1.4 million, including $900,000 favourable impact of foreign exchange.
On the Toronto Stock Exchange Tuesday, Torstar shares were off 15 cents at $21.85.
